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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsI can't believe California is screwing over owner operators
California's gig worker law is being applied to owner operators, they can no longer operate as a contractor. The state made exemptions for Uber and Lyft, the targets of the law but truck owners got screwed over. They were protesting at the port of Long Beach this week, Oakland is next week, I hope they use the trucks to block the gates and shut the ports down entirely. All these people wanted was to own their own business, all have turned down offers of employment at companies because they want to follow the American Dream.
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MarineCombatEngineer
(17,729 posts)CA sure screwed the pooch on this one.
demosincebirth
(12,815 posts)Own mercy. You don’t know the whole story. Unions are, and have been, behind this law for years. Great for OWner operators. Those who oppose it have been anti-union any way and don’t really know they’ve been screwed for years.
ripcord
(5,553 posts)Believe it or not they can do math and they know what is best for them. Trucking companies screw over employee drivers much more often than owner operators, take it from some who spent over 30 years driving.
MarineCombatEngineer
(17,729 posts)I have a very good agent who gets myself and my other driver good paying loads, on top of which I'm on WalMart's preferred list for loads they need hauled by other than their company drivers.
During the panademic, all I hauled were WalMart trailers and they paid pretty damn good, on top of which they would let us independents use their facilities to freshen up, sometimes feed us and let us use their parking lot to sleep in as long as we didn't park where the customers usually parked.
demosincebirth
(12,815 posts)
SickOfTheOnePct
(8,710 posts)disagree with you.
I'm going to assume that the people who are closest to the situation know what works best for them.
uponit7771
(93,491 posts)MarineCombatEngineer
(17,729 posts)I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out CA's laws.
I should clarify my earlier post, I do pick up loads in CA, but only WalMart trailers at their distribution center just north of Barstow when they need someone other than their company drivers to deliver a load.
Jose Garcia
(3,431 posts)
Tetrachloride
(9,384 posts)too many rules
he was a peacetime Marine in the 70s
DetroitLegalBeagle
(2,461 posts)She said this was surprising to no one. The legislature was warned about this when the bill was being written. They were ignored. Per her, this is yet another example of the California legislature being terrible at their jobs.
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)as independent contractors instead of employees. There are lots of articles about this on the web (mostly on law firm websites) but here is an excerpt from one:
A report released Wednesday asserts that two-thirds of the nation’s truck drivers who haul goods from U.S. seaports, such as the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, are misclassified as independent contractors, a distinction some labor advocates say allows trucking companies to skirt labor laws.
The report, titled The Big Rig Overhaul: Restoring Middle-Class Jobs at America’s Ports Though Labor Law Enforcement, says 49,000 of the nation’s estimated 75,000 port truck drivers are misclassified as independent contractors when they should be classified as employees of the companies they work for and enjoy the benefits that come with being an employee, including workers compensation, overtime and the right to unionize.
About 25,000 of the nation’s port truck drivers come from California, according to the report generated by advocacy groups The National Employment Law Project, The Change to Win Strategic Organizing Centerworks and The Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy.
Supporters of the report say the misclassification has led to the disintegration of what had been a good-paying job.
https://www.navesinkriskmgmt.com/technology-and-hiring
Trucking used to be a middle class job, but no longer for many truckers:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/04/28/trucking-used-to-be-a-ticket-to-the-middle-class-now-its-just-another-low-wage-job/
Knight-Swift is the nation's largest trucking company. They were screwing over drivers.
https://trucklaw.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/knight-swift-agrees-to-100-million-settlement-in-misclassification-lawsuit/
I have the greatest respect for anyone who can drive a big rig. It must be like being in solitary confinement with a constant threat of terror (crashing).
MichMan
(16,632 posts)They own and drive their own trucks and prefer to be independent contractors They are not being misclassified.
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)"For example, if an independent contractor is expected to control the manner in which the work is performed, or if the work is performed as part of the regular business of the company, the work status is being misclassified.
