California law, AB5 is about to make the already screwed up supply law problems get even worse. This draconian law will force independent truckers out of the workforce. Independent workers used to be considered independent contractors. Under this law, even though there are carve out for some industries to keep independent contractors, truckers will not be exempt. This means that truckers will be forced to be considered “employees” and companies wouldn’t want to pay out additional benefits to employees that they wouldn’t for independent contractors. Of course communist Newsom exempted Uber, Lyft, and Postmates.
This law was actually passed in 2019, and has been on hold because of a court injunction. There are reports that the injunction could soon be lifted. If that’s the case, get ready for shortages on basically everything.
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra called on U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez to reverse the injunction.
“The district court also abused its discretion in assessing the remaining preliminary injunction factors, erroneously concluding that Plaintiffs established irreparable harm despite the fact that they waited over 19 months to seek injunctive relief, and giving short-shrift to the State’s interest in addressing misclassification of state employees,” Becerra stated in March 2020. “This Court should reverse.”
On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of the California truckers battling against AB5.
“This ruling really took everybody off-guard, especially at the speed that they kicked this back and essentially made it law,” Paul Brashier – vice president of a commercial transport company – told CBS News.
Now, the truckers must be employees of trucking companies and not independent contractors in order to be able to work in California.
However, there seems to be confusion on how the law will be enforced.