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California Voters Exempt Uber, Lyft, DoorDash from Having to Reclassify Drivers

280 points by ra7 6y ago

nullc 6y ago
A special exception for a narrow set of companies with an established history of abhorrent behaviour with requires a 7/8ths vote to overturn/modify and then pretending that this is something the legislature can update. It's hard for me to not feel disappointed with the public on this one.
- t413 6y ago
  My understanding is that a ballot measure must be modified only by ballot measure. Adding in a 7/8ths clause is a way of allowing, with difficulty, the legislature to change things.
  - TheCoelacanth 6y ago
    That's just a way to pretend it can be modified by the legislature. The only thing that gets 7/8th majorities is renaming post offices.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  It's only a special exception of they don't repeal AB5!
- roenxi 6y ago
  The only thing worse than democracy is all the other -cracies. 58-42 is a wide margin. Ideally the government shouldn't be legislating stuff which has only 40% support.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
    Not really. Black people might still be slaves if we left that up to popular opinion. That was NOT a popular opinion at the time. Same for women's voting rights. Black voting rights. Gay marriage. All these were passed when public support was hovering at 25% - and shortly after they were passed, public opinion quickly shifted in an S-curve.
    - andromeduck 6y ago
      Exactly! Democracy is a process used to encourage deliberation - it's a means rather than an ends. That's why we have a constitution, three branches of government, an electoral college for the executive, and had indirectly elected senators. It was all to force deliberation and buy enough time for saner minds to prevail through the moral panics of the day. The system is broken because the process was corrupted decades ago with the greatest of intentions.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Do you have data on slavery? My understanding was the North was pretty anti-slavery and had 3x the population of the south. I'd be interested if there is actual polling data to suggest if a popular vote was held it would have failed.
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        I thought part of the point of the strange election process we have was to "ensure" that southern states would have a vote even in the face of a more populous north…
        throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        They did. Which was why they were able to hold out until 1860 when the writing was on the wall. Since slavery didn't die on it's own and was the underpinning of the economy of many states violence was somewhat bound to happen. You can't just expect to make any sizeable minority of your nation's economy non-viable and not have all the people's lives you just ruined start shooting. You might be able to get away with it if the people losing out are an evenly distributed minority but if there's a huge block where they are the overwhelming local majority it's gonna get ugly. The alternative path out of slavery would have been to boil the frog but with the uneven geographic distribution of slavery that wouldn't have been reasonably possible to do socially (e.g. convince people to spend more any more money treating slaves better until wage labor is competitive and slavery can be legislated away without a war). You might be able to boil the frog legislatively but the weak government structures of the 19th century were not well equipped for that kind of thing and that requires a lot of support anyway. In order to get the nation bootstrapped the founders intentionally put off any action for several decades. Something calamitous was kind of bound to happen. Frankly I think we were kind of lucky we got off with a "one and done" war over it (yes I know there was a bunch of background violence after the fact) rather than a perpetual slow boil conflict that turns into a low intensity shooting war every few decades like you see in other parts of the world.
- sieabahlpark 6y ago
  > It's hard for me to not feel disappointed with the public on this one. Well I'm sure you'll get over it when you consider that overreach and imperfect laws don't operate in a vacuum.
  - nullc 6y ago
    Fair enough, I certainly have sympathy for the comment above about "using it as a referendum on AB5", although I think it is an extremely poor tool for that.
- db48x 6y ago
  Most Californian voters are pretty disappointing. There was one a few years back that basically eliminated paid breaks and meals for EMTs, and there are probably a string of other bad decisions going back as far as you care to look.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
    Prop 8 to ban gay marriage comes to mind. (It passed only a few years back...)
  - Rebelgecko 6y ago
    I think it's easy to spin things however you want If prop 11 was rejected, someone could go on HN and say that they're disgusted with how CA voters decided that EMTs shouldn't receive extra mental health care. Or that voters said that it's better to let someone die than require an EMT to postpone their (still paid!) break by 1 hour
  - sanbor 6y ago
    In 2016 there was a proposition to abolish death penalty and another to expedite it. Expediting death penalty proposition won. Another proposition was to legalize weed production. That one also won. If all the weed supporters would have also voted for abolishing death penalty...
  - argonaut 6y ago
    Prop 11 required EMTs to remain on-call during paid breaks (I suppose you could spin it as eliminated non-on-call paid breaks). Most major newspapers endorsed it. There was very little opposition ($0 spent in opposition).
  - beeper-beeps 6y ago
    It’s an illustration of the flaws of “direct democracy”, the question voters should be asked is: “Do you want workers in CA to be entitled to meal breaks? Or, are you willing to give up protected meal breaks?” The overwhelming majority of voters are not motivated enough to properly consider an issue which is going to impact a tiny minority of other people. And people will never feel responsible for their vote. This is why politicians should exist, to be responsible for these decisions and to be accountable afterwards (in theory). Direct democracy lets everyone wash their hands of any responsibility.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  The best part about Prop 22 is it reveals who reads their props before expressing an opinion on them. It's a litmus test for who speaks in an uninformed manner. Here is the only reference to seven-eighths in Prop 22: > After the effective date of this chapter, the Legislature may amend this chapter by a statute passed in each house of the Legislature by rollcall vote entered into the journal, seven-eighths of the membership concurring, provided that the statute is consistent with, and furthers the purpose of, this chapter Seven-eighths to overturn, eh? Now where did you go get that? Now secondarily, one might ask if someone "disappointed with the public" is sufficiently informed about ballot propositions in the first place. For instance, if you're a California voter and you can't answer "If a ballot proposition is passed through voter referendum, what majority of the legislature can overrule it?", then can you really be considered an informed voter? Or, more directly, you are clearly expressing discontent with California voters while being the problem since you are clearly uninformed about Prop 22 and about how ballot props work (and perhaps about why they have to work that way).
  - panic 6y ago
    That’s the only place that literal text appears, but there are several other references to it (“subdivision (a)”) — > (3) Any statute that prohibits app-based drivers from performing a particular rideshare service or delivery service while allowing other individuals or entities to perform the same rideshare service or delivery service, or otherwise imposes unequal regulatory burdens upon app-based drivers based on their classifcation status, constitutes an amendment of this chapter and must be enacted in compliance with the procedures governing amendments consistent with the purposes of this chapter as set forth in subdivisions (a) and (b). > (4) Any statute that authorizes any entity or organization to represent the interests of app-based drivers in connection with drivers’ contractual relationships with network companies, or drivers’ compensation, benefts, or working conditions, constitutes an amendment of this chapter and must be enacted in compliance with the procedures governing amendments consistent with the purposes of this chapter as set forth in subdivisions (a) and (b). > (d) Any statute that imposes additional misdemeanor or felony penalties in order to provide greater protection against criminal activity for app-based drivers and individuals using rideshare services or delivery services may be enacted by the Legislature by rollcall vote entered into the journal, a majority of the membership of each house concurring, without complying with subdivisions (a) and (b).
- vmception 6y ago
  Do you think it passes the Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment of the US constitution? Treating some companies' employees differently than others? Because I hope it does. I also unfortunately have to hope that the ride-share companies give the benefits they suggest, but I also want the US to unbundle this from companies to begin with, across the whole republic.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    We already have discriminated for a century on pay: tipped vs non-tipped wages. Also, they’re not modifying it to single out Uber and Lyft, but “gig economy workers”. Requiring someone who fulfills certain requirements to be classified as an employee isn’t unconstitutional.
    - deleted 6y ago
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- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  Part of why I voted for prop 22 is because the list of special exemptions to AB5 is a mile long. On top of the original exemptions, we even passed AB2257 which added a few dozen more (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB2257 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...) I think prop 22 is flawed, but I'm using it as a referendum on AB5 (and I think it's marginally better than the alternative). AB5 is a defacto ban on casual use of the gig economy. It would've required uber to reduce the # of drivers and/or start assigning them shifts
  - thatswrong0 6y ago
    Same. The exception list is insane. I don't see how you can look at that list and _not_ think these drivers belong there as well. On top of this, most drivers I talked to were voting for it, and despite some cries about brainwashing by the companies via their apps, I'd imagine they do still have their own best interests in mind.
    - rmrfstar 6y ago
      I'm assuming the drivers you talked to were working when you talked to them. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, they might be scared to be honest with you under those circumstances?
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        Hey, no need to be snide.
      - thatswrong0 6y ago
        Umm... why would they be scared? It's not like I was being aggressive about - I was just curious, and I was already casually chatting with them.
        rmrfstar 6y ago
        Here are two important facts about the world: 1. Poor people cannot miss a paycheck. Getting fired means not paying rent, not eating, or not repairing the car you depend on for your livelihood. 2. Bosses spy on employees. This country has a rather nasty history of labor spies, and that tradition is undergoing an unfortunate revival. Poor people seem to know more about that history than comfortable-but-not-rich people. Not sure why.
- refurb 6y ago
  Did you know that CA has been busy passing special exemptions to AB 5 for a ton of professions ever since it first passed? Here is an example of professions as of September, but I know they passed additional exemptions in October as well. https://www.wagehourblog.com/2020/09/articles/california-wage-hour-law/california-adds-more-exemptions-to-controversial-independent-contractor-statute https://www.wagehourblog.com/2020/09/articles/california-wag...
  - nullc 6y ago
    I'm aware-- and if Prop22 just grafted the ride-share businesses into those lists or overturned AB5 I'd have less to complain about it. Instead, Prop22 acts as a generalized shield against any act of the legislature which limits or imposes specific restrictions on rideshare app businesses by requiring a 7/8th's vote and requiring that they be "consistent with the purpose" of the prop22 amended law.
    - refurb 6y ago
