Free Republic

The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is on a tear this week, dismantling the court rulings that have supported AB5, the so-called California gig workers law. Crafted to target rideshare companies and the trucking industry, since AB5 was signed into law in 2019, it has upended the careers of approximately 4.5 million freelancers, independent contractors, and the self-employed, and destroyed the independent contractor model in the state. On Monday, the Ninth Circuit overturned a Superior Court of Alameda decision that deemed California’s Proposition 22, which allowed rideshare drivers to maintain their status as independent contractors, unconstitutional. Proposition 22 was...

“Freelance journalists in California will either be out of work or face limitations on how much content they can produce,” CNN warned. Independent truckers shut down the Los Angeles-Long Beach port to protest the same disastrous law and are leaving California.The bill known as AB5 which restricts freelance employment so severely that it’s practically a ban on freelance workers has been blamed for contributing to the mass exodus with California unprecedentedly losing population every year that the law has been in effect.But California’s bad ideas rarely stay inside its borders.In 2021, House Democrats under San Francisco’s Pelosi passed the PRO...

The Oakland International Container Terminal (OICT) management closed operations on Wednesday at the Port of Oakland due to the independent trucker protests over California’s gig worker law, known as AB5. The Port’s other three marine terminals are effectively shut down for trucks as well, the Port of Oakland told CNBC, while there are some vessel labor operations underway. This is the third-day truckers have protested California’s gig worker labor law, which was sparked by the rise of gig economy platforms like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash. A two-year legal stay was recently lifted when the Supreme Court decided not to hear...

Truck drivers choked traffic at the Oakland, California, seaport on Monday protesting a state law that makes it harder for independent contractors to transport goods and could limit labor at the state's already clogged seaports, threatening to worsen the nation's pandemic-fueled supply chain jams. California's ports handle about 40% of container goods that enter the United States. Trucking disruptions come at a time when unions and West Coast port employers are also negotiating a high-stakes labor contract. The law, known as AB5, or the "gig worker" law, sets tougher standards for classifying workers as independent contractors. Independent truckers who now...

The US Supreme Court on June 28 declined to review a challenge by truck drivers to California’s controversial labor law AB5, meaning that it now goes into effect. The decision will throw up to 70,000 California truckers into legal limbo and further pressure the already-stressed supply chain.AB5 is a labor classification law that was designed to force gig-economy companies like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash to classify workers as employees, instead of as independent contractors, meaning they’d be eligible for benefits. Of course, lobbyists from those tech giants managed to get their companies exempted.RedState has reported extensively on AB5 in the...

The Supreme Court yesterday denied an appeal from the California Trucking Association about AB5, the new employment law in California governing independent-contract work. That means the law goes into effect today, and the trucking industry in the most important state for supply chains will face major upheaval. “It is going to be a radically new world in California’s trucking sector with the imposition of AB5, and it isn’t clear what parts of the industry — if any — are ready for it,” writes John Kingston at FreightWaves. The law was enjoined by a lower court on New Year’s Eve in...

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. After a long cross-country flight, I made it out of LAX and into an Uber. I wasn’t in the mood to talk, but the driver was. And hearing that I was a journalist, he wanted to tell me a story. I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years, but this may have been the most important one I let go. He hadn’t always been driving an Uber at 11:30 at night. Not all that long...

Democrat regulations are holding the entire economy hostage.. After a long cross-country flight, I made it out of LAX and into an Uber. I wasn’t in the mood to talk, but the driver was. And hearing that I was a journalist, he wanted to tell me a story. I’ve heard a lot of stories over the years, but this may have been the most important one I let go. He hadn’t always been driving an Uber at 11:30 at night. Not all that long ago he used to have his own business with 7 trucks before he was bankrupted by...

California’s giant ride-hailing and delivery companies suffered a major setback Friday as a state Superior Court judge invalidated a 2020 ballot proposition that allowed Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other businesses to classify their workers as independent contractors. In a lawsuit brought by the Service Employees International Union, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch ruled that parts of Proposition 22 are unconstitutional because they infringe on the power of the Legislature to include app-based drivers under the state’s workers’ compensation law. Gig economy companies spent more than $220 million last year in the nation’s costliest-ever ballot initiative campaign after the...

Appeals court panel says interstate haulers are not exempt from AB 5 law. Interstate truckers could soon come under California’s highly restrictive independent contractor law because of a recent federal appeals court decision. A three-judge panel for the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 that a federal law called the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act (FAAAA) does not preclude application of the state’s AB 5 contractor law to trucking companies operating in interstate commerce. In early 2020, before the new law went into effect, a federal district court judge granted an injunction barring the state from enforcing it...

