10 ms·

The California Labor Code says: > No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discha

The California Labor Code says: > No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1102.&lawCode=LAB https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio... Uber very publicly threatened to shut down in CA if they did not get their way with respect to AB5 and the suit alleges that they continue to threaten layoffs. If that isn't an attempt to coerce drivers to vote a certain way by threatening their jobs, I don't know what is.

dmlittle 6y ago
I'm not a lawyer and I'm sure there are things I'm not seeing but I think the loophole here is that as of right now, because of the emergency stay on AB5, drivers are independent contractors and not employees so this might not apply.
schoolornot 6y ago
Seems like a stretch. They only want to operate the company under specific regulations. They aren't firing employees for voting one way or another. There is similar legislation in NY. When DNAinfo voted to unionize the owner said, forget it, I don't want to deal with this union stuff and shut down the company.
freerobby 6y ago
You may be technically correct, but I would ordinarily read "threat of discharge or loss of employment" in a retaliatory sense, not an existential one. A more cut-and-dry example might be clarifying: if there were a ballot initiative to outright ban strip clubs, and a strip club sent a memo to its staff, correctly noting their jobs would be gone if it passed, would that be a violation of this statute?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- tomjakubowski 6y ago
  More like, if there's a ballot initiative to lower taxes on strip clubs, and a strip club's ownership sent a memo to its dancers saying they would be out of a job if it doesn't pass because the owner doesn't want to or "can't" run the business with the tax as it is.
  - freerobby 6y ago
    What if the owner in that situation is telling the truth though, i.e. they believe the club will become insolvent if it doesn't pass? Can they not say it?
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      There's no "I'm telling you the truth I'm really going to fire you" exception.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        Who said they'd be fired? The strip club owner could just keep taking losses until the bank repossesses the building.
    - henryfjordan 6y ago
      Was the owner just trying to state facts or were they trying to swing the local election by threatening employees? I think in your example case, no, the owner would not break the law by just saying the business will shut down. A few scattered, merely-the-facts statements that a business will shut down as a result of a new law is very different than a continuous campaign of political messages and surveys through the official work app. There's a lot more room to argue that Uber's communications amounted to an attempt to coerce or influence, though it will still probably be an uphill battle. (I am not a lawyer)
- takeda 6y ago
  This is not even comparable. The law already passed and is not banning Uber/Lyft/Dordash it just places the same requirements other jobs have. They could either treat them as employees and provide benefits that law requires, or make drivers to be truly independent. They are threatening to leave California, but that's similar to baby making a tantrum to get what they want. While I don't use their services, and don't care about them leaving, I really doubt they will leave California, because of AB5.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Whether Uber's position on AB5 is correct isn't relevant to the question of whether they should be legally prohibited from saying it. The government can't go around banning people from having the wrong opinions on laws.
    - pessimizer 6y ago
      Nobody's banning anyone from having an opinion on laws, so that's even more irrelevant.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Did you mean to respond to a different comment thread? The parent commenter indicated that they think it should be illegal for Uber to say it might not be feasible to operate in California if the law passes.
    - tehjoker 6y ago
      Corporations are people my friend! -- Mitt Romney
  - brian_cloutier 6y ago
    It's not necessarily a tantrum. The failure of Prop 22 will cause a massive disruption of an existing marketplace. No matter what you think of the morality of the existing setup, the failure of Prop 22 will force some large structural changes to how it operates. It seems likely that this will cause ride-sharing not to be economically feasible in rural areas where per-driver utilization is low. Operating in SF and LA will likely remain profitable but many drivers will be forced, by AB5, to stop driving. This will increase wait times and increase prices and cause lower ridership. It's very possible that Uber/Lyft will decide that the overhead of being an employer is not worth the reduced revenue, it's not like they're making a lot of money in the first place. It's also possible they'll decide they won't want to dilute their brands by offering a service which makes you wait 7 minutes for a ride. It is, of course, also possible that they'll decide to send a message / throw a tantrum, but your comment implies this is the only explanation. It's definitely not the only possible explanation and I'm not even sure it will be the most likely explaination.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- will_pseudonym 6y ago
  That makes me imagine The Sopranos, and the mob telling the staff of the strip club how important this law not passing is (or vice versa), and how the implication of not voting for it isn't necessary to say out loud. There's a great Mitchell and Webb sketch about the issues with leaving things be implicitly communicated rather than explicit. (NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgX6JFoV0TM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgX6JFoV0TM And, if I left out a clip of Always Sunny In Philadelphia's take of the pitfalls of implication, I'd be remiss. (NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUafzOXHPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUafzOXHPE
  - nickff 6y ago
    So how would a business communicate that it believes the employees' livelihoods are threatened by a law? Is it just flat-out illegal for an employer to tell people that lawmakers are about to put them out of work? Imagine a totally different scenario, where the government is about to cancel a defense acquisition program (like the F-22, which was cancelled). Could Lockheed-Martin bring this to the attention of the employees? If so, how?
    - will_pseudonym 6y ago
      I don't think that should be illegal. I don't even know whether or not it is illegal currently. I posted what I wrote just because the extreme example came to mind, and it gave me a laugh. To seriously answer the question: I don't know where or how you'd draw the line in the sand.
    - plankers 6y ago
      Seems to me the heft of the problem falls in forcing drivers to either explicitly consent to agreeing with the platform's views by selecting "Yes on 22" or to communicate their ambivalence by selecting "OK" in the dialogue that is presented to them in the driver app. If Uber just presented an explanation of the issues and allowed drivers to decide for themselves without any way for the platform to track their decision, no problem.
      - 6y ago
- strgcmc 6y ago
  Yes, but if the law bans strip clubs, then a strip club could simply become, well, a clothed regular (night) club, serving drinks and music and whatnot. So it's not really an existential problem, because there is a quite reasonable option available for the club to avoid non-existence. In which case, I think we're back to this being more on the, if-not-reliatory, at least coercive side; the club owner is trying to coerce them to help him stay open as a strip club, but he could just as well be a different kind of club and stay open.
  - chongli 6y ago
    Yes, it could become a regular night club but then the strippers would still lose their jobs. Regular night clubs have no need for strippers.
    - strgcmc 6y ago
      But many night clubs have dancers on stages anyways, so the major difference is one of clothing/uniform, not of skill set, no? Along with bar tenders, servers, bouncers, etc. The Venn diagram of staff-roles-a-night-club needs vs staff-roles-a-strip-club needs isn't all that different, but of course that doesn't mean that 100% of the jobs are going to transfer or be kept exactly as-is.
frenchman99 6y ago
I'm not even sure that would apply here, since Uber drivers are not employees.
gbronner 6y ago
They aren't employees yet. Apart from that, threatening to exit a business in a region isn't the same as threatening individual employees. I'm sure Uber will be happy to have them in Nevada
dcolkitt 6y ago
Regardless of the California law, applying it in that way would almost certainly run afoul of First Amendment constitutional protections. You'd very literally be imposing a gag order on certain parties with regards to political speech. Laws of that nature were very clearly struck down by SCOTUS in Citizens United.
mc32 6y ago
Don't unions typically try and tell their members who to vote for. At the minimum they tend to "endorse" candidates. Isn't that a kind of influence. Are they different in some way?
kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago
> Uber very publicly threatened to shut down in CA if they did not get their way with respect to AB5 and the suit alleges that they continue to threaten layoffs. If that isn't an attempt to coerce drivers to vote a certain way by threatening their jobs, I don't know what is. They 'threatened' to shut down the same way a shopkeeper 'threatens' to shut down when the mafia boss wants 100% of the profits. It's not punitive shutting down, it's existential shutting down. Uber as it exists right now (with the service level, coverage etc.) cannot exist if AB5 has its way. (Could the downvoters please reply explaining what I said wrong? I think the numbers make it clear that Uber doesn't have the margins to do what AB5 expects it to do while not changing prices drastically)
JumpCrisscross 6y ago
> If that isn't an attempt to coerce drivers to vote a certain way by threatening their jobs, I don't know what is It also looks like the sort of political speech the First Amendment was designed to protect. Uber threatening to fire employees who don’t support a measure is a labour issue. Uber opining on what it might do if a law were passed, without specifically regulating its employees’ or contractors’ views, voting or activism on the matter, is policy discussion.
- Jweb_Guru 6y ago
  Uber is not a person and the First Amendment, whatever our current Supreme Court claims, is certainly not designed to protect its "speech." Additionally corporate "speech" of this sort where it impacts the welfare of employees is very much regulated.
JAlexoid 6y ago
No. It has to be targeted at the employees. It's like saying that oil company management cannot state that they will close or layoff most of staff, if gasoline vehicles are banned by law.
justinzollars 6y ago
Who cares. They won't have jobs if 22 does not pass.
- masonic 6y ago
  They don't have jobs now, not while these companies defy AB5.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - justinzollars 6y ago
    whether I'm contracting, working for myself or being paid full time - when someone is paying me to do something its a job

dmlittle 6y ago

I'm not a lawyer and I'm sure there are things I'm not seeing but I think the loophole here is that as of right now, because of the emergency stay on AB5, drivers are independent contractors and not employees so this might not apply.

