LOS ANGELES — For Alice Dubin there is nothing sweeter than being at home on a Friday around noon with her five-year-old twins.

She has flexibility over her schedule as an independent contractor working as a freelance writer in the news industry, but that may soon come to an end.

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“Their school is not that close, so if I have to pick someone up from school if they’re sick it’s like you know,, I have to be available for that. And freelancing allows me to do that,” said Dubin.

According to the 2019 Freelancing in America Survey, 40 percent of freelancers started working as independent contractors because of a situation outside of her control. In Dubin's case, she was laid off from her previous staff job in September; so she quickly built up her list of freelance clients, and started exceeding her early revenue goals. In addition,, she had flexibility and time with her children.

“I felt great to be able to be back in that world. I was super gratified right away and then it wasn’t even a couple of weeks later that I learned about AB5 and I will say, that was harder than the layoff,” said Dubin.

AB 5 is a California law that went into effect January 1 of 2020. It limits the classification of workers as independent contractors rather than employees. For Dublin, it means she can’t write more than 35 articles per publisher per year. Her publishers have already notified her that they’ll be adhering to the new cap, and it’s wiping out a significant part of her income.

“I’m already aware of about $40,000 or more possibly pushing $50,000 in lost income,” said Dubin. 

Upset about what this means for them, California freelancers have set up a Facebook group, California Freelance Writers United, which has grown to over 1,000 members in the few months since the law passed. 

In December, two groups representing freelance journalists, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Press Photographers Association, filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of AB 5. Plaintiffs say the law treats speech differently because it caps journalism at 35 articles but has no cap on marketing or public relations agencies. 

But Governor Newsom hails AB 5 as landmark legislation that will cut down on the growing trend of independent contractors, which now account for about one in 10 workers in the U.S., according to the Labor Department. This misclassification allows companies to dodge benefits afforded to full-time employees, passing the bill onto the taxpayers according to AB 5 author Lorena Gonzalez:

“Misclassification is something that our state has been dealing with for decades, and as a result we lose upwards of $8 billion a year, because of lost wages, lost taxes, because of the expenditures we have to make as a state when businesses mis-classify their workers.”  

Since AB 5 was announced, multiple publications including Vox have ended contracts with hundreds of California freelance writers citing AB 5. The problem with journalism as opposed to Uber and Lyft Dubin says, is it can be done in any other state, or country: 

“Those jobs aren’t coming back” said Dubin. Staff jobs in newsrooms have declined by 25 percent from 2008 to 2018 according to the Pew Research Center. 

“Meanwhile . . . we are here fighting just to be able to do our jobs, it is so unfair,” Dublin said.

Unfair, because for years she’s been dodging and adapting to the rapidly changing news industry, and if she’s able to get a full-time job, she’ll be giving up flexibility and time with her family.