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> Gig work should NOT be how people make a living

I don't think I understand this. Why not? Seems like more options besides a traditional 9-5 is a good thing.

With how gig work is defined under prop 22 (pre AB5), its unfair. Look at the parent comment. Apparently these gig workers are insanely important, but they don't deserve health insurance (all of this is operating under the assumption that we won't get universal health care any time soon). People who are doing these gig jobs full time are destroying themselves (many work 60+ hours) doing a menial task with no benefits. That's not fair. My father for years worked a back breaking manual labor job and got excellent health benefits, reasonable hours, and flexible time off most of the year (not all of it though). All of this from a university that was always on the brink of collapse. He didn't make a great salary but there were other benefits. We cannot regress as a society where people are expected to work longer hours and do something more boring and dangerous (driving ain't safe, also sitting down all day is known to be bad) and expect people to not have benefits or a reasonable pay. Maybe you can't give them everything (reasonable pay + good benefits), but at least do one.

What should happen is there should be a UBI in place. Many people would stop being a ride sharing drivers and the people who want to be a driver for extra cash will be paid fairly because only the people who WANT to do it will do it, not the people who NEED to do it. Lyft and Uber and benefiting from how many people are in the second category. Its not Lyft's and Uber's job to fix societies inequities, but they shouldn't be allowed to exist solely on those people's backs.

> Instead of telling people "hey go drive around endlessly in SF, hours from where you live. Also, you get no benefits" we can choose to bolster those local economies or we can choose to force companies to provide benefits. Either one of those options will make their lives better. We have chosen the latter

Well, no. Prop 22 would force companies to provide benefits, and the rideshare companies themselves are behind it. What was actually chosen was to just put drivers out of work altogether until November at the earliest, because the government deemed that the current compromise was not good enough.

The "it'll take time to make this change and so we're suspending services for a while" argument is just a PR stunt.

Even if you disagree with the law, Uber/Lyft knew it was coming - they've known for a long time now. Instead of getting ready for it, they chose to spend their time filing lawsuits (which were never going to succeed) and preparing for a ballot initiative. So let's not argue that the law itself "put drivers out of work altogether." - Uber and Lyft did that.

"knew it was coming" is hindsight 20/20 thinking. They've been fighting it tooth and nail the whole time. If prop 22 passes (as it seems it will), then can we really say we "saw it coming"? And likewise, legislators knew about the Austin precedent, so they can't say they "didn't see it coming" either.

Uber and Lyft could have spent the last 4 months implementing the necessary changes just-in-case if they had so chosen. They are choosing to shut down rather than sink time into work that may be unneeded come November. So yes, they are making the choice to put their drivers out of jobs.

By that logic, legislators could have chosen not to put forth AB5 and none of this discussion would be happening. Also, as I said elsewhere, one does not simply ramp up an HR org (plus whatever else) w/ capacity for an extra 50k headcount "just in case".

I'm not sure how you can pin this one on legislators. Legislators make laws, private companies (and individuals) follow them. If I don't want to follow the law, that's my own choice and I bear responsibility for the consequences. As for the HR org, I'm sure Uber/Lyft could have spent some of the $100 million they've spend so far supporting Prop 22 on such a thing. If they really cared about drivers, that would have been the thing to do.

> If I don't want to follow the law, that's my own choice and I bear responsibility

Sure, but the law is supposed to be in service of the people, otherwise it's no different from a dictatorship. The fact than some 100k drivers are in the prop 22 coalition alone should say something about what _they_ want.

> I'm sure Uber/Lyft could have spent some of the $100 million

How sure? More sure than the companies actually doing the due diligence of crunching those numbers to make such a large decision? $100M may seem like a lot of money, but consider that this was a one time spend, vs the ongoing cost of things like an HR org, etc

> that would have been the thing to do

TFA says they would only realistically be able to hire a fraction of current drivers (and the drivers themselves generally prefer to be contractors), and service reliability for riders would plummet to boot.

One could put it in different ways: if a driver wants to be an employee, then why not seek employment at a taxi/transportation company that works under that model? (amazon is hiring, for example) Why not put a taxi sign on a car and go line up at the airport with a zoned price model as a sole proprietorship company? As a software developer, I have the equivalent of all these options available to me. It would be inconceivable to enter a software development contract agreement with a company and then turn around and say they are now obligated by law to hire me.

1. If you think the public transit in California sucks, at least it exists.

2. There are many jobs available that don't allow the lifestyle freedoms of gig work (see the trucking industry, which as it turns out also has a long reputation for unfairly treating employees).

In my opinion, the US continues to punish employers, employees, and contractors by tying employment to healthcare. It's much easier to say: "Look at that company screwing their workers out of benefits!", than it is to say: "Look at our country screwing our citizens out of benefits!".

1. U rite. I lived in a part of florida for many years with basically 0 transportation and didn't have a reliable car. It sucks 2. You are right, but at what cost. We can't have people who are desperate for a normal life take on jobs that nobody wants with no benefits. These jobs are clearly important (see parent comment and many other comments), but yet we don't want to pay them fairly or give them benefits.

If we get universal healthcare, then yeah this problem goes away. But california can't bank on that existing because even Biden during a pandemic isn't committing to single payer healthcare if he's elected. What is California supposed to do? We need standards, its probably not fiscally feasible for California to provide healthcare or UBI for all, therefore this is the best option it has to prevent workers from being abused.

It is a lot of unfair. So gig workers need to be taken advantage of so the parent commenter’s sister can have a more convenient mode of transportation? Why should they bear the burden of a city that doesn’t provide people with disabilities appropriate options?

I'm pretty sure the people you want to help would consider having a job a better treatment than being unemployed.

If California's jobs suck, move. Yes, it's hard but it beats the alternative of destroying more jobs through misguided regulations.

> Gig work should NOT be how people make a living

There's a huge difference between 'People should not be forced to' vs. 'people should not be'. I think your case is the latter.