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The Gig Law Causing Chaos in California Strip Clubs:
Teddy earned what she considers good money as a self-employed dancer working in California's strip clubs. Yes, there were slow nights when wages slumped, says Teddy, who asks to use a pseudonym because not everyone in her life knows she is a sex worker. But the slow nights balanced out with evenings when the club was crammed full of customers. She says on average she never took home less than California's minimum wage (currently $15 per hour).
Teddy now refers to this period as the "era before AB 5"—a California state law officially called Assembly Bill 5, which aimed to reclassify self-employed workers as employees. Under this law, more workers are entitled to benefits such as overtime and minimum wage. The law's supporters, such as US Senator Elizabeth Warren, described the law as an answer to exploitation in the gig economy. But a controversial 2020 public vote meant the rules have not yet been applied to companies such as Uber and Lyft. Instead AB 5 reshaped a raft of other industries, from yoga studios to theater productions and trucking.
The debate about AB 5's impact on industries beyond the gig economy is in the spotlight again, as the Biden administration explores a new federal law to protect workers from misclassification. Although the US House of Representatives passed a federal version of AB 5—called the "Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act"—back in March 2021, it has since stalled in the Senate. Last week, the Department of Labor proposed a new law designed to turn more self-employed Americans into employees entitled to the minimum wage.
"The Department of Labor's proposal does not go nearly as far as AB 5," says Keith Cunningham-Parmeter, a law professor at Willamette University in Oregon who studies the impact of gig work regulation on offline workers. "AB 5 created a presumption that most workers hired by firms were employees," he says, while the Department of Labor's new rule effectively creates a test to be used in court to understand if a worker should be considered an employee by considering a series of factors, including how much control they have over their earnings and the way they do their jobs.
Yet the unintended impact that AB 5 is having on strip clubs serves as a warning to policymakers who focus too much on misclassification in the gig economy. Since AB 5, that trade has experienced some of the most dramatic changes in the state. Dancers are divided about whether they want to become employees. But there is a growing consensus that strip clubs' interpretation of the law has resulted in dancers' pay being slashed and their jobs becoming more precarious. Although there are similarities between dancers and gig workers, dancers also believe there are important differences that mean they deserve tailored legislation. They say they do not want to be regulated like gig workers.
"AB 5 has been implemented in an absolutely horrific way throughout clubs in California, in ways that pushed a lot of people out of the industry and made it a way less lucrative and way less viable job than it was before," says Teddy, who is now a member of the activist group Strippers United. "AB 5 was meant to protect gig workers and it just happened to catch dancers in a technicality."
[...] Workers and researchers warn the gig economy is warping the debate about employee status, meaning that the problems faced by independent contractors in different industries are being lumped together. "Everyone talks about these bills as gig worker bills. But when you look at them, they apply to workers across industries, digital and analog," says Cunningham-Parmeter. "Even today, in 2022, the vast majority of low wage workers are not gig workers."
Other industries are divided about whether AB 5 had a positive impact on self-employed workers. Writers and typists are among those who have campaigned to repeal the law, claiming it hurts their ability to find work. "Due to California law AB 5, SpeakWrite cannot accept applications from California residents," says one job advert posted by transcription service SpeakWrite. Truckers have also complained about AB 5's changes. In July 2022, a convoy of truckers blockaded the port Port of Oakland to protest AB 5, arguing their new status as employees meant they have less flexibility in when and how they work.
Before AB 5, California employment officials estimated that companies misclassified up to 500,000 workers as independent contractors, says Cunningham-Parmeter. He believes the introduction of minimum wage and overtime protection was a positive development for the vast majority, even if some companies abuse the spirit of the new law.
"Studies indicate that companies can save up to 30 percent of payroll and labor costs by misclassifying their workers as independent contractors," he says. "Therefore, it should come as no surprise that when some businesses, like strip clubs, were forced to finally treat their workers as employees, many such firms passed those new costs on to workers in the form of reduced wages or hours."
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @03:04AM
https://www.lp.org/libertarian-party-statement-on-21-year-anniversary-of-afghanistan-invasion/ [lp.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Friday October 21 2022, @03:22AM
I think that bears thinking about. When it was put to a vote, Californian voters dumped the law. Looking at the Biden situation, it looks like reversing some Trump era interpretation. If they then overshoot and start banning gig work, it's going to be a repeat of the AB 5 mess.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @05:07AM (9 children)
He should have got his ties from Italy.
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buddump bump
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @12:37PM (8 children)
It's almost like it's a bad idea to choose a president or prime minister whose last name begins with the letters T - R - U.
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Didn't one of them nuke Japan?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday October 21 2022, @01:55PM (1 child)
Where's the bad idea in that? You care to explain? Or is this a whataboutism gratuitously dropped to excuse why Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons in a vastly less dire situation?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @02:38PM
Truman's truculence truly produced truce.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @02:03PM (5 children)
President Tard is the mostest popular president evar. Everything is looking up; $5 gas, $5 bacon, 8% inflation.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @02:42PM (4 children)
Did Biden shoot your dog, or what? You are such a transparent shill.
As if any one man were to blame for the meandering of our economy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 21 2022, @07:48PM (3 children)
^ Spotted the Biden voter.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bZAU3Z3exek [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2022, @12:10AM (2 children)
Just because someone is not insane, that does not mean they are a Biden voter. Although, the correlation is quite high.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 22 2022, @03:58AM (1 child)
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22 2022, @12:13PM
Forgot to check the AC box for your shitposting. People love when your blatant republican nature sneaks through your behavioral filters.