SB 1371 amends the Government Code to remove a common escape hatch for franchised solid waste providers: it prohibits force majeure language that excuses or suspends performance because of a work stoppage arising from a labor dispute, and it declares any such clause void. The bill also curtails the ability of local agencies or employers to invoke sanitation, health, or safety orders to force employees to work during lawful labor actions, permitting such orders only under narrow, documentary conditions.
Why it matters: the bill reallocates operational risk in municipal waste systems away from employers and toward local governments and contractors’ contractual pricing and contingency planning. It also erects procedural safeguards around emergency health orders so those tools cannot be used as a lever in labor disputes, which will affect procurement, contract drafting, emergency planning, and labor negotiations for cities and franchised haulers across California.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill forbids franchise contracts, licenses, or permits for solid waste handling entered into or substantially amended on or after January 1, 2027 from including force majeure clauses that excuse performance due to labor-related work stoppages, and it voids any existing such clauses that do. It also bars agencies and employers from using sanitation, health, or safety orders to compel work during lawful labor disputes except where strict procedural and substantive conditions are met.
Who It Affects
Local agencies (cities, counties, special districts), franchised solid waste service providers and their insurers, exclusive bargaining representatives (unions), and procurement and emergency management officials responsible for sanitation services. Rate-setting bodies and legal counsel for municipal contracts will also be directly involved.
Why It Matters
By removing a contractual route to suspend performance during strikes and limiting the use of emergency orders, the bill changes bargaining leverage, raises the stakes for contingency planning in franchise procurements, and creates new compliance and litigation points for local governments and service providers.
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What This Bill Actually Does
SB 1371 focuses narrowly on the contract and emergency-authority tools that have been used when waste collection and disposal workers engage in work stoppages. It ties together three levers: (1) contract language (force majeure) that lets a hauler pause duties during a strike; (2) the municipal or county authority to issue sanitation, health, or safety orders that could be used to declare a public-health necessity and require work; and (3) notice and procedural safeguards for bargaining representatives.
The bill forbids local agencies from including force majeure provisions in new or substantially amended solid waste franchise agreements that would excuse performance due to labor disputes, and it declares any clause that has that effect void even in older contracts. It defines ‘‘substantially amended’’ as mutual changes to a majority of the material terms, and it relies on cross-references for the statutory meaning of ‘‘solid waste handling services’’ and ‘‘labor dispute.’nSB 1371 also places a five-part test on any sanitation, health, or safety order that seeks to require work during a labor dispute: (1) the issuing agency must act on its own statutory authority, not at the employer’s urging; (2) the order must be written and signed by the agency head or a designated officer; (3) the order must contain written findings of an imminent, substantial threat to health or safety that cannot be addressed without requiring the struck workers to perform; (4) the scope and duration must be strictly limited to what’s necessary to address that threat; and (5) the employer must provide contemporaneous written notice of the order to the exclusive bargaining representative.
These are procedural and documentary limits designed to reduce the possibility that emergency powers become a tool to break lawful labor activity.Finally, the bill includes a severability clause, an express legislative finding that the subject is of statewide concern (so it applies to charter cities), and a provision that contemplates potential state reimbursement to local agencies if the Commission on State Mandates finds the bill creates a reimbursable mandate. Those structural provisions affect how the law will be applied, litigated, and budgeted by local governments.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The prohibition on force majeure applies to franchise contracts, licenses, or permits entered into or substantially amended on or after January 1, 2027.
Any force majeure clause that excuses performance because of a labor-related work stoppage is void and unenforceable regardless of when the contract was signed.
An agency or employer may not use a sanitation, health, or safety order to compel work during a lawful labor dispute unless five strict conditions are met, including written findings of an imminent and substantial threat and contemporaneous notice to the exclusive bargaining representative.
The bill defines ‘‘substantially amended’’ as a mutually agreed change to a majority of the material terms of a franchise contract, license, or permit.
The Legislature declares the subject a matter of statewide concern so the law applies to all cities, including charter cities, and contemplates reimbursement if the Commission on State Mandates finds a state-mandated cost.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Ban on force majeure in new or substantially amended franchises
Subdivision (a) forbids local agencies from including a force majeure provision that would excuse or suspend a hauler’s obligations because of a work stoppage arising from a labor dispute in any franchise contract, license, or permit for solid waste handling entered into or substantially amended on or after January 1, 2027. Practically, procuring agencies will need to scrub contract templates and RFP language and require bidders to accept that strikes do not trigger force majeure relief for performance obligations.
