gig economy

California Court Rejects “ABC” Test For Joint Employers

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As has been widely reported, last month the California Supreme Court issued a decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles that rejected the long-standing, multi-factor test to determine whether a worker is an employee. The Dynamex decision established a three-factor “ABC” test that, on its face, places the entire burden of showing that a worker is not an employee squarely upon the hiring party. The ABC test asks whether:

  1. The worker is free from the direction and control of the hirer in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of such work and in fact;
  2. The worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and
  3. The worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed for the hiring entity.

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Good Work If You Can Get It: UK Government’s Response to Modern Working Proposals

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Some seven months after the publication of Matthew Taylor’s independent ‘Review of Modern Working Practices’, the UK Government has finally issued its response to the Taylor proposals: the “Good Work” response (the “Response”). Big news, you might think – but it’s fair to say that it promises more than it delivers.

Some of the headlines in the UK press would have you believe that there has been a large scale reform on UK employment rights and this was certainly the expectation– but this just isn’t the case, at least for now. The Government has stated that it is in agreement with 52 of the 53 recommendations from Matthew Taylor’s commissioned review, which considered how employment practices need to change in order to keep pace with modern business models (the “Taylor Review”), and it has acknowledged that, “all work should be fair and decent, with scope for development and fulfilment” – but the major points in the Response are all subject to further consultation and we are far from having concrete plans in place to effect change. READ MORE →

California Bill Seeks to Enable Independent Contractors in the “Gig Economy” to Organize, Bargain, and Strike

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In what could prove a harbinger of worker classification developments to come, Assembly Member Lorena Gonzalez (D – San Diego) has proposed AB 1727, “The California 1099 Self-Organizing Act.” The bill, which is at the earliest stages of the legislative process, would provide an avenue for certain workers classified as independent contractors to engage in “group activities” including organizing, bargaining, and striking. At bottom, the legislation would give certain independent contractors the ability to collectively confront those with whom they contract.

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