      According to this link [1] the legislature can't change what the voter's passed through an initiative unless they send it back to the voter's again. So as per earlier comments, I'd interpret that as the 7/8th's vote requirement actually reducing the burden on the legislature. As long as they can get 7/8ths of the votes, they don't need to bring it back to the voter's again. "The California State Legislature may not amend or repeal an approved measure without submitting the change to voters. However, a ballot measure may include a clause waiving this protection either entirely or conditionally." [1]https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_the_initiative_process_in_California#Legislative_alteration https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_the_initiative_proces...
      - nullc 6y ago
        Yes, it technically reduces the criteria for direct adjustments, but: Proposition 22 imposes the same 7/8th requirement across a _massive_ scope, not just the specific text amended by the proposition itself but also for any statute that prohibits ridesharing apps from "performing a particular rideshare service or delivery service" or "otherwise imposes unequal regulatory burdens upon app-based drivers". Additionally, any law that would unionize app-based drivers is similarly subject to this requirement. The threshold is so high that the legislature is effectively barred, and rather than just having the limitation apply to the measure itself is a generalized shield against legislation. For example: No sex offenders on ridesharing apps? 7/8ths vote required. Separate tax for road wear created by inefficient routing by ridesharing apps? 7/8ths vote. (Prop13 and Prop26 eat your heart out!) Additional liability insurance requirements for rideshare drivers? 7/8ths vote. Law requiring ridesharing apps to automatically forward user's reports of assaults by drivers to the police? 7/8ths vote. Essentially Prop22 acts as a fairly generalized shield against new laws that would interfere with the core activity of particular set of businesses. In addition to the 7/8th requirement all amendments or other statutes that trigger Prop22's oversight are also required to be "consistent with the purpose" of Prop22 ("...to protect the individual right of every app-based ride share and delivery drivers to have the flexibility to set their own hours for where, when, and how they work..."). And if there is a really good cause to impinge the right of 'app-based' rideshare drivers to drive whatever hours whereever, or however they want? It seems like the answer even with unanimous support of the legislature is: Tough luck, time for another ballot initiative but this time it'll have the ride-share companies spending a hundreds of millions against it instead of for it and it'll still be a sweet deal at twice the price. Have these companies shown themselves to be such good citizens, going out of their way to protect the public interest, that they could be trusted with this near diplomatic immunity level of protection? Of course not. However... the drafting of Prop22 does allow laws restricting app-based rideshare so long as these laws impose criminal penalties. I wonder what would happen if the legislature became as shameless at exploiting legal loopholes as Uber has been? "Overwork app-based drivers? CEO right to jail! Under-pay app-based drivers? Right to jail, right away. Driving too fast: jail. Slow: jail. You make an appointment with the rider and a driver doesn't show up, believe it or not, jail, right away." It would be quite interesting as a television drama ... but I wouldn't expect such absurdity to be a good use of our public resources. :) If I had to bet the courts won't allow Prop22 to have quite that expansive an effect, it's simply too offensive. The end result is that the state will inevitability end up in a pile of time wasting litigation with Uber arguing that the people of California really intended to make them as exempt from the law as they've been acting as though they were for all these years.
- deleted 6y ago
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- argonaut 6y ago
  Allowing 7/8th vote in the legislature to modify actually makes it (marginally) easier to modify, since ballot propositions by default cannot be modified by the legislature at all, only by another ballot proposition.
- paxys 6y ago
  Are you talking about prop 22 or AB5?
- encoderer 6y ago
  It is a terrible response to a terrible law.
- CogitoCogito 6y ago
  The whole concept of being able to pass laws and then being unable to repeal them by the same margins as before as always seemed totally insane to me. Basically the definition of an unstable system and totally undemocratic.
  - makomk 6y ago
    As I understand it, this can be repealed in the same way and with the same margins as it was passed by getting majority support for another ballot proposition repealing it. The 7/8ths provision only applies to attempts by the legislature to mess with it.
    - CogitoCogito 6y ago
      Okay that makes much more sense. Thanks a lot for clarifying that for me.
  - 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
    To add to what the other commenter said, it also could add stability, rather than instability. Imagine a popular opinion that’s right around 50%, fluctuating by epsilon every year. If every time it went from 50+epsilon to 50-epsilon, the law changed, it would be too hard to get anything done, so a little bit of friction isn’t a terrible thing (a little bit). A system where it takes a 7/8 vote has this anti-fickleness property, where 7/8+epsilon can pass, but 7/8-epsilon can’t undo (though 7/8 is way too much friction).
    - CogitoCogito 6y ago
      [Opinionated wall of text...I don't really mean this as an attack on you, but I figured I'd add the disclaimer after noticing how long it got :) ] Honestly if a law has such variable support that both it and its complement could have majority support at any time, then why should either version have any precedence? This _is_ an example of unstable system. Passing A then ~A or passing ~A then A could have extremely varied outcomes just given random statistical variation. Besides you saying "it gets hard to get things done" doesn't really square with the fact that the vast majority of things in most electoral systems don't jump back and forth even though there isn't any hurdle like this to keep it from happening. So it must not happen for other other reasons like being seen as someone who's just quickly flipping an old law or just throwing up votes and then counter votes just isn't very popular. In fact, in this case the 7/8ths does _not_ apply to another proposition as the GP explained to me. So in fact there is nothing holding back another proposition next time saying the exact opposite (and it only needs the same support as this time) except the historical realization that it passed with enormous support and is backed by powerful interests. This system _is_ stable because I misunderstood it and because the requirements to repeal are the same as to pass. If it weren't that way it really would be unstable and frankly undemocratic.
- deleted 6y ago
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- deleted 6y ago
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- apta 6y ago
  Many of those pro-voters are drivers who voted for what they want. Let's not pretend to know better than the people working in the field.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  ...disappointed with the public... The whole episode, but especially comments here on HN: I'm getting a strong "Omelas" vibe.
- pianoben 6y ago
  Bear in mind that, without the 7/8 clause, it would be impossible to legislatively overturn or modify prop 22. It would have required a public referendum to do so. Now, it merely requires a legislative ultra-majority - improbable but more realistic than another public vote. Also, please bear in mind that CA legislature has already exempted wide and arbitrary swathes of industry from AB5, seemingly based on each industry's political clout. While I wish for better worker protections than prop 22 provides, AB5 was bad legislature and implemented in a less-than-above-board way. disclosure: I do work for a gig company, opinions are my own, etc. personally I want all the workers unionized, everywhere.
  - on_and_off 6y ago
    wow, it went from almost impossible to just improbable, everything is great then.
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      It's just a strange way to conceptualize the process. The whole concept of a ballot proposition is to give voters the final say on policy questions - if legislators could easily overturn propositions, what would be the point?
      - jldugger 6y ago
        I assumed the idea was to allow popular but divisive issues to be decided upon without attaching the name of specific legislators to the issue.
        SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Both factors are relevant, but the final say thing is pretty characteristic of California. For bond measures, it's actually mandated by the state constitution - once the legislature passes a bill for a new bond program, they have to create a ballot proposition to ask voters for approval.
    - 6y ago
- SllX 6y ago
  I voted for it to tank the legislative achievement in AB5. It’s not the total repeal I would have preferred, but damned if I’m going to let AB5 stay intact. Now the legislature faces the choice of letting the gimped version of AB5 stand without hitting their prized targets or repeal what’s left.
- aeternum 6y ago
  The legislature already took a stance that was counter to the will of the people rather than do their job. Now we have a worse law on the books that can't be removed. Maybe next time legislatures will take the time to listen to what people want and write a decent law initially.
- sizzle 6y ago
  The way they blanketed my parents neighborhood with advertisement that senior citizens would no longer be able to get there groceries and meds delivered to their door makes me think they played dirty and misled the masses on the real issue of worker employment benefits. I bet if you asked those individuals who voted what the issue was at hand they could not even tell you the implication of the passing prop 22 on drivers. How is this a just system?
- wdr1 6y ago
  > then pretending that this is something the legislature can update Where did the pretending happen?
ilaksh 6y ago
I have always felt that more direct democracy such as propositions is a more advanced way to operate. But this decision has made me complete reconsider it. I almost want there to be some kind of test to see how informed people are that somehow weights their votes. It could just be a short multiple quiz with questions submitted by each side or made by a third party and approved by each side. Just to verify that people actually know what they are voting on and are not just making some default decision based on whichever ad they saw or whatever.
- perfunctory 6y ago
  > But this decision has made me complete reconsider it. Please don't. This was not an example of direct democracy. Direct democracy is more than simply casting your vote once in a while. A good start could be to address this issue: > The companies, along with Postmates Inc. and Instacart Inc., collectively contributed around $200 million to support Proposition 22 edit: Also, I find this approach to direct democracy quite interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_assembly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_assembly
- _Microft 6y ago
  Direct democracy sounds great but I doubt large enough fractions of the voters can be informed well enough (in a reasonable amount of time, not in general) to be actually aware of the consequences of their decisions on most topics. If you want to read about a textbook example of under-informed voters getting more than they bargained for, look no further than [0] (or well, the "Brexit"). A national-conservative party wanted to limit immigration to Switzerland and put that up for decision. The Swiss voted in support of it but the issue is ... immigration is part of a treaty with the EU that is protected against such "cherry-picking" by a so-called "guillotine clause" [1]. Cancelling or failing to renew any part of the treaty voids it as a whole[2]. The government eventually implemented a very toned down version to avoid running afoul of the treaty because among other things that would have affected the other agreements on air traffic, road traffic, agriculture and science and more (see "Implementation" in [0] again). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initiat... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine_clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine_clause [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_Union_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_U...
florabuzzword 6y ago
That’s what $200 billion in fake news buys you these days.
- thatswrong0 6y ago
  I think you mean $200 million. But I'd be curious to hear what you think is fake news
florenceburn 6y ago
That’s what $200 billion in fake news buys you these days.
LatteLazy 6y ago
Maybe people just really like ubers?
- xiphias2 6y ago
  You mean cheap Ubers of course. I also don't think direct democracy lost here. Most people don't want Uber prices to go up. Democracy always sucks for the minority / people who don't have voting rights.
