Biden endorses the anti-gig law that will destroy 57 million jobs
I’ve been railing against this fascist concept for several years, ever since California imposed it on its citizens and NY and NJ pols initiated the same
With the rise of gig economy jobs such as driving for Uber and other forms of independent work enabled by the digital era, more than 57 million Americans now work as freelancers in some capacity. But President Biden just endorsed a radical labor law that endangers their livelihood.
House Democrats recently reintroduced the PRO Act, which, among many sweeping reforms, would make many commonplace forms of independent contractor (freelance) arrangements illegal. It’s based on a California law that was so dysfunctional even voters in the very blue state voted to change it.
“The Administration strongly encourages the House to pass [the PRO Act] and looks forward to working with the Congress to enact this critical legislation that safeguards workers’ rights to organize and bargain collectively,” the White House said in a statement on Monday. “The PRO Act will strengthen our democracy and advance dignity in the workplace.”
It purports to stop workers from being “misclassified” as freelancers in order to force companies to hire them full-time. But the PRO Act’s redefinition of freelance worker is so narrow that a worker can only provide a company with a freelance service that is outside its normal purview. For example, Uber is a driving company. It couldn't hire drivers as freelancers, but it could potentially hire a janitor as a freelancer.
Essentially, flexible freelance jobs such as Uber drivers or part-time newspaper columnists would be illegal in their current forms. (My writing as a regular contributor for the Washington Examiner would be unlawful).
Some people might get hired on full-time as a result, but many more would lose work altogether — and many freelancers don’t want to be full-time employees. It’s often the flexible schedule and ad hoc arrangement that draws stay-at-home mothers to freelance writing or after-hours workers to their Uber side hustle.
“More than 70% of 1099-M gig workers say they are working independently by their own choice, not because they can’t find a 9-to-5 job,” Forbes reports.
Freelancing can pay well, too. According to a 2019 survey, a whopping 40% of gig economy workers earn more than $100,000 annually, while another 35.7% make from $50,000 to $100,000. And, of course, being your own boss, choosing which projects to accept, and having a flexible schedule are pretty darn attractive perks.
The PRO Act would take all this away from millions of independent contractors, whom liberal elites have declared “misclassified” or “exploited.” (Because they know better than you.)
Biden claims this is a pro-labor reform, but polling consistently shows that actual freelancers don’t support or want the PRO Act. Ironically, representatives of almost every worker group lobbied hard for exemptions from this “pro-labor” law when it passed in California.
Uber nearly had to shut down operations in the Golden State altogether. Freelance journalists and writers based in California were laid off by the hundreds. Florists, musicians, translators, and countless other kinds of workers were hurt by the regulatory crackdown — with almost no one actually benefiting from it.
Why would we ever want to bring this kind of dysfunction nationwide?
[snip]
Millions of workers would lose the flexibility that made gig work attractive in the first place. The jobs that still did exist at these companies would quickly be forced to become the kind of 9-to-5 scheduled work many freelance workers intentionally sought to avoid.
The idea is to put more people on the dole and thus dependent upon and under the control of the government, force people back into cubicles at 9-5 jobs, and enrich the unions. Will former Uber customers really return to conventional taxi service and bring about the creation of thousands of new taxi driver/union-dues-paying workers? That’s the idea, but Uber arose in response to a dying, obsolete system, it didn’t cause it. And again, Uber is just the tip of the iceberg of the people targeted by the Democrats.
UPDATE: The House passed the law last night.
But not to worry — Lorena Gonzoles, the California legislator behind AB5, the model for this new nation-wide law, asked about the thousands of freelancers losing the9r livelihood, replied, “those were never good jobs to begin with”. As a lawyer who has sucked at the public teat her entire career, she would know.
Wait – There’s more!
A Democratic freelance writer penned an opinion piece in NBC News about the dangers of the bill (emphasis mine):
Right now, my party is pushing a bill called the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, or the PRO Act, in an ostensible bid to help gig workers exploited by employers who won't give them health care coverage and other benefits. But because of a problematic clause in the bill, it's far more con than pro for me. The bill could end my ability to be my own boss, set my own hours and otherwise live the American worker's dream.
The problem with the measure, which is being voted on by the House on Tuesday, is its way of determining who's considered an employee. Instead of using the IRS standard, which can tell the difference between an independent contractor and an employee, it uses a far narrower standard from the 1930s — called the ABC test— that can't.
According to the ABC test, businesses need to treat someone like me as an employee — with all the rights and benefits that entails — even if I'm writing only a single story for them. Ditto for all types of creatives who support themselves through gigs, like actors, artists and musicians. How many companies will continue to use our services under these circumstances? It's simply not feasible.
