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Uber and Lyft’s California Proposal Is a Mishmash of Old Ideas for Fixing the Gig Economy

The past is our best guide for understanding the future of ride-hailing apps

Sarah Kessler
OneZero
Published in
10 min readSep 16, 2020

Uber and Lyft are at war with the state of California after a judge ruled last month that ride-hailing companies, like other businesses, should be subject to a new law that classifies their workers as employees rather than independent contractors.

Instead of complying with the ruling, which would fundamentally change how the companies operate and make its workers eligible for protections and benefits, Uber and Lyft have floated the idea of becoming franchises and have also threatened to shut down completely. Their preference, though, is that a compromise of sorts be instated by a California ballot initiative called Proposition 22: They want to keep their workers categorized as independent contractors but provide them with a handful of benefits.

Uber and Lyft say they’ve created a new type of work that deserves new rules. Their opponents say that what these companies have created is an app for an old type of work — employment — and that they only want new rules because it is less expensive than following the existing rules, which guarantee employees protections like minimum wage, overtime, and the right to form a union.

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OneZero
OneZero

Published in OneZero

OneZero is a former publication from Medium about the impact of technology on people and the future. Currently inactive and not taking submissions.

Sarah Kessler
Sarah Kessler

Written by Sarah Kessler

Author and journalist, writing and editing at Medium’s OneZero.

Responses (8)

In California, where Uber and Lyft drivers have already been determined to be employees under the new law, passing the ballot initiative would reduce the rights drivers currently have.

Or not passing it could very well eliminate their jobs entirely, if Uber & Lyft do in fact discontinue their California operations. Again, the question boils down to whether voters are willing to risk this possibility.
I can't deny that both options…

In the end, the debate once again comes down to whether Uber and Lyft drivers are doing work that is meaningfully different than work that has previously existed.

Well, sort of. While the topic has received surprisingly little media attention, the reason Uber & Lyft embraced a contractor model in the first place was because it's been SOP in the U.S. taxi industry for 40+ years now: nearly all American cabbies…

In other words, what Uber and Lyft call an hour of “engaged time” might actually represent 90 minutes of a driver’s actual time. Uber and Lyft would be required to pay an hourly “minimu...

This is accurate and probably the best argument against Prop 22. A "guarantee" of sub-minimum-wage pay is, well, total bullshit. That being said, the alternative – Uber & Lyft exiting the California market entirely, which I've argued since day one…