California Legislature’s Battle Over ‘Gig Economy’ Shows No Sign of Ending
AB5 was intended to stop companies like Uber and Lyft from misclassifying employees as contract workers, depriving them of legally mandated benefits. Instead, it’s misclassifying legitimate contractors as employees, and depriving large numbers of people of their livelihood.
The unions and the author of the bill, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a San Diego Democrat, gave exemptions to a few categories of work. But it’s drawn criticism from artists, photographers, dancers, musicians, journalists and many other freelance workers who say it has damaged their incomes because employers shied away from giving them non-payroll work.
It’s also created great uncertainty on how it might be applied to whole industries. Could, for example, owners of fast-food restaurant franchises be considered employees of the parent franchising corporations?