Labor
Steven Greenhut | 4.5.2024 7:30 AM
Perhaps I'm old fashioned, but I don't see a role for government in determining working arrangements beyond some basic rules governing safety and non-discrimination. In a free society with a generally healthy economy, employers and employees can hammer out their own deals. As long as force or coercion isn't involved, it's not the legislature's or federal bureaucracy's concern whether someone, say, takes contract jobs or full-time employment.
I cannot recall a single time that any government rule has improved my life in any noticeable way. It's usually the opposite. After the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 5—the "landmark" labor law that largely banned companies from using independent contractors—many Californians lost their freelance income, with many adopting costly workarounds that involved myriad legal and accounting costs. Thanks very much for the "protections."
AB 5 was an unmitigated disaster. That should be obvious to any policymaker in California and at the national level. An old friend of mine had a saying that went, "even the worm learns." It referred to a scientific experiment that found if you prod the dumbest of creatures (worms) several thousand times they will eventually learn not to squirm in a particular direction. The Biden........