"They say I'm an independent contractor."

The presumption runs your way

Labor Code § 3357: any person rendering service for another, other than as an independent contractor, is presumed to be an employee. You do not prove you were an employee. They prove you were not.

A 1099 does not decide it. A signed agreement calling you a contractor does not decide it. Courts have said for decades that the label the parties used is not controlling, because otherwise every employer would simply use the label.

The construction rule almost nobody knows

Labor Code § 2750.5. Anyone performing work for which a contractor's license is required, who does not hold that license, is an employee as a matter of law. Not presumed — is.

Read that again if you work in construction. An unlicensed person doing licensed work cannot be an independent contractor in California. Roofing, framing, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, drywall, concrete, painting above a threshold — if you were doing it without a license, you were an employee of whoever hired you.

This single statute resolves a large share of construction denials, and it is routinely not raised.

The ABC test

For most other work, Labor Code § 2775 codifies the Dynamex ABC test. You are an employee unless the hiring entity proves all three:

A — you are free from control and direction in performing the work, in fact and under the contract; B — the work is outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business; and C — you are customarily engaged in an independently established trade of the same nature.

Prong B is where most of these fail. A restaurant's cook, a cleaning company's cleaner, a trucking company's driver — the work is the business. Calling them contractors does not move it outside the usual course.

Where it genuinely is different

App-based drivers. Castellanos v. State of California (2024) 16 Cal.5th 588 upheld Proposition 22. Qualifying app-based rideshare and delivery drivers are independent contractors by statute and receive occupational accident insurance under Business & Professions Code § 7455 instead of workers' compensation. That is not nothing, and it is not the same thing — the benefits are narrower and the process is different. If you were driving for an app, get the specifics of your situation looked at rather than assuming either answer.

Staffing and labor-contractor arrangements are a different question again — there, both companies can be liable. Labor Code § 2810.3 makes the client employer share civil liability for workers supplied by a labor contractor. When there are two employers.