Uber and Lyft Drop $100 Million to Steal a Free Ride From Drivers, Voters
This is a fight for us all
Welcome to the big Sunday edition of Progressives Everywhere!
It’s a busy Labor Day Weekend, filled with news about corporations not following the law, assaults on workers, voting rights, close elections, and swing states. And there’s even some good news!
Side note: Now that we’ve got AbsenteeBallots.info up, we’re working on a new big project here at Progressives Everywhere. Expect to see it up in a few weeks!
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The Biggest Income Inequality Election Battles This Fall
This Labor Day Weekend is a bittersweet one. The COVID-19 pandemic laid bare just how gross inequality in the United States has become. The stock market has surged and billionaires have grown their bank accounts — Jeff Bezos is now worth over $200 billion — while well over 40 million Americans are unemployed or under-employed, tens of millions of people are without health insurance, and many more are struggling to pay bills and on the verge of eviction. The government is hardly helping, and in some states, it’s actually making unemployment insurance impossible to receive.
Income inequality has soared over the last 40 years in large part due to an imbalance in power. The silver lining is that this crippling imbalance has become so obvious that people are taking action, with protests, union drives, and political activism. But wealthy corporations are pushing back, with the biggest battle coming in California.
Last month, Uber and Lyft made national headlines when they threatened to shut down their operations entirely in California if the state forced them to follow the law and treat their employees as employees. The brinkmanship provided a nice bit of free publicity for the rideshare companies (and a reprieve), not that they needed it — Lyft and Uber together have spent over $100 million in just a few short months on a campaign to promote a ballot initiative that would gut labor protections, employee rights, and fair pay in the state.
California’s Prop 22 is an especially pernicious anti-worker proposal being pushed by the biggest gig economy companies in the country, which have together spent over $180 million and activated an army of conservative lobbyists and trolls to get it passed. (Read this story on the scary harassment being carried out by those involved.)
In short, it would reverse laws that guarantee equal pay and protect people from discrimination, eliminate healthcare coverage, and erase paid sick and family leave. It would also take power away from city and state leaders, making it impossible for them to overturn it or pass related laws, rendering democracy moot.
It’s not just California that’s at risk, either. If Prop 22 is successful, it could start a trend that would see many more states jump to enact these abuses.
The backstory begins in 2018, when the California Supreme Court ruled that gig economy companies like Uber, Lyft, Instacart, DoorDash, and Postmates have to treat their workers like actual employees instead of mere independent contractors. In Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court, the court found that employees who worked a certain number of hours and were a core part of the business were entitled to sick leave, overtime, and expense reimbursement — imagine that!
Uber and Lyft drivers were often making less than a living wage before the Supreme Court decision, so this promised to make a major difference. They’d no longer have to work more than 60 hours a week and never take a day off, risking their health and wellbeing just to pay rent.
In 2019, California Democrats passed a bill called AB 5, which codified and expanded the terms of the ruling. The bill wasn’t perfect — it was recently amended to help creative professionals in California — but for gig workers, it was essential legislation, helping to close the gap in income inequality. Or at least it would have, if these gig companies had followed the law.
Instead, they’ve not only refused to treat drivers and other workers like real employees, they’ve refused to follow state orders and robbed taxpayers of nearly half a billion dollars. That’s been especially catastrophic during COVID-19, as their refusal to help has sent many workers into bankruptcy.
First, by not providing healthcare or paid medical leave as requested, they’ve forced employees to put themselves — and riders — at risk to earn a buck. And for those who couldn’t take that risk, they’ve made getting unemployment insurance a living nightmare with non-cooperation.
“You can't actually assess someone's eligibility for unemployment benefits unless they earned a certain amount in terms of employment wages,” Rey Fuentes, a fellow at the Partnership for Working Families in California, tells Progressives Everywhere. “That information is necessary to set the benefit amount because you get benefits based on how much you earned. Employers provided are required to provide it in California, but these companies have refused, even though the data has been requested by the state.”
Had Uber and Lyft been classifying their employees in accordance with the law, they’d have paid over $450 million in the state unemployment system. Instead, they’re directing drivers to use a federal benefit meant for other people. As a result, more than half of drivers lost between 75 and 100% of their incomes during the height of COVID-19, according to a UC Santa Cruz study. And as long as they don’t get overtime and reimbursement for work expenses, they lose as much as $500 per week.
Prop 22 would entirely gut California law and tie the hands of future lawmakers on all levels of state and local government. While proponents suggest it would contain some benefits for workers, they’re largely a mirage. There would be no overtime and health insurance would be almost impossible to access (and very expensive).
Not only that, but the proposition would strip workers of paid medical and family leave, deny them breaks during shifts, and remove protections from abuse, discrimination, and harassment. And if you don’t think they’ll take advantage of that, just note that Lyft already makes drivers pay for their own PPE amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
What’s more, Fuentes notes that the law could be seized on by employers big and small to misclassify workers at all levels, starting with similar jobs but expanding out to many other kinds of work.
“Any other service that is connected to existing institutions could be impacted,” he says. “So delivery drivers who might deliver something from a Walmart or any other store, if the company decided to turn them into independent contractors in California, they’d be covered [and denied rights] by Prop 22.”
