Posts tagged seaport
UNION SPONSORED AB 5 HITS INDEPENDENT TRUCKERS
August 24, 2022 // For a while, AB 5, passed in the fall of 2019, didn’t affect truckers. It affected plenty of other people in plenty of other lines of work, prompting belated carve outs by the legislature to expand the list of exempted professions. Passage of AB 5 even provoked the ride share industry, led by Uber and Lyft, to raise over $200 million to qualify and run an initiative campaign, Proposition 22, to repeal the portions of AB 5 that affected their businesses. After Prop. 22 was approved by voters in November, four “gig drivers,” backed up by the SEIU, successfully challenged Prop. 22 in court. That ruling is now being appealed by Uber before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. "business to business” exemption, Borello test, California Globe
Californifying the U.S. Labor Market
August 23, 2022 // The Biden administration came into office with a sweeping union agenda embodied in the PRO Act, which would have rewritten key elements of decades-old American labor law. Stymied in Congress, however, the administration now seems likely to impose at least one component of that legislation on the workplace through a Department of Labor rule that would narrow the definition of an independent contractor in ways similar to California’s controversial AB5 law. Doing so would likely upset employment policies and practices at a vast array of businesses nationwide, just as has happened in the Golden State, where freelancers lost work because companies couldn’t afford to employ them full-time and truckers recently shut down a port to protest efforts to end their independent status. In the post-Covid world, workers are seeking more flexibility in income-earning. The Biden administration’s effort, which views the independent contractor almost exclusively as an exploited worker denied the benefits of full employment, is a step backward for individual workers—but a gift to unions.
The U.S. is Now 30 Days Away From a Possible Railroad Labor Strike
August 19, 2022 // Delays on U.S. railroads have been a growing problem for shipping agricultural goods all year. Labor discussions are ongoing and with the grain industry concerned about a possible labor stoppage in mid-September, which would be the height of Midwest harvest. Just this week, the White House-appointed Presidential Emergency Board (PEB) released a recommendation as part of the ongoing collective bargaining process. Both sides have 30 days to accept those recommendations. If the two parties don't agree, then rail workers are allowed to go on strike as of Sept. 16. Max Fisher, Chief Economist,