231–240 of 423 posts
I remember FedEx was forced to reclassify it's delivery contractors as employees. Why Uber and Lyft any different than FedEx?
Some differences that come to mind: no scheduled shifts, no uniform, much less control over how workers service customers, ability to set your own rate. I'm sure there are more.
This has been an interesting battle in terms of civil governance. Basically Uber & Lyft threatened to put the initiative they wrote, on the ballot if the legislature passed AB5, which they did. Uber and Lyft are now doing everything they can to get it to pass which will set up its own court fight. Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" is it the Legislature/Governor or is it special…
> Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" The same people vote on the proposition who vote for the government. I don't like the things California tends to vote for but it is nothing short of enlightened to allow people a mechanism to directly overrule the legislature. If the people don't like the government's labour law, who are the government to object? I can't for the life of me see…
The mechanism for overriding a government existing is one thing, but making it so easy to trigger for the most random things left and right is quite another. I'm not sure if you've seen the CA ballots, but casting an informed vote is quite arduous for the average person, partly due to the nuances involved in the topics (experts who've spent their lives studying these topics can easily disagree on some of them), and partly due to the sheer number of things people need to vote on. You easily need to forego days' worth of income (hope you have disposable income to spare!) to do anything resembling a reasonable amount of research to cast something that can be called an informed vote.
Even ignoring the fact that many people don't have the time, energy, or means of sufficiently informing themselves to decide nuanced public policy issues, what they do cannot be overridden by the legislature (except for the few issues that specify otherwise). Which is fine for the fraction of people who want that, but for everybody else who doesn't think their opinion is the last word on an issue and understands unexpected problems might come up later, there's no way for them to vote "I'm in favor of this policy but only if the legislature can override it (say) after N years". Or to vote "I think the legislature should decide this and not my fellow citizens, because I honestly have no clue and I think the issue is just too complicated to let random people decide." Just imagine if the FDA approved drugs by popular vote...
Really, it defeats how the system is supposed to work. The entire point of electing officials you trust is so they can find experts they can trust and rely on their opinions for making informed decisions. So you don't have to spend your time deciding random things, both to save your time (don't forget it's literally your representative's job to legislate, and not yours), and because you (and me, and most people) probably don't know nearly enough about many issues. It's especially counterproductive to have to vote with people you agree and trust but to be forced to do that in a way that prevents them from being able to improve it down the road. The last thing you should want to do to someone you like and trust is to bypass them in the decision-making progress!
Ultimately, there is certainly wisdom in letting people override their government, but CA's implementation of this idea has left a lot to be desired by its own population.
As a retired programmer who drives Lyft/Uber, it's always interesting to hear my liberal programmer friends take the side of the "working class" drivers against the Big Brother-ish Big Tech companies. I might have been one of them in the past. I'll probably be one of them in the future when self-driving cars replace drivers. But for now... Most of the drivers who don't make enough money are bad at their job. Californ…
Respectfully, you're paying for a ride, not for someone to make eye contact with you while sucking your dick. And even if they do make eye contact, it doesn't actually mean that they like it. Forcing people to feign pleasure under threat of poverty may work to a certain extent, but it's harmful to social cohesion in the long run. It breeds resentment and humiliation, and it's harmful to mental health and self-esteem,…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Dude. I am a Teamster. I ran for office as an organizer and labor leader. I believe in unions to my core. Stand in solidarity with workers every single day. Bought & paid for? No... I am the union." https://twitter.com/LorenaSGonzalez/status/11340878763904286...
Alright fair enough, Lorena is a Teamster. But why would you assume that the union wrote it when she is more than capable of writing laws herself?
https://www.senate.ca.gov/media/senate-floor-session-2019091...