This is truly a David vs. Goliath battle, pitting struggling workers against exploitative companies that made bad business decisions and want to rip off workers. And as Fuentes notes, that’s even more dangerous than the biblical story, because Prop 22 would mean employers aren’t responsible for worker’s compensation. These companies throwing everything they have — literally, it’s already up to $180 million! — at tricking voters into throwing away the rights of millions of people.
One of the central tenets of the labor movement is that we all have to stick together, because once they conquer one industry, they come for the next. Right now, at least 30 million people are unemployed (it’s probably more like 40 million) and many more are underemployed. Giving corporations more power right now is the last thing we should do.
Other Big Worker Ballot Initiatives
Prop 22 is by far the most prominent and expensive worker-related ballot initiative this year, but not the only one. Here are a few more important labor-related initiatives and fights on the horizon (Medicaid expansion already passed in Oklahoma and Missouri during those states’ 2020 primaries):
Arizona — Proposition 208:
Raises taxes on individuals making over $250,000 annually and invests revenue in education.
Florida — Amendment 2:
Increases the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2026.
Nebraska — Nebraska Payday Lender Interest Rate Cap Initiative:
Caps interest rates on payday loans at 36% — down from the absurd average 404% in the state right now.
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Elections and Voting Rights
Georgia: The campaign in the newly christened swing state continues to heat up, with different tactics on each side.
I spoke with Luisa Wakeman, a great legislative candidate from Cobb County north of Atlanta, for our Candidate Catch Up segment on Friday. It’s available to all Progressives Everywhere members here.
One thing I’ll share: Her campaign has avoided doing door-to-door conversations, not willing to risk anyone passing along or contracting COVID-19. That should come as no surprise — Wakeman is a registered nurse and also a good person. Instead, they’re focusing on digital outreach and starting to do literature drops, which involves dropping off campaign lit on porches and at front doors.
According to this Atlanta Journal-Constitution story, Republicans have not been showing the same kind of consideration or restraint. They’ve got no qualms about breaking all the COVID-19 guidance. Check this out:
“You can only hide so long. The public begins to notice that they haven’t seen you,” said former Gov. Nathan Deal, among more than 100 who crowded into a Gainesville restaurant for a recent GOP campaign event.
This theoretically puts Democrats at a disadvantage… assuming that voters appreciate face-to-face contact from Republicans during a pandemic that their party irresponsibly exacerbated.
Then again, Trump’s victory came in large part due to his unprecedented digital campaign (along with racism, sexism, etc.). So we’ll see just how big a difference Zoom and other digital outreach strategies can make in a general election.
You know what will probably play a bigger role? The massive voter purged carried out by GOP Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger last year. The state kicked 313,243 off the voter rolls, and according to a new ACLU study, a whopping 198,351 of the Georgians were improperly removed. That means a stunning and infuriating 63% of those voters were disenfranchised.
North Carolina: Some good news on the voting rights front, as a three-judge panel ruled that most of North Carolina’s felony disenfranchisement law violates the state constitution.
The judges ruled that the requirement that ex-felons pay all fines and fees before getting their right to vote restored is tantamount to a poll tax.
Yes, this is exactly what Republicans in Florida are trying to defend, FYI.
Now, anyone who has completed their sentence, including probation and parole, or would have finished their probation under supervision, can register to vote regardless of outstanding fees.
Still, they didn’t go all the way, as ex-felons still on probation or parole are still denied the right to vote.
This line intrigued me from the Charlotte Observer’s summary of the lawsuit made me raise an eyebrow:
“For one, they said, people who are on probation or parole are, by definition, out of prison and back to living in and contributing to larger society. They’re paying taxes and potentially sending their kids to school and deserve to have a say in the decisions that get made that affect their and their families’ lives, the lawsuit claimed.”
I see what they’re saying, but I think as long as you’re a citizen, you should be able to vote. When you’re in prison, government decisions absolutely impact your life, but this argument exempts that. I understand it may have been strategic, but I hope it’s not the absolute standard.
The GOP will appeal, but Democrats control the State Supreme Court, which makes this a very promising decision.
Also promising:
Texas: Hey, more good news! Now it’s good polling news out of Texas.
According to a new poll released by Primaries for Progress, Joe Biden is winning 48-45% amongst likely voters.
Democrats running for State House, meanwhile, are just two points behind the GOP in the generic, non-district-specific survey.
And even better, in a survey of battleground districts, Democrats are actually winning 49-42%.
And look, clean energy is a big winning issue in the oil-rich state:
At the same time, the fight over vote-by-mail continues to show GOP hypocrisy.
Quibis
National: Surprising no one, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy spent over a decade pressuring his employees to give big money to the GOP. What’s more, he often directed bonuses to those that did so, reimbursing them in a potentially illegal manner.
Washington, DC: Also surprising no one, Democrats have done a terrible job with the data exchange operations that are essential to winning up and down the ballot. They’re lucky to have generous donors and activists like you!
Texas: lol, also not a surprise:
Real Quick…
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