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VOL. 8, NO. 52
VISUAL JOURNALISTS FILE SUIT AGAINST STATE OF CALIFORNIA AB5 will have a devastating impact on news gathering and ride-sharing in 2020 Terry MILLER tmiller@beaconmedianews.com
T
he New Year is just around the corner and 2020 is bringing with it an overabundance of new laws that will seriously affect the lives of many Californians: from a minimum wage increase to cracking down on vaccine exemptions, a major shake-up of California’s employment law to a cap on rent hikes. Pretty heavy stuff to read and inwardly digest. One of the biggest laws to come out of the California Legislature this year, Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) re-classifies many independent contractors, such as Uber and Lyft drivers, as employees, entitled to benefits and protections, such as sick leave and minimum wage. Several professions are exempt under the new law, however, including doctors, lawyers, accountants, veterinarians and cosmetologists. But alas, one group who could be seriously affected is freelance photojournalists and the media in general. Still photographers, photojournalists, freelance writers, editors, and newspaper cartoonists are also included in “professional services” but with important limitations: (1) these speaking professions are limited to 35 “content submissions” per client, per year, Cal. Labor Code § 2750.3(c)(2)(B)(ix) and (x); and (2) video is expressly excluded from the still photography and photojournalism exemption. Cal. Labor Code § 2750.3(c)(2) (B)(ix). Within the journalism profession, the term photojournalist means any visual journalist, including news photographers, videographers, and multimedia journalists who shoot either still or video images. Newspapers are already being strangled to death with red tape, tariffs and an enormous digital competition, forcing many papers to layoff and condense staff
Photographers and reporters, many of whom are freelancers, await 2020 presidential candidate Kamala Harris’s press conference in Pasadena late June. – Photo by Terry Miller / Beacon Media News
to a bare bottom minimum. The trend for years has been to hire independent contractors in an effort to boost the bottom line. “When AB5 was signed into law, our members in California were understandably upset,” said Milton C. Toby, president of the American Society of Journalists and Authors, which represents 1,100 freelance writers nationwide, including about 120 in California, told the Los Angeles Times.
“Some companies are beginning to not hire or let go of California freelancers in anticipation of the law.” AB5 which will go into effect Jan. 1, among other things, literally limits the number of assignments a freelancer can shoot (photograph) for any particular publisher to 35 a year. An absurd and arbitrary number dreamed up by the architects of AB5. This could cripple the livelihood of thousands of visual journalists
as well as other so-called independent contractors, forcing companies to either employ them as staffers or not use their talents at all.
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