Jump to 8:22:00.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotally: 100% counter to what virtually every Lyft driver who drives full-time has told me. Data-wise: Where is your evidence? I thought that by now, the free market would have solved all of the above problems? Philosophically: No one's job should be dependent on tips. Tips ALWAYS are filtered via biases that tap into sexism, racism, xenophobia, and never a financially responsible way of building an economy. Vote…
> Anecdotally: Just before... > Data-wise: > Where is your evidence? Too ironic. > Vote no Prop 22, otherwise you are bailing out failed companies that work on unreliable business models. I love this. You're conflating a business model that doesn't work under a set of (possibly) onerous regulations to a failed business model. Who has it failed for? And don't say investors, because these are smart people who believe t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's incredibly hard for me to consider this exploitation when people are freely entering into these agreements. But then > they have an entire labor market of other options and they have decided that this is their best option So obviously the problem was that the labor market was broken if the best they could find was that? > Surely our legislature is to blame for allowing people to have such a low standard of liv…
> So obviously the problem was that the labor market was broken if the best they could find was that? How does this imply that it's broken? Economies at their core are systems to distribute scarce resources. It's entirely possible (bordering on likely given pandemic) that this is the best employment opportunity for many drivers. > The end result, and a measure of success here would be a higher unemployment. Uh, ok...…
The best opportunity being a bad one was my reason for calling it "broken".
> Uh, ok
Unemployment alone wouldn't be a measure of a good labor market, but a good labor market can have high unemployment as an expected side effect. It's only a "better" situation, if the unemployed people are better off in that labor market too (i.e. social safety nets exist).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Respectfully, you're paying for a ride, not for someone to make eye contact with you while sucking your dick. And even if they do make eye contact, it doesn't actually mean that they like it. Forcing people to feign pleasure under threat of poverty may work to a certain extent, but it's harmful to social cohesion in the long run. It breeds resentment and humiliation, and it's harmful to mental health and self-esteem,…
I know you may find this hard to believe, but some people like to help other people and be of service. I drive where I want and when I want. I don't have to pick anyone up. That's going to change if we have to be employees. Taking away freedom and forcing employees to follow restrictive rules is how to breed resentment. You're going to miss Lyft and Uber when it is gone and turns into a taxi company.
This has been an interesting battle in terms of civil governance. Basically Uber & Lyft threatened to put the initiative they wrote, on the ballot if the legislature passed AB5, which they did. Uber and Lyft are now doing everything they can to get it to pass which will set up its own court fight. Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" is it the Legislature/Governor or is it special…
California's problem is precisely that it is a one party state. Even a few decades ago, California was not the one party state it is today. Having multiple candidates with meaningful differences on the ballot automatically lowers the ability of special interests to rule the state because it is difficult to be supported by people on completely different sides of the aisle. The proposition that made California the way…
The fact that no sane Republican candidates seem to exist in California is not the fault of the jungle primaries.
The lack of sane California Republicans is the fault of a Republican primary electorate that views things like "Actually running the government" as a mortal sin.
Lets see some California Republicans replace Nunes with a Republican with a couple brain cells to rub together and then we can talk about the faults in the jungle primary system.
Until then, you may want to start looking for faults by looking in the mirror.
This has been an interesting battle in terms of civil governance. Basically Uber & Lyft threatened to put the initiative they wrote, on the ballot if the legislature passed AB5, which they did. Uber and Lyft are now doing everything they can to get it to pass which will set up its own court fight. Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" is it the Legislature/Governor or is it special…
At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical leftist, I'm struggling to see how more of the blame can be on term limits, and not just a side-effect of our current version of democracy under capitalism. Simply put, if I had 100B, and there was outside force threatening my business I would certainly invest to protect myself - this includes mundane things like investing in security and outside threats like regulation. I…
Left wing systems also have powerful special interests.
> Amending Proposition 22 would require a seven-eights (87.5%) vote in each chamber of the California State Legislature and the governor's signature, provided that the amendment is consistent with, and furthers the purpose of, Proposition 22. Changes that are not considered consistent with, and furthering the purpose of, Proposition 22 would need voter approval [0]
This means if the law passes with a simple majority, any future amendments require 87.5% of the legislature which is basically impossible.
This proposition re-writes the democratic process, not just the law. It manes Uber and Lyft get to decide not only what the law is today but how it evolves forever.
That's not how democracy should work and we should not pass this prop. If you believe drivers should be contractors, fine, but let's not hand over the government over that point.
[0]: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...