Pass California bill preserving delivery of your newspaper
California’s Legislature will decide the future of print journalism today when it votes on AB 170.
It’s imperative that daily newspaper readers urge their representatives to pass the bill and send it to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his signature.
The last-minute legislation gives the newspaper industry a one-year reprieve from the devastating impact of AB 5, the gig economy bill designed to turn millions of independent contractors into employees with workplace protections and benefits.
AB 170 is hardly ideal. But it gives an industry that has been struggling financially time to convince lawmakers of this simple reality: Carriers and the newspapers they work for have a time-tested work relationship that should not be subject to the gig economy legislation. The Legislature already recognized the need when it exempted dozens of other professionals, including travel agents, graphic designers, doctors, lawyers, hairdressers and real estate agents.
The deadline for the Legislature to act is today. If AB 170 fails, thousands of newspaper carriers will lose their jobs. The people who deliver newspapers are independent contractors, allowing them the freedom to work for as many dailies and weeklies as possible. Classifying them as employees of a single publication will limit their opportunities.
It will also drive up the cost of delivery to a degree that newspapers will face devastating consequences. Publishers throughout California say that newspapers will be forced to reduce delivery routes or drop their print editions altogether. Drops in circulation will result in lower advertising revenues, leading to reductions in staff for an industry that has already suffered devastating layoffs.
The Nieman Journalism Lab reported Tuesday on a study it conducted that showed “despite the hardships local newspapers have endured, they remain, by far, the most significant providers of journalism in their communities.”
The Nieman study showed that newspapers account for nearly 60% of the local news stories generated in their communities and that “local newspapers produced more of the local reporting in the communities we studied than television, radio, and online- only outlets combined.”
We understand the compelling need for lawmakers to address the future of work given the rapid development of the gig economy. Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, wrote the contentious AB 5 in response to the California Supreme Court’s controversial, sweeping Dynamex decision. That ruling ordered companies to treat workers as employees unless employers could show that the workers aren’t under a firm’s “control and direction.”
Newspaper carriers have worked for decades under long- established state regulations that ensure they have the freedom of independent contractors. It makes no sense for lawmakers to classify them as employees, knowing that it will cost many carriers their jobs while also having serious consequences for the quality of journalism in California.
It’s essential that the Legislature act today to preserve what has been for centuries the foundation of America’s free press.