This week marks three years since California’s ABC Test-based Assembly Bill 5 was signed into law, kicking off a nationwide, union-led effort to reclassify tens of millions of self-employed Americans as employees who would then ostensibly gain traditional jobs and become eligible for unionization. But in the three years since this anti-independent contractor push began, its primary results have been the destruction of independent contractor careers and widespread citizen backlash against lawmakers and regulators who continue to champion the idea. … Read more …
Tag: New Jersey
Fight For Freelancers Requests Meeting with Senators Manchin, Sinema to Protect Independent Contractors
Today, the leaders of Fight For Freelancers sent this letter to U.S. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, requesting a meeting to discuss the nomination of David Weil as wage and hour administrator at the U.S. Department of Labor, and to discuss continued efforts to limit the choice of self-employment with the ABC Test. Read the letter…
Women fighting to protect freelance jobs aren’t ‘hysterical’
As published in the Philadelphia Inquirer: “If the Great Resignation and the shift of even more women into self-employment does nothing else, it should be a clarion call to lawmakers, regulators, and thought leaders that it’s time for them to do a Great Rethinking about the need to protect all independent contractor careers.” … Read more …
We are America’s independent contractors, and we are terrified
As published in The Hill: “This entire push is terrifyingly detached from reality. Study after study shows 70 percent to 85 percent of independent contractors are just plain happier this way. Some 60 percent said in the thick of 2020s pandemic problems that no amount of money would get them to take a traditional job.” … Read more…
Freelancers Nationwide Are Already Getting Caught in the ABC Test Net
As reported in Contently, “with national ABC Test legislation in Congress and public awareness rising, more freelancers report being turned away from work because they pose a legal liability to the publisher.” READ MORE …
I Don’t Want To Be Anybody’s Employee
As reported in Reason: “They all say their stance is about protecting workers, even though California’s example has taught us that such regulations cripple huge swaths of the middle class, denying people the flexibility they want and the cash flow they need. And flexibility and cash flow will both be all the more important as COVID-19 forces many of us to change the way we work.”… READ MORE…
Is Anyone Actually Editing The New York Times Editorial Page?
As reported on DailyKos: Nothing has changed for Uber drivers in California since the legislation went into effect six months ago. What has happened, instead, is a drawn-out legal battle between Uber and the state while thousands of other Californians are being thrown out of work in more than 300 professions documented so far — none of which The Times even bothered to mention, if the editors even realized it is happening at all. … READ MORE…
Unions Are Hurting Working People Under The Guise Of Protecting Them
As reported in Forbes: “The world has changed, and turning back time isn’t an option. Time for everyone, including the unions, to recognize that the country has significant economic problems at the individual level. Cutting the livelihood of millions—with the full knowledge that there aren’t enough jobs to place them into—is irresponsible, selfish, short-sighted, unrealistic, and heartless.” … READ MORE …
Welcome to Ms. Kavin’s Neighborhood. Today’s Lesson: The ABCs
From Daily Kos:
The issue of “worker misclassification” is becoming key to the Democratic Party’s campaign plans this election year, both at the federal and state levels. Presidential candidates Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders all have voiced support for a federal version of California’s recently enacted AB5, which would make everyone an employee until proven otherwise. … READ MORE …
Laws to protect Uber drivers could put freelance journalists out of business
From The Washington Post:
In 2003, I walked away from my full-time, $80,000-a-year job as the executive editor of a national magazine. I had no other job lined up; I just had a hunch, having worked in the publishing business for about a decade, that I could have a better work-life balance and make a lot more money if I put out a shingle as a freelance writer and editor. … READ MORE …
Fight For Freelancers USA 