The state of California is trying to pass AB5, a new bill that they claim would protect “gig economy workers” like those who drive for Uber or Postmates. But it also means that porn stars would have to be paid as employees instead of contractors.
Experts are saying the bill, which first has yet to clear Senate but it’s “highly likely” to be passed. The state Assembly has already passed the bill.
Gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft have fought hard to avoid treating workers as full-fledged employees, but they might not have much choice in California before long.
Some complain that the CEO of Uber made $43 million last year as his salary while the drivers are making an average of $9 an hour.
California’s AB5 would put hard limits on what type of worker qualifies as a contractor.
require businesses to prove that someone is an independent contractor and thus doesn’t merit employee benefits. They would have to show that a worker isn’t controlled by the company, isn’t performing tasks at the core of the company’s business and operates their own independent business.
If not, they’d have to be treated as employees and receive benefits like overtime pay, minimum wages, health care, and parental leave.
As a porn performer, this means you too would most likely fall into this category of Uber drivers under the new law. This would make porn studios have to pay and treat you like an employee and that causes a whole bunch of problems for us.
As a porn star, a studio would have to pay you like an employee and that means taking taxes out of your check. But it also means they’ll have to cover the cost of your testing. While that may sound great at first, it also means that because porn studios now have more expenses to hire you for a scene than they did previously (they now have things like payroll taxes, workers comp insurance, etc.) you’ll end up earning less than you did before.
The labor board has long said that they consider porn performers “employees” at least that’s how they often rule when it comes to wage claims.
So, for now, we’ll just have to wait and see how this plays out to see if porn stars will be forced into complying with this new law.
The California Senate is expected to vote on the bill in August or early September.
8 Responses
How do regular actors and actresses get around this? Unions? Porn stars aren’t gig economy jobs. They are classic contract jobs.
At least in mainstream, for SAG-AFTRA members their global contract requires their movie producers to pay and insure (other than non-workplace health insurance as the union handles that end) as if they were employees. The only exception is if the performer is a loan-out performer but the hoops to jump are asinine for both mainstream and adult film including that the loan-out contractor provide his or her own workman’s comp insurance. In adult (at least from what I have read) there are about two performers that work as loan-outs, I am told that Cherie DeVille is one but she is also a physical therapist that is required to keep workman’s comp insurance on herself anyway so all she has to do is claim the hours and wages on her existing policy, declare them as adult performer hours and pay the appropriate premium. No performer that doesn’t have to keep a State Fund policy anyway would bother (although technically all producers including Clips4Sale type producers are required to carry State Fund on all California shoots for performers and staff that don’t qualify as a loan-out). The percentage of mainstream actors/actresses that work as loan-outs are probably of a similar percentage, likely less than 1% of actors/actresses working in any single year and I expect with the new California law that porn performers performing in the state will become employees and some system will be worked out to incrementally bill producers for VD testing. This hurdle for maintaining the status-quo will be too steep for producers to leap and production will either completely move out of California (about 90% of production already has thanks to LA’s condom requirement and Cal-OSHA’s war on porn) or performers in CA will be considered employees with some sort of producer payment mechanism for VD testing — possibly requiring two VD tests every 13-14 days, one for in-California producers and one for other states since the state of California will require that performers never have to pay for them while working a California job and producers will refuse to allow the results to be released to other companies or the performer to prevent them from having a competitive advantage filming outside of California, not contributing to the cost of the VD test and having the benefits of using it.
Maybe now the talent will have health and life insurance opportunities?
I don’t think it will go that far, Karma. Employers aren’t required to provide non-workplace health or life insurance to employees. I actually think the majority of what is left of porn in Los Angeles will leave and Las Vegas or Miami will become the new home of porn production. Wicked may remain but they are already condom only, have a State Fund workman’s comp policy already and probably pay talent as employees anyway.
Does anyone have estimates for what it would cost (roughly) to cover the insurances of those working today, versus the profit estimates for whatever studios and big site conglomerates that exist today? Whether they are willing to pay or not, It would be interesting to see the numbers. (Mike South special feature?)
Every time a porn star gets ill or passes away people set up GoFundMe pages for them because they have no life or health insurance.
Spawn, unfortunately I couldn’t even begin to estimate that amount. That data would be very interesting to me, too.
As for GoFuckMes, I suspect nowadays most of them intended for healthcare expenses are being set up to cover the outrageous Obamacare deductibles. Some of those policies have a $6500 yearly deductible before they begin to pay. Living expenses are also a consideration, if someone needs to use their health insurance in that manner they probably can’t perform, either. I have a for the grace of God go I attitude about them as long as they are reasonable and not based on a pack of lies like Ms. St. Clair’s. We also have the Dana DeArmonds of the world that post a GoFuckMe for ass implants. I suspect Dana didn’t have any intention of actually getting them, who wants to deal with sitting on hard silicone lumps for the rest of their lives? Likely not even Dana. Now she has $10K to go blow on Peruvian Nose Powder (R) and black tar heroin.