Well, the California government doesn’t have a single ‘mind’ to make up.
Government in California is made up of a whole bunch of different people, many of them elected by, or otherwise representing, millions of other people. And California not only has some of the most left-leaning bleeding-heart do-gooder liberals in the world, it also some of the wealthiest, most politically-connected conservatives in the world. And pretty much every gradation between.
If you expect California to live up to any single stereotype, you’ll probably be disappointed. 38 million of us live here - more than one out of every 10 people in the US.
That’s roughly what they do now, and essentially what they’re cracking down on (unlicensed contractors implicitly advertising themselves as legitimate). It’s not that there aren’t issues around who tends to be unlicensed, who can afford it, whether our immigration laws are stupid, etc., but I would still want enforcement to occur.
Yeah, but the truth is, California is a prime example of a situation where a licensed contractor can have trouble making it because of illegals hired on the cheap by others. That unlicensed guy can just roll through the Home Depot parking lot in the morning, and grab as many day laborers as he likes. The licensed contractor, otoh, gets busted if he hires undocumented workers at all. Not that I support going around busting everybody without a license - although, if you want to manufacture some employment for some people…that could keep 'em busy.
And yes - unlicensed people ARE a problem! For one thing, no insurance. If that guy falls off his ladder, he gets to sue YOU. And if his work is bad (or worse, dangerous), you have exactly no recourse against him. If he turns out to be a scam artist or worse - you had no way to check him out ahead of time, and probably no way to recover your personal damage if the guy is actually a predator who does you harm. Bottom line, letting complete strangers into your house is pretty dumb in the first place.
In other places, licensed contractors are getting busted for subcontracting scams, which occurred recently in FLuh, where they were tied in with check-cashing operations. So yeah - licensed contractors can also be criminals and jerks. No denying it. But at least if they’re licensed, I can have some hope of catching them and doing something about it!
Exactly. The same types want to complain about licensing for my profession (mental health) because they want anybody to be able to hang out a shingle and declare themselves a therapist, including fundamentalist loonies who went to Bible college and still believe in conversion therapy for gays. (This is actually the law of the land in Colorado, where anyone can register with the state database and hold themselves out as a “psychotherapist”. Guess which sector of the mental health world is most often sued by clients and disciplined by the state?)
it actually was a real thing in oregon. in portland, black owned businesses in gentrifying neighborhoods were being told – hey, you need to cough up tens of thousands of dollars for school in order to get licensing.
on the good news front: earlier this year a bill was passed specifically exempting hair care businesses that don’t use chemicals.
So, I’m assuming doing haircare without chemicals just means you can do somebody’s cornrolls and extensions? Because, you can’t even wash your hair without some kind of chemicals. You pretty much can’t even braid somebody’s hair that way without using some kind of chemicals to control the process.
Haha. Yes SCREW him and REASON. Neoconfederate creeps. And yeah, your bogus “gotcha moment” was addressed in the link:
In late 2005, Balko began “advocating” for a Mississippi death row inmate named Cory Maye. At the same time, Mississippi lawmakers began considering “Stand Your Ground” legislation written by ALEC. The death row conviction of Cory Maye posed a threat to “Stand Your Ground” because he had plead not guilty, arguing “self-defense,” and lost. Balko took up Cory Maye’s cause at the same time that the powerful DC law firm Covington & Burling — Eric Holder’s law firm — announced it was taking on Cory Maye’s case “pro bono.” [ 9 ]
I am not weighing in on the discussion in any way except to say that yes, it does happen. The home we live in now, the owners before us used unlicensed, unbonded workers and the fire they caused burned two homes nearly to the ground before the fire department got it out. Also, our neighbors’ children (3) nearly died. So, I can’t let a throw-away question like that stand unanswered.
Would there be a grandfather clause to such a bill? I know that when massage therapists were first licensed in the 90s in Texas they did allow them to be granfathered in, if they could prove that they had been doing the work for “x” number of years.
“Under a contract” makes it a civil matter, rather than a criminal matter. Why are people being arrested and facing jail up to 6 months over a civil matter?
Does caveat emptor not come into play? Surely it’s the responsibility of the person recruiting the landscaper or painter to check the credentials of the person they hire - if the person commissioning the work wants it carried out by an accredited individual, I could see how if the recruit claims to have a qualification (s)he doesn’t, it would be fraud.
This instance, however, appears to be criminalising people looking for honest, casual work? I would expect that people responding to craigslist adverts are not aiming to commit a crime, they were aiming to find some relatively unskilled work to patch over a bad time.
If the advert said: “bring your qualification certificate and state license with you” then it would be fair to go after people who took the work but were not qualified - though probably the appropriate response would be just to ignore the unqualified applicants, like everywhere else. I suspect most of the 79 people would not have been entrapped if entrapment were not the sole objective of the exercise.
If we’re going to criminalise casual labour, I’d opt for “proper” crime where the rewards are higher for a comparable risk.
