California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees
reuters.com
reuters.com
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 interests who can spend enough to put bespoke laws into effect and make bespoke changes to the state constitution?
California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done, and so the "work" of writing laws has also fallen to special interests. This has never been more clear than the last 4 years where California has had a single party in both houses, and a Governor and still cannot legislate anything that special interests oppose.
I don't know what the "solution" would be but it does not feel like it is serving the people of California well (as someone who lives here).
Neither.
It's the people, who, after all the spending choose both the legislature and the governor, and choose the results ofinitiatives and referenda, and who have, on making all those choices, time and again defied the balance of spending.
> California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done, and so the "work" of writing laws has also fallen to special interests.
Special interests have proposed and drafted laws and offered them up to the legislature since long before term limits, legislators (both before and after term limits) do draft their own a decide which, wherever they originate, to support, either as written or with amendments. And while term limits as implemented in CA do overall moderately weaken the elected legislators compared to unelected interests (professional staff as well as lobbying groups), it's a fairly modest effect; the median legislator is probably about as strong as before, but no one builds up the kind of institutional power that someone like Willie Brown had.
> This has never been more clear than the last 4 years where California has had a single party in both houses, and a Governor and still cannot legislate anything that special interests oppose.
This is obviously untrue in the literal sense, as most legislation has special interests both supporting and opposing and plenty has passed in the last four years.
If you mean it in some non-literal sense, then I can't fathom exactly what that might be.
California allows any coalition to initiate referendums and bring the vote to the people, if that's not democratic, I don't know what is.
Edit: And it's a bit insulting to say California voters don't have the wherewithal to digest political advertisements and make their own decisions.
The wisdom in the joke is that both are correct from their own point of view but as a matter of trust, you want to go with the point of view with the person who has a better view of the bigger picture.
Representative forms of government have always relied on the chosen representative spending their time and energy to understand an issue and its relative merits and, with the understanding of what the people who elected them value, choosing the right path. They are "in the crow's nest" in this scenario.
Imagine a hospital scenario where the doctor announces your symptoms over the public address system and then all of the other patients in the hospital vote on your course of treatment. And the patients are voting while treatment company representatives walk around and tell misleading stories about how effective their particular drug or therapy is in treating what ever ailment has just been announced over the PA.
Of course in theory you choose your doctor based on the fact that they spent 12 years studying for their certification in medicine and perhaps their experience in treating cases like yours. You don't go to the hospital to hear what the other patients think you should do.
But even in this ridiculous scenario, the other patients can be sincere in their desire that you get better, and so will passionately advocate for vendor X's treatment if they believe that vendor X has the best treatment.
And as a result, your care stops being about finding the right treatment to a disease or condition, and becomes convincing the largest number of patients that an answer could be the right answer.
From my perspective, living as I do in California for many years, my perspective is that I don't think the people of California are well served by this state of affairs.
On top of this, voters don’t even need to digest political advertisements. The state sends a booklet that describes all the proposition, the pro position, rebuttals to the pro position, the con position and rebuttals to the con position, plus how much money was spent from each side, plus who made those contributions. All there, in black and white, in your mailbox.
California has the curve ball of the proposition system. Its not that hard to make it to the ballot with anything. It can be a little silly but it is what it is.
How is this a term limits issue? What would you like to have seen?
That is where special interest is most heavily felt. This court ruling is mostly meaningless. There is a proposition on the ballot that directly addresses this employment/independent contractor issue. It would supersede the legislature and make it nearly impossible for the legislature to repeal or amend the law. The prop also happens to have the most expensive campaign in history behind it. Something like 90-95% of the money came in on the Yes side and it is almost exclusively coming from Uber, Lyft, and similar companies.
Basically these companies didn't get what they wanted in the legislature. They didn't get what they wanted in court. So they are trying to buy it from the public. They are hoping we aren't motivated enough to educate ourselves on the issue and will instead just vote Yes because all the campaigning is telling us to do so.
Uber and Lyft will no doubt relocate and cease operations in California altogether if they can’t get around this. I guess the pandemic is a good time to do that since so many workers are remote, but there is no doubt in my mind that’s going to happen. The bill that was passed is an existential crises for them. The business model was intended for people to make some part time money. Like selling stuff on Etsy. It cant support paying drivers like they are salaried workers. Not many of them at least. It’s all around bad.
When states and the feds start regulating companies like this, it’s a prime example of the failures of our governments to provide for the people.
There are certainly some folks who drive just a few hours a week and the companies like to highlight that by releasing stats like “% of drivers drive less then 5 hours”. I think “% of driver time by drivers over 35h/week” would paint a different picture and show just how much they rely on full time drivers.
And it's not like California just decided to target those two companies for fun. Labor unions lobbied Lorena Gonzalez to get AB5 passed so that they could have more dues paying members. So there's a clear special interest responsible for AB5.
No, it didn't.
AB5 codified a court decision with much broader impact than to those two companies, and in doing so exempted a few other impacted industries from it, leaving more than those two companies, and more than the industry they are in, still affected (whether you count the bill and the court case together, such that the impact is those not exempted, or separately, so that it is those exempted.)
Almost no one liked it, least of all those supposedly benefitting from it.
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 just don't know you would design a government that is protected against an outside player pouring hundreds of millions of dollars in order to change the laws. If anything I think an official who decided to get in bed with special interest groups is far more prepared to outspend any opponent, and is the safer option for special interests groups.
I think, in the future, we will see more Facebook era startups get smarter and smarter on playing politics. Airbnb originally failed miserably in their political game, but I think as time goes on SV will only get better at influencing California & global politics.
During an investigation of the impact of term limits on the California the times talked with former "long term" members of both the Assembly and the Senate. In that discussion the people who had served for longer terms felt that you needed the time to understand what made a law "good" versus what made a law "bad." Examples of good and bad were things like it would not be found to be unconstitutional, or its interpretation would be clear to judges who were ruling on it. Things like that. Bad laws are ones that are ambiguous to the point of being unenforceable or are overturned at the first challenge. There was also some discussion of "wisdom" in terms of knowing what things would benefit most from change vs changing things that are easier but less durable.
They found that the time clock on legislators terms made them more eager for "easy wins" rather than tacking complex problems. This was especially true of legislators who were hoping to jump into national politics. So while a legislator had the freedom to introduce a bill to solve a tough problem many times over a long career, each time taking into account the feedback from others over how it was crafted, term limited legislators felt they could not "waste time" on something that they would not be able to see through in the amount of time remaining to them.
And while legislators have always had staffs that would help in the development and drafting of legislation, in terms of likely being able to get the legislation over the finish line, laws that came from special interests with the promise of providing "good press" to support it are seen as a better bet.
By the same token, I am not a California Legislator, nor have I been one (although I have considered putting my name in the running to develop some experiential learning there). As a result I cannot know for certain how much I read about the process is biased in a way that someone who was part of the process would easily spot.
