Lives of average Californians continue to be decimated by its clueless, virtue signaling politicians marching the state towards the abyss. In an apparent effort to give residents yet another reason to leave the state,  legislatures passed Assembly Bill 5 as advocated by the unions, limiting freelance journalists to 35 submissions a year before they MUST be hired onto staff, and receive the corresponding benefits mandated by law.

So, what do the woke publications who continually agitate for such resolutions do? Fire their California workers.

According to the LA Times– “New York-based Vox Media said Monday it would end contracts with hundreds of freelance writers and editors in California who covered sports for the blog network SB Nation as the company came into compliance with the law, which could have forced it to reclassify some of these contractors as employees.”

For those terminated due to the wisdom of the compassionate centralized planning committee who “know what’s best for everyone,” I truly feel for them. The responses on Twitter and elsewhere are compelling and heart-wrenching.

California politicians want fewer jobs?

But there is one response in particular  I want to focus on from Lucas Hann, editor in chief of the Clippers blog, ClipsNation, who breaks from the emotional response, “The reason why there was a need for the law to begin with, is because companies like Vox … are not paying people, and they’re using this contractor loophole to get around labor law.”

Businesses are entitled to turn a profit. If they offer a price too low for a column, freelance writers will reject it, and that assignment will either go unfilled, or they’ll have to raise the price until they’ll find a taker. It is supply and demand.

And maybe the writing is substandard at the lowest price, so companies have to decide the rate at which they will receive their desired quality. Maybe they’ll find someone so good, they’ll hire them onto staff and give them the requisite compensation package, or maybe they’ll lose a writer to another publication that will want him/her full-time.
That’s the free market.

But If Vox Media, the wokest of woke media, protectors of human rights and dignity, purveyors of intersectional politics, is unwilling to pay their employees “properly,” who IN FACT WILL?
That is the question. The leftists at Vox, want restrictions imposed on industries in favor of workers, but the moment that the regulations hit them, they turn tail and do what benefits them economically. The hypocrisy overflows like a poorly poured beer.

Meanwhile, all these free-lancers living in California are fired, losing their incomes, their livelihood, because why deal with the bureaucracy, paper work, and added cost when you can easily find equally talented writers out of state?
Perhaps a few people who have really proven themselves will be hired on full time and receive benefits and more money, as well what will likely be a schedule given to staff rather than the flexibility to work on their own time that most free-lancers desire most while they pursue their dreams, but remember that without auditioning at entry level positions, they might not have been able to work their way up.
All that the politicians in California are doing is virtue signaling how “caring” they are as they destroy peoples’ livelihoods. This is what happens when you put too many controls on the free market.

The reason strikes and unions worked at GM plants is because the capital equipment was impossible to move, and because union members were able to block (illegally) and extract significant social capital from scabs. The same does not apply to mobile writing assignments.

The utter destruction of California jobs is a highly highly predictable outcome. Either these politicians are intentionally selling the electorate fake compassion in exchange for votes, or they’re absolutely ignorant of economics and freedom of choice.

They seem to be in an echo chamber of leftists, all yelling “We are going to help the common man,” and as they continue to approach the precipice of destruction, not one of them will pull back for fear of alienating members of their cult, until their  march us all over the cliff.