  - LatteLazy 6y ago
    Well I certainly like cheap ubers! I'm a brit so luckily for me, a lot of the issues in california don't really apply here (drivers have healthcare because everyone here has healthcare etc). It's unfortunate that we have no direct democracy, but do have good safety nets (at least comparatively). Meanwhile Cali has no such nets but does allow majority rule in this way. I actually also like the Uber model because its honest (between the participants at least) . I hardly ever used taxis before, not just because of the price but also because of the service. "Your car is 10 minutes away" actually meant "your car has to complete 3 other 20min journeys before coming to you". "about £10" meant "£26 after a weird journey and no we don't take credit cards or give change". I imagine the same applied for drivers: people would misbehave in your car because there was no penalty for doing so. Dispatchers favoured other drivers because you were new. The whole thing was a race to the bottom for everyone. Uber with a rating system and an algorithm that minimises waits has fixed that issue. That's their "killer feature" to me. But I can see how people have issues with their model.
  - mike_d 6y ago
    Uber rides are either going to get really cheap, or they are going to go out of business. Waymo doesn't have the labor overhead and will eat their lunch. It is almost cute that we are trying to pass or block protections for a workforce that won't exist in 5 years.
    - dboreham 6y ago
      Obligatory note that self driving cars don't actually exist at present.
MattGaiser 6y ago
Unless you are an Uber driver (and even then, there is debate among drivers), AB5 would only cause you to face higher prices and reduced availability. Voting for this would be an altruistic act that would come out of people's wallets. No surprise that this passed easily.
- perfunctory 6y ago
  Unless you are a slave, abolishing slavery would only cause you to face higher prices ...
  - cody3222 6y ago
    No one is forcing them to do this work. They opt-in to being a driver. Slavery is coerced labor, how can you even make the comparison?
    - tdeck 6y ago
      Because our society depends on economic precarity to compel an underclass of people to work in whatever shitty jobs are offered in order to meet their basic needs.
      - cody3222 6y ago
        I don't think that's true. Creating more jobs for people to opt-in to only helps them. When people no longer work these jobs, then companies come up with other solutions to get the job done. This is what happened in Japan and why automation is so big there.
        mdorazio 6y ago
        > Creating more jobs for people to opt-in to only helps them. Except if the only jobs available are awful and don't actually pay enough to have a decent standard of living. You seem to be assuming that more available jobs of any kind = better for workers over time, but a quick review of the US labor market over the last 30 years shows this isn't really the case at all. I'm also not sure why you're bringing Japan into this discussion - its economic, demographic, and societal conditions are so different from the US that it doesn't make much sense to use it as a comparison.
cody3222 6y ago
This is a huge win for all, including drivers. If a driver decides they don't like how they're paid or the benefits they get, they have complete control to not do the job and work elsewhere.
- deleted 6y ago
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- speedgoose 6y ago
  Everyone have complete control to change job and improve their quality of life whenever they want without taking any risk.
- lsiebert 6y ago
  prop 22 prevents drivers from organizing together to negotiate with these companies. Having the freedom to say no to a corporation individually is not at all the same as the ability to create a union and negotiate terms collectively.
  - cody3222 6y ago
    These jobs didn't exist a decade ago. Drivers chose to work them in a fair economic transaction (I will trade my time for $X). They can choose to no longer work these jobs the same way that they didn't work them when they didn't exist. When they do this, and they eventually will, supply for these jobs will dry up and wages will naturally rise.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      > Drivers chose to work them in a fair economic transaction (I will trade my time for $X). Just because it is a voluntary transaction does not mean it is fair or should never be changed. Same reason why I think a $7.25/hr federal minimum wage is permissible, even though it might proscribe some voluntary transactions.
    - lsiebert 6y ago
      If that were true then there wouldn't be an issue with collective bargaining. Uber and Lyft only pay for the time a passenger is in the car, what is called engaged time, not for time with the app open waiting for customers or for driving to pick them up. Given how many drivers they have, studies in california estimate that up to a 1/3 of time drivers are not engaged, and thus not earning, just driving around clogging the streets or parked, and make as little as $5.64 an hour. Maybe you don't care about paying people poverty wages so they can never do better, but even if you are a sociopath who lives only for yourself, whose tax dollars do you think subsidize folks who can't afford rent, food, health insurance etc? https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-effects-of-proposition-22-on-driver-earnings-response-to-a-lyft-funded-report-by-dr-christopher-thornberg/ https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-effects-of-proposition-...
whiddershins 6y ago
This ... is insane. I thought everyone agreed AB5 was written to basically target these companies. Now it’s just disruptively regulating the labor market in random ways while also having a list of exceptions so long no one can keep track of it? Why not just repeal this law?
- tick_tock_tick 6y ago
  That would require the legislature to admit they fucked up.
- smt88 6y ago
  Repealing laws is much harder than passing new ones (both politically and procedurally). Depending on the law and location, you often need more votes to repeal than to pass.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    What? Bills are patches. A patch and its inverse are both patches.
    - smt88 6y ago
      Specifically for California, some ballot measures are harder to change/repeal than to pass in the first place[1]. I don't think Congress can write bills that are harder to repeal, but I know some states can. There are also states that abuse their own constitutions to accomplish the same thing, for example if a supermajority is required to amend the constitution. 1. https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-amendment-threshold-proposition-22/ https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-a...
      - Ericson2314 6y ago
        I agree with that, but still: - Bill can undo bill - Ballot measure can undo ballot measure - Constitutional amendment can undo Constitutional amendment so we still have proper inverses.
paxys 6y ago
As someone who regularly uses Uber & Lyft in California and made it a point to talk to every single one my my drivers this past year about it, I happily (and confidently) voted for prop 22 and am happy to see it pass.
- okareaman 6y ago
  Thank you!
supernova87a 6y ago
I supported Prop 22 because the law being countered already had a list of exceptions a mile long, I suppose put there by the labor interests that wrote the bill. I didn't see why some of these contractors aren't equally exploited and subject to the whim of big evil corporations. What does it matter then, to carve out one more exception for Lyft/Uber drivers to join this list? A commercial fisherman is less worthy of being protected than a Lyft or Uber driver? You've got to be kidding me. --------------- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB2257 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... Exempted fields: Professional services that include: (A) Marketing, (B) Administrator of human resources (C) Travel agent services (D) Graphic design. (E) Grant writer. (F) (i) Fine artist. (G) Services provided by an enrolled agent (H) Payment processing agent through an independent sales organization. (i) Still photographer, photojournalist, videographer, or photo editor (ii) Digital content aggregator (J) Freelance writer, translator, editor, copy editor, illustrator, or newspaper cartoonist (K) Content contributor, advisor, producer, narrator, or cartographer (L) Licensed esthetician, licensed electrologist, licensed manicurist, licensed barber, or licensed cosmetologist (N) Appraiser (O) Registered professional foresters (1) A real estate licensee (2) A home inspector (3) A repossession agency (A) Recording artists (B) Songwriters, lyricists, composers, and proofers. (C) Managers of recording artists. (D) Record producers and directors. (E) Musical engineers and mixers engaged in the creation of sound recordings. (F) Musicians engaged in the creation of sound recordings, subject to the below. (G) Vocalists (H) Photographers working on recording photo shoots, album covers, and other press and publicity purposes. (I) Independent radio promoters. (J) Any other individual engaged to render any creative, production, marketing, or independent music publicist services related primarily to the creation, marketing, promotion, or distribution of sound recordings or musical compositions. (A) Film and television unit production crew (B) Publicists who are not independent music publicists. (a) A person or organization who is licensed by the Department of Insurance (b) A physician and surgeon, dentist, podiatrist, psychologist, or veterinarian (c) lawyer, architect, landscape architect, engineer, private investigator, or accountant. (d) A securities broker-dealer or investment adviser (e) A direct sales salesperson (f) A manufactured housing salesperson (g) A commercial fisher working on an American vessel. (h) A newspaper distributor (i) An... international exchange visitor (j) A competition judge
ghthor 6y ago
Maybe the California voters should re-elect the hacks they have in their state congress.
marketingPro 6y ago
Regulatory Capture at it's finest. I'm getting a vibe that this may be the end of California dominance.
cblconfederate 6y ago
Must be the only law that has more exceptions than applications by now
- paxys 6y ago
  Who even is covered under AB5 now?
Wolfenstein98k 6y ago
Good. The users and the drivers both wanted this. You may dislike hearing this, but it takes a lot to inject yourself into that arrangement and massively increase the cost because you want it done differently. I recognise that it appears to create "rules for thee but not for me" for these companies, but when they are so thoroughly satisfying both their customers and their workers, you should ask yourself if forcing them into the existing regulatory framework is the right equilibrium to shoot for.
- Causality1 6y ago
  Uber and Lyft are examples of the best way independent contracting works. The problem is the way its eating industries that were not built for it. Drivers get the benefits of being independent. Other contractors, for example estheticians, get almost none of them. They don't get to set their own hours and rates.
  - dmitriid 6y ago
    > Uber and Lyft are examples of the best way independent contracting works. "Best way" as in: Uber and Lyft are engaged in price dumping subsidized by endless investor money while at the same time passing most costs onto "independent contractors" who are just people looking for a job in an ever contracting pool of available jobs?
- joshribakoff 6y ago
  According to the companies lobbying its what the drivers want. No one has established it actually is, and in fact some drivers have quit and spoken out about the apps constantly nagging with propaganda. Also as a rider who’s gotten drunk drivers, idiots going reverse on highway when the exit was missed, or pulling up in beater cars where the engine stalls out, I’ll just say there’s a reason taxis were more expensive and not all riders wanted this outcome. In fact, drivers will be paid below minimum wage since the laws are crafted to only apply minimum wages while they have a passenger in the car
  - sida 6y ago
cletus 6y ago
Classifying these drivers as employees is a bad idea. Why. Because many of them drive for more than one of these companies at the same time. And I don’t mean they work sometimes for one and sometimes for another, I mean they’ll have two or more apps open at the same time. This is vastly different than say working 20 hours a week at Walmart and another 20 at Costco. Think about this: if drivers were “employees” who then logically could only work for one (at a time) how would a competitor enter the marketplace if driving for the new guy prohibited you from also working for Uber? If the new player has insufficient ride volume it’s a huge barrier to entry. The fact that drivers themselves seemed to reject this just shows what a bad idea this is. I mean what’s next? Overtime? Making it hard to “fire” drivers? And as for a notion of a minimum wage for drivers, if they for 3 different companies in an hour who pays that? Don’t follow NYC’s example of steadily recreating the taxi medallions system (eg driver quotas and tax measures to drive the cost up; Uber is essentially twice the cost it was 5 years ago).
