Assembly Bill 5 reclassified California’s 70,000 independent owner-operators as employees of the shipping companies they work with to arrange hauls, rather than independent contractors, the WSJ reported. The law was designed to protect gig workers like Uber drivers, but many truckers see it as restricting their independence, and in response, have been blocking access to Oakland’s port since Monday in an effort to get Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom to delay implementation of the law and compromise with them, The New York Times reported.
“This kills the liberty of being a trucker and kills the American Dream,”one Los Angeles-based trucker previously told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Today, I had the opportunity to be at the Port of Oakland with truck drivers whose lives and businesses are being impacted by #AB5. This law has created a legal nightmare. I opposed AB 5 in the Legislature & I stand with our truckers and small businesses. #Dahle4Governor #CA pic.twitter.com/8aoHIIcjNk
— Senator Brian Dahle (@BrianDahleCA) July 20, 2022
Today, I had the opportunity to be at the Port of Oakland with truck drivers whose lives and businesses are being impacted by The protests have seriously derailed port operations, delaying not just shipments scheduled to go through the Port of Oakland but also clogging up other congested ports elsewhere in California as containers are diverted from the Bay Area, the WSJ reported.
“If this carries on, I don’t know what we are going to do. We will literally be sitting on the last of our 2021 crop and not being able to ship it,” Nina Solari, vice president at a family-owned walnut processor, told the WSJ.
Supply chain issues have plagued the entire country throughout the pandemic, but California has been a particularly bad bottleneck. Increased stress on an already shaky system has attracted attention from federal policymakers, CalMatters reported…. (Excerpt from The Virginia Star and The Daily Caller)
