The California State Assembly voted Wednesday to pass legislation authored by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) to codify the California Supreme Court’s Dynamex decision and protect workers from being misclassified as independent contractors.
The assembly voted was 59 to 15 in favor of the bill which now moves onto the State Senate.
Under the bill, it will now make it harder for companies to label workers as independent contractors versus employees–a practice used to get around state and federal labor laws.
Since the bill expands the Dynamex Supreme Court Decision, busineses now use the “ABC” test to figure out if a worker is an employee or contractor:
(A) that the worker 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; and
(B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and
(C) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed.
For companies that provided “gig” jobs, such as Uber, Postmates and others, it would make it difficult for them to classify workers as “contractors”. By calling them employees, they now would have to pay certain taxes, benefits, overtime, or minimum wages.
Assemblywoman Gonzalez released the following statement after the vote:
“Big businesses shouldn’t be able to pass their costs onto taxpayers while depriving workers of the labor law protections they are rightfully entitled to. This legislation is an important work-in-progress to provide certainty to California’s businesses, provide protections for California’s workers and guard the taxpayers from subsidizing unscrupulous corporations.”
Under Assembly Bill 5:
How they voted
Date | Result | Location | Ayes | Noes | NVR | Motion |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
05/29/19 | (PASS) | Assembly Floor | 59 | 15 | 6 | AB 5 Gonzalez Assembly Third Reading |
Ayes: Aguiar-Curry, Arambula, Bauer-Kahan, Berman, Bloom, Boerner Horvath, Bonta, Burke, Calderon, Carrillo, Cervantes, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooper, Daly, Diep, Eggman, Frazier, Friedman, Gabriel, Cristina Garcia, Gipson, Gloria, Gonzalez, Grayson, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kalra, Kamlager-Dove, Levine, Limón, Low, Maienschein, McCarty, Medina, Mullin, Muratsuchi, Nazarian, O’Donnell, Petrie-Norris, Quirk, Quirk-Silva, Ramos, Reyes, Luz Rivas, Robert Rivas, Rodriguez, Blanca Rubio, Salas, Santiago, Smith, Mark Stone, Ting, Weber, Wicks, Wood, Rendon | ||||||
Noes: Bigelow, Brough, Chen, Choi, Dahle, Fong, Gallagher, Gray, Kiley, Lackey, Melendez, Obernolte, Patterson, Voepel, Waldron | ||||||
No Votes Recorded: Cooley, Cunningham, Flora, Eduardo Garcia, Mathis, Mayes |