AB 5 Targets independent owner-operator drivers: New court filings by OOIDA
The Cullen Law Firm, PLLC filed a supplemental brief on May 19, 2023, arguing an additional reason why the court should grant a new preliminary injunction prohibiting California’s enforcement of AB 5 against the trucking industry. Earlier in the case, the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, (OOIDA) filed a motion alleging that AB 5 violates the dormant Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution by putting an unreasonable burden on drivers and carriers based outside of California. Now, OOIDA argues that AB 5 also violates the Equal Protection Clause, which prohibits states from denying any person equal protection of the laws. The OOIDA brief cites the legislative history of AB 5 to demonstrate that the supporters of AB 5 used it to target the end of the owner-operator driver business model. The animus of the legislature against owner-operators was the purpose of the law; the legislature was not trying to solve any problems of worker classification in the motor carrier industry.
OOIDA’s argues in its supplemental brief that former California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, the primary advocate for the passage of AB 5, purposefully targeted independent owner-operators during the passage of the bill. OOIDA quotes a remark Gonzalez made on the California Assembly Floor on Sept. 11, 2019, that AB 5 would “get rid of an outdated broker model that allows companies to basically make money and set rates for people that they called independent contractors.” The brief also cites Ms. Gonzalez’s own published Fact Sheet about AB 5 in which she referred to trucking industry worker misclassification and described the independent contractor model as “exploitative” and dubbed it an “illegal business model.”
OOIDA also stresses Assemblywoman Gonzalez’s ties to and support of unions, and that she wanted to “classify more workers as employees so that they could more easily unionize and be eligible for minimum wage and benefits.” Indeed, before serving in the legislature, Assemblywoman Gonzalez was the leader of San Diego’s organized labor council. Assemblywoman Gonzalez also tweeted on May 30, 2019, saying: “. . . . I am a Teamster. I ran for office as an organizer and labor leader. I believe in unions to my core. Stand in solidarity with workers every single day. . . . I am the union.”
The brief alleges that the law also unlawfully exempts from AB 5 independent owner-operator drivers who serve the construction industry, but not other owner-operators. But, as noted in OOIDA’s May 19 brief, given the policy goals of AB 5, “[t]here is no relevant or practical difference between independent contractor truckers who serve the construction industry and those who serve the wide spectrum of other industries that rely on trucking.” OOIDA explains that the exempt construction industry truck drivers and the non-exempt truck drivers who serve a variety of businesses may well be the very same individuals.
The California Trucking Association also filed a supplemental brief in support of its motion for a preliminary injunction, arguing—along with other points raised by OOIDA’s counsel—that the case is similar to Olson v. California, 62 F. 4th 1206, 1219 (9th Cir. 2023), in which the Ninth Circuit decided that “the exclusion of thousands of workers from the mandates of A.B. 5 is starkly inconsistent with the bill’s stated purpose of affording workers the ‘basic rights and protections they deserve.” CTA further argued that the construction industry trucking exemption plainly favored intrastate trucking, an argument that supports the Plaintiffs’ claim that the law violates the Constitution’s dormant Commerce Clause.
The supplemental briefing followed the granting by the U.S. District Court in San Diego of OOIDA’s and CTA’s requests to amend their complaints to add the equal protection claim. The preliminary injunction hearing is set for August 28, 2023.
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