Posts tagged Lorena Gonzalez
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:
Commentary: JOHN STOSSEL: Unions Wanted To Help Freelance Workers. Now They Lost Their Jobs
April 17, 2024 // Vox called the law “a big win for workers everywhere.” Ha! A few months later, Vox media layed off hundreds of freelancers. “They expected that all these companies were going to reclassify independent contractors as employees,” freelance musician Ari Herstand told me. “In reality, they’re just letting them go!” Herstand was dismayed to learn that when he wants other musicians to join him, he could no longer just write them a check. “I have to put that drummer on payroll, W2 him, get workers’ comp insurance, unemployment insurance, payroll taxes!” he complains. “I have to hire a payroll company.”
COMMENTARY: Like AB5, CA’s Fast-Food Minimum Wage Hike Results in Layoffs, Closures, and Higher Prices
April 4, 2024 // It certainly wasn't a victory for the consumer. First, the prices of fast food started to tick up, then Pizza Hut drivers were laid off. The FAST Act is now fully in effect, and so are the unintended consequences. Tuesday, April 2 saw reports of fast-food restaurants cutting hours, laying off workers, and some completely shuttering their businesses. Welcome to California, where a Big Mac combo will cost you $25.00 and be served to you by a robot. Stevie Wonder could have seen this coming; but hey, power to the people, and all that.
OOIDA lends support in case against AB5
January 30, 2024 // The two trucking groups argue that the law eliminates the independent contractor driver business model in the trucking industry and that it violates the U.S. and California constitutions. OOIDA, which is serving as an intervenor in a case against the state’s worker classification law, told the court in its Oct. 27 reply brief that AB5 needlessly causes genuine independent contractors to be reclassified as employees. “AB5 discriminates against and imposes undue burdens on interstate commerce in violation of the dormant Commerce Clause, and the disparate treatment of AB5’s business-to-business and construction exemptions violates the U.S. and California constitutions’ equal protection clauses,” OOIDA wrote
New Research Quantifies Harms To Independent Contractors Of California’s AB5
January 23, 2024 // Despite AB5 proponents’ claims that the law would increase full-time employment and offer benefits and protections, the researchers found “robust evidence that AB5 is significantly associated with a decline in self-employment and a decline in overall employment.” · AB5 reduced the level of self-employment by 6.7 percentage points to 28%. · AB5 reduced the level of overall employment by 7.3 percentage points to 14%. · The researchers did not find significant evidence that AB5 increased W-2 employment.
9th Circuit panel will hear Uber/Postmates case on AB5
December 22, 2023 // The decision handed down by a three-judge panel in March was notable primarily for its reasoning that Uber and Postmates had been denied equal protection of the law in the process that led to the California approval of AB5, state legislation that required companies that hire independent contractors to reclassify them as employees. Equal protection of the law was the only claim by Uber and Postmates that the appellate panel backed; it supported the lower court rejection of other arguments. The panel cited the statements of then-Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, now a state labor leader but the key driver in turning AB5 into law, as evidence that the move to more tightly define when a worker can legitimately be considered an independent contractor was an effort targeted at gig drivers like those at Uber.
California proposes paying unemployment benefits to striking workers
August 24, 2023 // One of the main sponsors of the bill, state Sen. Anthony Portantino, said, “I think there’s more of a recognition that hardworking men and women need to have a seat at the table to discuss economic expansion.” He added, “It is embarrassing for California that we don’t have unemployment insurance for striking workers.” The deadline for California lawmakers to introduce new bills was in February, but state legislators can still rework unrelated bills, in a move called “gut-and-amend,” to circumvent the missed deadline and include the new language. The last-minute legislative push is backed by the California Labor Federation, which is led by former state Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez. When Gonzalez tried to pass a similar bill in 2019, it eventually passed both chambers but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
California’s on the cusp of transforming America’s fast food industry — again
August 16, 2023 // “Because it’s so many stores, and going store to store would be difficult, the path to unionization here is basically through legislation,” said Brandon Dawkins, SEIU 1021 vice president of organizing. “After we get the council together and force the employer to the table, then the unions — we can come in and really sit down and negotiate with the corporations to, number one, create a union and, number two, address issues like safety and wage theft.” A labor council’s purview extends to workplace conditions like predictable scheduling — a longstanding goal for labor — noted California Labor Federation Executive Officer Lorena Gonzalez, a former state lawmaker who carried an earlier version of the bill when she served in the state Assembly. “If you get joint employer liability, it’s more likely McDonald’s would want to talk about a national agreement or strategy because now they’re on the hook for every labor violation,” Gonzalez said. That tactic has angered restaurant operators who have rallied against the legislation. Marisol Sanchez, a second-generation McDonald’s franchise owner, has appeared in advertising opposing the 2023 bill. Sanchez said she believed SEIU was acting on its own political agenda rather than in response to worker demands.
‘Employees come second’: Why California’s legislative staffers hope to unionize
July 21, 2023 // Unlike other state workers, legislative staff are banned from unionizing to advocate for better working conditions. That could soon change under a bill making its way through the State Capitol. Assembly Bill 1, authored by Assembly member Tina McKinnor (D—Inglewood), would provide a framework for legislative staff to form a union. California’s over 200,000 other public employees are able to unionize. But legislative staff are notably excluded from the law, the Dills Act, that established those rights in the 1970s. AB 1 is the fifth attempt in recent years to change that.
San Diego Gompers Preparatory Academy Charter School Educators Vote Out SDEA Union
June 21, 2023 // Even worse, shortly after the PERB’s ruling halting the original decertification effort, Chiscano and another Gompers educator filed charges maintaining that SDEA agents targeted them on social media for opposing the union hierarchy. California law makes it illegal for union officials to intimidate or retaliate against employees who exercise their right to refrain from union membership. Union boss-aligned state legislators even chimed in to pressure Gompers management to give in to union demands. In a letter to Gompers management, then-Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (now an AFL-CIO president) attacked the National Right to Work Foundation for simply providing legal aid to Gompers educators as they sought to exercise their right to hold a decertification election. Gonzalez was best known during her tenure for authoring AB5, a California law that drastically reduced opportunities for freelance workers and independent contractors across the state.