In other cases, if an owner operator furnishes the tools, supplies, or materials necessary for the work, or if they are prohibited from using substitutes or assistants, they may also be a misclassified truck driver.
f you are a contractor or owner operator but you are required to do any of the following, you may be misclassified:
Purchase or lease the truck
Pay for fuel
Pay fuel taxes
Provide insurance
Pay licensing fees
Pay for maintenance of equipment
Drivers who are mandated to attend training classes, work exclusively for a company, wear a company uniform, or maintain their schedule with the dispatching office should be classified as employees and are not owner operator truck drivers."
https://topclassactions.com/lawsuit-settlements/employment-labor/are-owner-operators-independent-contractors/
Here's a web page about how trucking companies use the owner-operator designation to their advantage:
https://www.brightworkresearch.com/the-real-story-on-how-truck-drivers-are-tricked-into-becoming-owner-operators/
Perhaps I am too cynical, but I think the trucking companies want to pay the lowest wages they can with minimal benefits and eliminate unionization and misclassification is just one tool that they use whenever they can. I think AB5 is designed to protect workers and I hope it helps. 
MichMan
(16,632 posts)Pay for fuel
Pay fuel taxes
Provide insurance
Pay licensing fees
Pay for maintenance of equipment
How could anyone consider themselves to be an Owner Operator without owning a truck or having to pay for any expenses involved in running a trucking business ?
All those provisions above would also be applicable to a high school kid mowing lawns, since he/she would be owning the lawn mower, paying for fuel, and be responsible for maintaining it.
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)If a driver is required to do any of those things, then he's probably being treated like an employee. Here's an example:
"What Is a Lease Purchase Truck Driver?
A Lease Purchase Truck Driver is an independent owner-operator who is in the process of purchasing their tractor via lease payments. As a Lease Purchase Truck Driver, your responsibilities and duties include all that working as a company driver would, delivering freight safely and on time. During the leasing period, the lease purchase program company will often assign jobs. You will receive the higher owner-operator pay rate for your work. In turn, you make lease payments on the truck, pay fuel costs, provide insurance, and pay for any repairs or maintenance needed."
https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Career/Lease-Purchase-Truck-Driver/What-Is-How-to-Become
Here's a long but VERY interesting article from FreightWaves:
Independent contractor definition battles may further complicate lawsuits over lease purchases
California attorney creating niche business, suing over the question of the fairness and definitions of lease deals
John Kingston Tuesday, March 30, 2021
With the definition of independent contractors (ICs) pinballing around the three-legged stool of the states, Washington and the federal courts, there’s a particular group of truck drivers with an additional level of uncertainty: those operating on lease purchases.
Whether a driver on a lease purchase program is truly independent is a central feature of a number of lawsuits making their way through the courts — including several filed by California attorney Robert Boulter, whose specialty in franchise law has branched out into a niche of lease purchase litigation.
...
https://www.freightwaves.com/news/independent-contractor-definition-battles-may-further-complicate-lawsuits-over-lease-purchases
So, there is some confusion about the definition of Independent Contractor in trucking which requires lawyers. Sigh.
Mopar151
(10,344 posts)Does it have.to do with how many of those expenses are routed back through the company.? Optional or mandatory?
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)Under the ABC test, a worker is considered an employee and not an independent contractor, unless the hiring entity satisfies all three of the following conditions:
The worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact;
The worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and
The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.
(Below this part are examples from the CA Supreme Court of how these rules should be applied.)
https://www.labor.ca.gov/employmentstatus/abctest/
So, apparently, these rules were necessary because employers were doing things differently, to the detriment of the employee.
Here's a very interesting excerpt from the examples:
Prong C is not necessarily satisfied:
Where the hiring entity unilaterally assigns the worker the label “independent contractor.”
Where the hiring entity requires the worker, as a condition of hiring, to enter into a contract that designates the worker an independent contractor.
(!!!)
ripcord
(5,553 posts)I think the confusion comes from companies who operate lease to own operations, the companies sponsor the lease and require them to contract with them until the truck is paid off, these drivers don't have their own transport authority so they can't operate independently. This means if the company does control what they call contractors by deciding what loads they get. Many have been driven right back into working for the company or even out of trucking by these tactics.
Owner operators work for a number of shipping companies over the course of a year, they have brokers who find them the best loads with the best payouts. They decide what jobs they want to take they and operate under their own authority so they aren't tied to any company. The really sad thing is that owner operators take home more money that company drivers and it the company gives them shit they leave after they drop their load.