Whether or not what I've read about the process is accurate, it is still an area that I am interested in and I find the "dual" between the legislature and initiative writers interesting in its own right.
Ah that actually makes a lot of sense to me. I did not actually consider that when you mentioned experience - a newer politician certainly has more pressure to put points on the board and it follows that they may introduce "buggy" laws.
cf new developers who are under pressure to get commits into the codebase and will end up making mistakes as a consequence.
Intuitively I feel like mistakes would be repeated on a longer time scale. So someone who remembers what we did 15 years ago would say “let’s not waste time on this, it hasn’t worked in the past”.
You can still learn with 10 year term limits but then you’re doomed to repeat the same mistakes every 10 years.
That assumes 1) that every term expires at the same time, and 2) no-one ever documents anything...
Rich individuals can act just as you’ve described. Groups of workers can get together and get bills passed specifically for their special interest to the detriment of the country as a whole. Etc.
If your political opponent can drown your message out, then it becomes an imperative for you to also raise money and/or find a wealthy benefactor to argue your own ideas. You end up with a system that the only ideas that are seriously considered are ones that can raise enough money to not be drowned out. I don't think we are there today in our current politics but I think it's worth thinking about as it's not clear to me that government will remain impervious to this type of influence.
Left wing systems also have powerful special interests.
(Note that we're talking specifically about democracy, regardless of the economic system.)
In America, at least, I do not see any significantly powerful, economically left, political structures.
Non-capitalist ones.
> And do they wield power through any other means than capitalism?
Sure. For an obvious example, see public sector unions. For another, NASA. The public school system. In the news lately are the police interests. The military. Organized religion.
They wield considerable political power via controlling large voting blocks.
Other means historically used are military power. The end of the Roman republic is an obvious example, but the historical examples are endless. (Even in the US, George Washington was offered a military dictatorship, but turned it down.)
None of these are capitalist, and all are present in non-capitalist systems. The idea that under non-capitalism there wouldn't be powerful special interests is hopelessly untrue.
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 why the people can't choose how they work. It is the one thing I think they are qualified to comment on.
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.
This argument always comes up when discussing direct democracy or similar ideas, but it completely collapses under even the most basic scrutiny!
Direct voting is strictly better than delegated voting, because you can always ... wait for it ... delegate your vote! You don’t care enough about the issue to educate yourself? Simply cast the vote for the option your government/party/favourite expert recommends! After all, you already trust them (otherwise you wouldn’t have voted for them), so by “delegating” your vote to them, is equivalent to not having the popular vote in the first place!
This is why employment law needs to be take away from the states - have one federally defined set of laws - stops a race to the bottom.
I prefer keeping many things at the state level. It’s much more difficult to be involved in government when you’re trying to vote in a pool of 350,000,000 people with different interests. Democracies lose effectiveness as population increases.
It's not that hard to imagine a world where Chester Cheeto wins in a landslide, the Republicans get a healthy majority in congress and the Kochs convince them to repeal most existing federal labor law.
Will you be clamoring for federal labor and employment law then?
Sure, there might be 40-something states with lower cost of doing business than CA. But is that status quo really worse than one where the federal government both controls employment law and guts it? If CA really is doing it right then surely the people working menial jobs will be better off, have more income, spend more income and their economy will grow, the rules will be a net-positive overall and other states will adopt similar ones.
I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out?
The fear of rocking the boat effects anyone that, well, will live longer. Whether you are looking for continued perks/bribes in office, a cushy lobbying job after, or simply don't want to make enemies before your political next move, the perverse incentives are still there.
Perhaps a better thing to do would be to let the populace force votes on a daily basis (with queuing / anti DOS measures, of course), so the representatives have to go on the record one way or another, and can't hide behind inaction.
What? Take this to it's logical conclusion and imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays.
And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits.
I have no idea what terms limits of 1 day would do; it's not obvious to me. Please argue your point.
> And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"?
I'm not talking about a vote split additive cancel out. I'm talking about how in `(termLimit * nFor) / (termLimit * nAgainst)` the `termLimit` factors cancel out.
> If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits.
Again you seem to be imagining legislators are dead at the end of the term and born at the beginning or something. They have plenty time to study the role before (c.f. the stereotypical centrist-psychopath politician planning from elementary school), and plenty of their career to be judged on their actions after.
Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of factors that reinforce the status quo, but I still haven't heard a decent argument term limits aren't obviously among them one way or the other.
Not the GP, but I think the point is fairly simple to express. If you took office tomorrow, and had a term of one day, and there was a vote on a legislative item, how much could you possibly learn about the issue in the time prior to that vote? Short term limits mean that it's harder for legislators to really understand the more complex issues since by the time they do, if they ever do, they are likely to be forced out by the term limit. Additionally, they probably won't be effective at getting any legislation passed until they understand how to work with the system.
Another way to look at it, is how long would it take you to become effective if you switched careers tomorrow? What if you had a maximum time you could spend in that career? How long would you spend being less effective because you are still learning how to do the job? How long would you have to work at a professional or expert level?
If we assume legislators only need a few weeks or months to get up to speed, then term limits of 6-8 years don't matter. If we assume it takes a few years to become effective, then we're hobbling our legislators for close to half the maximum time they can be on office. It's slightly ameliorated by the fact they can seek another office in a different branch, but that doesn't eliminate the problem, they're still going to have to learn a lot (assuming what you learn as a legislator is what interest groups are important at that level, who of your fellow legislators are good at what, etc). Though the fact that everyone is in the same boat and there can't be some institutionalized personnel that are very good at certain things for others to rely on makes it worse.
Having no term limits has problems too, but the short term limits in CA and it's affect on institutionalized legislative knowledge and capability has been talked about for decades at this point.
Again, the votes might be new, but the issues are not. There's plenty to learn about them before getting the job
> Additionally, they probably won't be effective at getting any legislation passed until they understand how to work with the system.
Again, "the system" hinges on authority of the other lawmakers. Lobbies and other non-democratic operators obviously exert a lot of power, but that takes the form of playing sides against each other. Term limits makes all of the legislator factinos played against each other weaker.
> Another way to look at it, is how long would it take you to become effective if you switched careers tomorrow?
I don't think being a politician is unskilled labor! But the skill lies in campaigning and bargaining, not voting. Unlike politician on politician vote struggles, politician on public campaigning doesn't out. Maybe this results in voter apathy and therefore blander/weaker bills but this is a complex second order effect.
I'm not even trying to defend term limits to you all here, just arguing that these arguments against them are as simplistic as the older arguments for them.
> If we assume legislators only need a few weeks or months to get up to speed, then term limits of 6-8 years don't matter. If we assume it takes a few years to become effective, then we're hobbling our legislators for close to half the maximum time they can be on office.