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  Well maybe they should find some alternate structure where the different rideshare companies will chip in for benefits like health care. Otherwise it's just a huge externality being leveraged on the rest of us.
  - paxys 6y ago
    > Well maybe they should find some alternate structure where the different rideshare companies will chip in for benefits like health care. You mean like prop 22?
  - cletus 6y ago
    Or maybe we should stop tying healthcare to employment.
  - apta 6y ago
    Or just have the state pay health insurance and solve the issue at the root. But that's too much work for CA apparently.
whimsicalism 6y ago
Very telling geographic distribution for Prop 22 in San Francisco, at least: https://electionmapsf.com/# https://electionmapsf.com/#
- vernie 6y ago
  Not being from San Francisco what conclusion am I meant to draw from this?
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    In the city, rich tech workers (predominant population in Marina and Fidi areas) voted for it and pretty much every other population voted against.
    - paxys 6y ago
      "Rich tech workers" live everywhere in the city, and all the most expensive neighborhoods (Pac Heights, Presidio, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Ashbury) actually all voted no. My takeaway is that neighborhoods without access to public transit and where people still need to commute to work voted yes.
      - whimsicalism 6y ago
        Maybe we're looking at a different map. I see Pac Heights and Presidio mostly voting yes, along with Marina, Sea Cliff, plus SOMA (very tech heavy too). Those are neighborhoods with some of the highest concentration of affluent tech workers, even if there are other expensive neighborhoods. Many other areas of the city without public transit voted no.
02020202 6y ago
lol, they ree for equality but only when it benefits them. commiefornia, what a joke.
chmod600 6y ago
Prop 22 may or may not be good, but its passage means that AB5 was bad. The state Assembly screwed up. When you pass a law that affects so many ordinary people, you better be sure that's what they want. Instead of a practical solution, AB5 came across as just meddling.
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  > When you pass a law that affects so many ordinary people, you better be sure that's what they want The reason we have a representative democracy is because sometimes legislators can make decisions that might be different from the typical voter who has not spent extensive time thinking about the issue.
  - sida 6y ago
    And the counter-argument would be that the reason for possibilities of direct democracy is for situations like this where unions have achieved regulatory capture, such that a small number of people wield disproportionate influence and drive the legislature against what the people want
    - mdorazio 6y ago
      I have a hard time believing that claim when Uber and Lyft were massively abusing their own platforms and public reach to run bullshit campaigns on behalf of Prop 22. California's proposition system also doesn't have a great track record of enacting legislation that's actually a good thing in hindsight.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      I think it's hard to seriously claim that there is regulatory capture of the legislature by unions in America, but okay. > such that a small number of people wield disproportionate influence and drive the legislature against what the people want Much better to have Uber wield its disproportionate influence to display push notifications telling me to vote for Prop 22 every day leading up to the election.
  - 6y ago
deeeeplearning 6y ago
Californians seem determined to ensure that the mass of people in their state are underpaid, unhealthy and an inch from being homeless.
- vernie 6y ago
  No, they're just indifferent.
  - deeeeplearning 6y ago
    Evidently not, they just voted after all...
- whoisjuan 6y ago
  Uber. Lyft, etc are already operating on shitty business models with bad margins and totally exposed to economic shifts. I can't imagine that type business model being sustainable with anything different that contract (gig) work. I'm not defending the gig economy, but I'm sure that if these companies were forced to employ all their workers as FT employees, they would be inviable.
  - deeeeplearning 6y ago
    >I'm not defending the gig economy, but I'm sure that if these companies were forced to employ all their workers as FT employees, they would be inviable. Then they should be inviable. Why would you allow a few dozen people to make billions off the backs of gig workers?
    - nxc18 6y ago
      Those gig workers want to do it and the customers want to pay. If the state wants to provide a social safety net, it should provide one. It shouldn’t pass a law that fucks Lyft’s business model into unviability, say “if you don’t want to comply with California’s laws you can stop operating in California” and then go surprised pikachu face when Lyft stops operating in California, as almost happened a few months ago. I will never drive in a taxi again, given that I have been deliberately screwed or defrauded every single time. I think you might be forgetting just how bad life was before Lyft. Lyft has saved me from the atrocious business model of taxis, which is based on screwing customers who have few or no choices. Again, we should just have a social safety net, like every other first world country. Don’t pretend rejecting stupid band aid fixes that the supposed beneficiaries don’t want is an attack on drivers.
alistairSH 6y ago
With the original exemptions on AB5 and AB2257, and now this, who is still covered by AB5?
mixmastamyk 6y ago
Lovely, now how about software contractors? My livelihood on the line, but I hear no talk about it, even here.
zachware 6y ago
I think you can have a favorable opinion about the intent of AB5 but also realize that it was a sloppy law that had caused lot of collateral damage when it was passed. Its sponsor even had a dispute on Twitter with a journalist affected where she said, basically, hey, we had to get it done and we didn't have time to get the details right. I suspect this is not the end of this fight but hopefully if it comes up again, the legislature will be more thoughtful about crafting a bill.
- drewda 6y ago
  Prop 22 is written such that it can only be modified by 7/8 vote of the legislature in the future. Its funders made sure to protect their "investment" from the normal political process of push/pull/debate/change. In the words of one political science professor: > “I’ve looked at a lot of ballot measures over the years,” said Moylan, adding that a two-thirds majority is common. > But a seven-eighths “super, super, super-duper majority,” she said, “is new as far as I’m aware.” https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-amendment-threshold-proposition-22/ https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-a...
  - dahdum 6y ago
    Your article states Prop 22 gives the legislature more power than normal. > By default, a law enacted by ballot measure can only be changed by another law enacted by ballot measure. The exception to that rule: If crafters of the initiative explicitly say otherwise. No surprise, many ballot measures do not say otherwise. Compared to that default, Prop. 22’s high bar for amendments actually gives the Legislature more influence than the norm.
    - fossuser 6y ago
      Yeah the 7/8s is a good thing - allows fix-ups when there's near unanimous agreement a change should be made. Obviously had to be more than simple majority since its purpose is to directly override AB5 and the state legislature.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
mbgerring 6y ago
No matter how you feel about AB5, allowing an industry to write laws and then coerce its workers into acting as campaign volunteers whether they agree with the law or not is a horrible precedent. This is not how our laws should be made, and we will come to regret this.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  This did not set that precedent. Anyone has been free to write California ballot propositions for quite some time. It's hard to see a way to prevent that eventuality given the Citizens United ruling and the conservative bent of the federal supreme court.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  They are also responsible for the law being written in the first place. It's not unusual for industries to lobby for legislation
- jackmodern 6y ago
  they weren't coerced into anything. independent research and internal research at lyft showed drivers preferred being labeled as contractors due to the flexibility that offered. the drivers got what they wanted here.
- cactus2093 6y ago
  What evidence do you have of this "coercion"? To me it just seems like there's a much simpler Occam's razor explanation. These companies business models rely on part time workers rather than full time workers (mainly due to very spiky demand). The workers prefer doing this job to their other options (otherwise the millions of them in CA wouldn't be doing it to begin with). Therefore it's in both the company and majority of drivers' best interests not to let AB5 stand. It also seems a bit disingenuous to say this is allowing an industry to write its own laws. It's just an ad-hominem - who cares who wrote the law? It's the content of the law that is important, and the process that it goes through to pass. In this case if it is voted on and approved by the public, that seems like a perfectly legitimate example of direct democracy. (Whether you think direct democracy is a good idea for nuanced policy decisions, or whether what amounts to a constitutional amendment that can't be changed by the legislature is a good process for regulating a fast-changing new industry, are separate questions. Those are very valid concerns IMO. But that has nothing to do with the arguments you brought up). Edit: and thinking about a precedent that this sets, I see that differently as well. AB5 was pretty clearly a bad law, and the legislators behind it completely shut off all negotiations with rideshare companies and were intent on playing hardball instead of coming up with a compromise. It was clearly all about retaliating against these companies that these legislators didn't like, with no thought given to how it would actually work or what would be best for constituents (as evidenced by just how many other industries, from journalists to musicians, were caught in the crossfire and had to be exempted one by one). Given that, I think this sets a precedent to legislators that they actually need to do their jobs. They need to do the hard work of designing practical laws that will actually work for all of their constituents. Their job is not just to make bold symbolic gestures to fire up the most extreme members of their base, and if they do and they insist on doubling down on bad policies that work against a large number of their constituents best interests, it can backfire like it did with prop 22.
Ericson2314 6y ago
I'm honestly most disappointed with the courts. It would have been much better to have a second vote after seeing what AB5 would actually do!
nojvek 6y ago
I am in major disagreement that Employers should pay for health insurance. An employee works for an employer, employer pays them for their work. That should be the only contract. The health insurance market should be the same no matter who you work for. In fact living in Australia, the user experience I want is to pay a bit extra in tax and receive the same level of affordable healthcare. I just find it so hard that many Americans don't see the logic in this. This is NOT a new idea. It's being done for over a 100 years in many modern nations. Employee healthcare is only an American thing AFAIK. It's a shitty deal for both employers and employees.
dkdk8283 6y ago
Great! These services are already expensive.
threepio 6y ago
I’m disappointed that Prop 22 passed. I also think it will not end up mattering much because the unit economics of the rideshare companies are so bad. If they had gone along with AB5, they would’ve had cover to say to their investors “we need to make some expensive changes but it’s not our fault.” As it stands, they’re still going to be hemorrhaging money, but now the question will be “you literally wrote your own law and you STILL can’t turn a profit?” Most of all, it sets a very bad precedent in terms of signaling to other rich companies that amending Calif law to suit your needs is relatively easy and affordable.
thelastname 6y ago
Modern day slavery.
someonehere 6y ago
Everyone keep in mind this is a short term win for the drivers. Ultimately when self driving taxis take off, all of these workers will be unemployed. So we’re back to the drawing board on what for them?

