Bills Propose to Exempt Newspaper Distributors, Freelance Writers From AB 5

The one-year exemption to the state’s new employee classification test that the California News Publishers Association won last year would become permanent, under a recently introduced bill. Another measure introduced last week would exempt all freelance journalists from the various new tests that went into effect at the start of the year to determine whether they’re employees or contractors. Assembly Bill 5, by Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, adopted the ABC test from the state Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Dynamex as the method for determining who is a cont...