Governor Signs Bill Protecting Construction Labor Standards
Sacramento, CA – Today, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1383 by State Senator Jesse Arreguin (D-Oakland), which amends the State Density Bonus Law to clarify that locally adopted labor standards apply to construction projects over 85 feet in height. The bill protects construction workers while maintaining the law’s goal of promoting affordable housing development.
“A skilled workforce is critical to meeting California’s housing goals,” said Senator Jesse Arreguín, Chair of the Housing Committee. “SB 1383 ensures that increasing our housing supply does not come at the expense of worker health and safety, a good-paying job, or construction quality.”
California’s Density Bonus Law incentivizes the construction of affordable housing by allowing developers to receive concessions such as increased density, reduced parking requirements, or other regulatory relief. An April 2026 report by Circulate Planning & Policy and UC San Diego’s Center for Housing Policy and Design found that between 2021 and 2024, the Density Bonus was used to approve over 140,000 homes across the state, including over 69,000 deed-restricted affordable homes. This has made the Density Bonus the most effective development streamlining tool, with almost 50% of multifamily developments approved in 2024 using the Density Bonus.
“California can build the housing we desperately need without sacrificing the wages, benefits, apprenticeship opportunities, and labor standards that construction workers have fought generations to achieve. SB 1383 protects the ability of local communities to establish strong labor standards and makes clear that those protections shouldn’t be treated as something that can simply be bargained away through the Density Bonus Law, said Chris Hannan, President, State Building and Construction Trades Council. "We want to thank Senator Jesse Arreguín and his team for their work on this legislation and for keeping construction workers' voices at the center of the conversation. SB 1383 recognizes a simple principle: we can build more housing in California while still respecting the people who actually build it.”
In 2023, while serving as Mayor of the City of Berkeley, Senator Arreguin authored the HARD HATS Ordinance, which requires larger developments to participate in state-approved apprenticeship programs and provide healthcare for construction workers. This first-in-the-state policy has recently encountered obstacles, as local developers have used loopholes in the State Density bonus to waive these essential construction labor standards. SB 1383 will close these loopholes and ensure that locally adopted labor standards for wages, health care, and worker safety cannot be waived for larger projects. This balances economic feasibility with the need to protect construction workers. Supporters of the bill include the City of Berkeley and various unions and building trades groups, including the State Building and Construction Trades Council, California Federation of Labor Unions, and Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers.
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