California Freelancer law AB5 summary and support in 12.29.19 LA Times article

This California law that goes into effect Jan 1st will be making headlines.

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, sponsor of California’s gig economy law. 

pic by K.C. Alfred, San Diego Union-Tribune

In this article published in 12.27.19 LA Times, journalist Michael Hiltzik reports that the law is getting a bad rap.

Quote below is his summary, that refutes previous reports that AB limits the number of contributions freelancers can make to publications etc.

"AB 5 was an outgrowth of the California Supreme Court’s so-called Dynamex decision of 2018, which tightened the rules for when a worker must be considered a company’s employee rather than an independent contractor. The law expanded the court ruling’s reach beyond wage rules to other state labor rules.

• AB 5 does not limit freelance writers to 35 submissions per client per year.

• AB 5 does not require that writers who publish more than 35 submissions be given full-time jobs by their publishers.

• AB 5 does not prohibit bringing on freelancers as part-time employees and allowing them to continue making their own hours.

All those things may happen to freelance writers in California, but that’s the result of voluntary decisions by their publishers, quite possibly because they don’t want to pay the writers more by complying with minimum-wage laws and overtime rules."

Here's a link for the complete article:
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-12-19/california-freelancers-gig-economy


Previous posts on the blog re: California AB 5
http://stuartngbooks.blogspot.com/2019/12/freelancer-law-ca-ab5-update.html

https://stuartngbooks.blogspot.com/2019/10/freelance-workers-in-ca-impacted-by-ab.html