Aggravating The Supply Chain Problem

On Saturday, The Blaze posted an article about a California law that would seriously impact the ability of independent truckers to work in the state.

The article reports:

A California law threatens to unleash more supply chain misery and inflation on residents of the Golden State by forcing independent truckers out of the workforce.

California Assembly Bill 5 was introduced by former state Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat, and signed into law in September 2019 by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

AB5 called for “a person providing labor or services for remuneration shall be considered an employee rather than an independent contractor unless the hiring entity demonstrates that the person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, the person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and the person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business.”

Certain professions were exempt from AB5, including insurance agents, health care professionals, investment advisers, realtors, barbers, and fishermen. However, truckers were not exempt from AB5.

It is interesting that companies like Uber, Lyft, and Postmates were exempted from AB5 after Proposition 22 was passed in November 2020. Unfortunately truck drivers were not exempted.

The article notes:

The trucking industry has been fighting the law ever since it went into effect, and secured an injunction that prevented AB5 from including independent truckers in January 2020.

The Epoch Times notes:

“It’s unclear at this point how it will affect owner-operators that don’t live in the state of California,” Bradley told The Epoch Times.

“We are evaluating and looking at it closely, but putting 70,000 people out of work is not the thing to do when we have raging inflation and supply chain issues

The article concludes:

Lorena Gonzalez – who authored AB5 and resigned from the state assembly in January – had no sympathy for the truckers.

“They’ve known for the last two and a half years that it was equally possible that this injunction would not hold,” Gonzalez said. “This is not a shock.”

“The fact that trucking companies will have to abide by basic labor laws in CA takes us one step closer to rebuilding the middle class that was almost deregulated out of existence,” tweeted Gonzalez – who now heads the California Labor Federation.

On Wednesday, California Republican lawmakers implored Democratic Gov. Newsom to either delay the implementation of the law or exempt truckers from AB5.

Laws such as this may be one of many reasons people are leaving California and moving to states where they are free to start their own business and work for themselves.