New Labor Law Reclassifies California's Strippers As Employees (XBIZ)

Read the full article by Gustavo Turner at XBIZ.com   

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 5 (AB 5), a sweeping piece of legislation that rewrites the state’s employment law to address the status of independent contractors, including dancers at strip clubs.

The bill passed the legislature last week and was sold to voters as a possible answer to 21st-Century issues like the “gig economy,” corporate use (and abuse) of “perma-lancers” and ways in which employers get around labor protections by deceitfully characterizing some workers’ status.

Newsom stated in a signing message that AB 5 “will help reduce worker misclassification — workers being wrongly classified as ‘independent contractors’ rather than employees — which erodes basic worker protections like the minimum wage, paid sick days and health insurance benefits.”

The state will consider a person to be an employee of a business rather than a freelancer or independent contractor, unless the employer can prove that the worker’s job is not part of a company’s core business, that the bosses do not direct the way the work is done or that the worker has established an independent business of their own.

Strippers, exotic dancers and the nightclubs where they perform have often been mentioned as being likely to be affected by AB 5 in mainstream stories about the legislation while it was being debated by the legislature in Sacramento.

The industries most affected by the new rules, however, are app-based startups and tech companies, leading some to nickname AB 5 “the Uber driver (or Postmates driver) protection law.” Rideshare services and app-based delivery services will have to reconfigure their business models to account for their new relationship with drivers and similar “gig economy” workers.