280 points by ra7 6y ago

A special exception for a narrow set of companies with an established history of abhorrent behaviour with requires a 7/8ths vote to overturn/modify and then pretending that this is something the legislature can update. It's hard for me to not feel disappointed with the public on this one.

t413 6y ago
My understanding is that a ballot measure must be modified only by ballot measure. Adding in a 7/8ths clause is a way of allowing, with difficulty, the legislature to change things.
- TheCoelacanth 6y ago
  That's just a way to pretend it can be modified by the legislature. The only thing that gets 7/8th majorities is renaming post offices.
andromeduck 6y ago
It's only a special exception of they don't repeal AB5!
roenxi 6y ago
The only thing worse than democracy is all the other -cracies. 58-42 is a wide margin. Ideally the government shouldn't be legislating stuff which has only 40% support.
- onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
  Not really. Black people might still be slaves if we left that up to popular opinion. That was NOT a popular opinion at the time. Same for women's voting rights. Black voting rights. Gay marriage. All these were passed when public support was hovering at 25% - and shortly after they were passed, public opinion quickly shifted in an S-curve.
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    Exactly! Democracy is a process used to encourage deliberation - it's a means rather than an ends. That's why we have a constitution, three branches of government, an electoral college for the executive, and had indirectly elected senators. It was all to force deliberation and buy enough time for saner minds to prevail through the moral panics of the day. The system is broken because the process was corrupted decades ago with the greatest of intentions.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Do you have data on slavery? My understanding was the North was pretty anti-slavery and had 3x the population of the south. I'd be interested if there is actual polling data to suggest if a popular vote was held it would have failed.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      I thought part of the point of the strange election process we have was to "ensure" that southern states would have a vote even in the face of a more populous north…
      - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
        They did. Which was why they were able to hold out until 1860 when the writing was on the wall. Since slavery didn't die on it's own and was the underpinning of the economy of many states violence was somewhat bound to happen. You can't just expect to make any sizeable minority of your nation's economy non-viable and not have all the people's lives you just ruined start shooting. You might be able to get away with it if the people losing out are an evenly distributed minority but if there's a huge block where they are the overwhelming local majority it's gonna get ugly. The alternative path out of slavery would have been to boil the frog but with the uneven geographic distribution of slavery that wouldn't have been reasonably possible to do socially (e.g. convince people to spend more any more money treating slaves better until wage labor is competitive and slavery can be legislated away without a war). You might be able to boil the frog legislatively but the weak government structures of the 19th century were not well equipped for that kind of thing and that requires a lot of support anyway. In order to get the nation bootstrapped the founders intentionally put off any action for several decades. Something calamitous was kind of bound to happen. Frankly I think we were kind of lucky we got off with a "one and done" war over it (yes I know there was a bunch of background violence after the fact) rather than a perpetual slow boil conflict that turns into a low intensity shooting war every few decades like you see in other parts of the world.
sieabahlpark 6y ago
> It's hard for me to not feel disappointed with the public on this one. Well I'm sure you'll get over it when you consider that overreach and imperfect laws don't operate in a vacuum.
- nullc 6y ago
  Fair enough, I certainly have sympathy for the comment above about "using it as a referendum on AB5", although I think it is an extremely poor tool for that.
db48x 6y ago
Most Californian voters are pretty disappointing. There was one a few years back that basically eliminated paid breaks and meals for EMTs, and there are probably a string of other bad decisions going back as far as you care to look.
- onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
  Prop 8 to ban gay marriage comes to mind. (It passed only a few years back...)
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  I think it's easy to spin things however you want If prop 11 was rejected, someone could go on HN and say that they're disgusted with how CA voters decided that EMTs shouldn't receive extra mental health care. Or that voters said that it's better to let someone die than require an EMT to postpone their (still paid!) break by 1 hour
- sanbor 6y ago
  In 2016 there was a proposition to abolish death penalty and another to expedite it. Expediting death penalty proposition won. Another proposition was to legalize weed production. That one also won. If all the weed supporters would have also voted for abolishing death penalty...
- argonaut 6y ago
  Prop 11 required EMTs to remain on-call during paid breaks (I suppose you could spin it as eliminated non-on-call paid breaks). Most major newspapers endorsed it. There was very little opposition ($0 spent in opposition).
- beeper-beeps 6y ago
  It’s an illustration of the flaws of “direct democracy”, the question voters should be asked is: “Do you want workers in CA to be entitled to meal breaks? Or, are you willing to give up protected meal breaks?” The overwhelming majority of voters are not motivated enough to properly consider an issue which is going to impact a tiny minority of other people. And people will never feel responsible for their vote. This is why politicians should exist, to be responsible for these decisions and to be accountable afterwards (in theory). Direct democracy lets everyone wash their hands of any responsibility.
renewiltord 6y ago
The best part about Prop 22 is it reveals who reads their props before expressing an opinion on them. It's a litmus test for who speaks in an uninformed manner. Here is the only reference to seven-eighths in Prop 22: > After the effective date of this chapter, the Legislature may amend this chapter by a statute passed in each house of the Legislature by rollcall vote entered into the journal, seven-eighths of the membership concurring, provided that the statute is consistent with, and furthers the purpose of, this chapter Seven-eighths to overturn, eh? Now where did you go get that? Now secondarily, one might ask if someone "disappointed with the public" is sufficiently informed about ballot propositions in the first place. For instance, if you're a California voter and you can't answer "If a ballot proposition is passed through voter referendum, what majority of the legislature can overrule it?", then can you really be considered an informed voter? Or, more directly, you are clearly expressing discontent with California voters while being the problem since you are clearly uninformed about Prop 22 and about how ballot props work (and perhaps about why they have to work that way).
- panic 6y ago
  That’s the only place that literal text appears, but there are several other references to it (“subdivision (a)”) — > (3) Any statute that prohibits app-based drivers from performing a particular rideshare service or delivery service while allowing other individuals or entities to perform the same rideshare service or delivery service, or otherwise imposes unequal regulatory burdens upon app-based drivers based on their classifcation status, constitutes an amendment of this chapter and must be enacted in compliance with the procedures governing amendments consistent with the purposes of this chapter as set forth in subdivisions (a) and (b). > (4) Any statute that authorizes any entity or organization to represent the interests of app-based drivers in connection with drivers’ contractual relationships with network companies, or drivers’ compensation, benefts, or working conditions, constitutes an amendment of this chapter and must be enacted in compliance with the procedures governing amendments consistent with the purposes of this chapter as set forth in subdivisions (a) and (b). > (d) Any statute that imposes additional misdemeanor or felony penalties in order to provide greater protection against criminal activity for app-based drivers and individuals using rideshare services or delivery services may be enacted by the Legislature by rollcall vote entered into the journal, a majority of the membership of each house concurring, without complying with subdivisions (a) and (b).
vmception 6y ago
Do you think it passes the Equal Protection Clause of 14th Amendment of the US constitution? Treating some companies' employees differently than others? Because I hope it does. I also unfortunately have to hope that the ride-share companies give the benefits they suggest, but I also want the US to unbundle this from companies to begin with, across the whole republic.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  We already have discriminated for a century on pay: tipped vs non-tipped wages. Also, they’re not modifying it to single out Uber and Lyft, but “gig economy workers”. Requiring someone who fulfills certain requirements to be classified as an employee isn’t unconstitutional.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
Rebelgecko 6y ago
Part of why I voted for prop 22 is because the list of special exemptions to AB5 is a mile long. On top of the original exemptions, we even passed AB2257 which added a few dozen more (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB2257 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...) I think prop 22 is flawed, but I'm using it as a referendum on AB5 (and I think it's marginally better than the alternative). AB5 is a defacto ban on casual use of the gig economy. It would've required uber to reduce the # of drivers and/or start assigning them shifts
- thatswrong0 6y ago
  Same. The exception list is insane. I don't see how you can look at that list and _not_ think these drivers belong there as well. On top of this, most drivers I talked to were voting for it, and despite some cries about brainwashing by the companies via their apps, I'd imagine they do still have their own best interests in mind.
  - rmrfstar 6y ago
    I'm assuming the drivers you talked to were working when you talked to them. Do you think that maybe, just maybe, they might be scared to be honest with you under those circumstances?
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Hey, no need to be snide.
    - thatswrong0 6y ago
      Umm... why would they be scared? It's not like I was being aggressive about - I was just curious, and I was already casually chatting with them.
      - rmrfstar 6y ago
        Here are two important facts about the world: 1. Poor people cannot miss a paycheck. Getting fired means not paying rent, not eating, or not repairing the car you depend on for your livelihood. 2. Bosses spy on employees. This country has a rather nasty history of labor spies, and that tradition is undergoing an unfortunate revival. Poor people seem to know more about that history than comfortable-but-not-rich people. Not sure why.
refurb 6y ago
Did you know that CA has been busy passing special exemptions to AB 5 for a ton of professions ever since it first passed? Here is an example of professions as of September, but I know they passed additional exemptions in October as well. https://www.wagehourblog.com/2020/09/articles/california-wage-hour-law/california-adds-more-exemptions-to-controversial-independent-contractor-statute https://www.wagehourblog.com/2020/09/articles/california-wag...
- nullc 6y ago
  I'm aware-- and if Prop22 just grafted the ride-share businesses into those lists or overturned AB5 I'd have less to complain about it. Instead, Prop22 acts as a generalized shield against any act of the legislature which limits or imposes specific restrictions on rideshare app businesses by requiring a 7/8th's vote and requiring that they be "consistent with the purpose" of the prop22 amended law.
  - refurb 6y ago
    According to this link [1] the legislature can't change what the voter's passed through an initiative unless they send it back to the voter's again. So as per earlier comments, I'd interpret that as the 7/8th's vote requirement actually reducing the burden on the legislature. As long as they can get 7/8ths of the votes, they don't need to bring it back to the voter's again. "The California State Legislature may not amend or repeal an approved measure without submitting the change to voters. However, a ballot measure may include a clause waiving this protection either entirely or conditionally." [1]https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_the_initiative_process_in_California#Legislative_alteration https://ballotpedia.org/Laws_governing_the_initiative_proces...
    - nullc 6y ago
      Yes, it technically reduces the criteria for direct adjustments, but: Proposition 22 imposes the same 7/8th requirement across a _massive_ scope, not just the specific text amended by the proposition itself but also for any statute that prohibits ridesharing apps from "performing a particular rideshare service or delivery service" or "otherwise imposes unequal regulatory burdens upon app-based drivers". Additionally, any law that would unionize app-based drivers is similarly subject to this requirement. The threshold is so high that the legislature is effectively barred, and rather than just having the limitation apply to the measure itself is a generalized shield against legislation. For example: No sex offenders on ridesharing apps? 7/8ths vote required. Separate tax for road wear created by inefficient routing by ridesharing apps? 7/8ths vote. (Prop13 and Prop26 eat your heart out!) Additional liability insurance requirements for rideshare drivers? 7/8ths vote. Law requiring ridesharing apps to automatically forward user's reports of assaults by drivers to the police? 7/8ths vote. Essentially Prop22 acts as a fairly generalized shield against new laws that would interfere with the core activity of particular set of businesses. In addition to the 7/8th requirement all amendments or other statutes that trigger Prop22's oversight are also required to be "consistent with the purpose" of Prop22 ("...to protect the individual right of every app-based ride share and delivery drivers to have the flexibility to set their own hours for where, when, and how they work..."). And if there is a really good cause to impinge the right of 'app-based' rideshare drivers to drive whatever hours whereever, or however they want? It seems like the answer even with unanimous support of the legislature is: Tough luck, time for another ballot initiative but this time it'll have the ride-share companies spending a hundreds of millions against it instead of for it and it'll still be a sweet deal at twice the price. Have these companies shown themselves to be such good citizens, going out of their way to protect the public interest, that they could be trusted with this near diplomatic immunity level of protection? Of course not. However... the drafting of Prop22 does allow laws restricting app-based rideshare so long as these laws impose criminal penalties. I wonder what would happen if the legislature became as shameless at exploiting legal loopholes as Uber has been? "Overwork app-based drivers? CEO right to jail! Under-pay app-based drivers? Right to jail, right away. Driving too fast: jail. Slow: jail. You make an appointment with the rider and a driver doesn't show up, believe it or not, jail, right away." It would be quite interesting as a television drama ... but I wouldn't expect such absurdity to be a good use of our public resources. :) If I had to bet the courts won't allow Prop22 to have quite that expansive an effect, it's simply too offensive. The end result is that the state will inevitability end up in a pile of time wasting litigation with Uber arguing that the people of California really intended to make them as exempt from the law as they've been acting as though they were for all these years.
deleted 6y ago
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argonaut 6y ago
Allowing 7/8th vote in the legislature to modify actually makes it (marginally) easier to modify, since ballot propositions by default cannot be modified by the legislature at all, only by another ballot proposition.
paxys 6y ago
Are you talking about prop 22 or AB5?
encoderer 6y ago
It is a terrible response to a terrible law.
CogitoCogito 6y ago
The whole concept of being able to pass laws and then being unable to repeal them by the same margins as before as always seemed totally insane to me. Basically the definition of an unstable system and totally undemocratic.
- makomk 6y ago
  As I understand it, this can be repealed in the same way and with the same margins as it was passed by getting majority support for another ballot proposition repealing it. The 7/8ths provision only applies to attempts by the legislature to mess with it.
  - CogitoCogito 6y ago
    Okay that makes much more sense. Thanks a lot for clarifying that for me.
- 6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
  To add to what the other commenter said, it also could add stability, rather than instability. Imagine a popular opinion that’s right around 50%, fluctuating by epsilon every year. If every time it went from 50+epsilon to 50-epsilon, the law changed, it would be too hard to get anything done, so a little bit of friction isn’t a terrible thing (a little bit). A system where it takes a 7/8 vote has this anti-fickleness property, where 7/8+epsilon can pass, but 7/8-epsilon can’t undo (though 7/8 is way too much friction).
  - CogitoCogito 6y ago
    [Opinionated wall of text...I don't really mean this as an attack on you, but I figured I'd add the disclaimer after noticing how long it got :) ] Honestly if a law has such variable support that both it and its complement could have majority support at any time, then why should either version have any precedence? This _is_ an example of unstable system. Passing A then ~A or passing ~A then A could have extremely varied outcomes just given random statistical variation. Besides you saying "it gets hard to get things done" doesn't really square with the fact that the vast majority of things in most electoral systems don't jump back and forth even though there isn't any hurdle like this to keep it from happening. So it must not happen for other other reasons like being seen as someone who's just quickly flipping an old law or just throwing up votes and then counter votes just isn't very popular. In fact, in this case the 7/8ths does _not_ apply to another proposition as the GP explained to me. So in fact there is nothing holding back another proposition next time saying the exact opposite (and it only needs the same support as this time) except the historical realization that it passed with enormous support and is backed by powerful interests. This system _is_ stable because I misunderstood it and because the requirements to repeal are the same as to pass. If it weren't that way it really would be unstable and frankly undemocratic.
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apta 6y ago
Many of those pro-voters are drivers who voted for what they want. Let's not pretend to know better than the people working in the field.
jessaustin 6y ago
...disappointed with the public... The whole episode, but especially comments here on HN: I'm getting a strong "Omelas" vibe.
pianoben 6y ago
Bear in mind that, without the 7/8 clause, it would be impossible to legislatively overturn or modify prop 22. It would have required a public referendum to do so. Now, it merely requires a legislative ultra-majority - improbable but more realistic than another public vote. Also, please bear in mind that CA legislature has already exempted wide and arbitrary swathes of industry from AB5, seemingly based on each industry's political clout. While I wish for better worker protections than prop 22 provides, AB5 was bad legislature and implemented in a less-than-above-board way. disclosure: I do work for a gig company, opinions are my own, etc. personally I want all the workers unionized, everywhere.
- on_and_off 6y ago
  wow, it went from almost impossible to just improbable, everything is great then.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    It's just a strange way to conceptualize the process. The whole concept of a ballot proposition is to give voters the final say on policy questions - if legislators could easily overturn propositions, what would be the point?
    - jldugger 6y ago
      I assumed the idea was to allow popular but divisive issues to be decided upon without attaching the name of specific legislators to the issue.
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        Both factors are relevant, but the final say thing is pretty characteristic of California. For bond measures, it's actually mandated by the state constitution - once the legislature passes a bill for a new bond program, they have to create a ballot proposition to ask voters for approval.
  - 6y ago
SllX 6y ago
I voted for it to tank the legislative achievement in AB5. It’s not the total repeal I would have preferred, but damned if I’m going to let AB5 stay intact. Now the legislature faces the choice of letting the gimped version of AB5 stand without hitting their prized targets or repeal what’s left.
aeternum 6y ago
The legislature already took a stance that was counter to the will of the people rather than do their job. Now we have a worse law on the books that can't be removed. Maybe next time legislatures will take the time to listen to what people want and write a decent law initially.
sizzle 6y ago
The way they blanketed my parents neighborhood with advertisement that senior citizens would no longer be able to get there groceries and meds delivered to their door makes me think they played dirty and misled the masses on the real issue of worker employment benefits. I bet if you asked those individuals who voted what the issue was at hand they could not even tell you the implication of the passing prop 22 on drivers. How is this a just system?
wdr1 6y ago
> then pretending that this is something the legislature can update Where did the pretending happen?

