As you all are aware, the ECA rarely gets involved in State Politics. An exception has come up and our ECA Board of Directors swiftly and decisively voted on 6-18-19 to direct “yours truly” to take a position on AB5 which has passed through the Assembly and currently is awaiting Committee comments before going to the California State Senate presumably in August for passage.
I have spoken to several staffers for our Senators in this area, and their comments were to educate our Membership immediately on this Bill, and if folks are so inclined, submit a letter or an email to our Senators to establish a position on this Bill. I will be happy to supply folks with a “sample letter” and the appropriate email addresses to send your opinion in.
Why is this important?
Because the Senators actually have their staff review the position letters and will modify and adjust their positions and voting on the Bill if enough constituents write in!
I will be writing in on the ECA’s Official Position on this Bill. Before I tell you what our position is, here is some information on what this “game changing” AB5 is all about—
Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) is a California Assembly Bill that, should it pass as currently written, puts into State Code the presumption that a worker is an employee UNLESS THE HIRING ENTITY SATISFIES A 3-FACTOR TEST. This AB5 currently exempts from the test certain insurance and real estate occupations, physicians, securities broker-dealer, direct salespersons, hair stylists and barbers, and those performing work under a contract for professional services, as specified.
The 3-Factor test is:
a) The person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact.
b) The person performs work that is outside the usual course of business of the hiring entity’s business
c) The person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.
The amended Bill can be read by clicking on this link complete with the amendments highlighted.
I also would like to include the analysis supplied to me from Logan Pitts, who is Senator Bill Dodd’s Field Representative in the Santa Rosa office. Here is the analysis by Logan, click here.
The amendments and “carve outs” the Assembly got included on this AB5 Bill DO NOT SOLVE OUR PROBLEM WITH TRUCK DRIVERS!
The Bill would require that trucking firms like V Dolan, R & S, Kadon, Valdivia, Toby’s and others, that regularly employ independent truck drivers (they do not force them to be independent, these independent truck drivers want to be independent-they have bought their own trucks and established a rate of charge that they do not wish to have changed), to somehow terminate their independent truck drivers and put all truck drivers on their payroll as employees. You might be thinking the same question I am-WHAT TO THOSE INDEPENDENTS DO WITH THEIR $100,000 PLUS TRUCKS THAT THEY OWN? Uh-the authors of AB5 do not seem to have that question answered in their “position” statements you can read in the attached analysis above.
This is terribly important folks. I have attached a sample letter for you to download if you choose to write your Senator. Obviously, you should change some of the wording to personalize it to your own company.
PLEASE TAKE ACTION!
Letters must go in within 3 weeks of today to have maximum impact on the outcome of this AB5!
That’s All Folks
John
