Joe Backs AR5

For John, BLUF:  AR is a California Assembly bill that kills the Gig Economy, the work where people do individual items of work for a variety of organizations, like writing and selling articles to newspapers or being an independent photographer, working for a number of print outlets.  Or Uber.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Biden Steps In It Big Time as He Weighs In on California’s Job-Killing #AB5 Law, Gets Blasted by Voters

from Red State, by Mr Nick Arama, 7 March 2020.

Here is the lede plus one:

Joe Biden just weighed in on California’s AB5, the job-killing law that went into effect in January and basically killed countless gig-worker jobs all over the state including such jobs as Uber drivers, entertainers, freelance writers and the like.

Biden has come out in favor of the law which millions have been fighting.  This is a concern not just to California but across the country because the House passed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, the PRO Act which has language taken from AB5, so if Biden becomes president and a president like Trump isn’t there to block it, it may become law and put millions more out of work.

It’s an incredibly stupid law that will kill freelance work.  They thought that it would force companies to hire workers rather than pay them as independent contractors.  But that would require another level of expense for most companies, especially those just getting by, because then they would be required to do things like provide health insurance and other benefits that they wouldn’t have to now.  So they wouldn’t do that, they simply wouldn’t hire the workers because they wouldn’t be able to afford to.  Or they wouldn’t be able to hire as many and so all those people will lose their jobs.

People on both sides of the aisle have come out against it because it’s something they understand and it can impact and harm so many people.

True, AR5 and its US House equivalent, are job killers.

On the other hand, our local US Representative, Lori Trahan, is all in favor of it.  She brags about it.

Representative Trahan has been invited to the City Life Show, but after a polite promise by staffers to look Ito it, nothing.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff