California business owners might expect the state’s leading business advocacy group to oppose a politician who defended California’s punishing labor enforcement system.
Instead, CalChamber endorsed Xavier Becerra for governor.
CalChamber hasn’t just lost the plot; it has forgotten its mission. The group has established a troubling pattern of trading confrontation for conciliation. In these cases, it feels like the organization chooses political power over the businesses it represents.
For one, Becerra has a record of defending the Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA), one of California’s most damaging, abuse-ridden labor laws. Unsurprisingly, he was also endorsed by Big Labor, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and United Food & Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW). When asked which policies he would change as governor, Becerra named none.
This isn’t the kind of record a serious business advocacy organization should reward.
As California’s largest business advocacy group, CalChamber’s job is to act as a policy watchdog and lobbying force for thousands of employers. Its central purpose is standing up for businesses. Lately, it seems more likely to stand down.
Perhaps the strongest example is from 2024, when CalChamber finally had enough leverage to challenge PAGA.
PAGA allows workers to sue their employers over minor labor code infractions. Outcomes under this system are less than impressive: under PAGA court cases, workers take home less money and employers pay more – all as a consequence of a broken system that incentivizes abusive lawsuits.
In 2024, CalChamber and its allies qualified a ballot initiative — an initiative inspired in part by my organization’s research — that would have substantially replaced PAGA’s private enforcement model with state enforcement. With the measure qualified for the ballot, labor leaders and lawmakers faced the possibility that voters could dismantle PAGA altogether.
But Gov. Newsom negotiated an agreement in exchange for the removal of the initiative, and CalChamber conceded. The resulting deal, among other items, capped PAGA penalties on good-faith employers and bumped up workers’ share of the penalties from 25% to 35%.
The agreement offered employers some relief; an ongoing rulemaking by the state may provide further relief. But CalChamber surrendered the one source of leverage powerful enough to force structural reform, while leaving the main issue — the private litigation system — intact.
What for? A seat at Newsom’s table?
While CalChamber called the agreement monumental and praised Newsom’s leadership, businesses were still left with a system that victimizes them. In many cases, PAGA court settlements only got worse. In 2024, PAGA attorneys collected over $507 million. Then, in 2025, our research shows they collected over $729 million. California may meet or exceed that this year, where PAGA attorneys have thus far collected more than $344 million.
Rather than trying to course-correct, CalChamber has doubled down on its submissive approach.
For example, in 2025, CalChamber rebranded its confrontational “Job Killer” list to the passive “Affordability Agenda.” The Job Killer list was a useful weapon that halted legislation on 93 percent of bad, job-eliminating laws. Now, the Chamber is no longer one that says “this bill kills jobs.” It’s one that gingerly says “this bill may impact affordability.”
Are we confronting bad laws or maintaining a political relationship? It’s hard to tell.
Perhaps CalChamber has lost touch with its members. The group’s president and CEO, Jennifer Barrera, reported nearly seven figures in compensation in 2024. For a trade association executive whose paycheck does not depend on surviving a lawsuit, incremental improvement may seem sufficient. For a small business owner facing a PAGA claim, structural reform is urgent.
Some have described the CalChamber (especially after the Becerra endorsement) as having “corporate Stockholm Syndrome.” It seems the organization is so desperate for access that it has begun to identify with the very forces dismantling its members’ livelihoods.
CalChamber must stop asking for a seat at the table and start demanding a change in the menu. It should recommit itself to structural reform in California rather than cosmetic fixes. It should measure its success by the burdens removed from business owners, not by the number of invitations it receives to negotiate them.
Tom Manzo is the president and founder of the California Business and Industrial Alliance.