“We would become vastly different services,”
said Adrian Durbin, senior director of
communication at Lyft.
This past week, Uber, Lyft and DoorDash
threatened to spend $90 million on a
November 2020 state ballot measure if
they cannot make a deal specific to
their workers.
The Democratic candidates don’t seem to
be buying techs arguments. Buttigieg
rallied in front of Uber’s San Francisco
headquarters with drivers on a three-day
pilgrimage from Los Angeles to Sacramento.
“If you’re working a gig that means you’re a
worker and you ought to be protected as a
worker,” he said.
Harris, though a campaign spokesman last
week, backed the bill even though she has
ties to Uber, where her brother-in-law, Tony
West, is general counsel. The consulting firm
running her campaign, SCRB Strategies, is
paid to lobby California lawmakers on
Uber’s behalf.
A change in California, the most populous
state, is likely to have ripples across the country
as both the federal government and the states
wrestle with questions that arise from new
technology and services.
Illustrating the stakes for labor about who
controls the White House, the California
law could set up a clash with the Trump
administration, which has issued guidance
saying gig workers are contractors, meaning
they can’t unionize. That’s a reversal of the
Obama administration.