Remember the teamsters aren't fans of owner operators because they don't need the union, they negotiate their own contracts and pay their own benefits just like any other business.
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)I also agree about why the Teamsters are not fans of owner operators.
But, I also think that there is probably some trickery by warehouses at the ports via misclassification. Apparently, they force people who should be classified as employees into signing documents stating they are independent contractors, for example.
Anyway, we shall see how this all shakes out and hopefully the drivers will be better off with AB5. Trucking is an incredibly difficult job in many ways and I think the people who do it deserve to be treated with the utmost respect.
Just a story that doesn't relate to this issue: I was driving on I5 a couple of months ago and came upon a Swift truck that was pouring smoke out of the cab and through to the end of the truck. There weren't many vehicles on the road so I took it upon myself to come up beside the cab and honk a friendly honk. When I got the driver's attention, I pointed to the back of his cab where the smoke was coming out. He pulled over asap and I drove on. I still can't figure out what the smoke was, but it couldn't have been good. Also, I figured out later that I should have made a motion to indicate smoke, but I guess he was able to figure it out.
ripcord
(5,553 posts)This whole effort was aimed at companies like Uber, Lyft and Doordash to keep them from taking advantage of their workers by classifying them as contractors, all the gig work companies are now exempt from the law, at this point it pretty much only applies to truckers.
App based employers were exempted under prop 22 because those companies spent a fortune convincing voters to support them, so the main target of AB5 are off the table.
Who is exempt
Doctors
Psychologists
Dentists
Veterinarians
Accountants
Lawyers
Private investigators
Insurance & real estate agents
Stockbrokers
Direct sales agents
Travel agents
Human resource administrators
Marketing professionals
Grant writers
Engineers
Architects
Fine artists
With conditions
Commercial fishermen – exempt from all requirements, but must be covered with unemployment insurance
Manicurists, estheticians & barbers – exempt but they must have the freedom to set their own rates and be paid directly by clients and take their own appointments.
Photographers, photojournalists, graphic designers, writers, editors, or illustrators – May not exceed 35 submissions for each hiring entity, each year.
That is a crap ton of exemption, seems like they have decided only truckers are too stupid to make their own decisions.
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)It wouldn't be so bad if we had universal health care. Earlier in my life I worked a lot of temp jobs and did have a lot of fun, but I was healthy and health care was affordable.
Sometimes the people of California make the wrong choice--Prop 13, Ronald Reagan, recalling Davis, electing Schwarzenegger, Prop 22. 
ripcord
(5,553 posts)Look at the least of people that AB5 would have applied to but they had the connections to get exemptions, it is disgusting and totally unfair. If you are going to nanny state then apply it to everyone without exemptions.
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)demosincebirth
(12,815 posts)About an important issue and only hear say to them
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)
SickOfTheOnePct
(8,710 posts)who do know about this and are opposed to it?
Sympthsical
(10,854 posts)People like to tout that we have a super majority in the legislature, but what goes unspoken is just how deep the monied interests have their claws in a lot of the legislation that is written.
Look at solar. You'd think California of all places would have a vested interest in making that conversion as painless as possible. Newp. Everyone's got a hand out, and the result are all kinds of regulations, requirements, and fees that are solely initiated so the legacy companies aren't left out cold by the switch to green technology.
PG&E is currently working with the legislature to make sure solar owners get sapped even more to support their rather shoddy, corrupt, and mismanaged company. We just got solar this past spring. My bill was $22 last month. That isn't going to last. PG&E is actively setting out to destroy the residential solar market - and they're getting help.
High speed rail anyone? Kind of enough said there.
So, when I see things like this OP, my first instinct is to go ask who's spending what money in the legislature. It'll be a short and obvious trail.
It always is.
ripcord
(5,553 posts)They want trucker drivers to have no choice but to be wage slaves.
Just A Box Of Rain
(5,104 posts)If legitimate owner-operators are unfairly getting swept up in laws designed to prevent exploitation in other industries, I'd add my support for independent truckers and owner-operators.
If you have a link (or links) I will read them.
