This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, June 10th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

In California, freelancers were hit with two big problems almost simultaneously.

One was the coronavirus. The other was known as AB 5, a law that put a rather large

dent in the incomes of many writers, performers, artists, and others. A new lawsuit is challenging

that California law at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Cato Institute has filed a brief in that case.

Trevor Burris described the argument.

AB 5 is a law that was passed in California and it was kind of stunning. I saw a bunch of videos on

YouTube and Twitter and elsewhere of musicians and others on stage saying this is terrible and so what does AB 5 do and I guess what problem was California trying to solve in doing it?

Well, I think this law is another example of California being essentially a one-party

state, so it's so controlled by Democrats

that it can almost do whatever it wants.

I think there's a lot of danger in a one-party state.

I think you see that also in Oklahoma on the other side.

But because the Democrats had such control,

the law was essentially written by the AFL-C-I-O that we later learned this.

And of course, labor unions require there to be an employment relationship.

For a very long time, labor unions, you know, they don't like independent contractors.

Just think about Uber versus say the union of taxi cab drivers.

Labor unions need there to be an employer to even have labor unions.

Labor unions view the gig economy is almost an existential threat.

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