Written by Michael Palomba
Lorena Gonzalez is not shy about being pro-choice. She sponsored ACR-110 which “would declare that California is a Reproductive Freedom State for All and provide that the Legislature is committed to guaranteeing the constitutionally protected right to an abortion and supporting efforts to increase access to the best available reproductive and pregnancy-related care for women and pregnant individuals.”
Baby Walter’s pictures speak volumes about the humanity of preborn children and the violence that abortionists commit against babies like him daily. https://t.co/b2M3ZVEWLR
— Live Action (@LiveAction) February 23, 2020
However, while she may be pro-choice regarding abortion, she is not pro-choice when it comes to choosing how, when, and where you want to work. Her most consequential bill, AB 5, has been facing fierce criticism from all angles—and the impact of the legislation is hurting more than just workers.
Yogala Studios, a small yoga studio in Los Angeles, has had to reclassify all of its independent contractors as employees. This includes providing them with extensive labor protections, a minimum wage, unemployment, and so on.
All of this comes at a price, however. Samantha Garrison, the owner of the studio, said, “I knew I needed to bring in more money” and raised prices from $22 to $26 per class. Therefore, employees are not the only ones feeling the effect of the bill, as customers are paying for these new regulations too.
This is no isolated incident. Businesses across the state now need to upend everything from worker classification to price structure—and even their entire business model—to comply with Lorenza Gonzalez’s new “pro-union” experiment.
Uber, Lyft, and several food delivery platforms have outright refused to reclassify their employees and have pledged millions of dollars to have the bill revoked or to be granted exemptions.
At the end of it all, AB 5 is an overreach by the state government to control how people can work. To live in a world where killing an unborn child is a matter of “choice” but how you want to work is not; that just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.
The party of government control is slowly trying to control more and more aspects of our lives, and I don’t think I’m alone in wanting to control my own life.
