Article from Reason by Billy Binion.
California is on the verge of passing a bill that would reclassify all “gig economy” workers—those who drive for Uber or Lyft, for example—as employees rather than contractors. Ride-sharing companies have responded by offering to pay drivers a minimum hourly wage of $21, but labor activists say the hike isn’t enough.
The measure, known as AB 5, passed the California State Assembly in May and is expected to pass the state Senate next week. It will then head to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who has put his full support behind the bill.
Such a move would require gig economy companies to provide a wide array of benefits—including paid time off, worker’s compensation, and reimbursement for expenses—to every employee, upending the flexible business model where drivers can choose their own hours, answer to themselves, and work for competing companies simultaneously. This would fly in the face of national practice: The Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board have ruled separately that gig economy workers are indeed contractors.
Uber and Lyft countered that they would provide a $21 minimum wage, which would apply both when driving a passenger and when en route to pick up a new one. Labor rights activists, including the ones behind AB 5, demurred at the offer. “The voters of California won’t stand for billionaires allowing their workers less rights than Walmart employees,” Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D–San Diego), who authored the bill, said in a statement.
Read the entire article at Reason.
Image Credit: By Henri Sivonen from Helsinki, Finland (flickr: California State Capitol) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
wpDiscuz
Uncontrolled inflation will, eventually bankrupt the economy. Of course the deficit in California already exceeds the rest of the States combined. They talk about the budget surplus of 32 billion but California still hasn’t paid their debts.
I’ve been working for the same company for 29 years and I’m only 6 dollars an hour above that .No wonder Cali is bankrupt.This doesn’t make good sense
I live in this state. When you elect liberal wacko’s to run and govern the state this is what happens. The state is broke, comes up wit some of the dumbest laws I’ve ever imagined and now wants a minimum wage that will discourage new business’s coming here and old ones to leave or go out of business.
California operates as an independent nation with the biggest jerk on the planet as its king. If the U.S. cannot stop this runaway rat, cut ’em loose and treat ’em like our southern nations. Give citizens and businesses a few months to relocate, then let the trade and aid wars begin. But no more immigration from the west. If citizens don’t like the arrangement, they should be given a few months to remove their government and replace it with grownups.
Methinks these guys are playing with too many mushrooms & smoking too many various weeds.
I can’t wait to see how many companies up and move out of California after the Democrats get done destroying what’s left! How stupid can these people be? Don’t answer that because you just can’t fix stupid! I can’t wait to watch those bastards squirm as more and more slip through their idiot fingers! Sooner or later they are going to run out of money, then what! They already chastise the police! I say let that state burn in hell!
It doesn’t make any sense to think you can get a raise any time you like but you can never make ends meet.