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US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

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Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#21

In Europe, you can't drive for Uber or deliver food without a standard work contract which includes: healthcare, pension, payroll and income taxes. Drivers here PAY private companies a weekly amount in order to work for Uber et all (to have that contract). Uber et all work with these companies only, not individuals.

How does the prevalence and costs of Uber and food delivery in European cities compare to US cities? I don’t know myself, just wondering how this difference effects the end consumer.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#22
post #8

https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A163655.PDF ^ Actual court ruling which is linked in the article itself. I find the article's headline misleading. The court ruled that a proposition that was passed by voters in California which classified these drivers as contractors was mostly constitutional and would be allowed to have the effect of law, noting that California's legislative branch was free to change th…

[flagged]

You can see this actually doesn't have that big an effect. See https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Pr...

To summarize, the law is extremely simple. Remove the line "the government and public institutions cannot discriminate against or grant preferential treatment to persons on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in public employment, public education, and public contracting." from the California constitution.

It was a No vote with 57.23 % and yes with 42.77. Now, that's not to interesting. Until you look at who supported the bill! It's to many to list! But you have Pelosi, Sanfrancisco, LA, San Jose, Oakland, Stockton Mayors. Pretty much every D reprsentative, Pete Buttigieg, former state senators, the CA Democratic Party, multiple government entities. AirBnb, Blue Shield of California, Facebook, Instacard, Kaiser Permanente, PG&E(Local Power company), Uber, Twitter, 49er's, Giants, Reddit, United Airlines, Oakland A's, Multiple unions, daughter of MLK. And there list goes on for people who supported it.

Now, here's who opposed it. Two republican State Senators, 3 former representatives, the Republican Party of California, Ward Connerly(Who got the anti discrimination line added in 1996, and 5 organizations you've never heard of. Financing was 25.13 million for Yes, and 1.7 million for no. With only a asingle donor on the No above 50,000, while the Yes vote had Kaiser donating 1.5 million, ACLU with 1.331 million, California Teachers assocation with 3.5 million. And multiple others above a million.

So with over 20 million more in funding, or almost 200%, a long list of who's who fortune 500 and politicians, it still got struck down. I think we can have more faith in the voter and stuff like this shows it.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#23
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawmakers cannot change if they so choose. Propositions amend the constitution of California. They can modify it, but they have to honor the rule itself and cannot simply remove it or abrogate it through this alteration. > Legislature can amend Proposition 22’s provisions with a statute passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses, so long as the statute is “consistent with, and furthers the purpose of,” the ini…

The one and only job of lawmakers is to create or change laws as they so choose. Obviously lawmakers must still abide by laws in effect*, but they can absolutely change those laws if they have sufficient votes to do so. Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers, nothing is off-limits with enough votes. * Some countries suspend enforcement of laws within the physical space of legislative chambers. A…

> Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers

This really depends on how loosely you define "lawmakers."

The federal legislature cannot amend the Constitution by itself, as it requires a 2/3 supermajority of the House and Senate, 3/4 supermajority by the states, which are not what one would traditionally refer to as 'lawmakers' but I guess could colloquially be sort of.

There's of course the constitutional convention path, but that's even less kind-of-sort-of fitting any normal definition of "lawmaker."

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#24
post #23
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one and only job of lawmakers is to create or change laws as they so choose. Obviously lawmakers must still abide by laws in effect*, but they can absolutely change those laws if they have sufficient votes to do so. Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers, nothing is off-limits with enough votes. * Some countries suspend enforcement of laws within the physical space of legislative chambers. A…

> Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers This really depends on how loosely you define "lawmakers." The federal legislature cannot amend the Constitution by itself, as it requires a 2/3 supermajority of the House and Senate, 3/4 supermajority by the states, which are not what one would traditionally refer to as 'lawmakers' but I guess could colloquially be sort of. There's of course the constitu…

3/4 of the States and each and every State makes its laws and approves (or not) amendments through their own legislatures which are by definition lawmakers.

