Policy & Mop: California's AB-2364 Forces California Cleaning Business Owners into New Compliance

What: California's AB-2364

Why: Multiple Updates and Mandates Placed on California-based business owners

Latest Update: 9/22/2024 - Signed into Law

Who: Applies only to California Service-Based Businesses

In a stroke of irony, the former governor from California, President Ronald Reagan, gave an opening statement at a presidential press conference in August of 1986 with, "I think you all know that I've always felt the nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help.". Fast forward to 2024 and California Governor Gavin Newsom signs AB-2364. In the spirit our former president warned us about, AB-2364 expands the role of government in California cleaning business owners. 

AB-2364 has the following impact on California cleaning businesses-

Sexual Harassment Training. I do feel strongly that we should do whatever it takes to protect all classes of employees while working for us, including through sexual harassment training. We offer this where we use a 3rd party to help our employees identify sexual predators. We target schools and an extra set of eyes really helps. But AB-2364 requires ALL cleaning companies to provide biennial sexual harassment training at their cost and it's considerable. If you're a small employer, your cost is considerable. A limited number of organizations are authorized to be a 3rd party for this training and it's $200/employee to train them if training is less than 10 employees. On the flip side, if you have 10 or more, the cost is mandated at $80 per employee. On January of 2026, these costs go up. Basically you have to pay wages for a day-long training and pay these high fees for the training.

Advisory Committees. This law mandates the formation of new advisory committees. One is to track worker conditions. Another combines state agencies, employers, and union reps to discuss future rules around collective bargaining, safety, production rats, wages, and more. Originally there were new sections to be enacted (see below) but these are on hold for now and not part of this new law.

What failed (for now...the advisory committees and studies mentioned above could change that):

Production rates. Nationwide, the cleaning industry sees a production rate of 2500-3000 square feet per hour per person for commercial cleaning. Within our own cleaning business, we required that all of our employees clean 3000 sqft per hour per person, scope of work considerations aside. In some niches we can clean 4000-6000 sqft per hour per person. AB-2364 originally would have changed that for California businesses. All janitors were to be limited to 2000 sqft per hour per person. That's insanely slow and certainly would increase costs to cleaning clients throughout California. This was removed from the bill prior to passage.

Collective Bargaining. The original version of this bill would have taken more power away from cleaning business owners in collective bargaining. There's a negotiation process between employees and their employer through collective bargaining. But the bill would have stripped a lot of that process away from employers. 

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There's a sister bill to AB-2364. That bill was AB-2374 and that failed. AB-2374 would have done a few things:

- Currently, any successor cleaning company that starts in a property must keep the current cleaning staff working there for 60 days thanks to a law first proposed in 2004. AB-2374 would have extended that to 90 days. 

- This bill would have required any successor cleaning contractors in the previous point to match wages, shift, and even benefits. 

- In a hat tip to AB-2364, AB-2374 would have required employers to honor previous collective bargaining agreements. 

- This bill would have mandated to any employer that they keep employees ranked by seniority. So if you take over a contract, and the most senior employee was a flake according to your new client, you had to keep them on for that 90-day period.

- Any violations of the above under this now-failed bill would have led to a $1000/day fine. If there are back wages owed due to a violation of any of the above laws, the bill would have mandated treble damages (3X damages). So if the employee would have earned $40,000/year, then their awarded costs if they win a lawsuit could be at least $120,000 in back pay. 

AB-2374 is dead in the water but AB-2364 could lead to future action. Stay tuned.

Legal Mumbo Jumbo:

I'm not a lawyer and never played one on TV. Seek legal advice elsewhere. This blog series covers laws coast to coast and with the thousands of laws impacting us, our crack staff will never keep up with them. To make matters worse, the crack staff are stuck in the cracks. If you see an inaccuracy, let us know. See the Introductory post to Policy & Mop.