Inflation is raging at 9%. Supply chain problems are plaguing the entire nation.
But don’t worry — things can still get much worse. And, thanks to California‘s unfortunate location along one of this nation’s coasts, they may well.
This week, independent truckers launched an open revolt against the California law known as AB 5, which bans work by many independent contractors. The law has been brutal to independent truckers, forcing them either to work for someone else or to re-form their businesses completely.
First, you may be wondering why this affects you if you don’t live in California. Unfortunately, many goods have to come through the Port of Los Angeles. As an accident of geography, labor chaos in a poorly governed state like California can thus send prices rising and worsen supply chain problems.
Second, you might be wondering why these truckers are so upset. This is only the latest chapter in a long-running saga of left-wing California lawmakers’ war against contract employment.
In 2019, they enacted AB 5, reasoning that independent contractors cannot be unionized and threaten the old-fashioned employment structure that can be more easily regulated and manipulated by the government. Although they are ultimately doomed in their quest to keep gig work from catching on, Democrats felt they had to try. This is why President Joe Biden, with his endorsement of the federal Protecting the Right to Organize Act, is attempting to inflict something similar on the entire nation.
With the original version of AB 5, California Democrats very nearly forced Uber and Lyft to leave their state, with the ride-sharing companies only remaining because of a last-minute stay of execution by a judge and a ballot referendum that mitigated the damage it was doing to the state’s economy in general and several specific industries in particular. The issue is still being fought in the courts.
In the time since, many additional industries have pleaded for and obtained carveouts for themselves from AB 5. Freelance journalists, for example, were originally forbidden from writing more than a handful of articles for any given publication each year. Yes, that’s right — California Democrats actually set a maximum number of articles they could write, arrogantly believing themselves to know better than the people who work in the industry.
Unfortunately, independent truckers are still getting the shaft. That is why they are now staging work stoppages, as they did Wednesday. Most independent truckers and other workers do not want to be someone else’s employee. And faced with the possible requirement to form corporations and pay themselves fixed salaries in order to conform with AB 5 requirements, many truckers are simply leaving the state or the industry.
As one trucking company manager pointedly put it in an interview with the publication FreightWaves: “How can I blame these drivers who now find out that their dream is being snatched away from them, all because they’re based here in the state of California?”
If this trucker rebellion amounts to anything or spreads, the consequences for an already underproducing, inflationary, and apparently recessionary Biden-era economy could be severe. These truckers don’t need to foul up the roads or camp on the streets of Washington to bring the economy to its knees. All they have to do is quit.
Small business ownership is one of the great American dreams alongside homeownership. Whether they own restaurants or shops, own and drive trucks or Uber cars, or even just sell their crafts or services online to interested clients, millions of people work for themselves, either part time or full time. The vast majority prefer it that way. And with real wages plummeting for traditional employees, there are additional advantages to setting one’s own prices and selling one’s services on the open market.
Although the traditional corporate employment model will always live on as an option, it is becoming far less dominant than it once was. Gallup estimated in 2018 that 36% of U.S. workers were participating in the gig economy, with as many as 29% relying upon it as their main source of employment. That number has probably increased in the time since.
That Democrats would cause so much trouble and go so far out of their way to crush a vibrant and growing segment of the economy speaks volumes about their priorities and their utter lack of touch with the modern worker.
