On Thursday, the California Hospital Association, the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, and Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West (“SEIU-UHW”) reached an agreement to remove the following two initiatives from the November ballot:
- The Health Care Executive Compensation Act of 2026
- The Health Care Transparency, Accountability & Union Member Right to Vote Act
The Health Care Executive Compensation Act of 2026 (“Compensation Act”), which SEIU-UHW had qualified for the November ballot, would have imposed a $450,000 annual limit on total compensation for executives and managers of hospitals (including hospitals owned or operated by a health care district), physician groups with 25 or more employees, and integrated health care delivery systems. The limit on total annual compensation would have included wages, salary, paid time off, bonuses, incentive payments, cash payments, fair market value of loans, cash value of housing, company cars, use of corporate aircraft, scholarships, fellowships, cash value of dependent care or adoption assistance, cash value of stock options or awards, and severance payments.
Under Compensation Act, the limit on total annual compensation would have been subject to an annual adjustment. Specifically, the compensation limit would have been adjusted annually by 3.5% or the year-over-year rate of change in the U.S. Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (U.S. CPI-W), whichever is lower.
Sponsored by the California Hospital Association, the Health Care Transparency, Accountability & Union Member Right to Vote Act (“Transparency Act”) would have required a qualifying health care labor organization to obtain written consent from a majority of its members before making certain contributions or expenditures to support or oppose the qualification of any single state or local measure during a calendar year. The Transparency Act also would have required a qualifying health care labor organization to provide written notice to its members of the total amount spent on political activities during the preceding calendar year.
Both the Compensation Act and the Transparency Act would have authorized the imposition of fines for noncompliance with their respective obligations.
