A freelance writer and editor is speaking out about the negative effects of a recent California law, saying she questioned how she was “going to survive” after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the legislation, known as AB 5.
“The law … was signed … on Sept. 18, 2019, and when I woke up that morning and I read about it, you know, the next day, I thought, ‘This is going to be an existential threat to my career,'” recalls Karen Anderson, founder of Freelancers Against AB5, a Facebook group with over 18,000 members.
“I’m not going to—how am I going to survive?” Anderson adds of her thoughts at the time.
The website of the California Franchise Tax Board notes: “AB 5 is a bill the governor signed into law in September 2019 addressing employment status when a hiring entity claims that the person it hired is an independent contractor.”
Anderson says she has worked for almost 25 years as a freelance writer, an editor or managing editor, and a photographer. She says she “started investigating” the state’s new law “and I realized that … it encompassed all professions.”
“So golf caddies, videographers, photographers, nurse practitioners, whatever. So I thought, well, I want to find out how it’s affecting other people, not just me,” Anderson says of the law, adding:
And so I started this public Facebook group just to see if I could hear some people’s stories and … sure enough, they started coming in in … November and December, people started losing their livelihoods overnight.
Anderson, a participant in a recent Heritage Foundation panel discussion, is today’s guest on “The Daily Signal Podcast.” She shares the No. 1 takeaway of the California law with listeners and discusses what’s being done to change it.
Listen to the podcast below:
Have an opinion about this article? To sound off, please email letters@DailySignal.com and we’ll consider publishing your edited remarks in our regular “We Hear You” feature. Remember to include the url or headline of the article plus your name and town and/or state.