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Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and Postmates have spent more than $ 200 million to campaign for Proposition 22, the costliest voting measure in California history, successfully convincing voters that they could not not properly paying and protecting their workers if they were forced to classify them as full employees – at least not without reducing service or dramatically increasing the price you would pay.
But now the dust has settled, every company in the odd-job economy who supported Prop 22 increased those prices anyway. Instacart was the last to join the bait today, according to the Chronicle of San FranciscoCarolyn Said, who already told us in January exactly how much some of these companies charge Californians to pay for worker benefits: $ 1 to $ 2 per meal with Uber, $ 1.50 with Grubhub, up to $ 1.50 per ride with Lyft and an additional 3% increase per order with Instacart (for a total of 8%, although this does not apply to the company’s “Express” subscription plan yet). Postmates charges up to $ 2.50 more per order, our sister site Eater reported.
Instacart threatened to raise prices if they lost the Prop 22.
Now that they’ve won, they’re raising them anyway.
Concert companies have no shame.
We cannot let them apply this horrible law to other states. pic.twitter.com/FAF9LJ91yA
– Rise in scene workers (@GigWorkersRise) February 19, 2021
Instead of paying their workers, the big companies injected $ 200 million to pass Prop 22, claiming that workers’ protections guaranteed by law would force them to increase costs and pass them on to customers. Well guess what? They did it anyway. It’s downright disgusting at this point. https://t.co/tMH2jBjWPE
– California Federation of Labor (@CaliforniaLabor) December 14, 2020
To be clear, these companies have explicitly pushed voters to support Prop 22 to avoid higher prices. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has publicly stated that prices will increase by 20-40% in major California cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles, and even double in smaller towns. In California’s official voter guide, which accompanied the mail-in ballots, supporters of the bill warned that there would be “significantly higher consumer prices” if Proposition 22 failed.
Companies like Uber and Lyft have succeeded in part because of these scare tactics and by calling on voters to help workers get more protections and higher pay in this way instead of potentially jeopardizing the jobs of these workers. . (It probably didn’t hurt that the app companies bombarded both drivers and passengers with messages using their own apps, which sparked a lawsuit from drivers who claimed Uber intimidated them.)
But the question remains open as to whether Prop 22 actually helps workers, no matter how much extra we pay to make it happen. The Guardian reported yesterday that some drivers claim the pay has actually gone down and the job has become less reliable.
In the UK, Uber just lost a five-year legal battle today over a similar issue, which will offer workers a guaranteed minimum wage, paid time off and other protections (though they aren’t necessarily “Employees”). But here in the United States, where Prop 22 has been successful, it has opened the door for other parts of the country to potentially replace many regular employees with contractors. Bloomberg has a great article you should read about what that future might look like, for better or for worse.
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