In February, Stormy Daniels published an op-ed arguing that exotic dancers should be “treated as freelancers, not employees.” In doing so, she criticized the California Supreme Court’s adoption of the “ABC test” in Dynamex. Under that test, a business that w... More »
On Thursday, House and Senate Democrats introduced the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which seeks to strengthen workers’ rights to organize and bargain. Some of the bill’s highlights: Amending the definition of employee to prevent misclassificatio... More »
Yesterday Representatives Bobby Scott, Stephanie Murphy, and Mark Pocan and Senators Patty Murray and Bernie Sanders announced their introduction of the Raise the Wage Act of 2019. The bill would gradually increase the federal minimum wage from its present ra... More »
The U.S. Department of Labor announced that it is extending its Payroll Audit Independent Determination (PAID) program by six months. The program protects employers from enforcement action resulting from federal wage-and-hour violations if they work in good f... More »
The prison strike enters day nine, as the estimated 900,000 incarcerated laborers (out of a population of 2.4 million) demand “an immediate end to prison slavery.” Sarah Holder of City Lab, quoting ACLU National Prison Project’s David Fathi, breaks down the c... More »
Gig-economy-giants like Uber, Lyft, and Instacart are quietly lobbying California Democrats to reverse a groundbreaking court ruling protecting gig workers’ rights. In the LA Times, law professor Veena Dubal explains the stakes. In Dynamex, the California Supr... More »
California is using prison labor — including 58 incarcerated youth — to battle record-breaking forest fires raging across the state this week. As of 2015, more than more than 30 percent of California’s firefighters were incarcerated workers. Incarcerated firef... More »
Today’s Philadelphia Inquirer reports on the death of Pablo Avendano, a 34-year old bike messenger who was killed while delivering food for Caviar, the app-based food delivery service. Because Avendano was classified as an independent contractor and not ... More »
We’ll have more complete analysis in the days ahead, but, as Ross reports, the California Supreme Court has issued a decision with major implications for Uber, the gig economy, and the question of worker classification more broadly. In Dynamex Operations... More »
May 3rd, 2019