Having individuals invest in their own capital (their trucks) and reaping the rewards of that investment is a way of extending the American Dream to hard working people and is something we should support as Democrats.
MarineCombatEngineer
(17,729 posts)
Just A Box Of Rain
(5,104 posts)At the end of our street lived a family that was quite poor. A single mom (divorced) with 8 kids. They really struggled. I was good friends with two of her boys.
Eventually the mom met a trucker named Mano. He was tall and handsome and had proud looks that reflected his mixed Native American and Mexican ancestry.
Mano had come from nothing, economically. But he worked hard and bought his own truck--which he treated lovingly. I don't remember exactly what that truck cost in 1970, but I remember being astounded by the investment.
Anyway, that truck made all the difference. Changed lives and created economic opportunities.
Always admired Mano.
I'll stand with truckers any day of the week.
MarineCombatEngineer
(17,729 posts)
madville
(7,841 posts)If half the freight quits moving in and out of the state
greenjar_01
(6,477 posts)
barbaraann
(9,289 posts)TEAMSTERS CAMPAIGN PAYS OFF TO UPHOLD MISCLASSIFICATION LAW PROTECTING DRIVERS 6/30/2022
(WASHINGTON) – The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to take a case seeking to overturn a California law on worker misclassification, and by doing so expanded employment protections to California truck drivers currently misclassified as independent contractors.
In denying the petition of the California Trucking Association, the court will let stand AB 5, a California law meant to ensure that those who work at the beck-and-call of a company must be considered employees. The measure, which was signed into law in 2019 but hadn’t fully gone into effect, was landmark legislation for California truck drivers, particularly at the ports, who rallied with the Teamsters for years against being improperly labeled as contract workers.
...
“Over the last decade, the California Labor Commissioner found misclassification is rampant at our ports, in construction, package delivery, and more,” said Randy Cammack, President of Teamsters Joint Council 42. “The race-to-the-bottom in trucking is going to end in California when the Teamsters help to enforce AB 5.”
Companies purposefully and deceptively misclassify their workers as independent contractors to deny workers fair wages and benefits, and to avoid paying employee-related expenses, like unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation and Social Security. This corporate greed damages the economy, leaves workers’ lives in jeopardy, and puts good employers who play by the rules at a competitive disadvantage.
...https://teamster.org/2022/06/teamsters-campaign-pays-off-to-uphold-misclassification-law-protecting-drivers/
Kaleva
(40,185 posts)"Port truckers win $30 million in wage theft settlements
Trucking companies classify many of their drivers as independent contractors, thus making them ineligible for a host of labor protections, including the ability to collectively bargain for wages.
In recent years, California’s labor commissioner’s office has awarded more than $50 million to some 500 truckers who claimed they were deprived of wages through misclassification as contractors rather than employees. At the same time, many truckers have shied away from working as employees, preferring to own and operate their own vehicles."
https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-10-13/la-fi-port-trucker-xpo-settlements?utm_source=CalMatters+Newsletters&utm_campaign=9b76d4e9f9-WHATMATTERS&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_faa7be558d-9b76d4e9f9-150293419&mc_cid=9b76d4e9f9&mc_eid=9e867256b8
jmowreader
(52,901 posts)There are three broad categories of truckers.
The first is company drivers. They drive equipment provided by the company. They’re already employees, so this bill doesn’t apply.
Next are “pure” owner operators, who own equipment, have their own authority and find their own loads. They’re independent business owners so this bill doesn’t apply.
What it DOES apply to are contractors, which come in two varieties: ones who buy their trucks from the company they’re running for (lease purchase) and ones who buy them on the open market (contractors). Because a lot of these drivers are either running under the company’s authority or are pulling the company’s trailers, the company exerts an unusual amount of control. “Yeah, we only pay for loaded miles but we might send you 200 miles empty to pick up a load that’s only going 150 miles and you damn well better not go on DAT to find a load that’s going from where you are to your pickup location. Oh, and even though when you get to the load’s final destination they have backhauls out of there, we’re going to send you 300 miles empty to your next load.” I mean, that’s fine if they want to pull that shit on a company driver because the company buys their fuel, but when you buy fuel you sure as hell don’t want to drag an empty trailer around half the time.