schoolornot 6y ago

Seems like a stretch. They only want to operate the company under specific regulations. They aren't firing employees for voting one way or another. There is similar legislation in NY. When DNAinfo voted to unionize the owner said, forget it, I don't want to deal with this union stuff and shut down the company.

freerobby 6y ago

You may be technically correct, but I would ordinarily read "threat of discharge or loss of employment" in a retaliatory sense, not an existential one. A more cut-and-dry example might be clarifying: if there were a ballot initiative to outright ban strip clubs, and a strip club sent a memo to its staff, correctly noting their jobs would be gone if it passed, would that be a violation of this statute?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
tomjakubowski 6y ago
More like, if there's a ballot initiative to lower taxes on strip clubs, and a strip club's ownership sent a memo to its dancers saying they would be out of a job if it doesn't pass because the owner doesn't want to or "can't" run the business with the tax as it is.
- freerobby 6y ago
  What if the owner in that situation is telling the truth though, i.e. they believe the club will become insolvent if it doesn't pass? Can they not say it?
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    There's no "I'm telling you the truth I'm really going to fire you" exception.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      Who said they'd be fired? The strip club owner could just keep taking losses until the bank repossesses the building.
  - henryfjordan 6y ago
    Was the owner just trying to state facts or were they trying to swing the local election by threatening employees? I think in your example case, no, the owner would not break the law by just saying the business will shut down. A few scattered, merely-the-facts statements that a business will shut down as a result of a new law is very different than a continuous campaign of political messages and surveys through the official work app. There's a lot more room to argue that Uber's communications amounted to an attempt to coerce or influence, though it will still probably be an uphill battle. (I am not a lawyer)
takeda 6y ago
This is not even comparable. The law already passed and is not banning Uber/Lyft/Dordash it just places the same requirements other jobs have. They could either treat them as employees and provide benefits that law requires, or make drivers to be truly independent. They are threatening to leave California, but that's similar to baby making a tantrum to get what they want. While I don't use their services, and don't care about them leaving, I really doubt they will leave California, because of AB5.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Whether Uber's position on AB5 is correct isn't relevant to the question of whether they should be legally prohibited from saying it. The government can't go around banning people from having the wrong opinions on laws.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    Nobody's banning anyone from having an opinion on laws, so that's even more irrelevant.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Did you mean to respond to a different comment thread? The parent commenter indicated that they think it should be illegal for Uber to say it might not be feasible to operate in California if the law passes.
  - tehjoker 6y ago
    Corporations are people my friend! -- Mitt Romney
- brian_cloutier 6y ago
  It's not necessarily a tantrum. The failure of Prop 22 will cause a massive disruption of an existing marketplace. No matter what you think of the morality of the existing setup, the failure of Prop 22 will force some large structural changes to how it operates. It seems likely that this will cause ride-sharing not to be economically feasible in rural areas where per-driver utilization is low. Operating in SF and LA will likely remain profitable but many drivers will be forced, by AB5, to stop driving. This will increase wait times and increase prices and cause lower ridership. It's very possible that Uber/Lyft will decide that the overhead of being an employer is not worth the reduced revenue, it's not like they're making a lot of money in the first place. It's also possible they'll decide they won't want to dilute their brands by offering a service which makes you wait 7 minutes for a ride. It is, of course, also possible that they'll decide to send a message / throw a tantrum, but your comment implies this is the only explanation. It's definitely not the only possible explanation and I'm not even sure it will be the most likely explaination.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
will_pseudonym 6y ago
That makes me imagine The Sopranos, and the mob telling the staff of the strip club how important this law not passing is (or vice versa), and how the implication of not voting for it isn't necessary to say out loud. There's a great Mitchell and Webb sketch about the issues with leaving things be implicitly communicated rather than explicit. (NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgX6JFoV0TM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgX6JFoV0TM And, if I left out a clip of Always Sunny In Philadelphia's take of the pitfalls of implication, I'd be remiss. (NSFW) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUafzOXHPE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUafzOXHPE
- nickff 6y ago
  So how would a business communicate that it believes the employees' livelihoods are threatened by a law? Is it just flat-out illegal for an employer to tell people that lawmakers are about to put them out of work? Imagine a totally different scenario, where the government is about to cancel a defense acquisition program (like the F-22, which was cancelled). Could Lockheed-Martin bring this to the attention of the employees? If so, how?
  - will_pseudonym 6y ago
    I don't think that should be illegal. I don't even know whether or not it is illegal currently. I posted what I wrote just because the extreme example came to mind, and it gave me a laugh. To seriously answer the question: I don't know where or how you'd draw the line in the sand.
  - plankers 6y ago
    Seems to me the heft of the problem falls in forcing drivers to either explicitly consent to agreeing with the platform's views by selecting "Yes on 22" or to communicate their ambivalence by selecting "OK" in the dialogue that is presented to them in the driver app. If Uber just presented an explanation of the issues and allowed drivers to decide for themselves without any way for the platform to track their decision, no problem.
    - 6y ago
strgcmc 6y ago
Yes, but if the law bans strip clubs, then a strip club could simply become, well, a clothed regular (night) club, serving drinks and music and whatnot. So it's not really an existential problem, because there is a quite reasonable option available for the club to avoid non-existence. In which case, I think we're back to this being more on the, if-not-reliatory, at least coercive side; the club owner is trying to coerce them to help him stay open as a strip club, but he could just as well be a different kind of club and stay open.
- chongli 6y ago
  Yes, it could become a regular night club but then the strippers would still lose their jobs. Regular night clubs have no need for strippers.
  - strgcmc 6y ago
    But many night clubs have dancers on stages anyways, so the major difference is one of clothing/uniform, not of skill set, no? Along with bar tenders, servers, bouncers, etc. The Venn diagram of staff-roles-a-night-club needs vs staff-roles-a-strip-club needs isn't all that different, but of course that doesn't mean that 100% of the jobs are going to transfer or be kept exactly as-is.

