by Dave Courvoisier
This is the part of interactive journaism I love. Blogging isn’t exactly journalism, unless you happen to be a life-long journalist; then I think it qualifies.
And to qualify, a journalist has to be willing to go the extra length to make sure he gets the story right in the end. I think with today’s addition to the question about AB-5, the facts are coming clear.
Peter Marx, a long-time member of the LA legal community, and now a voice actor too, wrote me in response to last week’s blog about AB-5. He was glad I brought the issue to the fore, but had the courtesy to school me a little on the facts.
Thanks, Peter!
Read below to see his unedited response to me.
CourVO
Dave,
I’ve been reading your blog for the last year or so, and appreciate that you share your views. I write to suggest, respectfully, that certain aspects of your post on January 2 about California AB 5 may be a bit misleading, or at least result in unnecessary concern. I have always found the VO community to be supportive and helpful, and what follows is offered in that spirit.
By way of background, I am an LA based voice actor, and though I’ve been around for awhile, as a practical matter I’m relatively new to the field. I have also been a member of the California Bar for over 50 years, and while now pretty much retired, one area of focus in my practice was employment law. I still serve as a mediator, and over the years have mediated countless cases where the primary issue was misclassification, i.e., did management misclassify a worker as an independent contractor rather than as an employee.
In 2018 the California Supreme Court decided Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, which substantially affected the ability of employers to classify workers as independent contractors. (Pursuant to the court’s opinion, Dynamex appears to have a business model similar if not identical to Uber, the main difference being that Dynamex transports packages rather than people.) The Dynamex opinion is somewhat limited in its application, but in adopting AB 5 the legislature stated its intent to “codify … Dynamex and … clarify the decision’s application in state law.”