Congress isn’t the only legitimate legislature in the United States.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#25
post #8

https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A163655.PDF ^ Actual court ruling which is linked in the article itself. I find the article's headline misleading. The court ruled that a proposition that was passed by voters in California which classified these drivers as contractors was mostly constitutional and would be allowed to have the effect of law, noting that California's legislative branch was free to change th…

[flagged]

> At what point does blatant advertising/propaganda meaningfully undermine human agency?

at the point where there's a gov't agency that is forbidding free media from existing, or to censored to prevent the alternative argument.

Otherwise, the voters would not vote against their own interest (or if they do, it's deemed to be their choice to do so).

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#26
post #23
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The one and only job of lawmakers is to create or change laws as they so choose. Obviously lawmakers must still abide by laws in effect*, but they can absolutely change those laws if they have sufficient votes to do so. Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers, nothing is off-limits with enough votes. * Some countries suspend enforcement of laws within the physical space of legislative chambers. A…

> Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers This really depends on how loosely you define "lawmakers." The federal legislature cannot amend the Constitution by itself, as it requires a 2/3 supermajority of the House and Senate, 3/4 supermajority by the states, which are not what one would traditionally refer to as 'lawmakers' but I guess could colloquially be sort of. There's of course the constitu…

> The federal legislature cannot amend the Constitution by itself, as it requires a 2/3 supermajority of the House and Senate, 3/4 supermajority by the states, which are not what one would traditionally refer to as ‘lawmakers’ but I guess could colloquially be sort of.

No, state legislators (and it is 3/4 of state legislatures that need to ratify) are absolutely, 100%, lawmakers. If one wants to differentiate federal from state lawmakers to refer specifically to either one, the appropriate adjective is used along with "lawmakers", but "lawmkers", without qualification, definitely encompasses both.

> there’s of course the constitutional convention path, but that’s even less kind-of-sort-of fitting any normal definition of “lawmaker.”

No, again, the convention is an alternative to Congress for proposing amendments, but they are still ratified by state legislatures, comprised of state legislators, who are exactly within the usual definition of “lawmkers” without further qualification. (And do so exactly as much as when the exact same group ratifies amendments proposed by the other mechanism, not “even less kind-of-sort-of”.)

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#28

https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A163655.PDF ^ Actual court ruling which is linked in the article itself. I find the article's headline misleading. The court ruled that a proposition that was passed by voters in California which classified these drivers as contractors was mostly constitutional and would be allowed to have the effect of law, noting that California's legislative branch was free to change th…

Lawmakers cannot change if they so choose. Propositions amend the constitution of California. They can modify it, but they have to honor the rule itself and cannot simply remove it or abrogate it through this alteration. > Legislature can amend Proposition 22’s provisions with a statute passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses, so long as the statute is “consistent with, and furthers the purpose of,” the ini…

Correction: 2020 Proposition 22 was an initiative statute that modified the Business and Professions Code (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayexpand...), not the California Constitution. And the clause that allowed amendments with 7/8 supermajority exists to make it easier to amend than if the clause did not exist, since by default initiatives can’t be modified by the legislature at all (Constitution Article II Sec 10(c) https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...)! It is common to choose a threshold above the known opposition (my earlier comment with more examples https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28259306), and 7/8 is above the 73% that voted for AB5 (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xht...).

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawmakers cannot change if they so choose. Propositions amend the constitution of California. They can modify it, but they have to honor the rule itself and cannot simply remove it or abrogate it through this alteration. > Legislature can amend Proposition 22’s provisions with a statute passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses, so long as the statute is “consistent with, and furthers the purpose of,” the ini…

> passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses Holy mother of supermajorities ... What's the procedure for reversing a ballot measure? Can only be done via a different ballot measure?

thats why i almost always vote no on these now. its too hard to undo if there is unintended consequences or the vote was bought by some large company.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#30
Daydream: "In an unrelated move, the Governor of California announced that, in order to reinforce the independence of the Judiciary - 'one of the sacred foundation stones of our democracy' - all Judges in California would henceforth be reclassified as contractors. Governor Newsom admitted that there would be some short-term administrative costs in making this change, but insisted that the longer-term cost savings would more than make up for..."
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