Void and unenforceable clauses in existing contracts
Subdivision (b) goes further by declaring any force majeure clause that excuses performance for labor-related work stoppages void regardless of contract date. That creates an immediate legal question for existing agreements: parties cannot rely on a preexisting clause to pause service, which shifts legal and operational risk, and may prompt renegotiation or claims over implied remedies such as delay or impossibility.
Limits on sanitation, health, or safety orders to compel work
Subdivision (c) bars agencies and employers from issuing or inducing orders that compel performance during a lawful labor dispute except as detailed in (d). Subdivision (d) sets five substantive and procedural conditions the issuing agency must satisfy — independent statutory exercise, written signed order, specific findings of imminent substantial threat not abatable by alternatives, narrowly tailored scope and duration, and contemporaneous notice to the exclusive bargaining representative. These requirements raise the evidentiary and documentary bar for using public-health authority as a labor-controlling tool.
Definitions and cross-references
Subdivision (e) stitches the section into existing definitions: it adopts the ‘‘solid waste handling’’ definition from PRC §40195, defines ‘‘substantially amended’’ as mutual changes to the majority of material terms, and imports the statutory meaning of ‘‘labor dispute’’ via a Code of Civil Procedure cross‑reference. The cross-references matter because they anchor the bill to established statutory language and create predictable definitional boundaries for enforcement and litigation.
Severability, statewide applicability, and reimbursement mechanics
Section 2 makes the act severable so courts can excise invalid parts without voiding the whole. Section 3 contains the Legislature’s finding that the subject is a statewide concern, which is meant to avoid municipal‑affair defenses from charter cities. Section 4 triggers state‑mandate reimbursement procedures if the Commission on State Mandates determines local costs are required; that creates a procedural path for local governments to seek compensation for compliance costs.
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Who Benefits
- Unionized waste collection and disposal workers — the ban on force majeure clauses and the tightened standards for compulsion reduce tools employers or allied agencies might use to override strikes, strengthening leverage during bargaining and protecting lawful concerted activity.
- Exclusive bargaining representatives — mandatory contemporaneous notice of any order that would require work creates transparency and an evidentiary record, improving unions’ ability to contest improper uses of emergency authority.
- Residents and public health planners concerned with labor-driven interruptions — by forcing parties to address contingency plans and making emergency compulsion more tightly circumscribed, the law incentivizes advance planning and clearer accountability for service continuity.
Who Bears the Cost
- Local agencies and procurement officials — they must rewrite contract templates, revise RFPs, develop contingency plans, and potentially absorb service gaps or higher contract costs if providers price for increased risk.
- Franchised solid waste service providers and their insurers — without contractual force majeure relief, providers may face higher exposure for missed collections during strikes and will likely price contracts to reflect that risk or push for other contractual protections.
- Employers and municipal officials who previously sought to use public-health orders to maintain service — the procedural barriers limit a familiar enforcement route and impose additional evidentiary and notice burdens, possibly increasing litigation risk if orders are issued and challenged.
- Ratepayers and local budgets — higher contractor pricing for added risk allocation or costs for municipal contingency arrangements could be passed through to citizens or absorbed by local budgets, at least in the near term.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is straightforward and unsparing: protect workers’ lawful strike activity by removing contractual and administrative levers that force work, or preserve public health and uninterrupted sanitation by allowing authorities and employers quick, enforceable powers during service disruptions — the bill chooses to prioritize labor protections and procedural safeguards, but doing so raises real risks to service continuity, cost allocation, and rapid emergency response.
The bill resolves one set of problems by creating several implementation headaches. First, voiding force majeure clauses that reference labor disputes does not eliminate all legal doctrines that excuse or delay performance — courts may see surge claims invoking impossibility, impracticability, frustration of purpose, or breach‑remedy disputes.
That legal uncertainty will show up fast in franchise disputes and procurement negotiations.
Second, the five‑part test for sanitation orders raises practical evidentiary questions: what counts as an ‘‘imminent and substantial threat’’ and who determines whether alternatives are ‘‘reasonable’’? The requirement that an agency act independently and document findings increases administrative burden and invites pre‑enforcement litigation over whether an order was really the agency’s independent judgment or effectively employer‑driven.
Those contests could clog courts and delay emergency responses.
Third, although the Legislature framed the law as statewide, charter cities or employers may still litigate on preemption, operational necessity, or federal labor-law grounds (e.g., NLRA implications), creating uncertainty about how quickly the rules will alter behavior. Finally, the potential for the Commission on State Mandates to require reimbursement leaves open whether local governments get funds to implement new contracting and emergency‑order procedures, which affects how willingly agencies will absorb the operational and fiscal consequences.
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