August 23, 2020 due to Steve Hanley
All new technology brings changes in society. Gutenberg began it with his printing press, which undermined the power of the church by making Bibles accessible to all. The steam engine, radio, television, and the smartphone all lead to radical changes in society. The car and the plane set us free. Technology constantly defines the relationship between people and work.
Employees have one thing in common – they like to get paid. Employers have one thing in common – they want to pay their employees as little as possible. The conflicts between them have led to unrest. Many have died in striving for the idea that work requires a measure of dignity and a wage. *
The so-called gig economy was made possible by the smartphone. Suddenly, anyone with a phone could connect with other people using phones to form digital relationships. Soon, people with a tuxedo in the closet could rent it out to people who needed one. People with a bedroom could rent it for a night. And someone with a car could connect to people who needed a ride.
Credit: Uber
The first company to drive into a viable company was Uber, which gave drivers the opportunity to earn a few bucks that other people ran. It was shown as something you could do part-time to earn a little extra money instead of sitting at home and playing solitaire on your computer. Thousands and thousands of people jumped at the chance. Next up was Lyft, a company that received large financial support from General Motors.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the gig economy revolution. The people who did the actual driving found that they spent their entire day behind the wheel and made much less money than they thought they would. A study by the UCLA Labor Center in 2018 found that two out of three drivers depend on driving supplies as their main source of income. Half said it was their only job and three out of five reported that they ride more than five days a week. The drivers started claiming for gas money and money to maintain their cars. Then they wanted things that regular employees take for granted – health insurance, paid vacations, retirement plans, and employee compensation coverage.
The companies wanted to shift as much of the normal financial burden that comes with operating a business as possible onto the shoulders of the drivers. They fought back, claiming they were little more than facilitators and those drivers were independent contractors running their own businesses.
California is often on the leading edge of change in America. It is where Caesar Chavez first organized the migrant farm workers who captured the crops of America in a militant force for economic justice. In 2019, California lawmakers passed AB5, a law that classified drivers as employees. The new law came into effect on January 1 of this year, but Uber and Lyft did not pay attention to it, continuing with their businesses as they always had. Uber has already been fined more than $ 600 million by the state of New Jersey for failing to pay state taxes on the pay of its drivers.
AB5 grew out of a 2018 decision by the California Supreme Court that instituted a three-part test for the question of whether an employee was an employee or an independent contractor. Called the ABC test, it has now been adopted by the U.S. Department of Labor and 30 other states. It says that a person is considered an independent contractor if they have control over how the work is done, they do work that is not in the normal course of the tenant’s business, and they do the same type of business on their own.
Recently, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra prosecuted Uber and Lyft in prosecution for non-compliance with AB5. On August 10, Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman filed a state petition for a conviction. According to Engadget, that ruling angered the companies, which threaten to simply stop doing business in California instead of enforcing it. They claim they have been blinded by the decision and cannot do what the court and the state ask them to do within the allotted time. The judge has since allowed a brief stay of his decision to give her more time to abide by the law.
“Uber and Lyft had two freaking years to change their business practices, but they act like they’s so shocked,” says Tia Koonse, UCLA Labor Center’s legal and policy researcher, Engadget. “Uber and Lyft can not continue [the ABC] test, ”says Koonse. Most drivers would not operate a cab service independently, in large part because that would be illegal in most jurisdictions. And while drivers may have control over their schedules, they do not decide which riders to pick up. “[The companies], push drivers through their algorithms to take driving without discrimination. That, without, the drivers have no control over how they do their business. ”
Koonse emphasizes that the drivers do absolute work that is in the ordinary course of business for the companies. “Lyft and Uber do not provide any other service! All they provide is this type of taxi company. Uber has gone so far as to suggest that it is not really a transportation provider and that drivers are not the core for their business. Instead, it claims to be a “technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces.”
“Anyway, the only thing they technologically deliver is a ride with a person who owns a car,” Koonse replies. “Transportation is definitely their business.” Even though Uber offers other services such as food delivery, drivers are still an important part of their business; it’s just that instead of transporting people, they transport food, she states.
Theorem 22
Instead of following the law as it is, the companies are pumping $ 100 million into a political charade, known as Proposition 22, which will exceptionally exclude the ruling of the Supreme Court of California and AB5 and permanently classify executives as independent contractors by making that provision part of the state constitution. If any of you see a parallel between this subterfuge and the campaign by utilities in Florida to change this state’s constitution to make private ownership of rooftop solar systems illegal, you are not wrong. Businesses will stop at nothing to maintain their income stream, even if it means trampling on individual freedoms. Uber and Lyft could make that $ 100 million available to their drivers, but choose not to, which tells you everything you need to know about their ethics and moral code.
“Companies have had years and multiple invitations to follow the law and give workers the status and benefits of the employee,” says Edan Alva, a board member and organizer with Gig Workers Rising. Engadget. “Despite multiple lawsuits and a deadly pandemic, CEOs of multimillionaires at Uber and Lyft choose to continue breaking the law. Eliminating thousands of drivers’ incomes during a pandemic to comply with labor laws is cruel. ”
Tia Koonse has the last word on this controversy. “If their business model is completely dependent on non-payment of minimum wage, overtime, offering required meal and rest breaks, reimbursement of expenses, [is] predicate on payroll and they can not make a profit by treating their staff as employees, then that is their problem, ”she says. “It’s up to her to figure it out.”
This is simply the last chapter in an ongoing struggle for the rights of workers with corporations that do not see work as a cooperative, but rather a system that allows property to be extracted for as little money as possible. It is the impetus that caused the textile industry to flee to New England in the 1950s, and then sent corporations in search of cheaper options in Mexico before turning their attention first to China then India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. Read more about Naomi Klein’s seminal book No Logo for more on this topic. This is only the last chapter in an endless struggle to define the nature of work in the United States and abroad.
* Next time you’re in Woonsocket, RI, visit the Museum Of Work And Culture for a lively, interactive introduction to the never-ending battle between labor and management.
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About the Author
Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut as well as wherever the Singularity can lead him. You can follow him Twitter but not on every social media platform run by evil gentlemen like Facebook.
