CCTO CALL TO ACTION

CALIFORNIA COALITION OF TRAVEL ORGANIZATIONS
THE STATE LEGISLATIVE COALITION OF NATIONAL, STATE AND REGIONAL ASSOCIATIONS OF SELLERS OF TRAVEL 
Call to Action
Take Action Today to Prevent the Elimination of Travel Entrepreneurs July 19, 2019 
 
Travel advisors, tour operators, travel destinations and our industry partners are urged to take action and advocate for an amendment to a pending legislation that would disrupt the independent model that has existed for decades and provides opportunities for thousands of entrepreneurs, many of whom are small, women-owned business owners.  
 
Sign up today to visit and lobby your State Senator in the legislator’s office in your area on August 6: click here 
 
The Issue – AB 5:
California legislators are considering AB 5 [Gonzalez] that would place into statute the Dynamex ABC criteria for determining when workers are considered “independent contractors” and when they are considered “employees.”  
 
Even individuals who consider themselves to clearly be “independent contractors” are subject to being deemed “employees” under this new rule if they are “in the same line of work [providing travel services]” as their host agencies. Even host agencies located outside California will be impacted if they have agents located in California.   Our request is that state Senators take action to ensure that AB 5 is amended to include a provision clearly stating in the law that the Borello test rather than the Dynamex ABC test is utilized for determining the status of a Seller of Travel as either an independent contractor or employee. 
 
Since the inception of the California Seller of Travel Law 25 years ago, this state registration program and consumer protection law has acknowledged independent agents - who are primarily women and are all small business owners - as an integral part of the travel industry. They:

• Are registered with the state as Sellers of Travel
  
• Set their own hours and schedules
  
• Set their own rates
  
• Select the customers with whom they will work
  
• Have unlimited earning potential as independent contractors – and would make less money as employees
  
• As entrepreneurs, select and market their own brands
  
• May choose to affiliate with more than one host agency
  
• Select the services they desire to sell
  
• May decide to specialize in specific types of travel services
  
• Select the service providers whose products they desire to sell 

Few, if any, of these important factors would be available to these independent small business owners were they to be forced into an unwanted employee relationship.  CCTO estimates there are tens of thousands of persons who are providing travel services as small businesses in conformance with the Seller of Travel Law. This is now at risk due to a recent court decision. The “B” criteria established in the California Supreme Court’s April 2018 Dynamex decision would result in these small business owners being considered employees. 
 
California Coalition of Travel Organizations
​The California Coalition of Travel Organizations [CCTO] is a nonprofit state government relations coalition of national, state and regional associations and consortiums of travel agents and tour operators.  CCTO member organizations include individual California chapters of the American Society of Travel Agents, as well as United States Tour Operators Association, Student Youth Travel Association, Signature Travel Network, WESTA, Ensemble, PATH, Travel Leaders Network, and Virtuoso.  CCTO has been actively lobbying in the State Capitol since its formation in 1987 and sponsored the legislation enacted in 1995 that established California’s Seller of Travel [SOT] Law and its landmark Travel Consumer Restitution Fund.