ilaksh 6y ago

I have always felt that more direct democracy such as propositions is a more advanced way to operate. But this decision has made me complete reconsider it. I almost want there to be some kind of test to see how informed people are that somehow weights their votes. It could just be a short multiple quiz with questions submitted by each side or made by a third party and approved by each side. Just to verify that people actually know what they are voting on and are not just making some default decision based on whichever ad they saw or whatever.

perfunctory 6y ago
> But this decision has made me complete reconsider it. Please don't. This was not an example of direct democracy. Direct democracy is more than simply casting your vote once in a while. A good start could be to address this issue: > The companies, along with Postmates Inc. and Instacart Inc., collectively contributed around $200 million to support Proposition 22 edit: Also, I find this approach to direct democracy quite interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_assembly https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens%27_assembly
_Microft 6y ago
Direct democracy sounds great but I doubt large enough fractions of the voters can be informed well enough (in a reasonable amount of time, not in general) to be actually aware of the consequences of their decisions on most topics. If you want to read about a textbook example of under-informed voters getting more than they bargained for, look no further than [0] (or well, the "Brexit"). A national-conservative party wanted to limit immigration to Switzerland and put that up for decision. The Swiss voted in support of it but the issue is ... immigration is part of a treaty with the EU that is protected against such "cherry-picking" by a so-called "guillotine clause" [1]. Cancelling or failing to renew any part of the treaty voids it as a whole[2]. The government eventually implemented a very toned down version to avoid running afoul of the treaty because among other things that would have affected the other agreements on air traffic, road traffic, agriculture and science and more (see "Implementation" in [0] again). [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initiative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Swiss_immigration_initiat... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine_clause https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine_clause [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_Union_relations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switzerland%E2%80%93European_U...

florabuzzword 6y ago

That’s what $200 billion in fake news buys you these days.

thatswrong0 6y ago
I think you mean $200 million. But I'd be curious to hear what you think is fake news

florenceburn 6y ago

That’s what $200 billion in fake news buys you these days.

