Truckers plan LA/Long Beach work stoppage Wednesday to protest AB5 | Hacker News Reader

Truckers plan LA/Long Beach work stoppage Wednesday to protest AB5

freightwaves.com

89 pointstomohawk49 comments

AB5 was one of the worst laws I've even seen written then to put icing on the case Uber&Lyft (the ones who there were trying to target) got themselves an exception by going straight to the voters (prop 22) so everyone else needs to deal with the fallout of a shitty law except the target.

The state should work to move benefits away from the employer employee relationship rather then make damn sure you need to work until you die to keep benefits. In a lot of ways it really feels like CA is just trying to offload their job onto private companies.

> The state should work to move benefits away from the employer employee relationship rather then make damn sure you need to work until you die to keep benefits. In a lot of ways it really feels like CA is just trying to offload their job onto private companies.

Almost every society wide issue in the US follows the same formula because voters will always vote for lower taxes and this can be done by outsourcing the obligation to non governments and/or means testing it so certain portions of the population benefit and others do not.

And then you play politics with it for the next 50 years because any solution will have to take from one portion of the population to give to another.

A universal benefit from the beginning would be ideal and avoid all this, but is politically impossible because the politician proposing it will never be elected due to higher taxes now. Education, healthcare, quality of life at work, etc.

>And then you play politics with it for the next 50 years because any solution will have to take from one portion of the population to give to another.

Moving things to the "government" bucket doesn't in any way solve this. Try and cut something from the defense budget if you don't believe me.

Is the defense budget not an example of what I am referring to? All the politicians in the areas benefiting from the “defense” spending will make it a priority to prevent cuts in their region, which taken together, is basically everywhere in the US so all the politicians are in aligned.

Society wide benefits are have to be addressed by the government. That is the whole point of the government.

I agree. We keep trying to cram things into the employee "bundle" which is just dumb. Want everyone to have healthcare? Just focus on that directly. Don't want people earning less than X per hour? Do that. Almost any attempt by the government to legislate by creating these "bundles" like "are they or are they not an employee" is a dumb waste of time and resources.

2/3rds of truckers in california are owner operators, which is good.

The bad, Lease Operators are being abused, its basically the company store, not enough money to pay the bills. Basically micro-management, buy gas from the company, company repairs, not allowed to run their own loads. The companies started making their main revenue off lease operators.

So the trucking companies put lots of political money to get AB5 passed (while Uber was excluded), its a profit model for them.

Instead of making rules for lease operators to not be abused by Trucking companies, the state included all owner operators.

The end, Trucking companies just excluded CA based owner operators, and are hiring out of state LLC (Most likely South Dakota), end run around the law, and keeps their lease money. Simple, bypass the law.

So truckers can

1. Become an employee

2. Become an owner operator and do your own freight

3. Owner Operators will move their LLC out of state and keep working.

Also AB5 isn't just for Truckers, its for all gig workers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phieTCxQRLA

Last week tonight did a video about truckers. And it sucks a lot.

I think the Teamsters union is also involved in this grift. "Nice truck you have there, how come you don't pay your dues to Il Signore?"

The company I work for won’t let any Californians be owner/operators because of stuff like this.

I was pretty surprised when I came back to trucking after ~12 years they would let people lease trucks right off the street with zero experience as this seems to me to be a recipe for disaster but it is apparently good for their bottom line to have them running around paying all the costs and taking all the financial risks. If they fail they walk away and the company just finds someone else to run the truck. Don’t know the failure rate but I imagine it is fairly high, a couple bad weeks without any financial cushion and you’re in a world of hurt. Judging from the messages my dispatcher sends out every once in a while (I’m on an owner/operator fleet but am technically a company driver) there’s a lot of people struggling to make their numbers so they can do fun stuff like eating.

Not saying it’s all bad, plenty of people make money doing this, just maybe have them get some experience before letting them take on the full responsibility of running a business.

Interesting thing I found a while back on what the trucking companies are up to with the independent contractor stuff -> https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/17/17-340/55697/20180...

It is funny how the main source of this story is the guy who runs a business that profits off "independent contractors". It is almost as if the people who are mad about this are not actually a significant portion of the independent contractors.

The people that like AB5 are the mega fleets (Swify, Schnieder, etc). The people that don't are literally everyone else in the industry. Considering that almost everyone in the industry started working for a mega fleet and got out as soon as they were able I'm gonna side with them.

The fact that the OOIDA is lobbying against this is also a pretty strong data point.

I think that constitutes a stronger signal than some internet comment hurring and durring about how 1099ing drivers is exploitative based on a few data points in one B2C industry.

I'm not sure how Reimer (assuming that's the guy you're talking about) counts as the "main source" here.

There are several other people quoted, including owner operators and someone responsible for oversight of the port. There is also researched factual information about the legal status of the relevant laws.

Singling out that one guy as the "main source" doesn't make much sense here.

