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Vox Media to cut hundreds of freelance jobs ahead of California's AB5
- rvz 7y agoOh dear, well perhaps it's time to learn to cod.
- ralusek 7y agoYour snarky comment will probably not do to well on a site that services thousands of people who actually just learned to code and vastly improved their circumstances.
- kyleblarson 7y agowoops: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/28/18638480/gig-economy-workers-wellbeing-survey https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/5/28/18638480/g...
- makomk 7y agoEven more relevant article: https://www.vox.com/2019/9/11/20851034/california-ab-5-workers-labor-unions https://www.vox.com/2019/9/11/20851034/california-ab-5-worke... Vox aren't alone in this, of course; a whole bunch of journalists across a swathe of publications acted as cheerleaders for this law right up until the point they realised it'd affect them and not just other freelance workers.
- jlmorton 7y agoResponse from the author: https://twitter.com/AlexiaCampbell/status/1206967416946905088 https://twitter.com/AlexiaCampbell/status/120696741694690508...
- istjohn 7y agoI'd like to think the journalists at Vox are able to express their views without interference from ownership or business administrators. In which case, it's not surprising that there are contradictions.
- sdinsn 7y agoWas the author of that article a freelance writer?
- metalliqaz 7y ago“In 2020, we will move California’s team blogs from our established system with hundreds of contractors to a new one run by a team of new SB Nation employees.” So in other words, the headline could be "California's AB5 creates better jobs at Vox Media"
- munk-a 7y agoBetter jobs, sure... but weaker Q1 profits are expected and that's just unacceptable! /s
- chance_state 7y agoDo we know what the net gain/loss of jobs will be? Creating a handful of better jobs while firing "hundreds" might not be a good trade-off.
- AmericanChopper 7y agoCreating more restrictive employment regulations will result in job losses 100% of the time. Something that is very arrogantly dismissed by people who promote them. Also the idea that these jobs are better comes with its own set of problems. If you had one of the jobs that was outlawed by these regulations, you now possibly have no job at all. It’s self evident that anybody who had one of these jobs would prefer it to having no job at all. It also carries the not-at-all-self-evident assumption that anybody working one of these jobs would prefer to have a full time employment contract. I’m a contractor, I like being a contractor, if I lived in California I would have just had my livelihood taken away from me by the government, who would say they’re doing it for my own good.
- Goronmon 7y agoIs there ever a situation where its preferable to have shitty jobs (shitty meaning no healthcare and no minimum wage protections in this example) regardless of the number?
- Matticus_Rex 7y agoUh, yeah. When I was younger I got to choose between working as a contractor with no health care or not working, and I happily chose working as a contractor. Once I found something better, I voted with my feet and went there, but I don't appreciate legislatures "looking out for me" by reducing my options.
- lpolovets 7y agoLaws like this usually have a ton of (undesirable) unintended side effects. A relevant tweet from a few days ago: https://twitter.com/EricBoehm87/status/1206728178728865795 https://twitter.com/EricBoehm87/status/1206728178728865795
- Retric 7y agoVox is replacing contractors with employees, that seems to be the direct intent.
- Matticus_Rex 7y agoA lot of contractors with a few employees, raising unemployment.
- Someone1234 7y agoBut improving employment for those that remain. There's something to be said for lower levels of stable employment relative to higher levels of unstable. For example unstable employees would struggle to buy a house, car, and lack things like health insurance.
- Matticus_Rex 7y agoAs opposed to unemployed people who get those things easily?
- Someone1234 7y agoAs opposed to the thing I said it was opposed to: Stable employment.
- Matticus_Rex 7y ago... for a few, and unemployment for more. I'm calling out the quiet part. It's easy to say "This will lead to better jobs available." It's not as easy (but should be required) to say "... but not for everyone, and a bunch of people will be completely out of work."
- keenmaster 7y agoIn my opinion, AB5 went too far. I do not believe we should interfere with the market when it's working. It's like burning a pile of cash. Whatever you think about gig economy companies, they have created flexible work that has served as a lifeline and supplemental income for tens of thousands of people across America. It feels like a step backwards to mandate that these people have bosses and strict schedules (that's the second order effect of AB5). That's to say nothing of the immense consumer surplus generated by a workforce that fluctuates with demand. It is much better to increase our social safety net with Medicare for All than to mandate that companies like Uber provide health insurance.
