Greater Irvine Chamber of Commerce
Our mission is to advance the economic vitality of greater Irvine.
Our mission is to advance the economic vitality of greater Irvine.
Bryan Starr, president and CEO of the Greater Irvine Chamber, has been elected to serve on the 2019-2020 Board of Directors for the Association of Chamber of Commerce Executives (ACCE), a Virginia-based association of more than 9,000 professionals who work for and with more than 1,300 chambers of commerce nationally. “It’s an honor to be included in this impressive group of chamber executives. I’m looking forward to engaging my colleagues from some of the most successful chambers the nation for meaningful exchanges of ideas,” Starr said. “Bringing a Southern California point of view to the discussions at the national level will benefit the entire chamber community and the businesses we serve.” Members of ACCE’s Board of Directors represent more than 50 organizations, including many of the world’s largest and most influential regional chambers of commerce. The ACCE board supports the organization’s mission to support and develop chamber professionals to lead businesses and their communities, and to identify and analyze trends affecting communities, share best practices, and develop benchmarking studies. “We are pleased to welcome Bryan Starr to the ACCE Board of Directors,” said Sheree Anne Kelly, president and CEO of ACCE. “Bryan joins the organization’s volunteer leadership at an exciting time as we...
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California lawmakers approved a sweeping employment law bill that would force a variety of industries – including the gig economy and trucking companies – to provide benefits to independent contractors. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez pitched her bill to a state Senate committee as a boon for workers’ rights and a major step toward halting income inequity in the Golden State. “The state can’t sit by while companies pass off their own costs of doing business onto taxpayers and responsible businesses, while depriving millions of workers of the labor law protections they are so rightly entitled to,” said Gonzalez, D-San Diego. After more than two hours of debate, the Senate Labor Committee cleared Gonzalez’s union-backed measure, Assembly Bill 5. Gonzalez and a variety of unions want to codify a landmark 2018 California Supreme Court decision that reverberated throughout boardrooms of businesses and sparked debate over who does and doesn’t deserve employment benefits. In Dynamex v. Superior Court, the state’s high court ruled that in order to classify workers as contractors, a company must show it does not directly control the worker, the work falls outside its usual course of business, and the worker is “customarily engaged in an independently established trade.” The three prongs have been referred to as the...
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The U.S. labor market isn’t red hot, the Federal Reserve chairman says, but it’s at least pretty darned warm. Layoffs declined in early July and remained near a half-century low. The numbers: The number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week fell to the lowest level in more than three months, a decline likely exaggerated by July 4 holiday but that still reflects the strongest labor market in decades. Initial jobless claims, a rough way to measure layoffs, dropped by 13,000 to 209,000 in the seven days ended July 6, the government said. Economists polled by MarketWatch estimated new claims would total a seasonally adjusted 221,000. The more stable monthly average of new claims slid by 3,250 to 219,250. The four-week average usually gives a more accurate read into labor-market conditions than the more volatile weekly number. What happened: Claims often decline around a holiday because some people wait until the following week to apply for benefits. Raw or unadjusted claims sank last week in New Jersey and California, largely offsetting big increases in New York and Michigan. Claims in late June and early July are often affected by the end of the school year as well as annual auto-plant retooling. The number of people already collecting benefits,...
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Governor Gavin Newsom signed the state budget with a $21 billion surplus, but expressed his support for a new sales tax on services in California. Although details are sparse, any new tax on services would affect not just businesses, but consumers, who already pay a sales tax. In this episode of The Workplace, CalChamber President and CEO Allan Zaremberg is joined by Loren Kaye, president of the California Foundation for Commerce and Education, to discuss the proposed sales taxes on services and the changes it would bring to California’s budget and economy. What a Sales Tax on Services Would Look Like The sales tax on services, as envisioned by its proponent, Senator Robert Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys), is aimed at businesses in California, but that doesn’t mean it won’t also affect consumers. “The latest proposal…is to charge a services tax just on business-to-business services, but don’t think that that doesn’t mean that consumers won’t pay,” Kaye tells Zaremberg. “Consumers will pay because to the extent businesses pay higher sales taxes on services, they’ll pass it on to consumers.” Furthermore, if consumers purchase anything that requires multiple services, they will pay even more as these taxes add up. “We’ve estimated, in fact, that the sales tax on services at...
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