Public Policy
Tech workers demand a just economy for all
Tech workers are taking a stand against racial and economic inequity. This year, our community is tackling inequities in tech and beyond by strengthening worker protections against mass layoffs and caste discrimination. We’re also supporting bills that bring us closer to housing and labor justice beyond tech.
Add your name below to help us make layoff and caste protections a reality for all Californians.
ADD YOUR NAME TO OUR POLICY AGENDA
Our Key Legislation in 2023
Protect Laid-Off Workers Act (AB 1356)
We’re excited to sponsor AB 1356, the Protect Laid Off Workers Act in California. The bill will expand the state’s existing layoff protection law, the WARN Act, to meet the needs of workers today. It will extend the requirement to give notice of a layoff from 60 to 90 days, ensure that no workers’ safety net is tied up in severance negotiations, and include contract workers in these protections for the first time ever.
Ending Caste Discrimination in California (SB 403)
Caste is a system of social stratification and exclusion that impacts over 5.7 million South Asian Americans and over 1.9 billion people worldwide. Ultimately, caste, like race, is a social fiction that exists in communities around the world, backed by pseudo-science and/or religion, created to justify oppression. SB 403 makes existing laws against discrimination explicit about caste.
Why Public Policy?
At TechEquity, we envision a world where the growth of the tech industry creates economic prosperity for everyone. We focus on addressing inequities within the tech industry and inequities that result from tech products and companies.
We work on systems change that enables economic stability for workers and society as a whole. We bring tech worker capacity, as well as research and policy insights, to grassroots movements for labor and housing justice. Public policy is a core piece of our theory of change. In order to make structural changes to the way power and resources are shared in our society, we need bold public policy and regulation to provide guardrails and safety nets where needed.
Guiding Principles
We believe that creating a just economy requires all of us to think deeper than unemployment rates to examine a more holistic set of issues and relationships: who of us earns enough money to live where we work? How does where we live affect the opportunities available to us, or the likelihood of gentrification and displacement? How does concentrating power—corporate, financial, political— into fewer and fewer hands affect the quality of our jobs, our communities, and our lives?
Our guiding principles in housing and labor are the foundation of the work we do, every day and year over year.
Our Policy Advisors
Our policy advisors help us craft policies that address inequities in and as a result of the tech industry.
