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

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

#241
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.

I voted for it to tank the legislative achievement in AB5. It’s not the total repeal I would have preferred, but damned if I’m going to let AB5 stay intact.

Now the legislature faces the choice of letting the gimped version of AB5 stand without hitting their prized targets or repeal what’s left.

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

#242
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Black people might still be slaves if we left that up to popular opinion. That was NOT a popular opinion at the time. Same for women's voting rights. Black voting rights. Gay marriage. All these were passed when public support was hovering at 25% - and shortly after they were passed, public opinion quickly shifted in an S-curve.

Do you have data on slavery? My understanding was the North was pretty anti-slavery and had 3x the population of the south. I'd be interested if there is actual polling data to suggest if a popular vote was held it would have failed.

The North wasn't a single, unified entity. There were 4 major polities in the Union during WW2:

- New England and the Great Lakes were virulently anti-slavery for primarily economic reasons, but some moralist reasons also.

- New York City was mercantile and not thrilled about being in the war. Lots of protests and political violence in NYC during the Civil War.

- Pennsylvania and the Lower Ohio Valley were generally more anti-slavery for moral and economic reasons, but generally more pacifist and amiable toward the South than New Englanders.

- Appalachia, which covers all the border areas along the mountains running from central PA to northern AL, who were completely ambivalent about slavery, but extremely patriotic and anti-secession.

Pre-1860 a vote on slavery certainly would have failed in the North and may have led additional states to secede. Lincoln was explicitly not pro-abolition for this reason.

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

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Good point. I’d forgotten about how rideshare had removed a lot of drunks from the roads.

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

#244
post #3
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.

My understanding is that a ballot measure must be modified only by ballot measure. Adding in a 7/8ths clause is a way of allowing, with difficulty, the legislature to change things.

That's just a way to pretend it can be modified by the legislature. The only thing that gets 7/8th majorities is renaming post offices.

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

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My understanding is that as of recently Uber does allow drivers to opt out of automatic pricing and pick their own multiplier[1]

[1] https://www.uber.com/blog/california/set-your-fares/

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

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can make your own Uber. There is nothing stopping people from doing that. Lyft and Uber are all powered by VC money. There is nothing stopping a communalist approach to software and profit distribution.

I cannot “make my own Uber”. I don’t have a bottomless pit of Saudi Oil money to throw into this unprofitable space. The only people that have the money to compete have no desire to put workers first. They are just trying to establish a monopoly and drive existing, successful, more efficient and sustainable forms of transit out of business.

Yes you can. You don't want to. That's not the same thing.

Its been my experience over the decades that when people say, "I can't do "x"", they really mean, "Doing "x" is going to be really, really hard and I don't want to work hard."

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Many Californians would willingly work in 1900s factory conditions with machines eating body parts and people passing out from exhaustion because that's the only work they can get. This kind of completely unregulated employment market that you seem to want is exactly the thing that people fought against for decades for damn good reasons.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire[1] was a real-life example.

People in that factory worked there of their own free will.

Children working in mines[2] also did so of their own free will.

It is the fondest dream of many a libertarian to take us back to those days, where people could work freely, without government interference.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

[2] - https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/child-miners-lewis-hine/

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

#248
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought part of the point of the strange election process we have was to "ensure" that southern states would have a vote even in the face of a more populous north…

Untrue, the South was more populous than the North during the ratification of the Constitution -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ... In fact, it was the slave owning southern states that wanted the Senate to be apportioned proportionally, rather than equally (this was the Virginia Plan). The Virginia Plan created a two-chamber legislature with proportional representation based on populati…

The South had more people, but far fewer voters (partially because of slavery, partially because they had more restrictive rules even for white males).

The Senate was done for small states, but the Electoral College was definitely invented to appease the South.

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

#249
post #213

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.

the underlying issue is the private companies

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

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, if you point to the 7/8 clause as an attack against the prop 22 by saying that it's incredibly hard to modify, you've just revealed that you're an uninformed voter. Ballot measures normally can't be modified by the legislature at all. So it's quite ironic that someone against prop 22 is claiming everyone for it is uninformed while referencing said clause.

> Ballot measures normally can't be modified by the legislature at all. We all know this. The point is that the alternative is one that can be overturned more reasonably. "Ah, but you see this one is slightly easier to modify" is crap, IMO. The choices weren't only "literally no way" or "7/8ths".

Going back to quote a section

> ...requires a 7/8ths vote to overturn...

This is just not right. You really have to tie yourself up in knots to believe it.

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