Sick of Gig Greed

Gig companies have long undermined union industries and hurt unions workers. Now, they’re trying to rewrite the rules to make it legal.

Race to the Bottom

Gig companies seek to drive down wages and undermine stable union jobs for drivers, logistics workers, and others. By pitting workers against each other, these companies think they can drag us all down.

Anti-union, Anti-worker

There’s a reason that gig companies like Uber and Lyft fight tooth and nail to prevent unions: their success has always been built on giving workers a lousy deal.

We Can Fight Back
The truth is all drivers – and all workers – have more in common with each other than with billionaires or CEOs. If we stand together and fight back, workers can keep Uber and Lyft from rigging the system against us.

Gig Work on the Ballot in California

Posted in: Bankrupting California, Breaking the Law, Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

New Yorker

In September of 2019, the California state legislature passed Assembly Bill 5. Informally known as the “gig-economy bill,” A.B. 5 aimed to address the challenges faced by people who drive for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and other similar companies; so-called gig workers, who are classified as independent contractors, do not receive fundamental worker protections, such as guaranteed minimum wage or paid sick days, no matter how much they drive. “We will not in good conscience allow free-riding businesses to continue to pass their own business costs on to taxpayers and workers,” the bill’s author, the assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, said, following its passage. Six weeks later, Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash launched a campaign to combat the bill. A spokesperson for the effort told the Los Angeles Times, “We’re going to spend what it takes to win.”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/gig-work-on-the-ballot-in-california

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Gig Worker Groups Release Solidarity Letter Opposing Proposition 22

Posted in: Breaking the Law, Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

VICE

Proposition 22, supported by companies such as Uber and Lyft, would exempt the gig economy from reclassifying workers as employees.

On Wednesday, ride-hail driver and advocate groups from 6 major cities across the United States released a statement of solidarity reiterating their opposition to a California ballot initiative proposed by gig companies.

Proposition 22, as the initiative is known, is a ballot measure backed by app-based gig companies such as Uber, Lyft, and Instacart, and seeks to exempt the companies from reclassifying their drivers as employees.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/epdg9k/gig-worker-groups-release-solidarity-letter-opposing-proposition-22

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Uber, Lyft paid $85K to firm of NAACP leader who backs their ballot measure

Posted in: Breaking the Law, Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

CNet

Labor rights groups say California’s Proposition 22, which could decide the fate of gig work, will hurt communities of color.

Uber and Lyft have been refining their nearly $200 million effort to win a ballot measure campaign designed to keep gig workers classified as independent contractors in California. They’ve sent out mailers, emails, text messages and press releases and taken out ads. One of the many themes they’ve hit on is that “communities of color support Prop 22.”

https://www.cnet.com/news/uber-lyft-paid-85k-to-firm-of-naacp-leader-who-backs-their-ballot-measure/

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The Gig Economy, Ride-Hailing and Sharecroppers

Posted in: Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

Technology has changed and will continue to change the workforce and the nature of work. Technological advances allowing people more control over when and how they work have resulted in the “gig economy,” in which companies like Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and Postmates hire workers to perform tasks like giving rides or delivering groceries. That economy — and whether ride-hailing drivers and other gig workers have the same basic rights as other workers — is now the subject of one of the most expensive ballot initiative campaigns in California history, Proposition 22.

https://greenlining.org/blog-category/2020/gig-economy-ride-hailing/

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What Prop. 22’s defeat would mean for Uber and Lyft — and drivers

Posted in: Bankrupting California, Breaking the Law, Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

One way or another, the business of summoning a ride from your phone is likely to look different in California after Nov. 3.

The future of gig work could hinge on the success or failure of Proposition 22, called the App-Based Drivers as Contractors and Labor Policies Initiative. Uber, Lyft and other companies bankrolling the initiative say it would improve workers’ quality of life, providing new benefits while preserving their autonomy. If passed, the measure would cement gig workers’ status as independent contractors, dealing a huge blow to a labor movement striving to bolster protections for workers at the margins.