LatteLazy 6y ago

Maybe people just really like ubers?

xiphias2 6y ago
You mean cheap Ubers of course. I also don't think direct democracy lost here. Most people don't want Uber prices to go up. Democracy always sucks for the minority / people who don't have voting rights.
- LatteLazy 6y ago
  Well I certainly like cheap ubers! I'm a brit so luckily for me, a lot of the issues in california don't really apply here (drivers have healthcare because everyone here has healthcare etc). It's unfortunate that we have no direct democracy, but do have good safety nets (at least comparatively). Meanwhile Cali has no such nets but does allow majority rule in this way. I actually also like the Uber model because its honest (between the participants at least) . I hardly ever used taxis before, not just because of the price but also because of the service. "Your car is 10 minutes away" actually meant "your car has to complete 3 other 20min journeys before coming to you". "about £10" meant "£26 after a weird journey and no we don't take credit cards or give change". I imagine the same applied for drivers: people would misbehave in your car because there was no penalty for doing so. Dispatchers favoured other drivers because you were new. The whole thing was a race to the bottom for everyone. Uber with a rating system and an algorithm that minimises waits has fixed that issue. That's their "killer feature" to me. But I can see how people have issues with their model.
- mike_d 6y ago
  Uber rides are either going to get really cheap, or they are going to go out of business. Waymo doesn't have the labor overhead and will eat their lunch. It is almost cute that we are trying to pass or block protections for a workforce that won't exist in 5 years.
  - dboreham 6y ago
    Obligatory note that self driving cars don't actually exist at present.

MattGaiser 6y ago

Unless you are an Uber driver (and even then, there is debate among drivers), AB5 would only cause you to face higher prices and reduced availability. Voting for this would be an altruistic act that would come out of people's wallets. No surprise that this passed easily.

perfunctory 6y ago
Unless you are a slave, abolishing slavery would only cause you to face higher prices ...
- cody3222 6y ago
  No one is forcing them to do this work. They opt-in to being a driver. Slavery is coerced labor, how can you even make the comparison?
  - tdeck 6y ago
    Because our society depends on economic precarity to compel an underclass of people to work in whatever shitty jobs are offered in order to meet their basic needs.
    - cody3222 6y ago
      I don't think that's true. Creating more jobs for people to opt-in to only helps them. When people no longer work these jobs, then companies come up with other solutions to get the job done. This is what happened in Japan and why automation is so big there.
      - mdorazio 6y ago
        > Creating more jobs for people to opt-in to only helps them. Except if the only jobs available are awful and don't actually pay enough to have a decent standard of living. You seem to be assuming that more available jobs of any kind = better for workers over time, but a quick review of the US labor market over the last 30 years shows this isn't really the case at all. I'm also not sure why you're bringing Japan into this discussion - its economic, demographic, and societal conditions are so different from the US that it doesn't make much sense to use it as a comparison.

cody3222 6y ago

This is a huge win for all, including drivers. If a driver decides they don't like how they're paid or the benefits they get, they have complete control to not do the job and work elsewhere.

deleted 6y ago
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speedgoose 6y ago
Everyone have complete control to change job and improve their quality of life whenever they want without taking any risk.
lsiebert 6y ago
prop 22 prevents drivers from organizing together to negotiate with these companies. Having the freedom to say no to a corporation individually is not at all the same as the ability to create a union and negotiate terms collectively.
- cody3222 6y ago
  These jobs didn't exist a decade ago. Drivers chose to work them in a fair economic transaction (I will trade my time for $X). They can choose to no longer work these jobs the same way that they didn't work them when they didn't exist. When they do this, and they eventually will, supply for these jobs will dry up and wages will naturally rise.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    > Drivers chose to work them in a fair economic transaction (I will trade my time for $X). Just because it is a voluntary transaction does not mean it is fair or should never be changed. Same reason why I think a $7.25/hr federal minimum wage is permissible, even though it might proscribe some voluntary transactions.
  - lsiebert 6y ago
    If that were true then there wouldn't be an issue with collective bargaining. Uber and Lyft only pay for the time a passenger is in the car, what is called engaged time, not for time with the app open waiting for customers or for driving to pick them up. Given how many drivers they have, studies in california estimate that up to a 1/3 of time drivers are not engaged, and thus not earning, just driving around clogging the streets or parked, and make as little as $5.64 an hour. Maybe you don't care about paying people poverty wages so they can never do better, but even if you are a sociopath who lives only for yourself, whose tax dollars do you think subsidize folks who can't afford rent, food, health insurance etc? https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-effects-of-proposition-22-on-driver-earnings-response-to-a-lyft-funded-report-by-dr-christopher-thornberg/ https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-effects-of-proposition-...

whiddershins 6y ago

This ... is insane. I thought everyone agreed AB5 was written to basically target these companies. Now it’s just disruptively regulating the labor market in random ways while also having a list of exceptions so long no one can keep track of it? Why not just repeal this law?

tick_tock_tick 6y ago
That would require the legislature to admit they fucked up.
smt88 6y ago
Repealing laws is much harder than passing new ones (both politically and procedurally). Depending on the law and location, you often need more votes to repeal than to pass.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  What? Bills are patches. A patch and its inverse are both patches.
  - smt88 6y ago
    Specifically for California, some ballot measures are harder to change/repeal than to pass in the first place[1]. I don't think Congress can write bills that are harder to repeal, but I know some states can. There are also states that abuse their own constitutions to accomplish the same thing, for example if a supermajority is required to amend the constitution. 1. https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-amendment-threshold-proposition-22/ https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-a...
    - Ericson2314 6y ago
      I agree with that, but still: - Bill can undo bill - Ballot measure can undo ballot measure - Constitutional amendment can undo Constitutional amendment so we still have proper inverses.

paxys 6y ago

As someone who regularly uses Uber & Lyft in California and made it a point to talk to every single one my my drivers this past year about it, I happily (and confidently) voted for prop 22 and am happy to see it pass.

okareaman 6y ago
Thank you!

supernova87a 6y ago

I supported Prop 22 because the law being countered already had a list of exceptions a mile long, I suppose put there by the labor interests that wrote the bill. I didn't see why some of these contractors aren't equally exploited and subject to the whim of big evil corporations. What does it matter then, to carve out one more exception for Lyft/Uber drivers to join this list? A commercial fisherman is less worthy of being protected than a Lyft or Uber driver? You've got to be kidding me. --------------- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB2257 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... Exempted fields: Professional services that include: (A) Marketing, (B) Administrator of human resources (C) Travel agent services (D) Graphic design. (E) Grant writer. (F) (i) Fine artist. (G) Services provided by an enrolled agent (H) Payment processing agent through an independent sales organization. (i) Still photographer, photojournalist, videographer, or photo editor (ii) Digital content aggregator (J) Freelance writer, translator, editor, copy editor, illustrator, or newspaper cartoonist (K) Content contributor, advisor, producer, narrator, or cartographer (L) Licensed esthetician, licensed electrologist, licensed manicurist, licensed barber, or licensed cosmetologist (N) Appraiser (O) Registered professional foresters (1) A real estate licensee (2) A home inspector (3) A repossession agency (A) Recording artists (B) Songwriters, lyricists, composers, and proofers. (C) Managers of recording artists. (D) Record producers and directors. (E) Musical engineers and mixers engaged in the creation of sound recordings. (F) Musicians engaged in the creation of sound recordings, subject to the below. (G) Vocalists (H) Photographers working on recording photo shoots, album covers, and other press and publicity purposes. (I) Independent radio promoters. (J) Any other individual engaged to render any creative, production, marketing, or independent music publicist services related primarily to the creation, marketing, promotion, or distribution of sound recordings or musical compositions. (A) Film and television unit production crew (B) Publicists who are not independent music publicists. (a) A person or organization who is licensed by the Department of Insurance (b) A physician and surgeon, dentist, podiatrist, psychologist, or veterinarian (c) lawyer, architect, landscape architect, engineer, private investigator, or accountant. (d) A securities broker-dealer or investment adviser (e) A direct sales salesperson (f) A manufactured housing salesperson (g) A commercial fisher working on an American vessel. (h) A newspaper distributor (i) An... international exchange visitor (j) A competition judge

ghthor 6y ago

Maybe the California voters should re-elect the hacks they have in their state congress.

marketingPro 6y ago

Regulatory Capture at it's finest. I'm getting a vibe that this may be the end of California dominance.

cblconfederate 6y ago

Must be the only law that has more exceptions than applications by now

paxys 6y ago
Who even is covered under AB5 now?

Wolfenstein98k 6y ago

Good. The users and the drivers both wanted this. You may dislike hearing this, but it takes a lot to inject yourself into that arrangement and massively increase the cost because you want it done differently. I recognise that it appears to create "rules for thee but not for me" for these companies, but when they are so thoroughly satisfying both their customers and their workers, you should ask yourself if forcing them into the existing regulatory framework is the right equilibrium to shoot for.

Causality1 6y ago
Uber and Lyft are examples of the best way independent contracting works. The problem is the way its eating industries that were not built for it. Drivers get the benefits of being independent. Other contractors, for example estheticians, get almost none of them. They don't get to set their own hours and rates.
- dmitriid 6y ago
  > Uber and Lyft are examples of the best way independent contracting works. "Best way" as in: Uber and Lyft are engaged in price dumping subsidized by endless investor money while at the same time passing most costs onto "independent contractors" who are just people looking for a job in an ever contracting pool of available jobs?
joshribakoff 6y ago
According to the companies lobbying its what the drivers want. No one has established it actually is, and in fact some drivers have quit and spoken out about the apps constantly nagging with propaganda. Also as a rider who’s gotten drunk drivers, idiots going reverse on highway when the exit was missed, or pulling up in beater cars where the engine stalls out, I’ll just say there’s a reason taxis were more expensive and not all riders wanted this outcome. In fact, drivers will be paid below minimum wage since the laws are crafted to only apply minimum wages while they have a passenger in the car
- sida 6y ago

cletus 6y ago

Classifying these drivers as employees is a bad idea. Why. Because many of them drive for more than one of these companies at the same time. And I don’t mean they work sometimes for one and sometimes for another, I mean they’ll have two or more apps open at the same time. This is vastly different than say working 20 hours a week at Walmart and another 20 at Costco. Think about this: if drivers were “employees” who then logically could only work for one (at a time) how would a competitor enter the marketplace if driving for the new guy prohibited you from also working for Uber? If the new player has insufficient ride volume it’s a huge barrier to entry. The fact that drivers themselves seemed to reject this just shows what a bad idea this is. I mean what’s next? Overtime? Making it hard to “fire” drivers? And as for a notion of a minimum wage for drivers, if they for 3 different companies in an hour who pays that? Don’t follow NYC’s example of steadily recreating the taxi medallions system (eg driver quotas and tax measures to drive the cost up; Uber is essentially twice the cost it was 5 years ago).

