Thanks to California’s AB 5 law that outlaws freelancers from submitting more than 35 articles per year, Vox Media is slashing hundreds of jobs, per CNBC.
“Hundreds of freelance writers at Vox Media,” reports CNBC, “primarily those covering sports for the SB Nation site, will lose their jobs in the coming months as the company prepares for a California law to go into effect that will force companies to reclassify contractors in the state as employees.”
The job losses affect those freelancers who reside in California, and my guess is that most of those freelancers slit their own throats by voting for the very same Democrats who passed this terrible bill. Right now, thanks to dumb California voters, Democrats not only control every part of the state government’s political apparatus, they enjoy filibuster-proof majorities. Republicans are helpless.
In other words, anything California’s far-left Democrats want to pass, they can pass with no opposition, including this ridiculous law — this freedom-killing, nanny-statism that always, always, always hurts the little guy.
Ready for the best part…?
Here’s Vox’s far-left political page back in September celebrating the passage of AB 5 as a “victory for workers everywhere”:
AB 5’s passage — which Gov. Gavin Newsom is expected to sign — could easily be seen as just another progressive victory in California. But it is more than that. It is a historic moment for the US labor movement too.
By making it hard for employers to misclassify employees as independent contractors, potentially millions of California workers who’ve been kept off payrolls will get basic labor rights for the first time, like overtime pay and unemployment benefits. This includes janitors, construction workers, security guards, and hotel housekeepers — and yes, this group also includes Uber and Lyft drivers.
And then, a mere three months later, this very same Vox celebrated AB 5 by axing hundreds of people just in time for the Christmas holidays.
You gotta love socialism.
You see, the law makes it impossible for Vox to keep these folks on, unless of course Vox wants to hire them — you know, add some 200 people to its payroll, which would include enormous new costs, but…
Vox doesn’t love working people enough to take on all of that, so they were fired.
CNBC points out that law will also destroy countless lives of those who work as independent contractors for “ride-hailing and food delivery companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and PostMates [because] the legislation requires gig economy workers to be hired as employees with benefits like health coverage and minimum wage protections.”
I think we all know what happens next…
Californians unhappy with AB 5 will move to a Red State to enjoy the lower cost of living and to hold on their God-given right to work as a freelancer. But almost all of them will continue to vote for Democrats, and this will result in Red States becoming failed Blue States … because some people are just too dumb to ever learn.
There is a movement afoot in California to repeal AB 5 through a voter referendum, but even if voters vote to kill AB 5, the left also control the California Supreme Court, so it will probably just be overturned.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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