California gig worker law survives truckers

The Ninth Circuit declined on Friday to temporarily block a California statute making it harder to classify workers as independent contractors instead of employees, Jennifer Bennett reports.

The statute, known as AB 5, prohibits owner-operators who lease their trucks to motor carriers from operating as contractors within California, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association said. But the federal appeals court said in an unpublished opinion the trucker organization failed to demonstrate that the law runs afoul of constitutional protections and affirmed the denial of a preliminary injunction.

AB 5 codified a 2018 California Supreme Court ruling that set out an “ABC ...