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I hope 22 passes. The current incentive structure between drivers, riders, and Uber is really good. The ability to scale up and down quickly based on demand,

I hope 22 passes. 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.

jayd16 6y ago
>current issues with drivers not showing up or canceling will likely be worse. I can see how it might raise the price of worse rides but why would it cause more no-shows/cancelling?
- fossuser 6y ago
  The idea is they’ll be an incentive to do the minimum amount of rides to remain employed. 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.
  - jayd16 6y ago
    Ah you're assuming the apps will go the salaried route. My assumption is they'll do the work to classify drivers as proper contractors instead.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      Yeah, it’s hard to predict the outcome/knock-on effects without knowing more specifics so it’s definitely possible I’m wrong about that bit. I generally think it’s a bad idea though. I’d like to think I could be persuaded otherwise, but the arguments I heard in favor of AB5 or no on 22 didn’t seem that strong. The sense I got from friends voting no was it was mostly driven by anti-Uber motivated reasoning without much thought about existing incentives and unexpected negative consequences. The sense I took away from reading about AB5 was that it’s a push to get drivers marked as employees so the teamsters could unionize them and collect fees. Basically a political battle behind the scenes is the real fight and this other stuff is just confusing the issue. In that context Yes on 22 seemed like a good option.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  As employees, drivers would still get their $15/hour even if they're idle. 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.
jmspring 6y ago
7/8 needed to modify things. Fuck this over reach. That simple thing will kill the bill. Right/left friends that is a power grab gone too far.
- fossuser 6y ago
  Often propositions require a new proposition to change, so 7/8ths is actually more permissive than normal. 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.
- dodobirdlord 6y ago
  It's essentially a proposition to repeal a law passed by the legislature. Obviously the legislature doesn't like it, or the original law wouldn't have passed. If it wasn't essentially unmodifiable then the legislature would just annul it via amendment. There didn't need to be a measure allowing to be amended by the legislature at all, the 7/8th requirement is just in there to allow the legislature to do non-contentious fixup changes.

jayd16 6y ago

>current issues with drivers not showing up or canceling will likely be worse. I can see how it might raise the price of worse rides but why would it cause more no-shows/cancelling?

fossuser 6y ago
The idea is they’ll be an incentive to do the minimum amount of rides to remain employed. 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.
- jayd16 6y ago
  Ah you're assuming the apps will go the salaried route. My assumption is they'll do the work to classify drivers as proper contractors instead.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Yeah, it’s hard to predict the outcome/knock-on effects without knowing more specifics so it’s definitely possible I’m wrong about that bit. I generally think it’s a bad idea though. I’d like to think I could be persuaded otherwise, but the arguments I heard in favor of AB5 or no on 22 didn’t seem that strong. The sense I got from friends voting no was it was mostly driven by anti-Uber motivated reasoning without much thought about existing incentives and unexpected negative consequences. The sense I took away from reading about AB5 was that it’s a push to get drivers marked as employees so the teamsters could unionize them and collect fees. Basically a political battle behind the scenes is the real fight and this other stuff is just confusing the issue. In that context Yes on 22 seemed like a good option.
Rebelgecko 6y ago
As employees, drivers would still get their $15/hour even if they're idle. 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.

jmspring 6y ago

7/8 needed to modify things. Fuck this over reach. That simple thing will kill the bill. Right/left friends that is a power grab gone too far.

fossuser 6y ago
Often propositions require a new proposition to change, so 7/8ths is actually more permissive than normal. 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.
dodobirdlord 6y ago
It's essentially a proposition to repeal a law passed by the legislature. Obviously the legislature doesn't like it, or the original law wouldn't have passed. If it wasn't essentially unmodifiable then the legislature would just annul it via amendment. There didn't need to be a measure allowing to be amended by the legislature at all, the 7/8th requirement is just in there to allow the legislature to do non-contentious fixup changes.