Proposition 22. And the basic point of that proposition which passed in California,
even though California went overwhelmingly for Joe Biden, it allows Uber, Lyft and other service
car or vehicle driving entities to treat their workers as contractors rather than as employees,
something often called the "contract economy," or the "gig economy," words like that.
I want to drive home to you that this is extremely important. It is a defeat for the entire working
class, and that means the majority of us here in the United States, the overwhelming majority of us
who are employees whatever legal label is attached to it. What Uber and Lyft got was an exemption.
They don't have to protect their workers, their employees, by the simple device of calling them
something else. "You're not my employee. You're a service provider with whom i have a contract.
You're a gig worker." And in case there was ambiguity (and of course there was),
and in case there were lawsuits (and of course there were), here is a ballot, the people voted,
to allow them... what? To exempt workers from (and here's the key point) 150 years in this country,
maybe more during which working people fought like hell for all kinds of protections. You know,
the length of the working day so you can't be made to work more than eight hours a
day because that's the law. That had to be fought for in this country, for a long time.
That you can't be physically abused, that you can't hire children, that you can't
impose on your workers sexual services through a harassment procedure, that you have to have
a toilet, that you have to have clean air, that you can't verbally- You get the picture? Loads
of protections. And a lot of those protections (insurance policy so if a worker gets hurt there's
a- ) all of those protections apply to employees and Uber and Lyft don't want to pay those costs.
They don't mind that their workers are therefore not protected. It's profit in
their pocket because they don't have to pay for the protections. That's what the law
was there to force them to do and they just got out of the law. And you know what's going to
happen now? 49 other states are going to see the same effort made in those states. And man, if it
can work in California it's going to be easier in many other states for all the reasons you know.
And is it only the Uber / Lyft type of business? No. Anybody now who employs a worker to do a
service can try to reclassify that worker as a gig worker rather than an employee, saving them money.
This is an attempt to roll back the history of working people 150 years in this country.
Make no mistake. That's why Uber Lyft and the others spent over $200 million dollars
on this obscure little vote. And here's the punchline of punchlines. Many people were told
in California to: "Do this. Pass this because it will enable poor people to get a job driving a car
because they're having such a hard time." And a lot of the vote that gave this gift to business
were well-intentioned people who wanted to provide an opportunity. You know,
it's like those people in Florida who voted to raise the minimum wage.
Think about it. An ad on the tv screen: "Don't you want to help a poor person
make a living, driving a car, for their family? Reminds me of nothing so much as
a hundred years ago when to keep child labor going in America, the awful process of making five, six,
seven year old kids work all day in a rat infested sewing shop. And you know what the ads then said?
"Poor people need for their children to work. If you don't let their children work they'll be even
poorer." Yeah, you frame the question that way and you can pull off this kind of defeat of
the working class. Something needs to be done to undo this. And the legislatures in California and
across the country (and maybe a job for the new Biden administration) is to take steps to prevent
this from happening. Federal law can trump (pardon the expression) state law. That needs to be done.