Wisco Weekly

Since their inception, transportation start-ups like Uber and Lyft have garnered tremendous media and policy attention not only for their service but also for their impact on the labor market. In this two-part series, host Dennis Wisco introduces key concepts of policies that speak to this topic, such as California Assembly Bill 5. He outlines non-partisan arguments that apply economic theory to exploring the bill's policy implications. Tune in to this episode to learn more about the California App-Based Driver's Regulation Initiative, the history of the independent contractor status, and a crash-course breakdown of classical economics related to current legislation. California Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5) is a state statute that establishes that it is the employer's burden to prove that a worker is an "independent contractor" and not an "employee" through the application of a three-prong analysis. This analysis identifies an employer's duty to provide greater labor protections to workers through industries' regula