I'm perfectly willing to say they get more powerful and more skilled over the years. So the big first order effect of term limits is not on the absolute power of the legislature, but the relative power of new vs old politicians.
Term limits have the effect of putting the experienced legislators in the employ of special interests - because that is the only way 'up'. The time in office becomes a portfolio for said special interest jobs, turning legislators "against the [poor] people".
(I do wait for the Empire-Strike-Back-Style sequel to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to dramatize what everyone else is saying...)
How is that supposed to be an accurate model of the effects of term limits?
> (f(termLimit) * nFor) / (f(termLimit) * nAgainst)
Same result. Unless you think that one side of vote is distinctly affected by term limits?
By way of example: Literature. It's easy to read a good book; it's much harder to write one without lots & lots of practice.
Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next.
That's a little bit true but mostly misleading. As with any office with professional staff, most of the work of a legislative office is done by the staff, not the head of the office, true. OTOH, that doesn't mean the the skill, knowledge, and understanding of the head of the office is irrelevant, as the head directs the staff strategically, reviews, inquires, refines, and redirects work, etc.
> Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next.
The new legislators not having the skill to select appropriate staff might, but a bigger problem isn't that the staff aren't retained but that they usually are; the less skilled the legislators are, the more the professional staff (who probably are shuttling back and forth between working for legislators and working for interest groups) do not only the detail work, but also control the agenda, and the less which faces the electorate sends to fill the nominally most important seats actually matter.
Kind of like the bureaucratic equivalent of external consultants coming into a private company.
Your analysis seems to think that legislation is just pushing "yay" or "nay" buttons, and that discussion of experience simply is about people having the skill to find the correct button. (Though inexperience there wouldn't cancel out, either, even with a 50/50 split in intended votes, it would lead to reduced predictability.)
Legislators do more than push "yay" and "nay" buttons on packages that are assembled completely outside of their control, though.
In California I think the huge dominance of the landowning class is more pertinent.
Really, I want a non-FPTP parliamentary system. Politics should officially be a "team sport" as it is in practice, and should be a battle of ideologies not personalities. Coincidentally, these means (to me at least) that not having term limits is way less of potential problem, and so I would be against having them.
There are no term limits on C-level executives in deep-pocketed corporations and special interests. The term limits are on the legislators they buy. It's like a subscription model: you need to renew every few years to keep the gravy flowing.
Then again, lame ducks need a job afterword so it's a bad augment too.
My conclusions is that term limits seam mostly for show, with muddle benefits and disadvantages. Perhaps the real policy move is term limits + enough UBI that the lame ducks are truly safe no matter what.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sortition is a neat idea which is like term limits but on steroids: you're as suddenly on the job as you are suddenly off it. I think this example, with the heightened stakes / wider Overton window, makes for the more interesting debate.
Both Uber and Lyft are California companies with billions of dollars in investment and thousands of employees, if they are facing an existential crisis I would at least give them a fair chance. California's hare brained policy to push some virtue signaling measure down the throats of Uber and Lyft is not good for gig economy, riders and innovations. Self driving cars would put all this theater to rest for good hopefully.
Look for example at prop 23 (a doctor must be present for dialysis). There's a clear interest group here (dialysis clinics are in existential crisis) but if you look at a bigger picture, you may see why it might not be economically feasible for clinics in less densely populated areas to hire full time doctors, considering the associated costs and even just the general supply of doctors.
In that light, does it make sense to try to pass blanket regulation that can have wildly different outcomes depending on hyperlocal factors such as population density? I recently watched a debate between a couple of right leaning folks and they talked about how the left tends to lean towards trying to generalize universally, and this seems like a pathological example where such an approach might not make sense, compared to hyperlocal municipality-driven regulation, or even no regulation at all.
California (courts) might be able to leave a mark in the Sidecar vs Uber suit on the issue of Uber using dynamic pricing to uncut rivals for marketshare: https://www.law.com/therecorder/2020/04/24/uber-has-trouble-...
Uber got away with greyballing and other price espionage in New York and outright medical record theft in India. Have those legislatures been successful against Uber?
Even without term limits, laws are written by industry at the federal level (if they are ever written, some years we are just lucky to pass a budget at the federal level).
https://sfist.com/2020/10/06/uber-and-lyfts-prop-22-measure-...
The proposition that made California the way it is is the one that meant that the primaries are non-partisan and the final race is between the two top contenders. This means that special interests in California need only present their cause through the lens of leftism and they will automatically find sympathetic candidates in the top two, no matter who those are. Contrast this with a partisan primary system. In that system, on the final ballot, it would be difficult for special interests to formulate an argument appealing to both candidates.
EDIT: for some reason, I am downvoted but there is little engagement or actual refutation of what I'm saying. If you're going to downvote, at least say something. Otherwise, it makes it seem like the one-party state's propaganda arm is awake and working.
No, it's not.
It's not even a proposition. It's that the California Republican Party tries to campaign like it's Kansas, that keeps them hovering right at the border of the level where Democrats have a 2/3 supermajority in both houses plus control of the statewide offices.
> This means that special interests in California need only present their cause through the lens of leftism and they will automatically find sympathetic candidates in the top two,
It's actually pretty rare that the jungle primary provides same party candidates (and it's never, IIRC, done “Democrat plus leftist third party”), so, no, that wouldn't be true even if the California Democratic Party was reliably leftist, which it decidedly is not, see, e.g., Dianne Feinstein.
> Contrast this with a partisan primary system. In that system, on the final ballot, it would be difficult for special interests to formulate an argument appealing to both candidates.
It's actually not, you just craft it around the local district not left-right ideology.
> for some reason, I am downvoted but there is little engagement or actual refutation of what I'm saying. If you're going to downvote, at least say something.
Downvoting is saying that something isn't a productive addition to the conversation, engaging is saying that even if it is wrong, it is. There's really no good reason to engage when downvoting, or vice versa, they serve opposing purposes.
The state party officials (and party aligned interest groups) have a big impact on candidate grooming, funding, selection, and messaging, and the influence they exert results in campaigns that are ineffective in much of the state. And it wasn't always that way, and it didn't because of the jungle primary change (Schwarzenegger was an exception to it, but not because he was before the jungle primary, but because he came through a route entirely outside of the party system, despite being a party member; the effect had already set in, though it wasn't yet as deep as it is now.)
> That type of dismissiveness of an entire party is exactly the issue.
You are confusing cause and effect.
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.
Most of the drivers who don't make enough money are bad at their job. California unions are encouraging these bad drivers to seek protection. I base this on talking to other drivers and taking rides myself. How is a driver bad at their job?
