Teamsters Port Division Reacts To Preliminary Injunction Regarding Assembly Bill 5's Application To California Truck Drivers

PORTS OF LOS ANGELES, Calif. and LONG BEACH, Calif., Jan. 16, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- A U.S. District Court judge has issued a preliminary injunction in the case California Trucking Association, et al., v. Attorney General Xavier Becerra, et al., and International Brotherhood of Teamsters temporarily blocking application of AB5's ABC test.

The following is a statement from Julie Gutman Dickinson, local counsel to the Teamsters Port Division:

"We are not surprised by the Court's decision to issue a preliminary injunction blocking application of AB5's ABC test to California truck drivers; however, the decision does not impact port and rail drivers' fight for their employee rights and an end to systemic wage theft. The bottom line is that in every port trucker misclassification/wage theft case to date, misclassified California port truck drivers have been found to be employees NOT independent contractors under the California Borello test. It simply does not matter whether you apply the ABC test under Dynamex, AB5, or the Borello test, they are employees under all tests. The Court's preliminary injunction has no practical effect on the employee status of these drivers—they are clearly employees.

"In over 500 wage claim cases at the California DLSE, drivers have uniformly been found to be employees NOT independent contractors under the Borello test. There is not one case that I am aware of where any driver has been found to be an independent contractor under Borello. And in all private litigation I have participated in and am aware of, port and rail drivers have uniformly been found to be employees under the Borello test. Indeed, the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals has made crystal clear that Borello is NOT preempted under the FAAA.

"The question of whether the ABC test is preempted will go through legal proceedings before there is any final determination. Even if ultimately prong B is found preempted, prongs A and C should remain intact as they have in other jurisdictions. Further, even if the ABC test as a whole were ultimately found to be preempted for interstate drivers, it would still be immaterial to the fact that these drivers have been uniformly found to be employees under Borello, a test that has definitely been determined NOT to be preempted."

Contact: Barb Maynard, (323) 351-9321
[email protected] 
Kara Deniz, (202) 624-6911
[email protected] 

SOURCE Justice for Port Drivers

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