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Now they’re coming for the writers

by baldilocks

I’ve been saying to any who will listen that the goal of California’s Organized Left (OL) is to drive out the middle class. The OL’s dream population will consist of the rich and the servant class, with the latter being composed mostly of illegal aliens.

Here’s more evidence for my theory.

[Assembly Bill 5], which cracks down on companies — like ride-sharing giants Lyft and Uber — that misclassify would-be employees as independent contractors, has been percolating through the California legislative system for nearly a year. It codifies the 2018 Dynamex decision by the State Supreme Court while carving out some exemptions for specific professions.

But the exemption for freelance journalists — which some have only just learned about via their colleagues, press reports, social networks and/or spirited arguments with the bill’s author on Twitter — contains what some say is a potentially career-ending requirement for a writer to remain a freelancer: If a freelance journalist writes for a magazine, newspaper or other entity whose central mission is to disseminate the news, the law says, that journalist is capped at writing 35 “submissions” per year per “putative employer.” At a time when paid freelance stories can be written for a low end of $25 and high end of $1 per word, some meet that cap in a month just to make ends meet. (…)

Many publications that employ California freelancers aren’t based in the state and it’s not clear how AB 5 will affect them. Still, some are choosing to opt out entirely. Indeed, several freelance writers who spoke to THR say that various out-of-state employers — some with offices in California — have already told them they’re cutting ties with California freelancers. (…)

THR has additionally reviewed several job notices in transcription, blogging and SEO writing that have explicitly stated that California freelancers will not be considered.

Emphasis mine.

I write 104 blog posts a year, at minimum, for this site alone. We disseminate news.

A few months back, I got booted from one of my side hustles – transcription – because I live in CA. I didn’t understand why; now the picture is clear.

Ignore the what the OL says justifications are for the law and let me tell you what it really is.

Freelance writers – even itinerant “street artists” like me – are considered part of the middle class by the OL because we all have the potential of upward mobility and, most importantly, we cannot be controlled by an employer.

So, we have to submit, find a more “acceptable” line of work, or get out. It’s that simple.

By the way, you may have noticed that I didn’t factor the homeless into the OL’s desired population. That’s because they are merely a temporary tool to drive out us icky middle class undesirables.

California Governor Gavin Newsom and CA lawmakers enable the many repugnant practices of the chronically homeless, specifically things which can lead to death. Public defecation and opioid usage are chief among these and the OL hopes that these things will thin the herd once its usefulness has ended.

Ingeniously evil form of “ethnic” cleansing, no?

The law goes into effect on January 1. Time to start planning and praying.

Juliette Akinyi Ochieng has been blogging since 2003 as baldilocks. Her older blog is here.  She published her first novel, Tale of the Tigers: Love is Not a Game in 2012.

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