- larnmar 7y agoA better idea would be to quit linking health insurance to employment. Ban employer-provided health insurance and let everyone buy their own (reasonably regulated) health insurance as individuals. The link between employment and health insurance is, from my perspective as an external observer, America’s worst idea.
- Matticus_Rex 7y agoI don't know about "worst," but it's up there.
- fallous 7y agoAnd that link was the result of government wage and price controls during WW2.
- usaar333 7y agoIsn't this what ACA does? Employers just happen to offer health insurance as a benefit, but I'm not sure why it needs to be banned.
- sp332 7y agoACA plans can be subsidized, but as I understand it, if your employer offers a qualifying plan, then you are not eligible for the subsidy if you buy one from the marketplace instead.
- jandrese 7y agoIf an industry can only exist if it exploits its workers and leaves them destitute then that isn't an industry we should be celebrating. A lot of people are calling this unintended consequences, but this seems like one of the goals of the law. It sucks for the workers that they'll have to find new jobs, but at least their new jobs (if they can find them) are guaranteed to be less abusive.
- corebit 7y agoIf those jobs existed then workers would already have found them.
- Retric 7y agoThese jobs do exist, their simply done by ‘contractors’. When every stripper is classified as a contractor, if they state says they must use employees then the strip joint is going to close or swap paper work. That’s the only option, they can simply drop all contractors without any other change.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoRight! This is twisting Capitals arm to pay the “true” cost of the labor it needs. ‘Cause if they didn’t need it, there wouldn’t have been contractors doing the job in the first place. I am extremely satisfied to see labor rights advocacy making a comeback.
- bpt3 7y agoHow is this "true" cost calculated?
- toomuchtodo 7y agoFully loaded cost of employees vs pushing the costs onto the “contractor”.
- subsaharancoder 7y agoPoorly crafted legislation primarily driven by unions that want new members = more union dues and designed to punish gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft, is now coming back to destroy the same people it was meant to protect. CA continues to show that it is the most business hostile state as it attempts to legislate every business into extinction. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind!!
- gdulli 7y agoYou're commenting on a site with a premise of near-masturbatory perception of an industry primarily located in California as the only relevant part of our economy.
- heymartinadams 7y agoOf course! This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. As long as people overlook the vast wealth that’s right in front of us (or rather, underneath us — more on that below), there will always be a struggle between labour and capital. 1. Labour struggles to keep wage increases in lockstep with the cost of living. 2. Cost of living increases are primarily driven by rent increases (this includes property values, which contain capitalized rents). 3. The struggle between labour and capital remains as long as those rent increases are privatized and only flow into the hands of a few, namely property owners and banks that finance property ownership. Once you truly start sharing rents, this binary struggle will disappear. Marx had it wrong, Henry George got it right. See: unitism.com
- larnmar 7y agoHow does this law affect the many HN readers who have side “consulting” gigs?
- holler 7y agomoved out of california to a tax-friendly state
- buboard 7y agobut doesnt it still affect you if you are consulting a california company?
- holler 7y agoI guess maybe if I consulted with a CA company? Or rather, maybe they would choose not to offer consulting under the new rules? Seems like an overreach, and ironic that it was targeting the very companies that started in CA and disrupted the world (uber/lyft/airbnb etc)
- antielectronite 7y agoI found these tweets to be very informative: https://twitter.com/okhanSTR/status/1207059687041982464 https://twitter.com/okhanSTR/status/1207059687041982464 He's a lawyer who moonlights as a writer for SactownRoyalty, a Sacramento Kings fan blog that is basically being shut down by SBNation. One interesting point he makes is that it's unsurprising that the Vox Union hasn't said anything about these hundreds of people losing work in favor of a dozen or so full time workers. It's not in their best interest to let people do part-time as a hobby what they do for their careers full-time.
