California Law Limiting Independent Contractors is Hindering Coronavirus Response, Experts Say
By Collin Anderson, The Washington Free Beacon
Democratic California governor Gavin Newsom on Wednesday rebuffed calls to suspend a controversial labor law that experts say hinders the state’s pandemic response and hurts vulnerable workers. State and federal legislators, small business owners, and more than 150 economists and political scientists have urged Newsom to suspend California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5), the controversial 2019 bill that limited companies’ ability to classify workers as independent contractors. . . .
. . .”If you want to minimize economic damage, AB5 makes no sense,” Pacific Research Institute senior fellow Wayne Winegarden told the Washington Free Beacon. “Whether it’s health care or the broader economy, AB5 is hurting our response to this virus,” he said. . .
. . .”Anything we can do to help people not just earn income for themselves, but provide services for at-risk populations, that’s important, and AB5 is restricting that,” Winegarden said. “I would never have thought of how important translators are to addressing the virus, how important food delivery people are to addressing the virus. The fact that AB5 interferes with that, in ways that aren’t particularly obvious, is a very important cost.” . . .
