This former Uber engineer used TikTok to give California truckers a voice during the AB5 protests. Now he's ready to help the industry further.

• Kevin Huang runs the trucking-focused TikTok account "Trucking Newbie."
• He launched it right before truckers protested at the Port of Oakland over California's AB5 law.

Kevin Huang, 29, is the man behind Trucking Newbie, a TikTok account that serves as a one-stop shop for all things trucking. In some videos, he gives tours of trucks or advice for staying healthy and taking on economically efficient workloads. In others, he might take a commonly used product, like toilet paper, and follow its journey from a trucker's route to consumers' hands.

He created his profile in June after Uber laid him off from his job as a software engineer two years prior. He told Insider he was itching to launch a startup, and having previously worked in the supply-chain space, he had a particular interest in the trucking industry. The goal was to connect with truckers and gather on-the-ground data for a future business idea. As more and more tech investors and founders struggle to understand and meet truckers' needs, Huang's strategy is unique.

He timed his new account well, too: Shortly after creating his TikTok page, truckers in California began protesting at the Port of Oakland over the state's gig-worker law, known as Assembly Bill 5, or AB5. Huang said he connected with many truckers who told him they not only learned new and empowering information from his content, but also enjoyed seeing their voices being heard.

Huang currently lives in San Francisco, California, where he not only films TikToks but also works as an independent freight dispatcher for free.

"I think there's often a disconnect between the public and truckers. From a lot of truckers I've spoken with, they often feel like they are misunderstood and underappreciated by the general public," he said. As a creator, he added, he aims to simultaneously capture his own trucking-and-dispatching journey and arm truckers with the knowledge to strengthen their business acumen.

The battle between truckers and California lawmakers

AB5 restricts how companies classify independent contractors or employees, making it more difficult for many truckers to continue working in California under the title of independent contractor.

Huang was working at Uber when he first learned about AB5. "I believe the majority of the Uber drivers actually didn't want or support AB5," Huang said. "AB5 essentially takes away the flexibility they value so much and makes them employees."

According to Huang, the law makes a model in trucking known as "leased on owner-operators" — or contractors in trucking — illegal. "For a lot of these leased on owner-operators, asking them to become employees or have them become fully independent is a very big deal," Huang said.

Huang said there are essentially three buckets in trucker classification. The first is a W-2 employee, or someone employed by a large corporation like Walmart. The second bucket is leased on owner-operators, where truckers can own their own trucks and lease onto a larger fleet of trucks — essentially hauling goods as contractors for other big companies. The final bucket is fully independent owner-operators that have their own business, truck, and operating authority.

If leased on owner-operators were to become fully independent under the new guidance of AB5, they would need to maintain additional licenses like a motor-carrier permit, which leads to further overhead that's difficult for many to maintain independently, especially in comparison to larger companies.

Although California lawmakers passed AB5 in 2019, the California Trucking Association disputed it. When the US Supreme Court declined to hear the organization's appeal in June, the law quickly went into effect. Starting in mid-July, truckers banded together and shut down most operations at the Port of Oakland — a key hub for California's agricultural shipments. They blockaded roads, preventing many of the ships from continuing business as usual and unloading their contents.

During this time, Huang began to extensively report from the scene of truckers' protest. "AB5 is an important issue for them. I wanted to provide a way for these truckers to have their voice heard," he said.

What it was like filming the protests

On his TikTok, Huang made sure to capture every detail of the protests, from the emotions of truckers financially struggling to make it in the business to impassioned pleas in multiple languages to listen to truckers' perspectives and their feelings toward the law's enactment. It was important to him, he said, to feature stories of truckers like Abel — a trucker for more than 40 years and a vocal leader within the Black community continuing the fight for workers to retain their rights.

In a typical day of protest, protestors elected representatives to have conversations with port authorities about their demands, Huang said. Toward the afternoon, the protestors regrouped and took a look at the negotiation terms.

While Huang said port authorities had been civil and cooperative, the Port of Oakland has continued operations and there's a temporary restraining order in place against protestors. Huang said that for many protestors, this served as a "huge blow." The port has also announced it has plans to sue protestors and held a preliminary injunction hearing on August 29. Consequently, Huang said many of the protestors are beginning talks of learning how to better organize and possibly enlisting in the services of a lawyer to continue their protest fairly and legally.

What's next for Huang and the trucking community

According to Huang, the next steps California's government should take include extending the window of time AB5 goes into action in order for people in certain industries to adapt to the implementation. For instance, he said, it might not be as easy for a leased on owner-operator to sell their trucks during this transitory period. Other options truckers have right now include becoming fully independent or leaving California.

Huang feels a strong sense of conviction in the trucking community he's building. His website, Trucking Up, and his Discord chat, where, on a daily basis, he posts recommended loads truckers should take on, both serve as an early prototype of his startup. He's also building a payroll- and HR-management software for truckers to adapt to the changes of AB5. "There's a pretty severe driver-turnover problem in trucking," Huang said.

His goal is to create better tools and systems for trucking companies to retain their drivers for longer. "I envision that Trucking Up will one day become the place where independent truckers come to share and learn from each other on business building," Huang said. "Not only will we arm them with knowledge, but also the tools and services they need to succeed."