The Gig’s Up for Freelancers
The new law was pitched as a simple measure to provide contract workers with benefits like sick leave and health care. Yet as the dust clears, many ugly details are emerging. There were lots of carve-outs: for doctors, lawyers, accountants, psychologists, insurance agents like Jake from State Farm. But here’s something weird: Freelance journalists are limited to 35 submissions a year per “putative” employer.
Like many independent contractors, I prefer not to be hired as an employee. I don’t want to attend company picnics or sit through mandatory sensitivity training. Shouldn’t I have the ability to choose? Apparently not in California, a job-destroying wrecking ball. On a more serious note, many disabled people or parents with young children would rather work freelance from home than trudge to an office. Retaining more workers directly will send employers’ costs up, up, up. Uber, Lyft and DoorDash are spending about $30 million each to fund a ballot initiative to kill AB 5, but votes won’t be cast until November 2020. Ugh.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gigs-up-for-freelancers-11572208945?mod=itp_wsj&ru=yahoo
Anyone who is cheering this does not have a CLUE how this will impact the cost of goods coming to your door in the near future. Many companies depend on independent contractors (ie. owners/operators) of their own trucks, NOT OWNED by a large corporation, to get goods shipped across our country, from sea to shining sea, If this law stays as it is, costs to the consumer, will increase necessarily. There is such a small profit margin on this already. It will either cost more or things will take longer to get from a warehouse to your door.