I'm honestly most disappointed with the courts. It would have been much better to have a second vote after seeing what AB5 would actually do!
California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
291–300 of 387 posts
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#292No 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.
What evidence do you have of this "coercion"? To me it just seems like there's a much simpler Occam's razor explanation. These companies business models rely on part time workers rather than full time workers (mainly due to very spiky demand). The workers prefer doing this job to their other options (otherwise the millions of them in CA wouldn't be doing it to begin with). Therefore it's in both the company and majority of drivers' best interests not to let AB5 stand.
It also seems a bit disingenuous to say this is allowing an industry to write its own laws. It's just an ad-hominem - who cares who wrote the law? It's the content of the law that is important, and the process that it goes through to pass. In this case if it is voted on and approved by the public, that seems like a perfectly legitimate example of direct democracy.
(Whether you think direct democracy is a good idea for nuanced policy decisions, or whether what amounts to a constitutional amendment that can't be changed by the legislature is a good process for regulating a fast-changing new industry, are separate questions. Those are very valid concerns IMO. But that has nothing to do with the arguments you brought up).
Edit: and thinking about a precedent that this sets, I see that differently as well. AB5 was pretty clearly a bad law, and the legislators behind it completely shut off all negotiations with rideshare companies and were intent on playing hardball instead of coming up with a compromise. It was clearly all about retaliating against these companies that these legislators didn't like, with no thought given to how it would actually work or what would be best for constituents (as evidenced by just how many other industries, from journalists to musicians, were caught in the crossfire and had to be exempted one by one).
Given that, I think this sets a precedent to legislators that they actually need to do their jobs. They need to do the hard work of designing practical laws that will actually work for all of their constituents. Their job is not just to make bold symbolic gestures to fire up the most extreme members of their base, and if they do and they insist on doubling down on bad policies that work against a large number of their constituents best interests, it can backfire like it did with prop 22.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#293No 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.
I voted against Prop 22 but you have to respect that it got 58% of the vote according to currently posted results. That is a pretty good majority. The result (a) undermines the argument that workers were widely coerced and (b) demonstrates there's a widespread reaction to AB5.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the California Assembly brought this situation on the citizens by writing a bad law.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#294No 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.
What evidence do you have of this "coercion"? To me it just seems like there's a much simpler Occam's razor explanation. These companies business models rely on part time workers rather than full time workers (mainly due to very spiky demand). The workers prefer doing this job to their other options (otherwise the millions of them in CA wouldn't be doing it to begin with). Therefore it's in both the company and major…
Here's your evidence:
> Earlier this month, before California users of the app could call for a ride, they had to “confirm” they’d seen a message that described how wait times and prices would rise if Prop 22 wasn’t passed
> Last week, Uber users complained on social media about in-app notifications stating that “Prop 22 will save lives,” in an apparent violation of Apple’s app developer agreement
> “Almost every time we log on, we are fed more one-sided information to pressure us into supporting Prop 22,” Ben Valdez, a driver for Uber and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement. That includes in-app videos of drivers speaking about why “Prop 22 would make a difference,” reinforcing Uber’s stance that the measure should pass.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/22/21529082/uber-drivers-la...
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Factory fires are not terribly uncommon in developing nations, much more recently than 100 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Dhaka_garment_factory_fir...
Again - a developing nation is pretty much how the USA was 100 years ago...
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#296I think you can have a favorable opinion about the intent of AB5 but also realize that it was a sloppy law that had caused lot of collateral damage when it was passed. Its sponsor even had a dispute on Twitter with a journalist affected where she said, basically, hey, we had to get it done and we didn't have time to get the details right. I suspect this is not the end of this fight but hopefully if it comes up again,…
Prop 22 is written such that it can only be modified by 7/8 vote of the legislature in the future. Its funders made sure to protect their "investment" from the normal political process of push/pull/debate/change. In the words of one political science professor: > “I’ve looked at a lot of ballot measures over the years,” said Moylan, adding that a two-thirds majority is common. > But a seven-eighths “super, super, sup…
Most Propositions in CA can't be modified by the legislature at all.
So, while 7/8th is a very high threshold, it still means that it is theoretically possible for the legislature to draft new labor laws that override Prop 22.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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/
Certainly appears to be a step in the right direction. If the result of government regulation is that Uber and Lyft wind up treating the drivers like actual ICs on "their own terms", that seems like a win for everyone.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
Err, is the "casual use of the gig economy" good? These are jobs, not hobbies, and people need to eat. This certainly isn't going to make getting bread on the table any easier except in the extremely short term—and that's assuming a collective, vindictive, corporate withdrawal from the state.
> These are jobs, not hobbies, and people need to eat. The point is that this often isn't someone's primary job. They take a job at Walmart or driving a school bus, it doesn't pay very well, so they get off work and pick up some rides to supplement their income before going home. They don't need health insurance because they got it through their first job or their spouse, and imposing that cost on the second job only…
I'm gonna need a big fat "citation needed" on the idea that this isn't a job to people. It doesn't square with, again, the drivers actually in my life. It sounds exactly like uncritically re-spewing the bullshit of these employers.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
Err, is the "casual use of the gig economy" good? These are jobs, not hobbies, and people need to eat. This certainly isn't going to make getting bread on the table any easier except in the extremely short term—and that's assuming a collective, vindictive, corporate withdrawal from the state.
>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.
Re: California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
What evidence do you have of this "coercion"? To me it just seems like there's a much simpler Occam's razor explanation. These companies business models rely on part time workers rather than full time workers (mainly due to very spiky demand). The workers prefer doing this job to their other options (otherwise the millions of them in CA wouldn't be doing it to begin with). Therefore it's in both the company and major…
Here's your evidence: > Earlier this month, before California users of the app could call for a ride, they had to “confirm” they’d seen a message that described how wait times and prices would rise if Prop 22 wasn’t passed > Last week, Uber users complained on social media about in-app notifications stating that “Prop 22 will save lives,” in an apparent violation of Apple’s app developer agreement > “Almost every tim…
Coerce: persuade (an unwilling person) to do something by using force or threats.
Maybe we could disagree on whether this was a misinformation campaign, but it's still certainly not coercion. Still doesn't even seem like misinformation to me, the reality was that every driver who did not want to work full-time on the company's schedule would lose the ability to work if AB5 stands. (And if the companies shut down operations altogether in CA or demand took a big hit due to higher prices, then some or all of the rest of the drivers would lose their jobs too). I don't see how advertising that to drivers is dishonest.