A Ban on Freelance Work
The Labor Department just imposed 300 pages of new regulations to reclassify many individual contractors as payroll employees. CNBC claims this could help freelancers "recover lost wages." That's just nonsense.
The new rules will make it harder for some freelancers to support a family. My new video shows how it will also make it harder for them to do what they want to do. I know this because I saw what happened in California. Four years ago, unions got Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez to push through a new law that reclassified gig workers. They were told they'd get higher wages, overtime and other benefits. Clueless media liked that. Vox called the law "a big win for workers everywhere." Ha! A few months later, Vox media layed off hundreds of freelancers.
"They expected that all these companies were going to reclassify independent contractors as employees," freelance musician Ari Herstand told me. "In reality, they're just letting them go!"
Herstand was dismayed to learn that when he wants other musicians to join him, he could no longer just write them a check.
"I have to put that drummer on payroll, W2 him, get workers' comp insurance, unemployment insurance, payroll taxes!" he complains. "I have to hire a payroll company."
California's anti-freelance law was supposed to protect "abused" Uber and Lyft drivers.
But many like the flexibility of being independent. "I don't want a boss to tell me when or where to drive!" One told us.
But union-funded politicians insist they know better.
Gonzalez said, "When you have to take a side job or a third or fourth gig, that's not flexibility; that's feudalism!"
What followed was what usually happens when politicians pass bad laws. Politically connected people pay lawyers and lobbiests to exempt them. Truck drivers got an exemption from California's new law. So did writers, photojournalists, graphic designers, illustrators, musicians (like Herstand) and more than a hundred other professions.
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