* won't do rides out of town because "I don't get paid coming back"
* won't do rides to the airport
* declines short rides
* won't get out of the car to help people put things or groceries in the trunk
* has a "my car, my rules" attitude. Won't allow drinks for example
* won't turn the radio down when someone gets a call
* male drivers bothering women who just want to get somewhere
* misses turns frequently
* talks whether the passenger wants it or not
* won't talk if passenger clearly wants to talk
* takes eyes off the road while talking
* fiddles with their cell phone while driving to look at texts
* goes too fast, tailgates, lousy driver
* talks politics, religion or sex
* has a body odor problem. doesn't use air freshener in car or shower before driving.
* has a dirty car
* won't take a different route if asked, or alternately, goes off route without explanation
* won't wait the require 5 minutes to pick someone up
* accepts a ride and then calls to see where they are going. cancels if they don't like it (Lyft)
* won't put on air conditioner when asked
Thanks
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 no Prop 22, otherwise you are bailing out failed companies that work on unreliable business models.
Is it a matter of guilt? You feel guilty for having a decent paying job when not everybody does, and this seems like a silver bullet to fix everything?
A majority of drivers support prop 22, I don’t understand how more people don’t weigh that into their decision making. To you, you want to stick it to the greedy bastards at Uber by forcing this law through, and if it runs them out of business all the better. Have you considered there are millions of drivers that would actually like to keep their ability to work, and this is not just a big virtue signaling exercise to them like it is to you?
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 there is a path to profitability.
I wasn't making a specific claim, so didn't find the need to present data, you know, for the claim I'm not making.
> 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 there is a path to profitability.
It's a failed business model because it cannot operate once these companies are asked to pay living wages - which they don't. Hence...failed. If I were to open up a factory and paid my workers $0.50/hour and then got shut down for not paying minimum wage; the burden of that failure would be on me, not the state that's asking me to pay minimum wage.
Who cares about investors?
This isn't a good argument that tips are a beneficial practice.
The current incentive structure between drivers, riders, and Uber is really good.
The ability to scale up and down quickly based on demand, surge pricing, incentive to give more rides to make more, not wait around etc.
This legislation seems like it’ll make things worse for most people, except people interested in doing the minimum number of fares possible to not get fired (and the teamsters pushing the legislation for their own power).
Rides will be more expensive, harder to get, current issues with drivers not showing up or canceling will likely be worse.
Good drivers that work part time end up screwed. Taxis sucked - I’d rather not go back to that because of some grudge against tech companies held by people that don’t know what they’re talking about.
I can see how it might raise the price of worse rides but why would it cause more no-shows/cancelling?
Right now,uber doesn't really care about minimizing a drivers idle time,but they'd need to otherwise. Prop 22 would still pay drivers a floor of 120% * minimum wage while they're actually driving in exchange for unpaid idle time,that 20% is a lower bound for how much they'll need to reduce the pool of drivers.
As a response, Uber/Lyft will need to either start assigning shifts or add a limit to the # of drivers that can be clocked in. I know they punish drivers that skip a ton of consecutive passengers, but they'll need to take into account the fact that a driver at 3am probably only needs to skip one or two passengers to get paid for the full hour.
I’ve already had drivers accept my ride and then just sit waiting or drive around aimlessly waiting for me to cancel so I’ll be charged for it.
I suspect this will be more common if giving rides is not directly tied to making money.
That said, I think the proposition system is often problematic and I typically default to no. Though this time 22 and a few others seemed important enough for yes.
Do you work for a PR company?
People forget that when Uber was charging a fair price, the rides and drivers were nice. The race to the bottom has squeezed a lot of the good drivers out of the normal tier, and now you get busted vehicles with dirty interiors, and drivers not suited for driving OR hospitality.
First, tailoring these rules for people like yourself who are retired (and presumably drive some on the side for fun / a bit of extra cash) has a similar effect to treating fast food jobs as being for teenagers working on the side when they go to school. It is both unrealistic, because most people doing those jobs use them as their primary sources of income, and encourages an attitude that they're not "real" jobs so they don't require this kind or protection.
Second and probably more relevant, the entire framework that governs relationships between either contractors and their customers / suppliers vs employees and their employers assumes that you are one or the other. For instance, in California, everyone gets a minimum of three days sick leave. That could have been setup to leave employers out of it and directly pay out something that has been deemed a social good from general taxation. The way it has been setup is that employers have to provide it. Those are basically the same (since society collectively pays for it either way) as long as everyone is an employee either directly or for a subcontractor.
A society decides that they want to assure certain things because they want them for themselves and each other or because they have decided that it is utility maximise to share everyone's downside risks. [I know that's not how most people think but it does provide a strong theoretical argument against self-insurance]. In the system currently operating in California, and indeed in most of those parts of the world where these protections have been agreed, the way we deliver them administratively is through mandates on employers. That's why we think of them as employment rights.
The problem then with the "gig economy" is that our system is not setup to deliver these minimum rights that we've agreed on as anything other than employment rights. So if we want to keep them, we can either:
-Radically transform the system in order to reach a "new settlement" where any rights we collectively want to be assured are handled by the state directly, and let the gig economy do whatever (since all work relationships will be effectively on the same terms regardless of whether they are "jobs" or not). That would mean barely any "employment rights" because if there was something we collectively wanted to safeguard we would collectively pay for it directly.
-Restrict what kind of work task we allow to be delivered without it becoming a "job" in the legal sense.
I would prefer option 1 but I am also a pragmatist and my second preference if we don't do that is to force certain relationships to be classified as employment in order to ensure that what we call "employment rights" are safeguarded.
Ok so Uber has to show that ride information,"bad drivers" decline that work and your pay goes up on long rides you already take. Why are you opposed?
> "Up to 70% of drivers are like me and ... would like you to vote yes on Prop 22 if you are in California."
This is a claim that has been widely promulgated by the big gig-economy companies in a wide-ranging PR campaign. Do you have any actual independently-verifiable data to support it, or are you just blindly repeating it to advance a political agenda that you just happen to support?
Asking how we can know the OP is not a shill just seemed like a less long-winded way to make that point. It was late.
And yes, "my car my rules" because that is their car, and Uber imposes severe penalties for bad reviews.
Stay as in? Spend the night? Just stay there on the curb side hoping for a chance that someone will need a ride back? How is that "making money"?
> or set your direction home and pick up rides in that direction
Drivers already do that. Additionally,
- A driver who lives west of town will not pick a ride to the east of town on the off chance that there will be a ride back if only he stays there long enough.
- A driver only needs to go home at the end of their shift. So why would he pick rides in the direction of his home at any other time? Hoping for a chance to pick a ride on the way back?
> Drivers who say they don't get paid coming back are ignorant.
As I've just demonstrated, it's not the drivers who are ignorant.
I cant openly ban poor or low society people from entering which would be considered "evil". But what if I mandated every service from a staff must be tipped with atleast 100$, because we value our workers more here.
This achieves the same purpose and I get to pretend to be egalitarian.
