Vox to layoff hundreds of journalists because of new California law they once praised by 6IXSTRINGJACK

REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Vox to layoff hundreds of journalists because of new California law they once praised

POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Wednesday, December 18, 2019 15:03
SHORT URL:
VIEWED: 1060
PAGE 1 of 1

Wednesday, December 18, 2019 7:26 AM

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/vox-media-gets-curbed-by-go
vernment-regulation-it-once-celebrated

Quote:
"The bill is just another example of the elitism oozing out of California’s legislature. Politicians like Democrat Lorena Gonzalez, who spearheaded this project, think they know more about journalism than the men and women who have worked in the industry for decades."

OPPS

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 18, 2019 10:08 AM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...

Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/vox-media-gets-curbed-by-go
vernment-regulation-it-once-celebrated

Quote:
"The bill is just another example of the elitism oozing out of California’s legislature. Politicians like Democrat Lorena Gonzalez, who spearheaded this project, think they know more about journalism than the men and women who have worked in the industry for decades."

OPPS

Being a Freelancer was always a lose-lose proposition for all but the highest paid freelancers. Employers could hire them because they had to pay all FICA and their own SS, and as an employer that meant you would save thousands of dollars. As a freelancer you also had to pay taxes ahead of your income - as effed up as that sounds - in the form of estimated taxes. EVERY QUARTER. So 4 times a year you had to send the gov a huge check based on that you think you might make in the next 3 months.

If you didn't make a s-ton as a freelancer you were pretty well effed.

This: "Because the government will force prolific freelancers to be classified as employees, media companies will lose their flexibility to hire both part- and full-time workers in the way they once had."

That means companies can't hire a ton of freelancers in attempts to avoid paying lots of SS and taxes for them.
That's actual pro-freelancer in a way, but they will no longer be technically a freelancer, rather an employee. If you are an employee you have more protections but you lose some freedoms, like when to work and who to work for. I see people on both sides losing things.

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

Wednesday, December 18, 2019 3:03 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK

Fair enough... but I do believe that we're going to have to wait and see how this really plays out in the long haul.

I've worked "self contractor" jobs where I've had to file a 1099 and pay estimated taxes before. This is also very common when it comes to doing any type of construction/home remodeling based work that isn't a Union job. It's a shitty deal overall for anybody who has to do it, but at least there are some offsets such as being able to write off mileage on your car.

As great as this law sounds on paper, it's most likely going to do the opposite of what it set out to do when tested in the real world, and it will hurt many more people than it helps. Some will be lucky, many others will need to "learn to code".

I'm sure the intentions were good, but these laws were enacted either by people who don't understand how business works or quite honestly didn't really care if there were going to be negative consequences about it when they were getting all of that praise early on.

It's not all that dissimilar to the solidification of some previous unenforced laws regarding employment and health insurance in the work place that the ACA put forth.

I was working part time at KMart years back when that happened. Up until the ACA passed, I was able to work up to 39.5 hours on any given week without getting written up for going over hours. (Because the only time the "full time" law was ever enforced was when you were working over 40 hours). But when the ACA passed and made that 30 hours per week and made no mistake about letting it be known they were going to be enforcing that, the amount of hours I could work in any given week was then only 29.5 without getting written up.

At $8.25/hr, that is the difference between grossing $325.86 per week and only grossing $243.38 per week. When you're already making nearly nothing, that's $82.50 worth of food that was just involuntarily taken out of your mouth and/or 5 or 6 degrees colder in hour house during the winter.

IMPORTANT: There was Zero chance from the start that KMart was going to come around and magically give all of their employees "full time" status and all of the benefits that came with it. I worked in a store with nearly 220 employees, and out of that number, only 6 of them had full time status and benefits such as health insurance.

I was in a position where even working 29.5 hours was around breaking even for me. For most people I worked with that wasn't the case and they needed to get second jobs to make up for that. I'm wondering if you have any idea what it's like to have to try to coordinate two shitty part time jobs with two employers who have the nerve to think that THEY come first when they're paying you minimum wage or very much near it?

A lot of people at Vox are learning that lesson now.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

NOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | TOP | HOME

YOUR OPTIONS

SHARE THREAD

NEW POSTS TODAY

USER	POST DATE

USER

POST DATE