Bowing To the Unions Creates A Potential Crisis

Mark Fernwood

By Mark Fernwood, a member of the Contra Costa Republican Central Committee and Danville resident.

To date, implementation of Assembly Bill 5 has been delayed due to lawsuits and, as Gavin has apparently realized, this will be a disaster.

AB 5, Jan 2020, sought to invalidate a long existing principle, a federally accepted principle, of service provides working as “independent contractors.” In this category, the service provider works on their own schedule and pays the costs of providing their service.  In the case of trucking, the providers provide their own trucks and pay all costs such as fuel, maintenance & insurance.  They work on an independent contract basis to provide shipping services.  The contractor must pay their own employment taxes as “self-employed.” In CA there are approximately 70,000 independent trucking operators.

Unions realized that they cannot unionize thousands of self-employed truckers, so they sought to change the CA law to force them to become employees. Unionizing large companies, with thousands of drivers, would create vast union dues income each month.  Democrats know unions are the largest funder of their party, so forcing truckers into union membership is a matter of great party power.

AB 5 has affected far more than just trucking, many industries use contractors.  Journalism uses independent reporters for much of content.  Uber & Lyft will also be huge losers under AB 5.