Reimer and Aboudi are both "non-employers", they make up the bulk of citations. Sanfield say basically nothing. And then there is anonymous person to represent independent contractors, because apparently it was really hard to get someone from that class to say what the author of the article wanted to write.

Either that or it's a lot harder to get OTR truck drivers who run their own businesses as independent contractors to sit down in one place or take a phone call, which they're not supposed to do while driving, than it is to go to the port in question or contact the offices of a guy with a desk job.

Umm, truckers spend their entire day on phone calls or listening to podcasts. They aren't supposed to use a phone directly, but hands free headsets are perfectly within regs.

There's no way they couldn't find a trucker to use as a source due to DOT regs. Plus, drivers spend a hell of a lot of time waiting to unload, with the truck idling and them just sitting. I know quite a few truckers (personally as well as through my job) and you would be hard pressed to find a group of people more interested in having a long phone call.

I can't understate this, truckers will talk your ear off given half the chance and many of them will trade phone numbers and call each other to chat. Phone calls and podcasts are their main thing through the day, and I can't blame them. Yes, it's a DOT violation to fuck with your phone while driving, but it's fairly easy to preload podcasts to auto play before taking off and place calls using voice commands. Guaranteed the guy with the desk job has less time; freight brokers and dispatchers have high-stress jobs that require nearly 100% of time spent on the phone (you handle emails while talking to other people). Those are also high turnover, but not as bad as trucking simply because the hours suck less. Even local trucking is incredibly shit hours, it's not uncommon for it to be a 14 hour day when including stoppages.

I mean, if they're seriously mad enough about this to go on ~strike, it shouldn't be too hard to get some of them on record.

I respect and support people who are willing to stand up for their rights. Even when protests created problems for me (which, to be honest, were tolerable), I did not complain. Good luck to all independent workers out there!

I see a lot of comments talking about how this law effects truckers with some commentary about Uber/Lyft type gig workers (who are now exempted).

Don't forget that the blast area of this law is substantially larger than that. I am a independent technology consultant living in the Bay Area. AB 5 significantly complicates my ability to find clients because many of the most obvious clients (other technology related Bay Area companies) are essentially excluded from contracting with me.

From https://insight.ieeeusa.org/articles/ab-5-and-ieee-consultan...

[AB5] contains a long list of exemptions from the new rules — professions that do not fall under the new definitions. One of those exemptions is for engineers — but only for licensed engineers. This narrow exemption will work for professional licensed engineers, but not for most technical professionals.

While the article does talk about the exemptions for business-to-business relationships so long as you've established things like LLCs and deal in written contracts with clients (something I was already doing, so not such a problem for me personally), it also talks about the issues with even this:

Complicating the business exemption is wording in AB 5 that requires contracts between consulting companies and their clients to meet a set of 12 criteria. Most of these are benign (you must have a written contract, you must have a business license), but others are more troubling.

For example, consulting companies must have “contracts with other businesses to provide the same or similar services and maintains a clientele without restrictions from the hiring entity.” The problem is that some contractors work with just one company. These consultants may want to branch out and find at least one other client. On the other hand, courts in Massachusetts and New Jersey have ruled that similar language in those states’ laws does NOT mean consultants need to have more than one client, only that they could have additional clients if they chose to. California courts don’t have to consider how the law is interpreted in other states, but they generally give other states’ legal opinions weight.

A final problem with the business exemption is that several criteria, including the one above, assume that the consulting company is already in business. That could make it hard to become a consulting company. Getting your first client will be difficult if you first have to prove you have other clients.

What this means is that even though I can meet these tests, for many of my prospects having to sort out whether or not they can contract with me on a business-to-business basis is just overhead for them. Better for them to just give up on the idea of contracting with me and just put up a job posting or hire a larger company.

I strongly support the repeal of this law. There is often times nothing worse than to be the "beneficiary" of the good intentions of others.

> A final problem with the business exemption is that several criteria, including the one above, assume that the consulting company is already in business. That could make it hard to become a consulting company. Getting your first client will be difficult if you first have to prove you have other clients.

Cynical me says this is the purpose of the law and why only Uber and Lyft fought it. Existing contracting companies (the big guys) benefit from this as there will forever be less competition within California. Win win.

Good for them.

Why? Do they like paying for their own healthcare, repairs and working for no benefits?

Probably. Contractors typically get paid significantly more, like 50%+ more, than employees, and then can make their own decisions about how they want to repair their equipment, what kind of insurance is worth having, and how they want to save and invest their money.

When I worked as an employee, my company got to decide how much to spend on repairs. It was never economical. I could absolutely have saved 30-40% on the cost, easily.

I also only had a short list of health insurance plans available to me, all of which were expensive, none of which were well-tailored to my needs.

And my retirement "benefits" included a 401(k) with such high fees I'd have been better off socking away money in a literal sock.

