On Friday, August 30, 2019, the California State Senate
Appropriations Committee approved controversial
legislation—Assembly Bill 5 (A.B. 5)—that would
potentially reclassify millions of independent contractors as
"employees" under California state labor laws. The
Committee's approval moves the bill one step closer to a vote
in the full senate, which is expected to approve the measure in the
very near future. After months of not making his position on
the bill clear, on September 2, 2019, California Governor Gavin
Newsom (D) publicly announced his support for the measure in an op ed in the Sacramento Bee.
Broadly speaking, the bill would codify and expand the holding
of the California Supreme Court's 2018 Dynamex
decision, which adopted the so-called "ABC test" for
determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or an
employee under state labor laws. Under the ABC test, a worker
is presumed to be an employee, unless a hiring entity can establish
the
