By Andrew Sheeler
Could a five-year-old California law soon go national?
Not if Republicans have their way. Assembly Republicans and U.S. House Rep. Kevin Kiley gathered on the Capitol steps in Sacramento Tuesday to rail against AB 5, the 2019 law that sought to prevent misclassification of regular employees as independent contractors, thus denying them legally required wages and benefits.
AB 5 has been a bugbear on the right ever since California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed it into law, and now the U.S. Department of Labor, which is run by acting Labor Secretary Julie Su, formerly the secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency, is working to make similar policies a rule nationwide. Kiley is, safe to say, not a fan — of either Su or AB 5.
“Nationalizing California’s AB 5 would cost millions of Americans their livelihoods. I am urging my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support my legislation to overturn the Department of Labor’s new rule and protect the right to earn a living and the American Dream,” Kiley said in a statement issued Tuesday.
Read more at: Sacramento Bee