If this law is passed, ride sharing apps will still exist. They will have a smaller roster of higher quality of drivers and be more expensive to use. It will be perfectly fine for most of the people commenting here.
Who it will destroy is the "riff raff", the people at the lowest rungs of the ladder on both ends. Those who cannot contribute work of sufficient quality to be paid for full time work and benefits. And those who cant afford more expensive ride sharing.
Basically a way to ask people of a certain level to leave the state because they cant participate in the economy anymore and appear compassionate at the same time. Insidiously genius.
This gets even more problematic when these same hiring practices are normalized and exported to other industries where the same arguments are then made. The result would be a society where there are two classes of "employees" - those worth hiring because they are already better than most and those who aren't. This creates a feedback loop that traps the poor in poverty because they can't improve at the same rate as full-time employees.
Companies have a responsibility to train their employees so that they can "contribute work of sufficient quality". Making this entirely the problem of the workers until a certain standard is reached is really the "insidiously genius" ploy of companies in redefining their relationship with their workers. Transferring risk and investment in training entirely to the workers themselves is not a path towards a compassionate and equitable society.
Some people have a lot of potential but need a chance to prove themselves and gain experience. Maybe they would start by bussing tables and eventually own their own restaurants. They need a ladder to success with rungs that are actually climbable.
If we mandate that you must be able to support a family of four and save for retirement to work bussing tables, we won't have prosperous people bussing tables. We'll just have more self-service restaurants, sit-down dining will become more of a luxury service, and we'll have more wait staff struggling because they have to have fewer tables that they have to bus themselves.
The training you yearn for can happen by virtue of the economics of the industry. It's like apprenticeship or interning. Except it's working at entry level jobs and earning advancement. And it's egalitarian because anybody can be an excellent busser. Not everyone can talk someone into funding their education on spec.
You're right, lots of exploitative jobs will be destroyed, and businesses will have to adapt. Thing is, they will adapt to the new market conditions, or else they'll be replaced by other businesses catering to the market's demands, or the market's demands will change.
In the painful transition period, lots of exploited "employed" people will become unemployed, and lots of businesses that can't survive without exploiting people will fail. That's the unfortunate "cancellation fee" we should pay before moving to a more ethical economy.
You also ignore the point that entry level jobs provide advancement opportunities that are sometimes better for disadvantaged folks (or even folks changing careers) compared to expecting them to (re)train at four year universities, etc.
People talk a lot about apprenticeship these days... Apprenticeships are entry level, low paid positions.
Ultimately this is about controlling others vs. not wanting others to control you. IMHO people need to fail in order to learn properly, and safety nets remove this risk which in turn also removes the learning, effectively preventing those who would otherwise be successful. We think we are helping workers by forcing them into some contract that is supposedly beneficial, but really people are the ones making those choices. Safety nets and forcing companies will just reinforce the bad decisions some people make and will affect the whole industry in the long run because quality will go down and prices up.
If you've hired someone and they aren't doing a good enough job, it's in both of your best interests for that person to be trained and supported appropriately to help them improve. If they still aren't up to the job you should part ways but at least you've both tried to make it work. Employers and employees cooperating in the pursuit of aligned interests like this has nothing to do with control. Independently deciding what's good for people and how they will best learn sounds like it has a lot to do with control but that's what you're suggesting, not me.
I do agree that failure can sometimes be a great teacher. In my experience, the best work happens in places where it's acceptable to fail and where failures can be recovered from. Safety nets exist to allow for more risk and more failure, not less.
The problem with fighting worker rights is that not all workers are the same, and having a small group of people decide all the intricacies of the system for all industries is unrealistic. At the very least there would be a concerted and visible effort to adapt solutions for each industry, but that's not what happens, it's always some global abstract mandate that has unintended consequences. Politics is the ultimate solutioning by committee, so it's always inefficient and often hurtful to use politics to solve societal problems which are really the collection of the decisions people are making. Encouraging businesses is one thing, but deliberately blocking actions and forcing decisions on ALL business is almost never a good idea.
If there are people who truly "cannot contribute work of sufficient quality to be paid for full time work and benefits" then we give them a check.
Are you really suggesting that uber/lyft driving is work therapy for mental invalids?
https://www.ianwelsh.net/the-market-fairy-will-not-solve-the...
> They [Uber and Lyft] don’t pay the cost of their capital.
> The wages they pay to their drivers are less than the depreciation of the cars and the expense of keeping the drivers fed, housed, and healthy. They pay less than minimum wage in most markets, and, in most markets, that is not enough to pay the costs of a car plus a human.
> These business models are ways of draining capital from the economy and putting them into the hands of a few investors and executives. They prey on desperate people who need money now, even if the money is insufficient to pay their total costs. Drivers are draining their own reserves to get cash now, but, hey, they gotta eat and pay the bills.
> This sharing economy shit works in a shitty economy. In a good economy, where people have what they need, it doesn’t work.
It sounds to me like you're confusing the willingness of drivers to relent to market forces outside of their control for their consent. Some are definitely happier than others but none have the degree of agency you seem to suggest they do.
The number of special cased carve-outs is ridiculous - it's not a normal law.
Obviously AB5 was hacked together by some special interests (unions maybe - what is history?). It's totally unworkable. The carveouts that keep coming are the sign of this - how many are there now, anyone have the list?
And yes, I'm a maxed out dem donor. If AB5 is the way workers rights are going to be advanced we are hosed. I can think of 5 much easier, fairer, high impact approaches.
Its main architect, Lorena Gonzales, is a Teamsters woman through and through, by her own admission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Brotherhood_of_T...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_Gonzalez#Early_life,_ed...
She was involved with the AFL-CIO, but I see no mention of involvement with the Teamsters union.
https://twitter.com/LorenaSGonzalez/status/11340878763904286...
I looked up AB5 [1] and read about the "carve outs" last time the topic came up, among several other. It's far shorter than other nontrivial bills and I couldn't find a single one that didn't specifically mention a superseding precedent or specialized State or Federal law that had supremacy regardless.
For example, the primary exceptions are driven by the Borello test from Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Dept. of Industrial Relations which is a California supreme court decision [2], the interaction between California and Federal fishing regulations [3], and a vast array of past state and federal regulations written for licensed professionals like lawyers, doctors, and even commercial truck drivers [4].
[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
[2] (c) (1) Subdivision (a) and the holding in Dynamex do not apply to a contract for “professional services” as defined below, and instead the determination of whether the individual is an employee or independent contractor shall be governed by Borello if the hiring entity demonstrates that all of the following factors are satisfied: ...
[3] (ii) “Commercial fisherman” means a person who has a valid, unrevoked commercial fishing license issued pursuant to Article 3 (commencing with Section 7850) of Chapter 1 of Part 3 of Division 6 of the Fish and Game Code. ...