whimsicalism 6y ago
Well maybe they should find some alternate structure where the different rideshare companies will chip in for benefits like health care. Otherwise it's just a huge externality being leveraged on the rest of us.
- paxys 6y ago
  > Well maybe they should find some alternate structure where the different rideshare companies will chip in for benefits like health care. You mean like prop 22?
- cletus 6y ago
  Or maybe we should stop tying healthcare to employment.
- apta 6y ago
  Or just have the state pay health insurance and solve the issue at the root. But that's too much work for CA apparently.

whimsicalism 6y ago

Very telling geographic distribution for Prop 22 in San Francisco, at least: https://electionmapsf.com/# https://electionmapsf.com/#

vernie 6y ago
Not being from San Francisco what conclusion am I meant to draw from this?
- whimsicalism 6y ago
  In the city, rich tech workers (predominant population in Marina and Fidi areas) voted for it and pretty much every other population voted against.
  - paxys 6y ago
    "Rich tech workers" live everywhere in the city, and all the most expensive neighborhoods (Pac Heights, Presidio, Russian Hill, Nob Hill, Ashbury) actually all voted no. My takeaway is that neighborhoods without access to public transit and where people still need to commute to work voted yes.
    - whimsicalism 6y ago
      Maybe we're looking at a different map. I see Pac Heights and Presidio mostly voting yes, along with Marina, Sea Cliff, plus SOMA (very tech heavy too). Those are neighborhoods with some of the highest concentration of affluent tech workers, even if there are other expensive neighborhoods. Many other areas of the city without public transit voted no.

02020202 6y ago

lol, they ree for equality but only when it benefits them. commiefornia, what a joke.

chmod600 6y ago

Prop 22 may or may not be good, but its passage means that AB5 was bad. The state Assembly screwed up. When you pass a law that affects so many ordinary people, you better be sure that's what they want. Instead of a practical solution, AB5 came across as just meddling.

whimsicalism 6y ago
> When you pass a law that affects so many ordinary people, you better be sure that's what they want The reason we have a representative democracy is because sometimes legislators can make decisions that might be different from the typical voter who has not spent extensive time thinking about the issue.
- sida 6y ago
  And the counter-argument would be that the reason for possibilities of direct democracy is for situations like this where unions have achieved regulatory capture, such that a small number of people wield disproportionate influence and drive the legislature against what the people want
  - mdorazio 6y ago
    I have a hard time believing that claim when Uber and Lyft were massively abusing their own platforms and public reach to run bullshit campaigns on behalf of Prop 22. California's proposition system also doesn't have a great track record of enacting legislation that's actually a good thing in hindsight.
  - whimsicalism 6y ago
    I think it's hard to seriously claim that there is regulatory capture of the legislature by unions in America, but okay. > such that a small number of people wield disproportionate influence and drive the legislature against what the people want Much better to have Uber wield its disproportionate influence to display push notifications telling me to vote for Prop 22 every day leading up to the election.
- 6y ago

deeeeplearning 6y ago

Californians seem determined to ensure that the mass of people in their state are underpaid, unhealthy and an inch from being homeless.

vernie 6y ago
No, they're just indifferent.
- deeeeplearning 6y ago
  Evidently not, they just voted after all...
whoisjuan 6y ago
Uber. Lyft, etc are already operating on shitty business models with bad margins and totally exposed to economic shifts. I can't imagine that type business model being sustainable with anything different that contract (gig) work. I'm not defending the gig economy, but I'm sure that if these companies were forced to employ all their workers as FT employees, they would be inviable.
- deeeeplearning 6y ago
  >I'm not defending the gig economy, but I'm sure that if these companies were forced to employ all their workers as FT employees, they would be inviable. Then they should be inviable. Why would you allow a few dozen people to make billions off the backs of gig workers?
  - nxc18 6y ago
    Those gig workers want to do it and the customers want to pay. If the state wants to provide a social safety net, it should provide one. It shouldn’t pass a law that fucks Lyft’s business model into unviability, say “if you don’t want to comply with California’s laws you can stop operating in California” and then go surprised pikachu face when Lyft stops operating in California, as almost happened a few months ago. I will never drive in a taxi again, given that I have been deliberately screwed or defrauded every single time. I think you might be forgetting just how bad life was before Lyft. Lyft has saved me from the atrocious business model of taxis, which is based on screwing customers who have few or no choices. Again, we should just have a social safety net, like every other first world country. Don’t pretend rejecting stupid band aid fixes that the supposed beneficiaries don’t want is an attack on drivers.

alistairSH 6y ago

With the original exemptions on AB5 and AB2257, and now this, who is still covered by AB5?

mixmastamyk 6y ago

Lovely, now how about software contractors? My livelihood on the line, but I hear no talk about it, even here.

zachware 6y ago

I think you can have a favorable opinion about the intent of AB5 but also realize that it was a sloppy law that had caused lot of collateral damage when it was passed. Its sponsor even had a dispute on Twitter with a journalist affected where she said, basically, hey, we had to get it done and we didn't have time to get the details right. I suspect this is not the end of this fight but hopefully if it comes up again, the legislature will be more thoughtful about crafting a bill.

drewda 6y ago
Prop 22 is written such that it can only be modified by 7/8 vote of the legislature in the future. Its funders made sure to protect their "investment" from the normal political process of push/pull/debate/change. In the words of one political science professor: > “I’ve looked at a lot of ballot measures over the years,” said Moylan, adding that a two-thirds majority is common. > But a seven-eighths “super, super, super-duper majority,” she said, “is new as far as I’m aware.” https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-amendment-threshold-proposition-22/ https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-a...
- dahdum 6y ago
  Your article states Prop 22 gives the legislature more power than normal. > By default, a law enacted by ballot measure can only be changed by another law enacted by ballot measure. The exception to that rule: If crafters of the initiative explicitly say otherwise. No surprise, many ballot measures do not say otherwise. Compared to that default, Prop. 22’s high bar for amendments actually gives the Legislature more influence than the norm.
  - fossuser 6y ago
    Yeah the 7/8s is a good thing - allows fix-ups when there's near unanimous agreement a change should be made. Obviously had to be more than simple majority since its purpose is to directly override AB5 and the state legislature.
- gamblor956 6y ago

mbgerring 6y ago

No matter how you feel about AB5, allowing an industry to write laws and then coerce its workers into acting as campaign volunteers whether they agree with the law or not is a horrible precedent. This is not how our laws should be made, and we will come to regret this.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
This did not set that precedent. Anyone has been free to write California ballot propositions for quite some time. It's hard to see a way to prevent that eventuality given the Citizens United ruling and the conservative bent of the federal supreme court.
cblconfederate 6y ago
They are also responsible for the law being written in the first place. It's not unusual for industries to lobby for legislation
jackmodern 6y ago
they weren't coerced into anything. independent research and internal research at lyft showed drivers preferred being labeled as contractors due to the flexibility that offered. the drivers got what they wanted here.
cactus2093 6y ago
What evidence do you have of this "coercion"? To me it just seems like there's a much simpler Occam's razor explanation. These companies business models rely on part time workers rather than full time workers (mainly due to very spiky demand). The workers prefer doing this job to their other options (otherwise the millions of them in CA wouldn't be doing it to begin with). Therefore it's in both the company and majority of drivers' best interests not to let AB5 stand. It also seems a bit disingenuous to say this is allowing an industry to write its own laws. It's just an ad-hominem - who cares who wrote the law? It's the content of the law that is important, and the process that it goes through to pass. In this case if it is voted on and approved by the public, that seems like a perfectly legitimate example of direct democracy. (Whether you think direct democracy is a good idea for nuanced policy decisions, or whether what amounts to a constitutional amendment that can't be changed by the legislature is a good process for regulating a fast-changing new industry, are separate questions. Those are very valid concerns IMO. But that has nothing to do with the arguments you brought up). Edit: and thinking about a precedent that this sets, I see that differently as well. AB5 was pretty clearly a bad law, and the legislators behind it completely shut off all negotiations with rideshare companies and were intent on playing hardball instead of coming up with a compromise. It was clearly all about retaliating against these companies that these legislators didn't like, with no thought given to how it would actually work or what would be best for constituents (as evidenced by just how many other industries, from journalists to musicians, were caught in the crossfire and had to be exempted one by one). Given that, I think this sets a precedent to legislators that they actually need to do their jobs. They need to do the hard work of designing practical laws that will actually work for all of their constituents. Their job is not just to make bold symbolic gestures to fire up the most extreme members of their base, and if they do and they insist on doubling down on bad policies that work against a large number of their constituents best interests, it can backfire like it did with prop 22.

Ericson2314 6y ago

I'm honestly most disappointed with the courts. It would have been much better to have a second vote after seeing what AB5 would actually do!

nojvek 6y ago

I am in major disagreement that Employers should pay for health insurance. An employee works for an employer, employer pays them for their work. That should be the only contract. The health insurance market should be the same no matter who you work for. In fact living in Australia, the user experience I want is to pay a bit extra in tax and receive the same level of affordable healthcare. I just find it so hard that many Americans don't see the logic in this. This is NOT a new idea. It's being done for over a 100 years in many modern nations. Employee healthcare is only an American thing AFAIK. It's a shitty deal for both employers and employees.

dkdk8283 6y ago

Great! These services are already expensive.

threepio 6y ago

I’m disappointed that Prop 22 passed. I also think it will not end up mattering much because the unit economics of the rideshare companies are so bad. If they had gone along with AB5, they would’ve had cover to say to their investors “we need to make some expensive changes but it’s not our fault.” As it stands, they’re still going to be hemorrhaging money, but now the question will be “you literally wrote your own law and you STILL can’t turn a profit?” Most of all, it sets a very bad precedent in terms of signaling to other rich companies that amending Calif law to suit your needs is relatively easy and affordable.

thelastname 6y ago

Modern day slavery.

someonehere 6y ago

Everyone keep in mind this is a short term win for the drivers. Ultimately when self driving taxis take off, all of these workers will be unemployed. So we’re back to the drawing board on what for them?