CALIFORNIA’S GIG ECONOMY IS UNDER ATTACK

A NEW CALIFORNIA law intended to force employers to hire workers as employees rather than treat them as contractors is killing freelance jobs across the Golden State and leaving those contractors in limbo.

Assembly Bill 5 (A.B. 5), which took effect January 1, was drafted in response to Dynamex Operations West Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, a landmark court case that established a three-pronged test to determine whether companies are correctly classifying employees and contractors. That test says that contractors must control their workload, not perform work within the business’s primary scope of operations, and be “customarily engaged” in the occupation.

Under the law, ride-share companies such