Hugo points out that “California legislators believe the “gig economy” (freelancing) is abusive to broad categories of workers.” They reject the idea that people freely choose their jobs. If you are delusional and think an acting gig or writing gig now and then is going to become a career, you should be free to entertain this delusion. It is also the case that people can piece together a living out of gigs when they can’t find a full-time job, or even make a good living this way. Again, this is a choice.

Mr. H, I believe that there is, in fact, “another story” here. Cash tips are inconvenient for unions, such as SEIU, which organize restaurant employees, because the money goes directly to the tipped employee before the union can get its rake-off.
I think that is the real motivation for efforts to ban tip compensation.

Walter, it’s actually not “another story.” It’s the same story — thinking that “government” (which just means the kind of people who would serve in government) knows better than the market or the private sector.

United States v. Treasury Employees, 513 U.S. 454 (1995)

The 1995 case has a similarity to California’s impending regulation: Freelance writers being treated as acceptable collateral damage in political struggles that did not concern them. In 1995, SCotUS ruled that freelance authors (and presumably artists) enjoy special protections under the First Amendment. Proposed laws that infringe their livelihood are subject to extra scrutiny, to ensure they are tailored to the minimum required to meet a valid government purpose.

In 1989, there was a political panic about Congressional book deals– influential Congressmen making bulk sales of mediocre books to lobbyists, as a way to get around income limitations. Congress responded with typical overkill– a ban on book payments not just to Congressmen and other senior policy-makers, but also to 1,700,000 rank-and-file Federal employees. If your letter-carrier wanted, in his spare time, to supplement his income with paid lectures on local history, he would be out of luck.

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion throwing out this ban, far too broad for any reasonable anti-corruption purpose. (He suggested Congress could try again with a bill restricted to senior policy-makers.)

Justice Stevens specifically rejected an argument likely to be made by California officials– that free speech can be exercised under the First Amendment even if the speaker cannot be paid. In the real World, a payment ban means less speech. Speakers have to make a living like everyone else.

>”Publishers compensate authors because compensation provides a significant >incentive toward more expression.
>Footnote 14:
>”This proposition is self-evident even to those who do not fully accept Samuel >Johnson’s cynical comment: ” ‘No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.’ >” J. Boswell, Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. 302 (R. Hutchins ed. 1952).”

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/513/454#fn2-1

California legislators believe the “gig economy” (freelancing) is abusive to broad categories of workers. Under the First Amendment, however, they either have to exempt freelance authors, or tailor special regulations to maximize opportunities for free expression.

Not sure how cashiers do, but waiting on tables can be a decently remunerated, family-supporting job, most especially because of tips. Of course another branch of progressive workplace activists are trying to stamp out tip-dependent compensation too, but that’s another story.