(C) On or before March 1, 2021, and each March 1 thereafter, the Employment Development Department shall issue an annual report to the Legislature on the use of unemployment insurance in the commercial fishing industry. This report shall include, but not be limited to, reporting the number of commercial fishermen who apply for unemployment insurance benefits, the number of commercial fishermen who have their claims disputed, the number of commercial fishermen who have their claims denied, and the number of commercial fishermen who receive unemployment insurance benefits. The report required by this subparagraph shall be submitted in compliance with Section 9795 of the Government Code.
[4] (8) (A) Paragraph (2) shall not apply to a subcontractor providing construction trucking services for which a contractor’s license is not required by Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 7000) of Division 3 of the Business and Professions Code, provided that all of the following criteria are satisfied ...
Additionally, take a look at AB2257 which was an update to AB5 passed last month that adds a ton more carveouts.
Example source: https://www.wagehourblog.com/2020/03/articles/california-wag...
accountants
architects
cartographers
copy editors
dentists
direct sales salespersons
engineers
fine artists
fishermen working on an American vessel
freelance editors
freelance writers
insurance agents
insurance inspectors
investment advisers
landscape architects
lawyers
manufactured housing salespersons
musicians involved in sound recordings or musical compositions
musicians with single-engagement live performances
newspaper cartoonists
photojournalists
podiatrists
private investigators
producers
professional foresters
psychologists
real estate appraisers
securities broker-dealers
still photographers
surgeons
translators
veterinarians
youth sports coaches
Industries with exemptions:
appraising
auditing
competition judging
copy editing and illustrations
digital content and feedback aggregation
home inspections
insurance underwriting inspections
international and cultural exchange services
landscape architecture
manufactured housing sales
master class performance
performing arts
recording arts and music
registered professional forestry
risk management and loss control
translation of documents
You make claims that this list is shorter than other non-trivial bills. I've worked in this space trying to get things right - this is BY FAR the hardest to implement law out there. A seller wants to sell their home, as part of that they pay out of escrow for an appraiser (normally handled as a contractor) to appraise the house. Under AB5 they had to HIRE that person as an employee in most cases - they are not even setup to run payroll!
An org wants to sponsor a "fellowship" for $1,000 or $2,000 to a student and have them attend an event / do a presentation. Can't do that under AB5, they can't be 1099'ed anymore, they are below exempt comp threshold, even if you pay them as non-exempt this student has to track their hours "working" for employer, get paid overtime etc. Reality - student doesn't want to track their hours, employer doesn't care and doesn't want to have to onboard and ramp up someone for a feel good thing like a $2,000 fellowship and program is cancelled.
You hire someone to write an article. Do you want them tracking their hours, do they? Will you hire them if you might have to pay for hours and overtime and missed meal breaks while someone is at home writing this article?
The list goes on.
> 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...
The default for an approved CA ballot initiative is that it cannot be amended or repealed by the state legislature. Normally changing a ballot initiative requires another ballot proposition, so an initiative permitting the legislature to make changes with a seven-eighths vote is actually more amenable to changes than normal, not less.
The California Constitution has a clause that enables initiatives to determine whether they can be changed by the state legislature.
You may argue that this is weird, but it's how ballot initiatives work in California, so this one isn't rewriting the democratic process.
One more reason why voters can’t really be expected to make the right decision on 40 ballot measures.
The Uber workers most definitely are not making minimum wage. They actually see very well how much they’re making, and are not as gullible as HN likes to imply to not notice if they were ripped off.
It is common for people here to make argument that Uber drivers make less than minimum wage, but that typically proceeds on some very dubious assumptions, which throw the numbers way off. I don’t want to elaborate too much on nuances of actual operational costs vs IRS mileage rate, depreciation, financing and all that stuff, because there is a more obvious point. Uber drivers can always rent a car from Hertz, which partners with Uber and will rent you a car for ~$250/week. This rate includes all maintenance and repair, so if drivers go this way, their only remaining significant costs are gas and insurance. At the and of the month, they can easily tally up the Hertz bill, their gas costs and their insurance payment, and compare with earnings. Suffice to say, it is above minimum wage, assuming they worked full time.
And that is a very profitable business and healthy market actually the problem is just, Uber would have to give up its world domination plans and admit it's a software company, not the future of transportation
The argument just simply takes the wind out of the sails of Uber's best counter-argument, that they somehow would need to cease operations in the state and deprive customers of their service. They wouldn't, they can operate just fine as a software provider, they just don't get to eat the entire value chain. (which arguably apart from taking care of the employee issue also makes some sense from a competition standpoint).
This whole thing is about lawyers and the taxi industry. It’s bullshit.
Uber is far from perfect, but let’s make sure we raise every point when arguing about it.
I also doubt that the law forces companies to have a work schedule for their employees. From what I understand it just says that benefits are provided if employee works for more than certain amount of hours.
So to me it seems like it's all about exploiting their drivers (treating drivers like employees without providing advantages that employees have)
The reason is because ultimately, scheduling shifts is going to be both easier to manage and more cost efficient than letting employees choose their own schedule.
Uber has a good idea of how many drivers they need at any given time. This ideal distribution of supply will never align perfectly with the supply pool's natural scheduling preferences. You can try to use economic incentives to force these two distributions to overlap, or you can just exert control (that you rightfully have over employees) and force your employees to work when you need them.
The thing is that Uber et al prefers if there is no schedule and law actually doesn't stand in the way of that.
How? As far as I understand, this is literally impossible with AB5, unless they get an exemption like all the other contractor-based industries.
Firstly, is that backed up by data? Secondly, what is their reason for not wanting to be employees? Is it something about immigration law, exploitative employers or truly something about freedom?
https://therideshareguy.com/uber-driver-survey/
Why is it so hard to believe drivers enjoy their freedom? They get to control their schedule. Turn the app on and off. Quit after two rides or drive for ten hours because the hits keep coming.
This is not exploitation. There’s a small number of drivers taking advantage of free lawyers backed by the taxi industry.
But more than anything. If you don’t like ride share don’t drive for ride share. Find a different job. Who said anyone has a right to demand a job to be created their way? Ride share works as it is. If you want a full-time with benefits go get a trucking job. There are a ton of those.
Disclosure. I am not in the United States, I am no expert. But the over-representation of some groups may be what is wrong with that data. It could be that those people that were missed by the survey feel more exploited?
Across the pond in the UK it is not drivers welfare that is driving me to think they should be employees, but tax. In the UK being employed means your boss pays national insurance (a kind of tax). Secondly VAT (sales tax) is only charged by entities with sales over £85k ie not one driver on their own (making them much cheaper). However if they were employees the sales would be by Uber and subject to 20%VAT. HMRC finally got around to demanding this from Uber this week.
https://goodlawproject.org/update/hmrc-to-collect-1-5bn-uber...
