https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...GJ0?li=BBnbfcL
That California law, A.B. 5, attempted to force businesses that use contract and freelance workers into hiring them with employee benefits. Instead, it predictably caused freelance work to dry up throughout the state. News conglomerates cut loose their California-based freelancers. A variety of independent contractors, such as truck drivers, professional service providers, and interpreters, suddenly faced financial ruin.
Legislators were forced to carve out multiple exceptions to their ill-considered law in a last-ditch effort to save it, but even that wasn’t enough. In the end, Uber and Lyft, the iconic ride-share applications that the law had originally targeted, came within a hair’s breadth of shutting down all service in California. A judge stepped in and blocked the law just in time. Finally, voters approved a ballot proposition exempting almost everyone from A.B. 5, and although its ill effects linger on for some, this destructive experiment in regulating work appeared to be over.
Unfortunately, Democrats have failed to learn from this mistake. They now want to pass the PRO Act, which, among other things, would codify the same job- and income-destroying rules of A.B. 5 that even Californians couldn’t stand.
The driving force behind this attempt to turn back the clock on employment is Big Labor unions, which cling to this as one more measure designed to delay their total obsolescence. For one thing, they favor the PRO Act because it would eliminate 27 states’ right-to-work laws. This is obviously a nonstarter. Right-to-work laws leave it to workers whether they want to join and pay dues to a union, a choice that should be a fundamental right.
But there is even more at work here because the entire gig economy is at stake.
Union bosses are currently staring into an abyss that opens up into an even larger abyss. Already under pressure due to their growing irrelevance to younger workers — the private sector unionization rate is nearly down to 6% — unions also face the workforce trend away from the traditional employment arrangement altogether, toward the independence and flexibility of the freelance and gig economies.
Independent contracting has become vastly more popular in the last decade, eroding the traditional employment structure in which the federal government’s Depression-era labor laws grant unions special privileges.
In the last decade, smartphone applications have expanded the availability of independent and flexible freelance work to the average person. As a result, 36% of workers in the United States (and 42% of workers under age 34) were already deriving at least some income from the gig economy
as of 2019. They are participating in such activities as ride-sharing, car-sharing, house-sharing, moving, delivery, scooter-charging, online tutoring, professional tasking, craft-making, etc. The list of opportunities is endless and evinces a creativity in the nation’s workforce that has probably been suppressed by the old 9-to-5 for decades.
These trends have probably only become more favorable to freelancing during the pandemic. Indeed, part-time side hustles have likely become full-time lifelines for many families.
According to one study, freelance workers report feeling healthier (68%) and happier (78%) outside of traditional employment. Another study found that more than 50% of them believe themselves more financially secure than they would be with traditional employers, and a third study found that 51% of freelancers say they would not return to regular employment for any amount of money.
Meanwhile,
4 out of 5 large companies are expected to make greater use of freelancers in the coming years.
This is all terrible news for labor unions. If this trend continues, then there will be not only fewer workers interested in unions but also fewer and smaller workplaces for unions to organize.
They hope to nip in the bud the rise of independent small businesses.
This is what the PRO Act is about — discouraging the use of freelancers by forcing them into employment arrangements made obsolete by technology. It is about defeating the purpose of gig work and eradicating from average workers’ lives a source of income the unions find threatening.
Democrats don’t care about the workers — they care about the unions. That’s why Californians, not known for being right-wing ideologues, overwhelmingly voted to repeal their ridiculous law, which loomed like an angel of death over their state’s economy.
Congress would be nuts to pass a job-destroying bill that is too radical even for California.
Tags: Editorials,
California,
Uber,
Lyft,
Contractor,
Jobs,
Economy
Original Author: Washington Examiner
Original Location: Congressional Democrats push a job-killing law even Californians couldn't stand
DPST nomenklatura love to impose EO's for laws the Voters reject - because they know best in their One-Size fits all idiotology for America.
we DPST's will impose this nonsense on All America - because we can and we will do so.
We DPST's are here to rule america - not to serve the American People - only to impose our ideology and control forever.
the attitude is 'fuck the voters' - we hate them and embrace every illegal latin,yemini, pakistani, terrorists, gang members, and drug and human trafficking across our border to vote DPST and keep us in power forever!!!!
Washington Examiner Congressional Democrats push a job-killing law even Californians couldn't stand
