ICLE Academic Affiliate Liya Palagashvili was a guest on the Free the Economy podcast to discuss  jobs, full- and part-time jobs, contractors, gig work, California’s Assembly Bill 5, recent U.S. Labor Department rules, and flexible workplace benefits. Video of the full interview is embedded below.

This week, the Department of Labor’s new rule on independent contracting goes into effect. It will now be more difficult to engage in freelancing, gig work or certain types of independent work — a Biden administration labor-agenda standard that is far stricter than it was under the Trump or Obama administrations.

Read the full piece here.

ICLE Academic Affiliate Liya Palagashvili joined the She Thinks podcast episode to discuss harms and threats to independent contracting stemming from a new U.S. Labor Department rule. Video of the full episode is embedded below.

ICLE Academic Affiliate Liya Palagashvili joined the Labor Relations Radio podcast to discuss her recent study on the damaging effects of California’s war on independent contractors through the disastrous A.B. 5. The full episode is embedded below.

This Labor Day, America’s labor movement is at the brink of a pivotal moment. Conservatives are now joining liberals in embracing the vital role of labor unions for advancing a worker-centric society—albeit with some crucial reforms in mind.

This comes at a time when workers are feeling apprehensive about their future labor market prospects, especially with recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence. Concurrently, the independent economy—comprised of freelancers, gig workers, and conventional contractors—is revolutionizing how we work and challenging the relevance of traditional, employee-centric labor unions.

Read the full piece here.

Freedom of enterprise is considered a second-class freedom in Spain, rather than a fundamental right. It is clear that this has been the view not only of successive Spanish governments since the current Constitution was promulgated in 1978, but also of the judges of the Supreme Court of Spain (Tribunal Supremo) and the Constitutional Court of Spain (Tribunal Constitucional). Spanish regulation of unscheduled urban transport services provided by private-hire passenger vehicles (PHVs) perfectly illustrates the former’s interventionist impulses (as part of the close and pernicious relationship between politics and business, in which economic freedoms are used as a bargaining chip) as well as the deference to power shown by the latter.

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Many of us are accustomed to “surge pricing” when requesting Ubers during rush hour or booking last-minute flights over Christmas. But these types of dynamic or algorithmic pricing strategies are now creeping into daily life — such as in restaurants, gyms and even grocery stores. A recent Wall Street Journal article reported on a customer’s anger when his local bowling alley charged him three times the normal rate using a demand-based, algorithmic pricing strategy.

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This week the Federal Reserve announced that it expects a recession in the coming months. Companies are already engaging in hiring freezes and layoffs, and several economic indicators point to a pessimistic future. But a pending Department of Labor (DOL) rule could make this recession more severe by cutting off work opportunities for millions of Americans.

Read the full piece here.

In the era of Uber and DoorDash, state governments are grappling with how to address the problems stemming from a growing independent or “gig” workforce.

In Utah, there are more than 80,000 self-employed and independent workers who may not have access to traditional work benefits. This arrangement reflects a relic of the past. Many decades ago, tax incentives were created to encourage our benefits to be tied to our jobs, and labor laws were created to restrict companies from providing benefits to nontraditional employees.

Read the full piece here.