The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to consider whether California's controversial worker classification law should be blocked by a federal law that regulates the trucking industry.

The court's action on June 30 to deny review of the California Trucking Association's challenge of Assembly Bill (AB 5) will have significant reverberations throughout the state's trucking industry.

Brief Refresher on AB 5

The California legislature enacted AB 5 in September 2019, codifying the state Supreme Court's landmark Dynamex decision. This law established the "ABC" test used to determine worker classification. Under this strict test, workers in California are presumed to be employees. Businesses have a high burden to overcome this presumption and demonstrate that a worker is an independent contractor by proving all three prongs of the test:

• The worker is free from control and direction in the performance of services.
• The worker is performing work outside the usual course of the business of the hiring company.
• The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business.
  

Certain occupations, such as licensed physicians, surgeons, dentists, psychologists, veterinarians, accountants, securities broker-dealers, and real estate licensees, are specifically exempted. However, truck drivers were not included in the list, which caused havoc in the industry for the past three years.

Not long after the Dynamex decision, the California Trucking...

Read Full Story: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-u...