More than 200 bloggers in California will lose regular writing gigs because of a state law meant to improve working conditions at companies like Uber and Lyft that rely on contractors rather than employees.
On Monday, Vox Media announced that it would eliminate the 200 freelance positions at its sports outlet, SB Nation, to comply with the legislation.
The affected writers are frequent contributors to the 25 SB Nation blogs focused on California teams. The team-centric sites include Golden State of Mind, for the N.B.A.’s Warriors; Conquest Chronicles, for the University of Southern California sports; and True Blue LA, which covers baseball’s Dodgers. Many of the SB Nation writers contributed dozens of posts to the sites each year for little pay, according to filings in a related lawsuit.
The law, which goes into effect on Jan. 1, “makes it impossible for us to continue with our current California team site structure,” John Ness, executive director at SB Nation, said in a post on Monday, “because it restricts contractors from producing more than 35 written content ‘submissions’ per year.”
Mr. Ness said the cuts were also related to a “business and staffing strategy” that predated the law’s passage in September.
About 20 full-time and part-time employees will replace the bloggers, said a person with knowledge of the change who was not authorized to discuss it publicly. Mr. Ness encouraged the regular freelancers to apply for those jobs.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed the bill into law in September, it was hailed as a blow against companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash, which will have to hire as employees many of the workers they had used as contractors to ferry passengers and food from Point A to Point B. The law is expected to affect at least one million workers.
The law also stated that any photojournalist, editor or writer who contributed to a publication more than 35 times a year would have to be made an employee.
The law’s effects on the media industry were highlighted last week in a Washington Post opinion article by a freelance writer in New Jersey, Kim Kavin, who said she made a six-figure annual income. She argued that the California law and similar proposals in other states “are so strict that they are already starting to destroy the careers of people such as me who prefer to work for ourselves.”
SB Nation has more than 300 blogs that publish dozens of articles a week. Most are run by volunteers or low-paid freelancers.
In May, a federal court granted class action status to a lawsuit filed two years ago by more than 100 SB Nation site managers. In the suit, one site manager said she worked 30 to 40 hours a week but was paid $125 a month in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The lawsuit was filed after Deadspin reported concerns among SB Nation editors and writers that what had started as a pastime had morphed into a job.