Free the Freelancers - YouTube

Workers of the world unite—to protect your freedom.

You have nothing to lose, but your jobs...

Which is exactly what is happening in California and threatening to spread to the rest of the country.

Just what we need, right? 

Fewer jobs and fewer people employed. 

Why is this happening?

Exhibit A:

Assembly Bill 5 or AB5, as it’s commonly known,

passed by the California legislature in September  of 2019. AB5 was authored by a former union boss,  

Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez. The stated goal was  to protect freelance workers from employers taking  

advantage of them. Instead it has pushed thousands  of these workers into the unemployment line. 

Here’s why:

Workers in the United States are  classified as either employees  

or independent contractors,  sometimes known as freelancers. 

Independent contractors are self-employed and  contract their labor to one or more firms.  

The upsides to this arrangement are clear:   Freelancers decide whom they work for,  

when, where, and how. They are their own boss. 

So, then, what are employees?

Employees typically work for one employer.  In exchange, they are entitled to workplace  

benefits and protections that independent  contractors are not—such as healthcare,  

time off, minimum wage,  and unemployment insurance.

We don’t have to agree which  kind of employment is better.   

Different people have different  preferences. It’s called choice.

But some people—specifically, unions and  progressive politicians—are anti-choice. 

AB5’s author Assemblywomen Gonzalez  

disdains freelance work. “These  were never good jobs,” she says. 

Oh really?

She might want to talk to some of  the 2 million Californians or the  

57 million Americans who freelance. 46%  of those workers happen to be women.  

Of course, the AB5 supporters  would say the law is needed  

because companies, especially gig  economy firms such as Uber and Lyft,  

willfully misclassify workers as  freelancers to avoid providing benefits.

Why not ask the workers themselves?

Well, pollsters have. 

According to a McKinsey study, nearly 80%  of gig workers say they’re happier than  

those working traditional jobs. They love their  freedom and also earn a good living. In fact,  

over 17 million freelancers quit  their traditional job to freelance  

and two out of three of them say  they earn more now than before.  

For the majority, their new incomes outpaced  their previous salary within just one year. 

Half of the freelancers say they would not take a traditional  job no matter how much they were offered. 

And, in a survey of female gig workers,  nearly two out of three women who have a  

side job prefer being independent  contractors over being employees.

AB5 has already done damage. It has wiped out  the livelihoods of many independent contractors  

and will limit new opportunities in the future.

Freelance writers and journalists have been  especially hurt. The law includes a provision  

making it illegal for them to produce more than 35  pieces of content in a year for a single company.

Left-leaning Vox Media, hailed the bill’s  passage as “a victory for workers everywhere”  

then turned around and laid off 200 freelance  writers rather than make them full-time employees.

The ride-sharing industry estimates that AB5  will increase their labor costs by 20–30%.  

As a result, rideshare companies may schedule  drivers in advance and reduce the number of  

drivers during slow hours or in less busy markets.  For customers this means longer wait times,  

fewer available rides, and higher prices.  For drivers it means reduced flexibility  

and reduced income. It may also  kill hundreds of thousands of jobs. 

From its inception, AB5 was fundamentally flawed.  Dozens of industries and trade groups lobbied for  

and won carve-outs before the bill was  passed to ensure it didn’t affect them.  

But special carve-outs are not the way to  fix bad policy. That approach only rewards  

those who can afford to pay for special  treatment and punishes those who can’t. 

Legislative attempts to overturn AB5  have failed. Not surprising given the  

influence the unions have over California  politics. Court challenges have been filed  

and are ongoing. But legal action takes  time, and hardships are immediate.

This would all be bad enough if  it were just a California problem,  

but New Jersey, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin,  and Oregon are all considering AB5-style  

legislation.

Although AB5 is positioned as progressive  policy, there’s nothing progressive about  

what it does. It’s backward, not forward-looking. Flexibility, freedom, and opportunity  

is the bright future of the American worker—unless bad policies like AB5 get in the way.

I’m Patrice Onwuka, senior policy analyst at the  Independent Women’s Forum, for Prager University.