4 ms·

How do you think it should have played out? Laws were passed, special interests didn't like it and now there's a court battle. And immediately you say nothing

by jayd16 6y ago

How do you think it should have played out? Laws were passed, special interests didn't like it and now there's a court battle. And immediately you say nothing can get passed that special interests oppose. 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?

slg 6y ago
>California has the curve ball of the proposition system. 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.
- ericmay 6y ago
  On the other hand, California also created a bill that targets two companies specifically; kind of its own special interest if you will. We saw how quickly they started carving out exceptions once the original bill was passed and comedians couldn’t perform, and journalists started getting let go. Why not just pass the bill and call it the “Uber and Lyft must pay their drivers like employees and let them act like independent contractors too” bill? Because that’s really what it is. 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.
  - jankassens 6y ago
    Yet many drivers do this full time. Why should ride share companies be excluded from worker protections that apply to other companies? Could Amazon convert to a gig-economy for warehouse workers where you sign up via an app? 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.
    - ericmay 6y ago
      Many people sell stuff on eBay as their full time job too. I don't find this line of reasoning compelling if you want to single out Uber and Lyft specifically. What is the amount of hours they should work to not be "employees"? 5? Ok Uber and Lyft can limit the hours you drive to 5. Is that fine then? I'd actually say though that what you identified (gig worker for Amazon warehouses) might be desirable if we had many "benefits" divorced from your employer, like the 401k, health care, etc. What if I could work my salaried job, and then sign up to go work a shift at the warehouse?
      - klmadfejno 6y ago
        A few points. It's not just benefits that employees receive, it's also taxes paid on employees. Moving benefits out of employment is a good idea, but if that happened, the taxes to fund these services would come from employers again. So Uber would still be more or less leeching off of society by not paying its share of social funds Secondly, the discussion of hours, while potentially having some philosophical merit, isn't especially material in the scheme of things. Uber can't survive with everyone driving fewer than x hours. A lot of their comp structure tries to incentive people to drive as much as possible, with nonlinear increasing rewards for those who drive the most. Their business is built on network effects. If there's fewer drivers, then it costs more, so fewer people ride, so fewer people want to drive, and the more expensive it is the keep the driver population thriving. The idea behind surge pricing is that you create flash incentives to get drivers out there when demand is high. If there's a cap on hours, you've now got a competing interest which says there's an incentive to NOT work while the market isn't surging- because you might cost yourself greater earnings down the line. It's a lot easier to get a driver doing 5 hours to do 8 hours instead, than it is to get two drivers to do 4 hours. Labor has switching costs for the drivers.
pbreit 6y ago
>special interests didn't like it Almost no one liked it, least of all those supposedly benefitting from it.
- nextaccountic 6y ago
  So.. they shouldn't have voted for it?
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    AB5 was a law passed in the legislature, not a public referendum
- garmaine 6y ago
  Yeah my only issue with how this played out is that the proposition on the ballot written by Uber/Lyft gives ride-share companies a specific exemption, rather than just repeal AB5 for everybody. I would be a lot more forgiving towards they're lobbying effort if it was focused on fixing a bad law rather than just helping themselves only.
  - tick_tock_tick 6y ago
    It's designed so when the law makers give up on AB5 they have to admit it was the wrong move rather than letting the ballot proposition let them escape blame.

by jayd16 6y ago

slg 6y ago

>California has the curve ball of the proposition system. 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.

ericmay 6y ago
On the other hand, California also created a bill that targets two companies specifically; kind of its own special interest if you will. We saw how quickly they started carving out exceptions once the original bill was passed and comedians couldn’t perform, and journalists started getting let go. Why not just pass the bill and call it the “Uber and Lyft must pay their drivers like employees and let them act like independent contractors too” bill? Because that’s really what it is. 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.
- jankassens 6y ago
  Yet many drivers do this full time. Why should ride share companies be excluded from worker protections that apply to other companies? Could Amazon convert to a gig-economy for warehouse workers where you sign up via an app? 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.
  - ericmay 6y ago
    Many people sell stuff on eBay as their full time job too. I don't find this line of reasoning compelling if you want to single out Uber and Lyft specifically. What is the amount of hours they should work to not be "employees"? 5? Ok Uber and Lyft can limit the hours you drive to 5. Is that fine then? I'd actually say though that what you identified (gig worker for Amazon warehouses) might be desirable if we had many "benefits" divorced from your employer, like the 401k, health care, etc. What if I could work my salaried job, and then sign up to go work a shift at the warehouse?
    - klmadfejno 6y ago
      A few points. It's not just benefits that employees receive, it's also taxes paid on employees. Moving benefits out of employment is a good idea, but if that happened, the taxes to fund these services would come from employers again. So Uber would still be more or less leeching off of society by not paying its share of social funds Secondly, the discussion of hours, while potentially having some philosophical merit, isn't especially material in the scheme of things. Uber can't survive with everyone driving fewer than x hours. A lot of their comp structure tries to incentive people to drive as much as possible, with nonlinear increasing rewards for those who drive the most. Their business is built on network effects. If there's fewer drivers, then it costs more, so fewer people ride, so fewer people want to drive, and the more expensive it is the keep the driver population thriving. The idea behind surge pricing is that you create flash incentives to get drivers out there when demand is high. If there's a cap on hours, you've now got a competing interest which says there's an incentive to NOT work while the market isn't surging- because you might cost yourself greater earnings down the line. It's a lot easier to get a driver doing 5 hours to do 8 hours instead, than it is to get two drivers to do 4 hours. Labor has switching costs for the drivers.

pbreit 6y ago

>special interests didn't like it Almost no one liked it, least of all those supposedly benefitting from it.

nextaccountic 6y ago
So.. they shouldn't have voted for it?
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  AB5 was a law passed in the legislature, not a public referendum
garmaine 6y ago
Yeah my only issue with how this played out is that the proposition on the ballot written by Uber/Lyft gives ride-share companies a specific exemption, rather than just repeal AB5 for everybody. I would be a lot more forgiving towards they're lobbying effort if it was focused on fixing a bad law rather than just helping themselves only.
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  It's designed so when the law makers give up on AB5 they have to admit it was the wrong move rather than letting the ballot proposition let them escape blame.