More California jobs to be exempted from landmark labor law under bills heading to Newsom

The California Legislature on Monday sent two bills to Gov. Gavin Newsom that would allow flexibility in a state labor law for certain industries to hire independent contractors instead of employees while Democrats shot down late appeals from Republicans to exempt even more careers.

One proposal, Assembly Bill 2257, allows more leeway for youth sports coaches, artists, interpreters, freelance writers, appraisers, insurance field representatives and a range of people in the music industry to work as independent contractors.

That bill had the support of Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, who wrote Assembly Bill 5, the 2019 California law that requires businesses to give employment benefits to more workers.

Separately, lawmakers passed a carve-out for newspaper carriers. That proposal, Assembly Bill 323, would give newspapers one more year to comply with the law. A number of publishers argued the increased costs of the new labor law would put smaller newspapers serving remote or ethnic communities out of business.

“I am hopeful Gov. Newsom will sign AB 323 into law because he values the importance of bringing news to our citizens in California,” said Assemblywoman Blanca Rubio, D-Baldwin Park, in a statement.

AB 5 restricts when businesses can label workers as independent contractors rather than employees entitled to benefits such as overtime and sick leave. It codified a 2018 California Supreme Court ruling that also restricted employers’ ability to deny benefits to workers.

The law is being challenged in court by an association of truck drivers, as well as by gig economy giants Uber and Postmates. Uber, Lyft and DoorDash also are behind a ballot initiative, Proposition 22, that would exempt app-based drivers from the law.

Several Republicans said the Democratic-backed bills the Legislature sent to Newsom would not exempt enough professions from the labor law. They contend the new law is putting people out of work.

“I am very disappointed that the majority party didn’t accept the amendments that would have made this bill tremendously better,” said Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield. “This bill does move the needle a little bit and I guess a little bit is better than nothing at all.”

Sen. Brian Jones, R-Santee, called for an amendment to the bill to include tattoo artists.

“While I do agree that the definition of fine artists should now cover them, I want to make sure that there is no room for error and I asked that we would add them by name to this bill,” he said.

Sen. Melissa Melendez, R-Lake Elsinore, said, “I will be supporting the bill today, but the fact that we have had so many bills introduced to amend the original bill should tell everyone that there is something terribly wrong with this bill. We have all had people write to us, call us in tears because now they do not have a job. And it did not have to be this way.”

Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson said AB 2257 responds to concerns and “makes significant headway toward addressing the fundamental question of who is an employee and who is an independent contractor.”

This story was originally published August 31, 2020 at 6:14 PM.