In a decision trucker advocates say will make it harder for truck drivers pursue their livelihoods and work independently, a federal district judge has upheld provisions of a California law that limits the ability of employers to classify workers as independent contractors.
Judge Roger Benitez of the Southern District of California issued the decision on March 15 in the case of California Trucking Association et al. v. Bonta et al. Passed by the state Legislature in 2019, Assembly Bill 5 put in place an updated test for determining whether a worker can be classified as an independent contractor. It has been the subject of litigation and legislative revisions ever since.
Specifically, Benitez found that AB 5 was not preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act or prohibited by the dormant commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution or the equal protection clause.
Teamsters General President Sean O'Brien said the court ruling would bolster union organizing.
| International Brotherhood of Teamsters
“Remedying complexities and perceived deficiencies in AB 5 are the kind of work better left to the soap box and the ballot box than to the jury box,” he said in his order. “If sufficient political or economic pressure can be brought to bear by (the) plaintiffs and their supporters, the more onerous provisions of the statute can be amended. The courts, on the other hand, are not the proper bodies for imposing legislative amendments.”
Under the provisions of AB 5, to be considered an independent contractor, a worker must be free from the control of the employer, and the worker’s assigned tasks have to be outside the scope of the employer’s normal business activities. In addition, the workers so designated have to have their own businesses.
A spokeswoman for the California Trucking Association said the CTA is now exploring all its options but is not conducting media interviews until it decides on a course of action.
Eric Sauer, the association’s CEO, said the association was extremely disappointed by Benitez’s decision in a statement emailed to the Southern California Record.
“AB 5 continues to disrupt the lives and businesses of hard-working independent truckers who, after four years, are still provided little to no guidance on how to protect their livelihoods,” Sauer said. “These men and women, at a minimum, deserve to have some clarity about how to comply with the law. Unfortunately, that clarity has not been brought about by this litigation.”
The Teamsters Union, however, commended the judge’s decision as a win for organized labor.
“This is a monumental victory for Californians,” Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien said in a prepared statement. “It will lead to more union organizing, the expansion of full employee rights to hundreds of thousands of workers and greater accountability for bad actors who won't follow the law."
The Teamsters Union looks forward to the enforcement of AB 5 in the future, O’Brien said.
Over many decades, the owner-operator model has become more common in California’s trucking industry. Typically, truckers have purchased or leased their own trucks and contracted for services with freight-hauling companies, according to the court’s decision.
The Pacific Legal Foundation has called California’s legislative actions a war on independent contractors that has caused particular harm to owner-operators in the trucking industry. AB 5 takes away truckers’ freedoms to be their own bosses, take responsibility for their own vehicles and determine their own hours, the Foundation said.