Earlier this month Victor Gomez, Director of Public Policy and Advocacy for the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce, sent out an email containing false information about the Opportunity to Work (OTW) initiative, which will be on the November ballot in San Jose. In fact, the Chamber deliberately mislead many of the email recipients who are not covered by OTW to believe that they would be gravely impacted by the measure. Employers with 35 or fewer employees – the vast majority of San Jose’s employers – are exempt from the measure. But you wouldn’t know that from reading the Chamber’s email.
Below are some of the Chamber’s misrepresentations, followed by the truth about OTW:
LIE: Businesses and non-profits are “under attack.”
TRUTH: OTW doesn’t attack anybody. In fact, most of the businesses and non-profits in San Jose aren’t even covered.
LIE: OTW eliminates employer scheduling flexibility.
TRUTH: OTW allows employers to schedule work whenever they want to without restriction.
LIE: OTW will restrict an employer’s discretion to determine qualifications for hiring.
TRUTH: Under OTW, businesses are free to set hiring standards.
LIE: There are stiff fines employers will have to pay if they don’t follow OTW.
TRUTH: There are NO fines, fees or civil penalties for a first violation of OTW. Only a repeat offender would face fines.
LIE: OTW is an overreaching measure that will change how businesses and non-profits operate.
TRUTH: Covered businesses would decide the duration and times of any additional shifts they create. They also decide the amount of notice of the availability of those additional shifts and the qualifications for the additional shifts.
The Chamber has attended several meetings at which OTW has been fully and accurately described, but they continue to mislead the business and non-profit communities and the public in an effort to drum up opposition to the initiative.
Do you have a news tip you would like to share? Would you like to contribute to The Left Hook? Email us at LeftHookBlog@gmail.com
No Comments