California becomes the first state to make employers say when AI caused a mass layoff, and to put a human behind an AI firing

Governor Gavin Newsom signed two laws on 30 September 2026 that go to the centre of what this site tracks. Senate Bill 947 stops employers relying only on an automated decision system to discipline or fire a worker: a human has to corroborate the decision. Senate Bill 951 rewrites the state's WARN Act so that a mass layoff, relocation or closure "caused in whole or in substantial part by an artificial intelligence (AI) system or other automated technology replacing or automating employment positions" must say so in the 60-day notice, including the number and occupations of the replaced workers, "the job functions performed by those replaced workers that will be automated" and the category of system doing the automating. The Employment Development Department has to publish a summary of every such notice and a quarterly statewide tally of technological displacements, and report to the legislature on AI's effect on hiring by the start of 2028. Until now no WARN notice anywhere in the United States has had to name automation as the cause, which is why the public record this site works from is so thin. The governor also signed bills barring emotion-prediction and brain-data collection at work and bathroom surveillance. CalMatters' Khari Johnson reports that labour got only part of what it asked for. SB 947 was weakened on its way through, "losing an appeals process for workers, the right to bring a lawsuit to compel an employer to follow the law, and it no longer covers contractors." Newsom vetoed a bill protecting health workers who refuse an AI recommendation and did not act on a ban on replacing mental-health workers with AI. California Labor Federation president Lorena Gonzalez said: "It should be a stronger bill, but we absolutely believe the American people believe, Californians believe, that an individual should not have the indignity of being fired or disciplined by a robot, by an algorithm, without human oversight." Nicolle Pillion, who answers patient phone calls at Kaiser Permanente and says software scoring her empathy penalised her hoarse voice, called it "a big win for us and a step in the right direction. I wish he would have signed this sooner." This site covered the three-bill package when it reached the governor's desk on 16 September, and SB 947 in detail on 22 September. The new notices will not add anything to the verified job-loss count until the first ones are filed.