- dmix 7y agoUnions always benefit the few lucky ones to get the work and the hiring process gets riddled with nepotism and friends/family of current union workers. It was an open secret in the small town I grew up in that you had to know people in the unions to get a job and multi-generational workers from families was the standard. It does give workers plenty of power but the exclusionary nature of it is rarely talked about. I remember reading a history of unions about how they originally started by white working class groups who wanted to prevent new black migrant workers from taking their jobs and working at a lower rate than them. https://www.jstor.org/stable/30030646 https://www.jstor.org/stable/30030646 It's too bad the focus couldn't have been giving freelance workers more rights and protections while still giving them flexibility work-wise. The fact freelance and part time workers are going to get burned by this shift isn't really surprising. People seem to want to force either/all in order to push more unions instead of a more mixed economic approach.
- reaperducer 7y agoUnions work for the benefit of union members. Not even remotely surprising, and I'm not even a big union guy.
- AnthonyMouse 7y agoIt's not surprising, but the narrative they prefer is that they're working for the benefit of union members against capital, not against hardworking independent contractors who are already making less money than them.
- 40acres 7y agoThere is a huge problem with legislating in this country. Studies have shown that on the state level a large portion of laws passed are identical to model legislation proposed by think tanks and advocacy groups. The 2017 tax bill was massive in regards to page length but had no debate and was passed without enough time for legislators to seriously read it and provide amendments. The same issue is happening with USMCA. Journalists are pissed on Twitter and for good reason, but I hope the lesson here is that shotgun legislation is not the way to write bills. It's trendy to complain about how long it takes to get bills passed but this is the result of going too far in the other direction.
- legitster 7y agoFlexible labor markets are clearly a good thing for society. People changing jobs and doing things part time is a better way to find good jobs and do things they enjoy. There is nothing magical about a 35 hour a week job, or sticking with the same corporation all day every day. One of the reasons I think we should push for decent social safety nets is specifically to free people up from being locked into arbitrary jobs. It is insane how often people put off changing careers or jobs because they are locked into a benefits plan. Laws like this have their heart in the right place, but are doing the easier, worse thing.
- pergadad 7y agoThis approach of changing jobs every 1-2-3 years seems really strange from a European perspective. Yes when you're young, but do you want to continue that for life? No one is stopping you from quitting or changing jobs - but it's in everyone's interest to have a long-term relationship. The employer will treat their employees better and ensure they are happy and healthy, get regularly trained, etc and at the same time doesn't have to be constantly worried of employees gettint poached, training new staff, losing institutional knowledge, etc. And the worker knows that they have safety, can plan housing and family, etc. It still doesn't need to be rigid (say forcing some to employ/remain employed), but there's no reason why you'd really need to be able to fire someone from one day to the next as seems to be the expectation in the US.
- reaperducer 7y agoSo Vox Media is going to have to treat freelancers like all other media outlets have treated freelancers for the last hundred years. Cry me a river, disruptor.
- mrkstu 7y agoWell, actually, they'll limit the CA freelancers to under 35 articles a year and move the work to non-CA freelancers. Other companies are letting their CA workers go completely. The point is that this isn't particularly hurting Vox, just those CA residents who are doing contracting work that can easily be moved to other workers elsewhere.
- buboard 7y agodoesnt this affect freelancing programmers and consultants as well?
- faet 7y ago>This law contains exemptions for lawyers, dentists, physicians, vets, psychologists, architects, private investigators, accountants, direct sales salesperson (telemarketer), fishermen, podiatrist, graphic design artist, travel agent, grant writer, “Fine Artist” (does not include musicians), Human Resources administrator, marketing, photographer, freelance writers/cartoonist/editor (limited to 35 items per year per publication), esthetician, manicurist, barber, cosmetologist, electrologist, annnnd repo men.
- cies 7y ago> cut [...] freelance jobs Is that not a contradiction in terminus? You dont "cut jobs" when you terminate contracts with other businesses, that's what reducing the amount of freelancers comes down to.
- Reedx 7y ago"I just lost my ability to earn a living because of California Assembly Bill No. 5. My freelance brokerage company says they have to let California authors go. Almost a decade of hard work gone in an instant. I can't stop crying. Right before Xmas." https://twitter.com/ms_andiloveall/status/1206705811042422785 https://twitter.com/ms_andiloveall/status/120670581104242278...
- rchaud 7y ago> Uber, Lyft and DoorDash pledged $90 million on a ballot initiative for the 2020 election that would exempt them from AB5. How much would it have cost them to provide minimum wage coverage and health benefits to their CA workers, as opposed to putting that money towards advertising and lobbyist fees?