California’s Changing Freelancer Economy
Posted on Saturday, December 28, 2019 at 8:33 PM
In the news: A new labor law taking effect in California upends its
gig economy.
Next week, a new labor law in California goes
into effect that will redefine freelance work. Ari Levy and Alex Sherman
of CNBC.com write that Assembly Bill 5, “targeted primarily at
ride-hailing and food delivery companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and
PostMates ... requires gig economy workers to be hired as employees with
benefits like health coverage and minimum wage protections.” The law
limits freelancers to 35 individual contributions per year before they
must be hired as employees.
The law, intended by its framers to
protect gig workers from being exploited by companies, has landed with a
thud in some sectors. There’s widespread backlash from freelance
journalists who have lost, or expect to lose, their jobs because they
are producing more than 35 pieces of content per year. According to CBS
San Francisco, freelance journalists are suing the state to revise
the part of the law that’s threatening their livelihood. Read more here.
Also
Notable
A Rough Month for Car Magazines
Earlier
this month, TEN Publishing stopped production of 19 of its 22 print car
magazines. According to Greg Dool of Foliomag.com, the surviving print
titles are MotorTrend, Hot Rod, and Four Wheeler.
Canceled titles include Automobile, Classic Trucks, and Truck
Trend. A memo to employees announced a “one-time voluntary
separation program, in which some editors and salespeople will be given
the option to resign in exchange for ‘special separation benefits.’” For
a full list of shuttered automotive magazines, read here.
New
Print Magazines in 2019
This year saw the launch of several
branded print magazines. Among them are Sir Kensington’s Sandwich
magazine and outdoor retailer REI’s Uncommon Path. Read
more about this burgeoning trend in content marketing here.
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