<story><title>Uber Drivers Sue Company over Pressure to Support Prop 22</title><url>https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/uber-drivers-sue-company-over-pressure-to-support-prop-22</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>takeda</author><text>This is not even comparable. The law already passed and is not banning Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft&amp;#x2F;Dordash it just places the same requirements other jobs have.&lt;p&gt;They could either treat them as employees and provide benefits that law requires, or make drivers to be truly independent.&lt;p&gt;They are threatening to leave California, but that&amp;#x27;s similar to baby making a tantrum to get what they want. While I don&amp;#x27;t use their services, and don&amp;#x27;t care about them leaving, I really doubt they will leave California, because of AB5.</text></item><item><author>freerobby</author><text>You may be technically correct, but I would ordinarily read &amp;quot;threat of discharge or loss of employment&amp;quot; in a retaliatory sense, not an existential one.&lt;p&gt;A more cut-and-dry example might be clarifying: if there were a ballot initiative to outright ban strip clubs, and a strip club sent a memo to its staff, correctly noting their jobs would be gone if it passed, would that be a violation of this statute?</text></item><item><author>henryfjordan</author><text>The California Labor Code says:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leginfo.legislature.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;faces&amp;#x2F;codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1102.&amp;amp;lawCode=LAB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leginfo.legislature.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;faces&amp;#x2F;codes_displaySectio...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Uber very publicly threatened to shut down in CA if they did not get their way with respect to AB5 and the suit alleges that they continue to threaten layoffs. If that isn&amp;#x27;t an attempt to coerce drivers to vote a certain way by threatening their jobs, I don&amp;#x27;t know what is.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brian_cloutier</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not necessarily a tantrum.&lt;p&gt;The failure of Prop 22 will cause a massive disruption of an existing marketplace. No matter what you think of the morality of the existing setup, the failure of Prop 22 will force some large structural changes to how it operates.&lt;p&gt;It seems likely that this will cause ride-sharing not to be economically feasible in rural areas where per-driver utilization is low.&lt;p&gt;Operating in SF and LA will likely remain profitable but many drivers will be forced, by AB5, to stop driving. This will increase wait times and increase prices and cause lower ridership.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s very possible that Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft will decide that the overhead of being an employer is not worth the reduced revenue, it&amp;#x27;s not like they&amp;#x27;re making a lot of money in the first place. It&amp;#x27;s also possible they&amp;#x27;ll decide they won&amp;#x27;t want to dilute their brands by offering a service which makes you wait 7 minutes for a ride.&lt;p&gt;It is, of course, also possible that they&amp;#x27;ll decide to send a message &amp;#x2F; throw a tantrum, but your comment implies this is the only explanation. It&amp;#x27;s definitely not the only possible explanation and I&amp;#x27;m not even sure it will be the most likely explaination.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber Drivers Sue Company over Pressure to Support Prop 22</title><url>https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/uber-drivers-sue-company-over-pressure-to-support-prop-22</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>takeda</author><text>This is not even comparable. The law already passed and is not banning Uber&amp;#x2F;Lyft&amp;#x2F;Dordash it just places the same requirements other jobs have.&lt;p&gt;They could either treat them as employees and provide benefits that law requires, or make drivers to be truly independent.&lt;p&gt;They are threatening to leave California, but that&amp;#x27;s similar to baby making a tantrum to get what they want. While I don&amp;#x27;t use their services, and don&amp;#x27;t care about them leaving, I really doubt they will leave California, because of AB5.</text></item><item><author>freerobby</author><text>You may be technically correct, but I would ordinarily read &amp;quot;threat of discharge or loss of employment&amp;quot; in a retaliatory sense, not an existential one.&lt;p&gt;A more cut-and-dry example might be clarifying: if there were a ballot initiative to outright ban strip clubs, and a strip club sent a memo to its staff, correctly noting their jobs would be gone if it passed, would that be a violation of this statute?</text></item><item><author>henryfjordan</author><text>The California Labor Code says:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; No employer shall coerce or influence or attempt to coerce or influence his employees through or by means of threat of discharge or loss of employment to adopt or follow or refrain from adopting or following any particular course or line of political action or political activity.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leginfo.legislature.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;faces&amp;#x2F;codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1102.&amp;amp;lawCode=LAB&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;leginfo.legislature.ca.gov&amp;#x2F;faces&amp;#x2F;codes_displaySectio...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Uber very publicly threatened to shut down in CA if they did not get their way with respect to AB5 and the suit alleges that they continue to threaten layoffs. If that isn&amp;#x27;t an attempt to coerce drivers to vote a certain way by threatening their jobs, I don&amp;#x27;t know what is.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>thereisnospork</author><text>Attitudes like this are why I hate California, calling companies reacting to economic disincentives &amp;#x27;childish&amp;#x27; with blithe disregard to the value they provide and the harm disincentives can have on the rest of us[0].&lt;p&gt;[0]Effectively banning Uber will literally kill people, for starters. To say nothing of the increased economic friction going back to the cab system.</text></comment>