Gig companies’ business models rely on hiring large numbers of workers cheaply as independent contractors to provide rides, deliver meals and groceries and perform other services. Assembly Bill 5, a state law passed in 2019, aimed to expand protections to these workers, requiring gig companies to reclassify them as employees.

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-10-19/prop-22-explained

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‘How long can this last?’: California gig workers struggle to pay bills during COVID-19

Posted in: Breaking the Law, Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, Uber and Lyft driver Erica Mighetto waited, waited and waited for a ding on her app taking her to her next ride.

She sat in her car in the Bay Area for hours, trying for whatever she could get. When she was starting out more than three years ago, she said she could have earned $1,200 to $1,500 in a weekend working in the Bay Area. Her pay kept dropping, she said. But during the pandemic, her pay plummeted to almost nothing.

https://www.sacbee.com/news/equity-lab/article246455365.html

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Uber, Lyft Are Spending Millions To Fight Labor Protections For Their Workers

Posted in: Bankrupting California, Breaking the Law, Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

How organized labor is teaming up with app-based workers in California to take on corporate giants.

About a year ago, Steve Smith stood outside a press conference at a hotel in Sacramento where Uber, Lyft and DoorDash announced plans to spend millions on a statewide ballot initiative that would exempt them from a state law requiring the gig economy companies to hire most of their independent contractors as employees. If the workers became employees, they would be entitled to benefits, paid leave, expense reimbursement, the right to collectively organize and other labor protections. Smith, who works for the California Labor Federation, wasn’t allowed in the room so he tried to listen through the door.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/organized-labor-uber-lyft-doordash-prop-22-california_n_5f89de39c5b62dbe71c2854c

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Organized Labor Fights Uber and Lyft’s Prop. 22

Posted in: Breaking the Law, Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

San Francisco Weekly

Union members see the tech-funded initiative as a direct attack on the working class.

Gathered on the grassy steps of Yerba Buena Park and out in front of the St. Regis Hotel, members of the unions Unite Here Local 2 and SEIU Local 87 chanted slogans and spoke to all who would listen on Monday, Sept. 7 — Labor Day.

Janitors, housekeeping staff, food concessionaires, and waiters shouted above the din of honking horns, and a megaphone-touting Shahid Buttar, championing various causes. The workers demanded better pay and benefits, decried descrimination in the workplace, and urged voters to reject Proposition 22.

https://www.sfweekly.com/news/organized-labor-fights-uber-and-lyfts-prop-22/

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Human Capital: Prop 22 puts the ‘future of labor’ at stake

Posted in: Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

Welcome back to Human Capital, where we look at the latest in tech labor and diversity and inclusion.

Because election day is quickly approaching and given that California’s Prop 22 puts the “future of labor” at stake, as Instacart worker and co-organizer at Gig Workers Collective Vanessa Bain told TechCrunch this week, we’re paying close attention to this ballot measure. Gig companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart have put more than $180 million into Prop 22, which seeks to keep their drivers and delivery workers classified as independent contractors.

https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/16/human-capital-prop-22-puts-the-future-of-labor-at-stake/

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She was a farmworker. Her grandson is a Lyft driver. A fight for workers’ rights unites them

Posted in: Breaking the Law, Cheating Workers, Eliminating Union Jobs

The Guardian (UK)

When Maria Cardona organized in the 1960s, management hit back with Proposition 22. Now her grandson is tackling a new version of the measure.

More than 40 years ago, Maria Cardona laid her livelihood on the line to demand change in the hot central California fields where she picked grapes and other produce for $1.75 per hour.

Cardona, now 80 years old, was tired of how farm workers like her were treated – the low wages, the backbreaking labor, the days without access to cold water or bathrooms. Most of all, she was tired of the disrespect from her bosses, who she said would regularly shout at workers in the field.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/15/california-proposition-22-uber-lyft

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