Gig economy workers have the freest movement of labor possible. If they get a better job tomorrow, they just take it...they don't even have to tell Uber. That's the whole point of the "gig" in Gig Economy.
Uber lost $8.5 billion dollars in 2019. Think about that. Uber is losing the better part of a billion dollars every month. They are hemmorrhaging money at their current prices. It will cost a lot more for this to be profitable when you consider how much more expensive this will make the drivers.
I think their current rates are a lot, so their current rates plus $2 are also a lot, but I think most riders would tolerate it.
I don't know where the equilibrium point is, I just know it's higher than what Uber is charging. My extremely hand-wavy guess is rides would need to cost around 50% more.
There's your problem. I think you need to go and research and see how much an employee costs to the employer in CA. In terms of taxes, overhead, accounting, insurance, and everything else CA demands.
It will cost substantially more. Employment taxes and benefits alone add another 30% to Uber's cost structure. On top of that, paying drivers for downtime (which will be inevitable in an employment model) will add who knows how much more. I wouldn't be surprised if prices rise by 50%+ in suburbs.
It’s hard to see how they can claim drivers as contractors under this guideline
Less trite - my nephew is in his mid-twenties and appreciates the flexibility that food delivery and ride sharing allows him. Is legislation that outlaws that an improvement?
I've been an independent contractor for large parts of my professional life; I think it can be a great setup when it's truly independent. But for decades companies have been ramping up fake contracting, where it's just employment but worse.
it probably wouldn't be as good as Uber/Lyft can make things by forcing "contractors" to take unprofitable rides, though
If the right price is more than outright owning a car I don't see how. Today I don't drive because I can uber. If ubers end up costing me more than $300 a month I'll just get a car.
(note: uber launched in 2009)
You can't say there's causation here necessarily, but the correlation is significant.
I dunno, I'm not from the US so maybe I just don't understand.
Public transportation is mostly buses and some amount of light rail, they are indeed options if you are only traveling short distances, otherwise they are not a timely option if they are any option at all.
Within the city of San Francisco, I mostly travel either by my own car, by walking, or by bus or light rail, but SF is very unique in California, but to get to places in the region, outside the city, public transit is not your best bet
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nobody-walks-in-la-th...
But Uber/Lyft are a better service than the taxis of old, so I'm inclined to continue using them vs car renting.
The daily vehicle rental approach in their eyes has advantages. Number one is zero capex. Number two is predictable, controllable opex. Number three is a hard cap on the number of drivers on the road, meaning they have a good idea of the supply/demand balance. Number four is competition; if they didn't like one cab company, they could switch to a variety of others. And number five is regulation: if they were having issues with a cab company, they could take it up with the taxi commission.
Contrast this with Uber/Lyft, which is a dupoly with almost no regulation, few constraints, and which has shifted core capex and opex onto drivers, as well as most of the risk. With power and incentive to push driver pay well below sustainability. And of course a history of labor exploitation and the willingness to spent approximately infinite money to lock that exploitation into law.
The more I spoke to cab drivers the more it seemed their industry was a pyramid scheme aimed at helping established rent-seeker take advantage of often poor new immigrants. Uber brought a breeze of fresh air: Someone could simply buy a car, calculate the depreciation and it's value on the market (since unlike medallions cars are relatively liquid assets!) do rideshare and calculate their profits or loss. They can get out of the game at anytime, and they know exactly how much they are going to get for the car they have should they sell it.
Also, the argument on Uber/Lyft drivers not being contractors since they can't set their own rates and decide which ride they take strikes me as weird since medallion drivers were contractors, had to charge the price set by the city and could only pick-up customers in the (arbitrary) zones covered by their medallions.
And I'm not even touching the usual pain points and often discriminatory practices of medallion drivers (refusing card payments, refusing rides to non-white passengers and to non-white neighborhoods...).
I'm a big believer in incentives and how they influence behavior.
For better or worse, ride sharing systems have put drivers in a situation where they have to provide amazing customer service, and due to supply pressures, the price has been falling to levels that make it difficult to make a living.
Before ride-sharing came along, cities had set the rates to protect customers from being gouged. I think they can safely remove the ceiling now. They may have to set a minimum per-mile rate to protect drivers now (if they aren't doing already doing so).
Whether taxi drivers have ever been employees is not relevant.
Also in many cities like NY, the taxi driver is not the owner of the taxi badge, since a badge costs upward of $300K it is often owned by some rich guy/company and taxi driver is basically a contractor treated even worse than Uber and Lyft's drivers.
California's move to force Uber to change agreements of its employment is nothing but a move to create new kind of rent seekers.
0: https://web.archive.org/web/20180302041610/http://ceepr.mit....
If people deserve some minimum standard of living, why should only employed people deserve that minimum standard? I don't see why gig economy employers are the ones getting the blame here. Surely our legislature is to blame for allowing people to have such a low standard of living that they feel forced to accept such terrible jobs.
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 living that they feel forced to accept such terrible jobs.
Agree, this is definitely a 2 way problem. But I think it should be attacked from both sides: Unemployment benefits, healthcare for unemployed and so on should be so good that people don't take the worst jobs. But also: employers should be forced to offer such good employments that the worst jobs simply don't exist. The end result, and a measure of success here would be a higher unemployment. Having a low single-digit unemployment isn't a mark of success.
But why? Two people come to an agreement. Who are you to say that you know what they want better than they do?
I don't want to claim that this argument applies to all situations, there are some genuinely non-consensual or otherwise exploitive arrangements that the government ought to ban, but if someone wants what looks to me like a bad job why should I stop them from taking that job?
Before COVID I used to frequent a coffee shop where everyone needed to bus their own tables. The cost of labor in SF is so high that it's not reasonable to pay someone to bus the tables. While there I would frequently see a man outside who was clearly homeless. I'm sure he would have happily accepted less than minimum wage to bus the tables, but it's a moot question because that kind of relationship is banned, it's "exploitive". I'm not sure he's happier being unemployed than he would be being "exploited".
> A measure of success here would be a higher unemployment
I'm roughly with you on this. Technically, unemployed means looking for a job and unable for find one so high unemployment will always be a bad thing. But yes, when fewer people accept bad jobs we'll know that everyone is being taken care of.
That's an idea that is centered around individual freedoms rather than maximizing the utility for the most people. This is simply a political/ethical conflict.
My reasoning works like this: I want a functioning labor market, where "functioning" means that the worst jobs are good jobs. So I want my lawmakers to ensure it. I'm happy for them to severely reduce my freedom to make agreements as an employer or employee in that process.
> The cost of labor in SF is so high that it's not reasonable to pay someone to bus the tables. While there I would frequently see a man outside who was clearly homeless.
This problem has 2 solutions 1) let people take worse jobs 2) make social security nets better. Both are required. I can't stress this enough: any change to the labor market laws must come with corresponding changes to welfare.
