For six years, Teddy earned what she considers good money as a self-employed dancer working in California’s strip clubs. Yes, there were slow nights when wages slumped, says Teddy, who asks to use a pseudonym because not everyone in her life knows she is a sex worker. But the slow nights balanced out with evenings when the club was crammed full of customers. She says she never took home less than California’s minimum wage (currently $15 per hour).
Teddy now refers to this period as the “era before AB 5”—a California state law officially called Assembly Bill 5, which aimed to reclassify self-employed workers as employees. Under this law, more workers are entitled to benefits such as overtime and minimum wage. The law’s supporters, such as US Senator Elizabeth Warren, described the law as an answer to exploitation in the gig economy. But a controversial 2020 public vote meant the rules have not yet been applied to companies such as Uber and Lyft. Instead AB 5 reshaped a raft of other industries, from yoga studios to theater productions and trucking.
The debate about AB 5’s impact on industries beyond the gig economy is in the spotlight again, as the Biden administration explores a new federal law to protect workers from misclassification. Although the US House of Representatives passed a federal version of AB 5—called the “Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act”—back in March 2021, it has since stalled in the Senate. Last week, the Department of Labor proposed a new law...
New Delhi: Motorola has clarified that its recent legal action involving social media accounts and content creators was directed at alleged misinformation around product safety, and not at legitim...