The California Manufacturers & Technology Association clarified that California’s proposed plastic bag ban and paper bag tax contained in SB 270 will cost the state good paying manufacturing jobs.
There are close to 60 plastic-bag and 100 paper-bag manufacturing establishments in California, according to the Labor Market Information Department. These companies employ 5,000 workers and provide upward mobility and livelihoods for many hard working middle class families.
SB 270 threatens at least hundreds, if not thousands of these jobs at the same time the state is spending taxpayer dollars to save other jobs. California needs to send consistent signals that we are open for all manufacturing business. Banning and taxing consumer products does not create the reliability that employers need to make long term manufacturing decisions.
CMTA president Jack Stewart reiterated again this week, “SB 270 gives California manufacturers another reason to slow operations in the state and scale up elsewhere. Instead of killing jobs, lawmakers should be promoting ways to protect those who manufacture important and highly popular consumer products.”
Manufacturing in California is already losing out to the country. The state attracted only 1.5 percent of manufacturing investment in 2013 and grabbed only 1.1 percent of the country’s manufacturing job growth since 2010. During that time California grew its manufacturing job base by a half percent while the country grew it’s industrial base by six percent.
“For our working families and for our manufacturing competitiveness, we must defeat SB 270,” concluded Stewart.