Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 387 posts

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#231

Post by pianoben »

nullc wrote: post #2

A special exception for a narrow set of companies with an established history of abhorrent behaviour with requires a 7/8ths vote to overturn/modify and then pretending that this is something the legislature can update. It's hard for me to not feel disappointed with the public on this one.

Bear in mind that, without the 7/8 clause, it would be impossible to legislatively overturn or modify prop 22. It would have required a public referendum to do so. Now, it merely requires a legislative ultra-majority - improbable but more realistic than another public vote.

Also, please bear in mind that CA legislature has already exempted wide and arbitrary swathes of industry from AB5, seemingly based on each industry's political clout. While I wish for better worker protections than prop 22 provides, AB5 was bad legislature and implemented in a less-than-above-board way.

disclosure: I do work for a gig company, opinions are my own, etc. personally I want all the workers unionized, everywhere.

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#232

Post by chmod600 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #157
chmod600 wrote: post #154

Prop 22 may or may not be good, but its passage means that AB5 was bad. The state Assembly screwed up. When you pass a law that affects so many ordinary people, you better be sure that's what they want. Instead of a practical solution, AB5 came across as just meddling.

> When you pass a law that affects so many ordinary people, you better be sure that's what they want The reason we have a representative democracy is because sometimes legislators can make decisions that might be different from the typical voter who has not spent extensive time thinking about the issue.

Are you sure the Assembly knows best?

Drivers can't be on-the-clock for two employers at the same time. So drivers who use both Uber and Lyft would have to choose. That means the customers outside of major urban centers would be less likely to find a driver nearby, because they may be looking in Uber and the driver is on-the-clock with Lyft. It seems like the effect would end up being monopolistic because the network effects would be even stronger than they are now.

That would be compounded by the lack of drivers. Market stickiness of the employment relationship would drive the equilibrium of drivers down, wait times up, prices up, and riders down.

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#233

Post by cody3222 »

mdorazio wrote: post #189
cody3222 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true. Creating more jobs for people to opt-in to only helps them. When people no longer work these jobs, then companies come up with other solutions to get the job done. This is what happened in Japan and why automation is so big there.

> Creating more jobs for people to opt-in to only helps them. Except if the only jobs available are awful and don't actually pay enough to have a decent standard of living. You seem to be assuming that more available jobs of any kind = better for workers over time, but a quick review of the US labor market over the last 30 years shows this isn't really the case at all. I'm also not sure why you're bringing Japan into…

If these jobs didn't exist, wouldn't they be even worse off? The default state of humanity (or any other species) is not one of abundance.

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#234

Post by cody3222 »

apta wrote: post #213
coldcode wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really huge win for those without health insurance in the US. In any other country having a job with no benefits is not an issue, except here, where getting sick and going bankrupt are fine with everyone. Of course with such low unemployment, all the driver who have no desire to work in this job can just start as programmers and make huge salaries. Maybe they can take your job since you can just drive an Uber and be…

So fix the underlying issue instead of going after private companies.

exactly

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#235

Post by chmod600 »

whimsicalism wrote: post #157
chmod600 wrote: post #154

Prop 22 may or may not be good, but its passage means that AB5 was bad. The state Assembly screwed up. When you pass a law that affects so many ordinary people, you better be sure that's what they want. Instead of a practical solution, AB5 came across as just meddling.

> When you pass a law that affects so many ordinary people, you better be sure that's what they want The reason we have a representative democracy is because sometimes legislators can make decisions that might be different from the typical voter who has not spent extensive time thinking about the issue.

We also have special interest groups that do their research and endorse or oppose these propositions.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving endorsed Prop 22. If the state Assembly didn't see that one coming, they really screwed up.

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#236

Post by xg15 »

zests wrote: post #127
bergstromm466 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is that this often isn't someone's primary job. They take a job at Walmart or driving a school bus, it doesn't pay very well, so they get off work and pick up some rides to supplement their income before going home. > They don't need health insurance because they got it through their first job or their spouse, and imposing that cost on the second job only requires them to get paid less or have less flexib…

Healthcare costs per capita are generally higher in the US than they are in Europe. I am curious whether or not you think we should focus on increasing spending to increase medicare coverage or if we should focus on decreasing healthcare costs for the country as a whole. The right answer is probably "both" but you can't exactly vote for "both" political parties. Its a boring answer anyway :)

So, what proposals have republicans for decreasing healthcare costs? Remind people to get sick less?

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#237

Post by arrosenberg »

silexia wrote: post #151
SilasX wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, the screwiness of AB5 is a reason I'd vote against 22 [0]. Basically, it just compounds the existing problem of AB5 being totally capricious by making it hard to streamline and fix long-term now that there's a Proposition-locked special exemption. IOW, the only thing worse than the legislature making arbitrary carveouts, is carveouts being claimed by anyone who can fund a prop campaign. At least with the former,…

People should be free to work for whom they please under the terms they want. As a Californian, I am proud of the people for getting this passed.

> People should be free to work for whom they please under the terms they want.

The genesis of the whole issue is that Uber and Lyft are claiming people can work "under any terms they want" as ICs, but they aren't actually able to do things that ICs can do, like set their own rates and pick their own customers.

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#238

Post by daveFNbuck »

Rebelgecko wrote: post #22
nullc wrote: post #2

A special exception for a narrow set of companies with an established history of abhorrent behaviour with requires a 7/8ths vote to overturn/modify and then pretending that this is something the legislature can update. It's hard for me to not feel disappointed with the public on this one.

Part of why I voted for prop 22 is because the list of special exemptions to AB5 is a mile long. On top of the original exemptions, we even passed AB2257 which added a few dozen more ( https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... ) I think prop 22 is flawed, but I'm using it as a referendum on AB5 (and I think it's marginally better than the alternative). AB5 is a defacto ban on casual use of the g…

If your problem with AB5 is that it has too many exemptions, why did you think that voting for more exemptions would express your concern?

I think most people see this as Californians rejecting this type of legislation, not asking for it to be more broadly applied.

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#239

Post by deeeeplearning »

vernie wrote: post #210
deeeeplearning wrote: post #195

Californians seem determined to ensure that the mass of people in their state are underpaid, unhealthy and an inch from being homeless.

No, they're just indifferent.

Evidently not, they just voted after all...

Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

#240

Post by deeeeplearning »

whoisjuan wrote: post #223
deeeeplearning wrote: post #195

Californians seem determined to ensure that the mass of people in their state are underpaid, unhealthy and an inch from being homeless.

Uber. Lyft, etc are already operating on shitty business models with bad margins and totally exposed to economic shifts. I can't imagine that type business model being sustainable with anything different that contract (gig) work. I'm not defending the gig economy, but I'm sure that if these companies were forced to employ all their workers as FT employees, they would be inviable.

>I'm not defending the gig economy, but I'm sure that if these companies were forced to employ all their workers as FT employees, they would be inviable.

Then they should be inviable. Why would you allow a few dozen people to make billions off the backs of gig workers?

Post reply on HN