Podcasts on AB5
Forum podcast mostly features a legal expert Dubal and a representative of the National Federation of Independent Business. Chronicle podcast (https://projects.sfchronicle.com/tools/podcasts?show=itsallpolitical&id=30285aa0-d59b-11e9-abc3-b3cbcd4e4475) features a Postmates represenative and union rep.
Both were pretty good. My takeaway here is that AB 5 is just carving out lots of exceptions and special privileges in the wake of the Dynamix decision and isn't really about punishing gig economy companies. Companies are still going to get more exemptions from followup bills (for instance newsboys) and Newsom supposedly still wants to get a deal with Uber etc which supposedly donated lots of money to him.
That's the big criticism from NFIB guy who claims that AB 5 is all about lobbying power and his preferred solution is that if a business has a good faith effort to establish itself as an independent business it should be one. And he brought up a bunch of examples from businesses he represents (photographer who hires a makeup artist, a lorry owner-operator, a band that does a gig at a restaurant).
Dubal disagreed with most of the examples. The band should be an employee if they only operate in one venue (unclear in my mind). And that lorry owner-operators can form "cooperatives"
(band should be employee, lorry owner-operators what about fedex last-mile/law enables cooperatives???? She came off as having a political agenda to me (and her website talks about solidarity and critical race theory). And constantly insisted that the bill wasn't ideological and was carefully considered and most of the exemptions were well thought through and for people who don't need worker protections. The other important thing to point she made is that AB 5 moves enforcement out of labor boards to AGs which is a huge deal. Right now Dynamix according to her is hard to enforce because of arbritation agreements.
Highlights of the Chronicle debate was the Postmates guy explaining why its hard to have gig workers as fulltime employees. Can only pay them at set payperiods, OSHA, I9s etc. Besides the pay periods not super convincing to me.
Union rep POV is that when the economy goes south and these workers are unemployed they're going to need a social safety net and that all companies including ridesharing companies should help pay into that. Gig workers are already directly competing with union workers (Instacart in Safeway). He also talked about how its important that workers feel empowered in their lives. And gig workers don't have a space for worker voices. I'm sympathetic to his pov but I'm not sure if I think AB 5 really helps with that.