And all this was combined with the fact that they paid me significantly less.

As a contractor, I take home MUCH more money, I have my repairs done by people I trust who do good work at fair prices (rather than those that have formal agreements with the company), I have healthcare that suits me, and I am investing significantly more money for retirement in much better plans.

People who would rather operate as employees and settle for the crummy options their employers provide because they don't want to or don't think they could do the work to make better arrangements on their own should be free to do so.

But what possible right do they have to hold me back, to tell me I shouldn't get to make my life better by working independently and running my work as a business I control?

Thank you. The real problem is all of the above advantages you cite only happened because you thought for and took care of yourself. Most people can't seem to be bothered. They think that if only "the government" would do it for them then they could be happy doing other stuff. Ha!

I'll be the first to acknowledge it isn't easy or straightforward. I understand why people don't want to have to do the work. If you do it poorly, you likely will end up worse off. If that's a real concern for someone, perhaps working as an employee will be a better fit. There are already laws governing what employers have to do if you go that route.

It's just not fair to universalize that experience. If I can and want to do the work, leave me alone and let me do it. Nobody's saying you have to do it this way. Nobody's saying you shouldn't be able to work as an employee for any employer that will have you. I'm just saying I want to run my work as a business, myself, and I don't think it should be up to you to tell me I can't just because you wouldn't want to.

("You" in the generic "person who wants to impose this law on me" sense, not "you" as in previous commenter.)

Many business owners do, I don't see why truckers should be any different. The upside is that the company is limited in how much they can dictate your work day and conditions. Wanna take a break at the side of the road? Sure... as long as you get your work donoe.

AB5 should not be repealed.

I wouldn't be surprised if Uber and co were indirectly funding this effort.

In fact after writing that I decided to investigate my suspicions, and one of the first results that turns up is the trucking organization spearheading this (Caltrux) hosting Uber Freight for a seminar...

Seeing as Caltrux has pages listing access to their audience as a sponsorship benefit, how much do you want to guess Uber managed to funnel through that?

Ridesharing companies such as Uber and Lyft already won an exception to AB5, mostly through funding what ended up the most expensive ballot measure in the state's history, just to have that apparently struck down by the Alameda County Superior Court [1]. I wouldn't be surprised if they're funneling money into these protests/strikes as well, but I assume they would be willing to directly target rideshare users for this purpose.

[1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/Prop-22-the-gig-wor...

I don't get what this comment is trying to say?

> I wouldn't be surprised if they're funneling money into these protests/strikes as well, but I assume they would be willing to directly target rideshare users for this purpose.

Directly targeting rideshare users isn't orthogonal to "indirectly" funding truckers fighting AB5 when "Uber Freight" is a thing and Prop 22 already failed (which was their attempt at reaching users directly). They can (and would) do both.

It’s easier to interpret without starting with the assumption that comment replies are for disagreements. It sounds like you more or less rephrased what I said.

It's crazy to me a court can strike down a voter proposition that is otherwise not unconstitutional.

What do you mean by “otherwise not unconstitutional?” I suppose the point of the ruling is its unconstitutionality, and the state of California is one of the only places in the world in which voters are free to change that through a constitutional referendum.

People need to leave california. Literally anywhere else in the US, even other blue states, are more free than California. Even just moving up to Oregon, things are better. Eventually, maybe i'll make my way to a state where people can actually breathe free.

"We're from the government and here to help!" Indeed.

AB5 seems similar to IR35 in the UK.

The Interstate Commerce Clause: for regulating everything except actual interstate commerce, apparently.

The term 'regulate' in the ICC means 'to make normal'. At the time of the ratification, power was given to Congress to make interstate commerce normal instead of exceptional. It took away the power of the states to tax interstate commerce and impose other impediments.

This is a California state law.

As long as it only affects owner operators that remain in California you are right. However, it is the obligation of the Federal government to strike down state laws that interfere with the flow of goods between states.

Full support to the truckers!

This worked in Canada.... Oh wait no id didn't. I wonder if the US government will extort people back to work if their trucker protest disrupts the bread and circuses.

Workers should be entitled to a minimum wage, business expense reimbursements, employee benefits, rest breaks, and all the other benefits afforded to employees under California state law. AB5 is a good law and should be implemented Federally.

People who run their own businesses using their own equipment (truck owner operators) should be free to negotiate their own contracts with whomever they choose to work for under whatever terms both parties deem acceptable.

Yeah I don't get it. The drivers own their trucks. This makes finding a new job exceptionally easy and there's no capital expenditure on behalf of the hiring company for new equipment. Moreover, truckers are free to change between shippers as much as they want.

Employees should be entitled to employee benefits. Business owners should not.

If I start a business to write iPhone apps, who exactly should be responsible for paying me a minimum wage to do that, covering my business expenses, and affording me health insurance until my app business is self-sustaining (which might never happen)?

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