AB 5 — it's not just for California anymore; or soon won't be. But for now, it serves as a splendid example of what’s coming down the road

California’s truck shortage is self-created

I’ve written about California’s Assembly 5, the “anti-gig law’ that was ostensibly aimed at Uber and Lyft drivers but encompassed and banned almost all freelance jobs, with only a few groups with political power gaining exemption, such as movie people and real estate agents and lawyers. But orchestras, freelance musicians, writers, painters, gardeners, etc. were thrown out of work. So were independent truckers, the owner-operators who used to serve the ports of the Eureka State.

But, this being California, there are always other “issues”. The situation isn’t being helped by another California law, one that bans all trucks older than 2010 from the state’s highways.

The immediate problem, the one in Los Angeles, has been caused by the state’s vindictively regulatory state government.

We’ll get to the trucker shortage in just a moment, but California also faces a shortage of trucks for them to drive.

Twitter user Jerry Oakley reminds us that “Carriers domiciled in California with trucks older than 2011 model, or using engines manufactured before 2010, will need to meet the Board’s new Truck and Bus Regulation beginning in 2020.” Otherwise, “Their vehicles will be blocked from registration with the state’s DMV,” according to California law.

“The requirement is to purchase electric trucks which do not exist.”

…

But even if there were plenty of trucks in California, there wouldn’t be enough truckers to drive them — and it isn’t because the truckers are too old.
Traditionally the ports have been served by Owner Operators,” Oakley says, who are non-union. But under AB-5, “California has now banned Owner Operators.”

Just like the union longshoremen, union truckers work under a whole host of work rules that simply can’t accommodate crisis conditions like the ones in Los Angeles.

In fact, those work rules helped create the crisis conditions.

And here’s something Papa Pete Butttocheek might want to nip in the bud, if he ever returns to work, because what happens in California never stays in California:

The exact language of AB-5 was copied and pasted into Presidentish Joe Biden’s $5 trillion (Or: Five Million MillionDollar) “Build Back Better” bill currently stalled in the Senate.