If all workers cannot be directly employed by Big Government, they must at least be controlled by Big Unions, which are a lucrative extension of the Democratic Party. Otherwise, workers would be independent — and independence is obscene from the point of view of our leftist ruling class. That’s why the Democrats have conspired to throw tens of millions of Americans out of work by making it illegal to work on a freelance basis.

Biden et al. has intended from the beginning to inflict a federal version of California’s AB5, which demonstrates the Democrat belief in the American dream by criminalizing working for yourself. AB5 is about to cause economic havoc.

The law decrees that

“a person providing labor or services for remuneration shall be considered an employee rather than an independent contractor unless the hiring entity demonstrates that the person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, the person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business, and the person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business.”

Those who find favor with California’s moonbat overlords get exceptions. Truckers are not among them.

A January 2020 injunction saved trucking from the insane and tyrannical law. However:

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra [currently head of Biden’s HHS] called on U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez to reverse the injunction. …

On June 28, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review the case of the California truckers battling against AB5. …

Now, the truckers must be employees of trucking companies and not independent contractors in order to be able to work in California. …

If the law is enforced, California faces a possible mass exodus of the state’s estimated 70,000 independent truckers.

Imagine the chaos this will cause at the Port of Oakland alone:

“There’s 9,000 trucks that serve the port on a daily basis, and 90% of them are independent contractors. So, this is a big, big impact,” said Bill Aboudi owner of AB Trucking in Oakland.

You think we have a supply chain crisis now? You think prices are already high? Just wait. Democrats are not through inflicting their agenda.

The California Trucking Association delivered a warning, “Gasoline has been poured on the fire that is our ongoing supply chain crisis. In addition to the direct impact on California’s 70,000 owner-operators who have seven days to cease long-standing independent businesses, the impact of taking tens of thousands of truck drivers off the road will have devastating repercussions on an already fragile supply chain, increasing costs and worsening runaway inflation.”

If they were merely fools, they might show contrition. But Democrats are pressing full steam ahead toward economic devastation.

Sneers Lorena Gonzalez, currently head of the California Labor Federation, who was the author of AB5:

“The fact that trucking companies will have to abide by basic labor laws in CA takes us one step closer to rebuilding the middle class that was almost deregulated out of existence.”

If there are two things Democrats love, they are regulation and unions. They are more than willing to make us suffer for them.

If you think the economy has been bad since Biden took power, think how awful it would be if he were able to get his favored legislation passed. His Build Back Better lurch deeper into socialism would push inflation into Venezuela territory. The Pro Act — a federal version of AB5 — would do to the whole country what malevolent leftists like Gavin Newsom and Lorena Gonzalez are doing to California.

On tips from Blackjack and Mr. Freemarket.

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