Some are wondering what Democratic candidate Vice President Joe Biden’s public support for AB-5, a union-backed California law, aimed at preventing the misclassification of rideshare drivers by giving them the status and protections of full-time employees, means for the future of their businesses. AB-5 had to be modified repeatedly after taking effect on Jan. 1, 2020, because it was putting so many other types of freelancers out of work. “They are really worried about it,” says Bothwell. That’s because Biden -- historically a supporter of unions -- wants a federal law similar to AB-5 that could place steep restrictions on...

Just as the ALP franking credits disaster played a huge role in delivering the prime ministership to Scott Morrison in 2018, Donald Trump has a similar weapon to use against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris – the so called “AB5” threat. And while “AB5” is not currently among the frontline Trump campaign issues like law and order, it has the potential to devastate Biden and Harris. AB5 refers to a Californian law championed by Harris. It was designed as a way to get rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft to classify all their contract drivers as employees. To do this,...

Ever since the initial passage of California's Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) back in September 2019, the Recording Academy has been fighting for a much-needed amendment to exempt music makers from the bill's sweeping intentions to regulate gig-economy workers.. At its annual Entertainment Law Initiative back in January, the Academy discussed the issue during a panel and has continued to work with music industry stakeholders to press for the correction. At long last, the amendment exempting the music community from the unintended consequences of AB5 was officially signed into law by California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sept. 4. This came just...

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage in the U.S., live performance venues will be among the last businesses allowed to reopen–and, even when some reopening is possible, there is no way to know yet what it might initially look like. For large arenas and concert halls, the shutdown has been a struggle–but for smaller operations, the pandemic may turn out to be devastating. Small music venues, the very heart of the artistic scene of any city, are facing an existential threat.One survey conducted in June found that fully 90 percent of independent music venues in the United States report...

I know you've been busy binging the exciting coverage of the Democrat National Convention. But have you heard the latest bit of horrible news from the once golden state of California? I don't mean the 367 wildfires that are out of control and charring the hills of Northern California. Or the heat wave and the rolling blackouts caused by the high electricity demand for air conditioning. I'm talking about the possible disappearance from California of the popular ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft. Both companies were planning to completely shut down their California operations at midnight Thursday rather than comply with...

My company uses a lot of independent contractors. I have employees but, given the nature of the work my firm does (short term projects), it makes more sense for me to hire specialists to perform certain tasks rather than bring on a new employee. I have been using essentially the same group of independent contractors for the past 10 years. Some of them work as little as 10 hours a month, others as much as 30 hours a week depending on the jobs we have. Clearly, I'm not the only small business doing this. Sites like UpWork, Fiverr, Guru and...

Once upon a time, California was the Golden State, a shining example of how America should be run. Then the Democrats took over. Since then, the state has gone downhill fast. One of the worst things the state assembly did just last year was to pass legislation that effectively killed the “gig economy” (i.e., people who enjoy freelance work that enables them to control their own time). Now, thanks to that law, the lockdowns, and a problematic judicial decision, California has another hit coming: Uber’s pulling out. California’s AB 5 went into effect on January 1. Although ostensibly meant to...

If we’re looking for an example of heartlessness from the political class, there are few better examples than California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez’s Twitter response to moderate-income freelance workers who lost their jobs because of her law restricting companies from using contract labor. Even during the coronavirus stay-at-home orders, where a suspension of the law would help desperate people make ends meet working at home and enable contract drivers to provide much-needed home deliveries, Gonzalez largely doubled down on her support for the law. After Vox Media announced in December its layoff of two hundred mostly California-based writers for its SB...

Utilizing the new Presidential proclamations INA 212(f) and 215, prevents entry into the U.S. of certain non-immigrants. We think that the ban will be announced and come into force around June 15th, 2020.

Riding the momentum of the George Floyd riots, California's legislators have moved to ask the voters to repeal Proposition 209, the voter-passed measure to end affirmative action. According to the Sacramento Bee: More than two decades after California voters banned consideration of race in university admissions, public employment and contracting with Proposition 209, the state Assembly on Wednesday approved a measure that would ask voters to repeal the law. In a 58-9 initial vote, Assemblywoman Shirley Weber, D-San Diego, secured the necessary two-thirds majority approval needed to send Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 out of her house and to the state Senate. Only...