Let's follow California's lead and regulate companies like Uber | Veena Dubal

The 'gig economy' is terrible for workers. We must tackle the problem head-on

This week, California's governor, Gavin Newsom - a darling of tech capitalists - signed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) into law. The bill codifies the "ABC test" to determine the applicability of California employment laws and makes it harder for companies to get away with misclassifying workers as independent contractors. If properly enforced, AB5 will have enormous impacts for vulnerable workers in the trucking, janitorial and construction industries.

But across the world, the law has been most hailed as a regulatory check on the so-called "gig economy". Indeed, the International Transport Workers' Federation (a federation of 665 trade unions representing 18 million workers in 147 countries) has called on this California bill to be the inspiration for regulations governing gig work internationally.