IL Senate Resolution laid the foundation to pursue California AB5 law in Illinois, and like in California, legislation being pushed by unions

With State Senator Jim Oberweis running for Congress and his senate term is up for election this year, an open senate seat was created to be filled in the 2020 election for the 25th Legislative District, which includes central/southern Kane County and most of Kendall and a small part of DuPage County.

The Republican nominee is Jeanette Ward, who served on the Elgin-based U-46 school board, and she is running against Democrat 1st term State Representative Karina Villa, who prior to election as state representative in 2018, served on the West Chicago school board.

Ward’s campaign Facebook page this morning marked the first time McHenry County Blog has seen an Illinois candidate for public office condemning the controversial California Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) law for worker reclassification, which is the heart of the congressional bill Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act, which passed the U.S. House earlier this year:

I will vigorously oppose any effort to bring this terrible California legislation to Illinois. Forcing 1099 freelance…

Posted by Jeanette for Senate 25 on Monday, September 14, 2020

McHenry County Blog congratulates Ward for taking this pro-active stance against bad legislation, documented here as “racist”, and a California ballot initiative for a partial repeal of AB5 had a “Yes” vote endorsed by the San Francisco Chronicle.

But is AB5 legislation being pursued in Illinois? The answer, while there is currently no legislation filed, is no, but the groundwork has been laid through a Senate Resolution filed in late May of this year.

State Senator Cristina Castro (D, Elgin) filed Senate Resolution 1158 back on May 19 and here is the resolution’s synopsis:

“Urges the Department of Employment Security to collect data, where practicable, regarding incidents of employer misclassification and regarding applicants who are found by the Department to qualify for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance as self-employed, independent contractors, and sole proprietors.”

Source: Illinois General Assembly
.

But reading the full verbiage of the resolution it expands greatly beyond the “Pandemic Unemployment Assistance” scope, is this definition of “employer misclassification”:

“'Employer misclassification' in this paragraph shall mean a
case in which a worker is classified by his or her employer as
an independent contractor and paid 1099 wages but is later
deemed by IDES to qualify as an employee, based upon the legal
standard applicable to State of Illinois unemployment law;

From full text of S.R. 1158, Illinois General Assembly (ILGA.GOV)
Emphasis added
.

The phrase “legal standard applicable” jumps out, because, as reported previously on Labor Day on McHenry County Blog, the crux of the controversy of the California AB5 law is the change in state law to apply the “ABC test” as the “legal standard” to define a worker as an employee or an independent contractor.

This is why Ward’s courageous public stance not only needs to be highlighted by all genuine Patriots and lovers of Freedom, but needs to be done by EVERYONE, regardless of party, who values their livelihood and candidates who will commit to protect it.

California Democrats chose ABC, a product of factory work back in the late 1930s, and negatively impacted between 2 to 4 million workers’ livelihoods because of ABC, opposed to the better, smart application of the IRS test.

While the gig economy of app-based businesses like Uber, Lyft, UberEats, DoorDash and other similar companies first come to mind because the drivers in these businesses work as independent contractors, the California law impacted ALL independent contractors, including freelancers across multiple professions.

Yes, AB5, and it’s so-called “fix” AB2257 approved and signed into law earlier this month, granted exemptions, but the ABC test is still the “legal standard” used to classify workers in California. And why is it government’s place to determine exemptions, anyway (the Prop 22 referendum in California is simply adding a voter-approved exemption for all app-based businesses)?

Just over a month after S.R. 1158 was filed in Springfield, and in spite of the resolution going nowhere in the spring session, Lyft formed the Illinoisans for Independent Work as an Independent Expenditure (IE) political committee through a D-1 filing with the Illinois State Board of Elections. Lyft funded the new IE committee with $1.2 million.

After being reported in POLITICO on July 1, Zach Koutsky, the legislative and political director for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 881 in Chicago, tweeted the following thread, which is transcribed for ease of reading:

“Hi Lyft!

“1st off, State Representative Will Guzzardi and State Senator Cristina Castro are our lead sponsors, and Sen. Castro actually introduced SR1158 which compels IL Department of Employment Security to investigate and compile a report on how many of your employees are misclassified.

“2nd, if Lyft and other gig companies think that in Illinois, in this moment with massive economic displacement and their workers being deemed essential yet not getting adequate protection and pay, is a good time to float how they’re gonna fight these employees getting more…

“3rd; as we’ve seen countless times during this pandemic, essential workers are compensated, protected, valuated, and treated far differently than their “essential” and “hero” designation would lead you to believe. Gig workers are among the “best” examples of that disconnect…

“in that they can’t even petition their employers to do better because they technically don’t have one, they’re on their own! That’s the main reason that the Illinois AFL-CIO, Teamsters Joint Council 25, Service Employees International Union, UFCW Local 881, American Federation of State City and Municipal Employees Council 31 and others are pushing to right this grievous wrong.

“FINALLY…

“If you think announcing a $1.2 million IE is somehow gonna get pro-labor super majorities to go against workers/labor rights, when the IL labor movement is doing 10x that amount of political activity this year…man, you are overpaying for some really bad legislative/pol advice.

“LOL, in today’s POLITICO from Shia Kapos:
‘Lyft has donated $1.2 million to Illinoisans for Independent Work, an organization opposing a yet-to-be-filed bill that would benefit gig workers by offering basic rights and protections’.

“Keep up the great announcement, Lyft!

Twitter thread from Zach Koutsky, 7/1/20
.

Reading that roll call of unions in Koutsky’s tweet thread, one thinks “rogue’s gallery” or “round up the usual suspects” for leftist policies, but another player must be introduced, and that is Veena Dubal, law professor at Hastings School of Law at the University of California-Berkeley.

Think “indoctrination” within public schools, colleges and universities and Dubal’s picture should first come to mind.

Proof? Please read this thread tweeted from Ms. Dubal yesterday (9/14) and all can see the personification of the cancel culture, liberalism, leftist-thinking in one swift stroke:

What this lady said nearly crosses the line of libel, accusing Red State Jennifer Van Laar, California based freelancer Lisa Rothstein and New Jersey based freelancer Kim Kavin (quoted in the Quill article in Ward’s Facebook post) as “political consultants”.

But as a citizen journalist for McHenry County Blog, we’ve already seen through the lie of the “significant reform” to AB5, the AB2257 legislation and paraphrasing Scripture from the book of Daniel, chapter 5 (the writing on the wall), we find Dubal’s claims “wanting” and so does state senate candidate Jeanette Ward.

We thank her for taking the fight to the Veena Dubals and Zach Koutskys of Illinois.

Ward’s campaign can be followed here.