The American social contract delegated the role of filling those 'cracks' to the employment relationship. It might not be ideal, but it's not obvious to me why

The American social contract delegated the role of filling those 'cracks' to the employment relationship. It might not be ideal, but it's not obvious to me why its any less legitimate than other arrangements. Gig work is new, and doesn't fit cleanly into the existing framework. Uber et al.'s patch for reconciling gig-work appears to many to be essentially a wholesale rejection of the spirit of the agreement, thus opening up new existential risks for those of small means. While those arguments may land short of the complete truth, they do appear to hold some merit; Maybe it's simply ignorance, but I'm not aware of Uber advocating for a comprehensive review of how California provides life-support benefits to residents in a way that ensures their service providers are not unduly at risk relative to the general population. Instead, proposition 22 appears to be as close to 'I've transacted profitably; fuck your life, it's not my problem.' as they could hope to achieve.