California Assembly Bill 5, which has been upheld in a recent court ruling, literally bans the right of an individual to work for themself according to California Assemblyman Kevin Kiley (R). The law will ban hundreds of different professions and especially the hundreds of thousands of jobs created by the gig economy over the last decade.
Here is how California Assemblyman Kevin Kiley describes the laws impact:
This law, California Assembly Bill 5, has made it impractical for Uber and Lyft to operate here. Everyone saw this coming. We’ve known this whole year that this law has been devastating for people. It’s actually devastating not just for Uber and Lyft but for hundreds of professions in California.
This law, AB-5, has basically banned being an independent contractor or an independent worker. It says you have to be in the employ of someone else. They are shutting down Uber and Lyft and that will leave 100,000 of their drivers out of work. We have millions of Californians who also rely on their services. It’s going to be yet another blow to our economy which is already doing about as bad as any state in the country.