My view that even the worst jobs should be good jobs is of course coupled with an understanding that this potentially raises the equilibrium unemployment by a lot, so it it obviously follows that I also believe society (i.e. my tax money) should take care of everyone in society who is unemployed. There is an inconsistent viewpoint here: and that would be the one where you think there shouldn't be a massive social safety net but also people shouldn't be allowed to take low-paying jobs. To be clear, that's not what I think. I think the idea of "the worst jobs being good jobs" is a good goal, and that it also must be coupled with a large social safety net.
I realize that social safety net isn't in place in California - so arguing for the change to labor laws is, at least, arguing the for the inconsistent state - but it's hopefully something that can be addressed next. One thing would have to come first.
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...right.
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).
Do you think they'd still sign up if Uber was upfront about only paying ~$4/hr?
> why should only employed people deserve than minimum standard
Why does Uber think unemployed people don't deserve the minimum standard?
> Surely our legislature is to blame for allowing people to have such a low standard of living
Do you think this ruling lines up with that?
My claim is that it's disingenuous to say that Uber is exploiting their workers. If you think these are terrible conditions that nobody would ever work under unless they were being coerced you have to grapple with the fact that nobody is coercing anybody to become Uber drivers.
If you think that these are immoral working conditions then what you really believe is that a large chunk of our society is immorally made to live in poverty, and you're blaming Uber but how could this be Uber's fault?
If someone has genuinely decided to accept work for $4/hr and this shocks you so much that you're demanding Uber give them more, you should also be shocked that so many people are currently earning $0/hr if you have any hope of having a consistent worldview.
When seen from this lens the whole argument over SB 5 and Prop 22 makes no sense at all. Stop focusing on Uber, ask your legislators to stop focusing on Uber, and to start attempting to solve the real problem.
Here is what I am saying.
Imagine you're very poor and have a son who isn't very smart. He comes home excited about a new "job" washing the neighbor's car for $2 every other weekend because it means he'll be able to go to Disneyland this summer. Summer rolls around and it turns out he only made a quarter each wash because he had to replace his bike tires riding to and from the neighbor's house, and pay for soap and rags and stuff. You go to the neighbors and they tell you "tough shit" because your kid was too dumb to realize not even Mr Clean himself could make it to Disneyland washing cars for $2, and that the whole game was rigged from the start. Your neighbor just wanted a clean car without having to pay for it. Then after all this drama, they're texting your son that he should keep washing the cars for $2 because washing it for $10 isn't in his best interest.
Do you think that people would continue to work for Uber after the first month if they were really earning $4/hr when they could walk into a fastfood chain and earn minimum wage?
So either your number is wrong, or the answer is yes. Either way, you're not arguing for what you think you are.
IMO, just because someone will work for $4 per hour, doesn't mean that it's ethical for the company to pay them that rate, or that it's desirable to have a society in a race to the bottom. ideally, the wage would be more in line with the actual value that the worker brings in
The alternative scenario is that either Uber/Lyft or another company abides by the rules, and deliver the same service with hired employees. The demand is there. Yes, it will become a bit more expensive for the consumer, but that price difference, is what it costs to give decent benefits and rights to workers.
That's not true. The demand is there because the cost makes sense. I had a car, but after considering the cost of owning (and parking) that car, I found that I was better off not having a car and relying on Uber when I need to get somewhere that requires a car. If that math no longer makes sense, I'll probably go back to driving.
> The alternative scenario...
Another scenario is that Uber hikes prices, people cease to use their services because they are too expensive, and the company fails, and all these drivers lose their jobs, and customers lose the service, which will double-hurt the working class because rich people can afford their own cars and/or expensive taxis.
The drivers are not exploited. Had their have better options, they would be working elsewhere. You want to help them, give them better options, make opening business easier and so on. Not kill their options.
Ehh... I'm wasting my time... Socialists are the worst enemy of the people the claim to want to protect.
I'd be very surprised if this turns out to be true. Ridesharing is competing with public transit, personal vehicles, walking, etc. If prices significantly increase, the market size will go back to what it was before Uber.
It certainly would take a lot of the administrative burden off startups and free up more people to consider starting or joining one if healthcare weren't at risk.
The philosophies of both sides have been debated ad nauseam. Regardless of what side you take, the reality is these new regulations are effectively going to get many drivers 'fired'. I don't hear much discussion about this. It seems folks on the side of making them employees can't imagine a world where Uber and Lyft will simply shut down.
Of course, those who are anti prop-22 have the drivers best interests in mind, but nobody's lives will be improved if they are denied the ability to work at all. We have to take that into account.
What happens when 22 fails, and all those drivers are out of work? What happens when millions of users who are used to being able to dial up fast, affordable rides on the drop of a hat, suddenly lose this ability? It's going to be painful for all parties involved.
It is incredibly alarmist to say that we won't be able to use an app to hail a ride anymore.
What's relevant for HN is that this is not the full list: if you are a freelancer, or if you are a company that hired California freelancers, you are out of business in California.
I would bet 2.5 to 1.5 that Uber PR is at work here :)
IANAL and have UK perspective (and AFAIK they remain independent contractors here, but I'm not sure if it's settled) but to me, (IANAJudge though..) that's a sufficient test for the difference between zero hours contract employee and independent.
They're not getting given their hours for the week (right?) they're just showing up and working.
- be free from the control of the employer AND
- be performing work that is unrelated to the company's core business AND
- have an independent career in the field of the work they perform
https://www.labor.ca.gov/employmentstatus/abctest/
Uber drivers generally meet none of these three requirements
Maybe they can show a optimal price and allow drivers to change that and charge drivers for the customers they get from the platform.
in any case i don't think anyone was looking at california for their laws :))
Here is a list of Organizations and Individuals who are against Prop 22
Seems like there are a lot of Unions, School Districts, and every Democrat in Government from Biden all the way to the local level.
2. cab companies already exist. no one uses them.
I hate reporters using this language to describe court opinions. It’s a legal term of art that makes decisions sound political.
The judge ruled based on the law. Lawmakers balance public interest. Yes, the court furthers that through its work, but it isn’t actively creating the scales by which to weigh these parties’ interests.
Are you basing this on anything other than the ideal that we Americans are taught about how courts work? In practice, a reasoned argument can be made for two or more interpretations of law and judges are often entirely "political".
You'd hope that tech folks, from constantly having to accommodate this defect of computers, would develop a sophisticated appreciation for ambiguity. Instead, it seems that the ability to appreciate nuance atrophies.
Legal language may be more formalized than everyday language, but there is still lots and lots of ambiguity. The idea that there is a single correct interpretation of "the law" is nothing more than collective self-deception.
If Prob 22 wins, then that part of AB5 is overruled. If not, drivers are employees entitled to minimum wage and everything else employees are entitled to.