Posts tagged AB5
Commentary: Beware the Vanilla Slugger
August 8, 2024 // Study after study shows that the vast majority of independent contractors wish to remain as we are. Any government policy that limits our freedom to choose self-employment is a weaponization of regulatory language. It’s trying to force us to become something we do not want to be. It’s plain and simple freelance busting. Unionized employees and independent contractors are equals as Americans. We have the right to choose how we earn a living. Everyone should respect us and our rights, because that’s how we roll here in the land of the free. We’re all about liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Commentary: Kamala Harris Is Bad News for Gig Workers
August 8, 2024 // Though framed as an overdue deliverance for besieged workers, AB 5 was a gift to labor bosses who dreamed of organizing California gig workers, especially ride-share drivers, and who lusted after the potential dues they could rake in. It was also one of the most-detested laws passed in California in memory. There was no grassroots movement behind AB 5, no uprising among freelancers. It was a top-down scheme fueled by union agitation and then, like so many other lousy public policies hatched in California, unleashed across the country. AB 5’s impact was immediate — and ugly. Workers’ opportunities were narrowed. Many lost their incomes. Businesses faced higher labor costs, and entrepreneurs felt the chill of the dead hand of activist policy-making. The promise of the gig economy, expected to expand globally by roughly 123 percent over the next five years, turned bleak in California. With their businesses in the balance, Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash generously funded a ballot initiative, Proposition 22, that would classify “drivers for app-based transportation (rideshare) and delivery companies as ‘independent contractors,’ not ‘employees.’” Voters approved it overwhelmingly. App-based drivers favored Prop. 22 — four out of five said they were “happy” that it passed, 76 percent said it “benefits me personally,” and 75 percent recommended that lawmakers pass “similar laws in other states so drivers across the country can benefit.”
AB5 specifically targets interstate truckers, OOIDA says
August 8, 2024 // “AB5’s blanket prohibition of leased owner-operators constitutes an unreasonable burden on interstate commerce in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution under the test established by the Supreme Court in Pike v. Bruce Church Inc.,” OOIDA wrote. “Under Pike’s balancing test, AB5’s burden on leased owner-operators is absolute, and the benefits to the state are minimal, if not illusory. There is no cost truckers can incur or administrative hurdle they can overcome to keep their independent contractor small businesses as leased owner-operators.”
COMMENTARY: Californians Can Still Be Their Own Boss in the ‘Gig Economy,’ Also Known as the Free Market
August 6, 2024 // “Furloughed Californians stand on the verge of being wiped out financially because the law prevents them from working part time in a variety of indispensable positions,” read a letter from more than 150 of California’s leading economists and political scientists. “Blocking work that is needed and impoverishing workers laid-off from other jobs are not the intentions of AB-5, but the law is having these unintended consequences and needs to be suspended. Gov. Gavin Newsom declined to suspend the measure, but went on to violate his own rules on masks and impose a rigid lockdown on the people.
COMMENTARY: No Means No
July 29, 2024 // Don’t let the language of protection and freedom fool you. When someone refuses to take no for an answer, that’s not protection. It’s an attack on our freedom to choose self-employment. It’s an attempt to change the laws and regulations that protect us from them. What we are experiencing has a name. This is what zealotry looks like. It’s the behavior of fanatics who are uncompromising in the pursuit of what they want, no matter how detached from reality their beliefs are, and no matter how many people they hurt in the process.
California Supreme Court upholds AB5 exemption for gig workers
July 29, 2024 // Case on independent contractor law involved workers’ comp and ballot initiative Prop 22 that granted carve-out
OPINION: Would Harris Be Better than Biden for Independent Contractors?
July 11, 2024 // It’s imperative for the tens of millions of Americans who earn some or all of their income as independent contractors to understand where she stands when it comes to money that is earned through self-employment. The record shows that Harris poses a real threat to independent contractors’ income, and for many of us, to our entire careers.
Freelancers sue over new rules on independent contractors
July 8, 2024 // “It really coerces a lot of companies to try to put people, put workers in the employee box just so that they can be sure that they have their bases covered,” says Wen Fa, an attorney and vice president of legal affairs at the Beacon Center of Tennessee, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for individual rights and free market public policies. “Ultimately, what we’re fighting for is the right to freelance.” Fa is representing Margaret Littman and Jennifer Chesak — Nashville-based freelance writers and authors whose bylines collectively include The Washington Post, Men’s Health, National Geographic, and Condé Nast Traveler.
Independent contractor classification still murky under new DOL rule
July 8, 2024 // Bill Webb, executive director for the Coalition for Independent Truckers, is skeptical. “To me, it’s just another one of those deaths by 1000 cuts for the independent contractor model,” he said. He believes this year’s November election will be crucial in retaining the current model. “(The DOL rule) does clearly change from a true AB5 model to something a little muddier,
Commentary: The Big Fear? A Real Rematch
July 6, 2024 // Just a few hours after the court’s ruling dropped late last week, allowing both ballot measures to proceed, the Massachusetts attorney general made an announcement of her own. She agreed to a deal that will let Uber and Lyft drivers in Massachusetts remain independent contractors, with a minimum hourly wage of $32.50 and some benefits. Interestingly, the attorney general’s announcement noted that the deal averts giving the people of Massachusetts a chance to vote on the matter: