Has the World gone mad?

I feel I am less concerned re this news article than yourself Spec. My feeling on the article and legislation is that there seems to have been some pressure within the calafornia state legislation offices or from very near by from likely someone rathr influential in local politics who feels this is very important. I surmise that the regulations put in place being quite easy to comply with and the fines being quite low for a company with significant numbers of employees that it has been easier to enact this law than deal with it any other way round.
As to your point about asking companies to change things. Companies (especially large ones) tend to only change things when there is a cost to the company regardless of what is necessarily "better".