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Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

latimes.com

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Re: Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

#51

Post by barry-cotter »

lhorie wrote: post #31
techsupporter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's actually a good thing, without that clause it would be totally impossible for the legislative to amend or repeal the proposition. This boggles my mind about initiatives in California. In other states with popular initiatives, the People pass laws on the same footing as the Legislature; they just do so through the ballot box. The elected Legislature still has the authority to modify those same laws (though…

> Why does a populist law get to stand more firm than one passed by the elected representatives of the people? Isn't that exactly what you should expect from a democrat state though? (i.e. democracy = popular vote; republic = elected representatives)

A republic is just a non-monarchy. It doesn’t imply anything else about the government of the state in question.

Re: Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

#52

Post by athms »

random5634 wrote: post #3

Without getting into the merits of the whole are ride hail drivers employees thing, I do have close experience with AB5. AB5 - union drafted, is an absolute unworkable travesty. A key tell - for a "principled" law - they had to keep on adding so many carveouts and exceptions (and there are lots missed still). I know folks - who are actively trying to do the right thing - tearing their hair out over AB5. AB5 has reall…

AB5 was in response to the Dynamex ruling, which threw out the Borello test used to determine whether workers are employees or contractors. The California Supreme Court created a new standard that all workers are presumed to be employees and the burden is on the employer to prove workers are contractors under the ABC test. If AB5 didn't pass, the vast majority of workers would be considered employees.

All of the following conditions must be met in order for the worker to be classified as a contractor. (A) that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact; (B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and (C) that the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed.

Re: Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

#53

Post by athms »

supernova87a wrote: post #38

AB5/2257 were so ridiculous in practice , I couldn't bring myself to agree with the principle they stood for. And aside from that, if a party can sue over a proposition saying that it unconstitutionally hobbles the legislature from doing its job, doesn't that defeat the notion of propositions in general? That's the whole point of propositions. The ABs had a list of exceptions a mile long, I suppose put there by the l…

If AB5 didn't exist, most contractors would have been reclassified as employees under the Dynamex ABC test.

Re: Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

#54

Post by thaumasiotes »

slg wrote: post #50
thaumasiotes wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the 7/8 majority is a completely arbitrary and an unprecedentedly high burden to put on this. No, it's not an unprecedentedly high burden. You just admitted that the default burden is much higher!

Sure, if you want to be pedantic. However the specific 7/8 number was unprecedentedly high compared to numbers used in previous propositions to the extent that it probably shouldn't have even been included in a honest piece of legislation.

Why? That objection is surreal -- you're taking the position that there's nothing wrong with a 101% threshold, and there's nothing wrong with a 70% threshold, but an 88% threshold goes too far? Too far in what direction? "Numbers you can mention aloud in polite company"?

Re: Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

#55

Post by underseacables »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #47
underseacables wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar issue can be found in occupational licensure laws. Carve outs for everyone, and they keep coming. There is a serious effort underway to require a license for florists, interior designers, and hair braiders, and the exemptions and carve outs have gotten so bad that it’s hard to justify these licenses as beneficial to protect the public.

> the exemptions and carve outs have gotten so bad that it’s hard to justify these licenses as beneficial to protect the public. I don't follow the logic. If there were no exemptions or carveouts, it would be even harder to claim that the licensures were beneficial.

They exempt larger licensed professions. For example, you can’t get a license requirement for anything in healthcare without exempting doctors, nurses, and other licensed professions. The carve outs protect other license holders, perpetuating the myth that only a license holding person is qualified. Thus it waters down to a license and market exclusivity for one specific group, but it exempts the rest of the licensed establishment so that the effect is simply market protectionism.

Re: Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

#56

Post by slg »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #54
slg wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, if you want to be pedantic. However the specific 7/8 number was unprecedentedly high compared to numbers used in previous propositions to the extent that it probably shouldn't have even been included in a honest piece of legislation.

Why? That objection is surreal -- you're taking the position that there's nothing wrong with a 101% threshold, and there's nothing wrong with a 70% threshold, but an 88% threshold goes too far? Too far in what direction? "Numbers you can mention aloud in polite company"?

> you're taking the position that there's nothing wrong with a 101% threshold, and there's nothing wrong with a 70% threshold, but an 88% threshold goes too far?

That wasn't my position. My position is that a 88% threshold in practice might as well be 101% and it is dishonest to include it and pretend like it is the near equivalent of 70%.

My comment on the pedantry was mostly on the fact that a lack of threshold is a null value and not equivalent to 101%. A null value is not larger than 88%. This 88% value is higher than previous propositions that have included a threshold and is therefore "unprecedentedly high".

Re: Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

#57

Post by throw_away »

triceratops wrote: post #44
colejohnson66 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk. For me, if I had 20 friends, and 12 agreed to do something, I wouldn’t say they “overwhelmingly agree”. I’d just say a majority. But politics is on a much bigger scale.

Your friends are more likely to agree with you (and each other) on things because that's one of the reasons you're friends. I can think of very few things, other than the basics like "murder is bad", that 58% of the general public agrees on.

We're not even at 59% for "ghosts don't exist": https://today.yougov.com/topics/lifestyle/articles-reports/2...

Re: Prop. 22 faces first legal challenge as SEIU, ride-hail drivers file suit

#58

Post by random5634 »

jancsika wrote: post #48
random5634 wrote: post #3

Without getting into the merits of the whole are ride hail drivers employees thing, I do have close experience with AB5. AB5 - union drafted, is an absolute unworkable travesty. A key tell - for a "principled" law - they had to keep on adding so many carveouts and exceptions (and there are lots missed still). I know folks - who are actively trying to do the right thing - tearing their hair out over AB5. AB5 has reall…

> AB5 has really soured me on some of the labor rights stuff. You have an earlier comment on HN where you sharply criticized police unions, teachers unions, and even Google employees' early attempts at unionization/collective actions. Did you previously have a more favorable view of those unions/actions which AB5 made you rethink? Edit: typo

Good question - I was actually initially doing work to support certain unionization efforts. However, unions really have some tough structural issues that risk impacting perceived benefits of protecting workers rights.

In other words, I'm pushing down a path of simple, broad based, WORKERS rights, rather than pushing down union rights. Workers rights helps everyone.

Some on my list if interested:

1) Raising minimum wage - with a geo cost of living factor.

2) Absolutely raising minimum wage to be exempt from overtime - this is a no brainer and criminal that it is not higher.

3) Consider ending employer based healthcare and replacing with universal offerings covering part time, poorly paid and basically everyone (still using private insurance is fine).

4) Dramatically simplifying retirement plan choices, limiting the top hat, nonqualified deferred and other plan types that execs use to take huge amounts tax free, and trade that for better benefits on lower end of income scale.

5) Being much more aggressive about classes of work with clear worker abuse. So while uber makes the news, the door to door sales kids being sexually harassed, stuck far from home, ripped off, told to scam others etc etc - I've been very active in some of these abusive industries to try and get some more accountability into them - which would be TRIVIAL to do if anyone had any backbone - but it's MUCH easier to beat up on amazon. Not to get into sob stories, but whole classes of folks are just trampled on without any consequence, and it would not be hard to clean up substantially (elderly, young etc etc).

There is a lot more - but yes, AB5 and before that the removal of reserve accounts for schools (also union backed) along with the tendency to keep horrendous workers on at all costs (police, medical malpractice situations, teachers etc) soured me on unions a bit unfortunately.

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