frenchman99 6y ago

I'm not even sure that would apply here, since Uber drivers are not employees.

gbronner 6y ago

They aren't employees yet. Apart from that, threatening to exit a business in a region isn't the same as threatening individual employees. I'm sure Uber will be happy to have them in Nevada

dcolkitt 6y ago

Regardless of the California law, applying it in that way would almost certainly run afoul of First Amendment constitutional protections. You'd very literally be imposing a gag order on certain parties with regards to political speech. Laws of that nature were very clearly struck down by SCOTUS in Citizens United.

mc32 6y ago

Don't unions typically try and tell their members who to vote for. At the minimum they tend to "endorse" candidates. Isn't that a kind of influence. Are they different in some way?

kinkrtyavimoodh 6y ago

> Uber very publicly threatened to shut down in CA if they did not get their way with respect to AB5 and the suit alleges that they continue to threaten layoffs. If that isn't an attempt to coerce drivers to vote a certain way by threatening their jobs, I don't know what is. They 'threatened' to shut down the same way a shopkeeper 'threatens' to shut down when the mafia boss wants 100% of the profits. It's not punitive shutting down, it's existential shutting down. Uber as it exists right now (with the service level, coverage etc.) cannot exist if AB5 has its way. (Could the downvoters please reply explaining what I said wrong? I think the numbers make it clear that Uber doesn't have the margins to do what AB5 expects it to do while not changing prices drastically)

JumpCrisscross 6y ago

> If that isn't an attempt to coerce drivers to vote a certain way by threatening their jobs, I don't know what is It also looks like the sort of political speech the First Amendment was designed to protect. Uber threatening to fire employees who don’t support a measure is a labour issue. Uber opining on what it might do if a law were passed, without specifically regulating its employees’ or contractors’ views, voting or activism on the matter, is policy discussion.

Jweb_Guru 6y ago
Uber is not a person and the First Amendment, whatever our current Supreme Court claims, is certainly not designed to protect its "speech." Additionally corporate "speech" of this sort where it impacts the welfare of employees is very much regulated.

JAlexoid 6y ago

No. It has to be targeted at the employees. It's like saying that oil company management cannot state that they will close or layoff most of staff, if gasoline vehicles are banned by law.

justinzollars 6y ago

Who cares. They won't have jobs if 22 does not pass.

masonic 6y ago
They don't have jobs now, not while these companies defy AB5.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- justinzollars 6y ago
  whether I'm contracting, working for myself or being paid full time - when someone is paying me to do something its a job