fter more than a year of meetings, fact-findings and discussions with musicians and other artists in the music industry, California State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) and Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon (D-Whittier) announced pending amendments to her landmark state law, Assembly Bill 5, that will balance the need to protect workers and preserve musicians’ ability to collaborate within the industry.
Read More“Fine artist” is not defined at all by AB 5. The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics defines “craft and fine artists” as artists who “use a variety of materials and techniques to create art for sale and exhibition.” That doesn’t sound like it includes performing or other creative artists involved in theatre. Except the bill’s author, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, has furthered muddied the waters in her public statements.
“A musician is a fine artist,” Gonzalez said, according to Chloe Veltman in a report from NPR affiliate KQED. “I think as our world changes, the definition of a fine artist changes. This is going to be an ongoing discussion.”
Read MoreCap Radio’s Bethe Ruyak interviews Californians for the Arts Executive Director Julie Baker on AB5.
Read MoreMore than 80 percent of nonunion actors and stage managers in California have been misclassified as independent contractors and asked to work for less than minimum wage.
One month after California AB5 became law, an exclusive new survey from Actors’ Equity Association, the national union representing more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers, highlights the need for AB5’s stronger employee protections.
Read MoreWriters and photographers filed suit over the bill in December, saying AB5 was an unconstitutional restraint of free speech and the media. They particularly objected to its “irrational and arbitrary” limit of 35 submissions per year, per client.
The suit was filed by the libertarian Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Association.
Read MoreInvestment in the arts is one of the keys to addressing the needs of our field. We applaud this announcement of a budget proposal for $20 million investment in the arts. #investinarts #artsadvocacy
Read More“Reclassifying workers as employees instead of contractors is a substantive plan to backstop the decades-long capitulation of labor at the hands of management. “What AB-5 stands for is the real structural pushback to the project of fissuring of work,” Veena Dubal, law professor at the University of California-Hastings and a labor scholar whose work was drawn upon to craft AB-5 said.”
Read More“For other industries, lawmakers are still considering changes to the law. Along with clarifying certain provisions, legislators are planning new language for musicians and the entertainment industry amid growing concerns over whether artists will be cast as employers under the new law, and be unable to work with the teams of people typically involved in production. “
Read MoreThe new law governing independent contracting, AB 5, includes what can be described as a business-to-business (B2B) exemption. But a close examination of the actual language shows that the B2B exemption is virtually inoperable.
Read MoreAn interview with Ari Herstand and independent musician Adrianne Duncan.
Ari Herstand is an independent musician and blogger, the author of the best-selling book How To Make It in the New Music Business and the founder of the music business advice company Ari’s Take. Forbes calls Ari Herstand “the poster child of DIY music.”
Island City Opera’s postponement of “The Wreckers” was first announced on the company’s website, and within hours the news had spread among local opera buffs. To report this story, Classical Music Critic Joshua Kosman spoke with officials of the company as well as some of the participating artists. He also interviewed representatives of several local opera companies to put this development in a broader context.
Read MoreAn outspoken op-ed by Brendan Rawson, Executive Director of San Jose Jazz.
”California has overreached in its effort to address the challenges in today’s tech platform gig-work economy.
The live music sector, the progenitor of the term “gig” work, is being swept up by this law. The irony would be comical if it were not such a serious problem.”
Read MoreAB5 aims to codify, clarify, and grant exemptions to a 2018 California Supreme Court decision called Dynamex. In the groundbreaking court decision established in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, the California Supreme Court found Dynamex’s workers were misclassified as independent contractors rather than employees. Both AB5 and Dynamex make it harder for companies to label workers as independent contractors.
Read MoreThe stated intent of AB 5 was to force “Gig Economy” rideshare companies to reclassify their drivers as employees, rather than allowing them to work as independent contractors, which could destroy the company’s very business model.
Nearly all other industries which use independent contractors were also caught in the wide net.
Read MoreIf freelancers are reclassified as employees, they’ll have to trade in their freedom for structure, potentially losing their ability to set their own hours.
Read MoreOn April 30, the California Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles that made it harder for companies to misclassify workers as independent contractors. In California, the test of employment status has been developed through caselaw over several decades. Dynamex built upon the earlier Court-established test in Borello which itself evolved with the standards developed in Martinez and Ayala. The court has steadily adapted the test to capture a true employment relationship as business models, such as the use of staffing agencies and contractors, have changed.
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