California’s AB 5 kills off 40-year Lake Tahoe Music Festival

California Globe ^ | March 1, 2020 | Katy Grimes

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

Why not simply move the festival to the Nevada side of the lake?

[buckalfa]

AB 5 is not about protecting workers. It is about the State making sure they get their cut of the action.

[tflabo]

Quotation: “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have.” TJ

[eyeamok]

I think the Law needs to be Expanded Greatly so it Includes the ENTIRE LEGAL, ACCOUNTING AND MEDICAL PROFESSION’S

[Drumbo]

I’ve been an independent contractor my entire life - mostly as a musician (but a decade as a computer tech). I’ve worked dozens (if not hundreds) of union gigs because they are quick to give a waiver when their own members aren’t up to the task. I was always called to do Barnum & Bailey’s pick-up bands at major union venues because I could sight-read the music and was familiar with the book and frankly smoked the “talent” paying union dues. In 1975, I went to the union hall in New Orleans to join and was told I was in the wrong place. Huh? All my friends and the best musicians in the Big Easy belong to this union ... how can I be in the wrong place?
The response: “You’re white, you’ll have to join the other (white) local”. That turned me off to unions at a young age and I never regretted my decision, and ended up playing the really big gigs (as well as union run Dinner Theaters and “locked” venues pretty much at will - but sometimes had to pay a “skim”).
I was forced into AFTRA when I did talk radio for a while in the 80s when you still needed a FCC license, but was forced out when my liberal co-host (and the union thugs) sued the station for “Equal pay for equal work.” My last radio rant was on “Equal pay for equal RESULTS!” I was so deluded as to think because I generated the lion’s share of Ad Revenue I deserved the commission on clients I recruited - but the station caved and paid her for equal “time”. It was the end of my short broadcast career - but the end of hers too when ratings tanked after my departure. Unions are death to free enterprise and home of slackers, freeloaders, lackeys and idjits who get their pockets picked while they are on break and their employer’s business burns to the ground. Any artist with talent will flee Calibfornia. Just my 2¢ - ymmv.