Modern day slavery.
California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
341–350 of 387 posts
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#342A 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 indus…
> Now, it merely requires a legislative ultra-majority - improbable but more realistic than another public vote.
Public initiatives are far more easy to pass than legislative ultra majorities, which is why they are often used to bypass requirements for mere supermajorities in the legislature in CA.
It's true that the 7/8 out doesn't make it harder to pass change since it can still be overturned by vote of the people, but it doesn't make it meaningfully easier, either, since such an ultramajority is much harder to marshal than a simple popular majority.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#343Earlier quoted context omitted.
Drivers were forced to watch political ads before they could start working. They were forced to read pro-prop-22 messages before they could start working. Some of these messages warned (some might say threatened ) that the drivers would lose their jobs if Prop 22 passed. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_it_looks_like_a_duck,_swim...
Forced to watch an ad != forced to vote a certain way. And again, a threat implies it is done maliciously. You think it would be better if the companies just stayed quiet, and then just out of blue one day said "sorry we're shutting down operations, you're all out of jobs"?
Forcing drivers to watch the ad was a means of persuading them to support Prop 22. Hence, they were coerced to support Prop 22.
Persuasion via force is exactly in line with the definition that you gave.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, what proposals have republicans for decreasing healthcare costs? Remind people to get sick less?
> Trump Administration Announces Historic Price Transparency Requirements to Increase Competition and Lower Healthcare Costs for All Americans > President Trump Signs “Most Favored Nation Price” Executive Order on Drug Pricing Here are two headlines I offer without comment that can be searched with your favorite search engine for more information.
I get this [1] when googling.
Fair enough. More transparency is certainly a worthwhile goal, however, this rests on the basic assumption that a consumer always has the opportunity to make a rational choice between different alternative products or services (drugs, medical procedures, etc).
From what I've read, I doubt this is the problem in practice. Are you going to compare prices during a medical emergency? If your doctor tells you that you need an X-ray, will you stop him and check the nearby hospitals whether their X-rays are cheaper? How useful is price transparency if your essential medication is only made by a single company that can do arbitrary price hikes? What do you do if the "market rate" for some essential operation is still more than you can afford?
[1] https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2019/11/15/trump-administrati...
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#345No matter how you feel about AB5, allowing an industry to write laws and then coerce its workers into acting as campaign volunteers whether they agree with the law or not is a horrible precedent. This is not how our laws should be made, and we will come to regret this.
Prop 22 gives gig drivers a minimum wage and forces uber to pay for their healthcare if they drive enough hours. That is the reason it passed, if it didn't add protections to gig workers people wouldn't have voted yes to it.
Then why did people need so much money to make it pass if it is a good law most people like? Because there is so much misinformation going around about prop 22! Even in this thread most people still think that prop 22 means drivers wont have healthcare or minimum wage, meaning the Californian union lobbying got to most of you. They don't need money to spread misinformation, they just go to their journalist friends and gets biased articles written for free. How many articles were written which mentioned all the benefits prop 22 gave drivers? Not many, most just said it was so Uber could continue to oppress workers.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Medicare “mix” is from supplemental insurance—insurance in addition to Medicare. It’s also contentious and arises due to the same issues that cause us not to adopt Medicare for All: the private insurance companies’ purchasing of politicians.
It's not. When you turn 65, you have the option to enroll either in "Original Medicare", which is what we usually think of when we talk about "single payer healthcare in America", or you can enroll in Medicare Advantage (aka Medicare "Part C"), where the premiums that would go to the CMS instead go to private insurers like Humana, United, Oscar Health, and Clover. These plans replace Original Medicare, also cover Par…
"Medicare Advantage plans are, on average, of higher quality than the public "Original Medicare"[3]."
I thought the difference between Medicare advantage type plans is that it is an HMO type of deal where you can't pick your own specialized treatment centers and have to jump through a lot of hoops for complex medical issues and drugs as opposed to original PPO resembling Medicare (80% costs) + medigap part F? (remaining 20%) + part D for drugs.
Also thanks for the thorough breakdown, I had to go through Medicare hell getting this information to manage my parents care on an advantage plan that denied their cancer treatment at our preferred cancer center so I switched them back to original + medigap and never looked back cause everything is covered now at the world-class top ranking cancer center in our neighboring city.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
Forced to watch an ad != forced to vote a certain way. And again, a threat implies it is done maliciously. You think it would be better if the companies just stayed quiet, and then just out of blue one day said "sorry we're shutting down operations, you're all out of jobs"?
Forcing drivers to watch the ad was a means of persuading them to support Prop 22. Hence, they were coerced to support Prop 22. Persuasion via force is exactly in line with the definition that you gave.
They get coerced to watch ads, not coerced to vote a certain way or have a certain opinion. The reason they started supporting prop 22 after watching the ad is that prop 22 gave them minimum wage and healthcare without being employees, which is exactly what most drivers wants.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 indus…
You might as well call it impossible, as long as the CA legislature has more than 12.5% Republicans -- which is basically going to be forever. Requiring a referendum would be better.
A referendum to modify or repeal prop 22 is definitely possible! The 7/8 clause is an additional mechanism to alter the law, not the exclusive mechanism.
One would hope that a truly wise policy could attract bipartisan support. A faint hope these days, to be sure.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#349Earlier quoted context omitted.
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://rar…
The fact that you have to go 100 years in the past for your examples speaks volumes. Today's companies pay employees hundreds of thousands while enticing them with onsite massages and ping pong tables. People have choices and it’s thanks to a healthy, diverse job market, not due to government intervention. You want to help workers? Go ahead and build companies that offer well paid, decent jobs. Don’t rob people of th…
How many drivers is Uber paying hundreds of thousands of dollars plus massages and ping pong tables to?
We're talking about people not even getting health care coverage, and who may actually be losing money on the balance, due to the depreciation of their cars, insurance premiums, maintenance, and other costs which they, rather than their employer, have to bear, thanks to Prop 22.
The point I was making, however, was not about Uber drivers specifically, but about the position that as long as an arrangement is freely agreed to it's ok.
That attitude leads to all sorts of exploitation. Uber's arrangement with their drivers is just the tip of the iceberg. Amazon's exploitation of their warehouse workers is a related example, with much worse done in countries that have no labor or workplace safety laws.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
>vindictive, corporate withdrawal from the state Companies withdraw operations when they are unprofitable. That's how business works. Capital get allocated based in margins. The AB5 restrictions make profitability unlikely. That means uber/lyft jobs simply won't exist. Is that a better outcome?
Isn't this forum all about markets? I'm sure you can put where I'm going with this together. Anyway it's beyond rich describing half these companies as "profitable" in the first place. They're burning the cash at both ends to not get kicked out of california. I have no clue how you could imagine they're the people with leverage with a straight face.
I'm not sure I understand your comment.
I sincerely doubt uber/lyft/instacart etc. will ever be profitable and have margins that make them viable businesses.
Lyft/Uber etc. have zero leverage; inorder for them to make their margin and retain profitability, they depend on low labor costs. If those costs go up they aren't in business (e.g.demand elasticity of price will kill them).
So they aren't pushing this as a 'I have leverage' play. It's an existential issue for them. They cannot exist with the labor prices demanded by the AB5.
If they cannot make their margin, they go out of business and then there is no more ride share business. Then the existing jobs go away. And this is the point of my comment. These jobs only exist with low wages. Raise the wages and the jobs go away because the business becomes unprofitable and exits.