[HN Gopher] California companies wrote their own gig worker law....
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       California companies wrote their own gig worker law. Now no one is
       enforcing it
        
       Author : agiacalone
       Score  : 24 points
       Date   : 2024-09-04 19:54 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (apnews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (apnews.com)
        
       | yieldcrv wrote:
       | AB5 is the issue and creature of the legislature, Prop 22 is a
       | patch by unrelated corporate parties seeking an exemption who got
       | citizens to pass it
       | 
       | Its a confusing distortion and mess to a labor market that really
       | needs a third categorization
       | 
       | Classifying independent contractors as employees just so you can
       | extend corporate health insurance to them is lazy and
       | patronizing, not to rehash an old debate but not everyone is a
       | victim or aspires to be an employee.
       | 
       | and now this mess about how to enforce labor violations on Prop
       | 22 gig workers?
       | 
       | repeal AB5 in its entirety and come up with something more
       | holistic
        
         | bsder wrote:
         | Prop 22 was passed by Lyft and Uber blackmailing a whole bunch
         | of people at the height of Covid whose only income at the time
         | was ridesharing. Those people are now gone, ridesharing is the
         | race to the bottom that everybody predicted, but now we're
         | stuck with a shitty proposition.
         | 
         | And what you are quite conveniently omitting is that AB5 was a
         | reaction to a _court case_ (and it wasn 't even about
         | ridesharing!) that sent people scrambling. AB5 wasn't great,
         | but it would have been amended and updated because California
         | actually has a functional legislature. Instead, Prop 22 froze
         | the process in amber and now everybody gets the garbage
         | fallout.
         | 
         | Blast Prop 22 into atoms, and AB5 can be adjusted properly.
         | 
         | In addition, I got _tons_ of political crap pushed to my phone
         | about Prop 22 by the apps and Uber and Lyft should have been
         | fined through the nose for doing so.
         | 
         | But, hey, as long as you have a couple billion in cash, you get
         | to make your own laws. Ain't "disruption" grand?
        
           | starik36 wrote:
           | > California actually has a functional legislature
           | 
           | You must be new here. There are homeless literally everywhere
           | in LA and somehow "California actually has a functional
           | legislature". A small example of dysfunction. You are living
           | in a fantasy world.
           | 
           | AB5 was a massively blunt tool that overreached and messed
           | with businesses and individuals that had zero to do with ride
           | sharing. Prop 22 undid small portion of it, where in reality,
           | the law needs to be repealed in its entirety and rethought
           | with an eye to future and potential unintended fallout.
        
             | badprose wrote:
             | I don't see how having homeless people everywhere in LA and
             | SF is related to whether they have a functional
             | legislature. Is there some law that California could pass
             | to solve homelessness and they're just too dysfunctional to
             | do so?
        
       | roughly wrote:
       | The gig work companies spent $200M pushing Prop 22, if you were
       | curious how profitable that business model has been and how much
       | money isn't making its way to the people who aren't their
       | employees.
       | https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...
       | 
       | If anyone had any notion at all that any part of Prop 22 was
       | going to work out for the workers, all I can say is keep that
       | starry-eyed naivety, because the world's a cold place and we
       | could use some optimists, I guess.
        
       | deepsun wrote:
       | I remember talking to a Lyft driver who was persuaded that being
       | an employee means working fixed shifts.
       | 
       | Nice job by Uber/Lyft to plant that idea in people's minds!
       | 
       | https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/workhours/flexibleschedule...
        
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       (page generated 2024-09-04 23:00 UTC)