Uber and Lyft launch landmark proposal for California workers – and the first voting threat in the tech sector

Uber and Lyft proposed Thursday an agreement that would give their drivers better wages and bargaining rights, and companies are ready to invest millions of dollars in launching the first technology industry election battle in California to succeed.

High-tech companies have publicly supported a framework with pay and benefit guarantees several months ago, but the new proposal is becoming more concrete and offers a wage guarantee of $ 21 per hour while incorporating a Enriched negotiation aimed at satisfying the workers by creating an avenue for the technology industry workers to organize.

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Even more critical for the Sacramento deal, where workers are worker-friendly, the proposal would also create a collective bargaining mechanism – unique in California – that would apply broadly to the technology sector. instead of being negotiated company by company and would be supervised by a new state entity. With only two weeks remaining in California's legislative session, the announcement of this new announcement is setting off a real political rush that will undoubtedly trigger strong resistance from lawmakers aligned with unions.

If lawmakers do not follow through and pass the deal on to Newsom, Uber, Lyft and DoorDash are ready to go directly to voters: each company has committed $ 30 million to qualify a voting initiative. If the problem were to be found in the 2020 vote, it would be the first time that California's technology sector, which has liquidity and whose political commitment is increasingly political, , attack the voters.

Assemblyman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego), a dedicated trade union ally for AB 5, said she did not have the opportunity to review the framework proposed by the companies. But she seemed skeptical about finding a win-win deal, saying that a fair result "starts with the status of full employment, then by the right to bargain", and s & # 39; is declared "disgusted" by the threat of the initiative to vote.

"If they have millions of dollars to participate in a voting initiative, why do not they pay more for their workers?" Asked Gonzalez, saying that the position of the companies was: "Either you eat it" or we will feed it by force. you. It's no different from Walmart.

For over a year, car rental companies and other giants of Silicon Valley have been lobbying Sacramento to mitigate the effects of a California Supreme Court ruling in 2018 that could greatly transform self-employed workers into employees. This prospect is particularly threatening to hurt economic firms like Uber and Lyft, which depend almost entirely on a large army of contractors on demand.

Where the technology sector has been facing an existential threat to their business models, labor organizations have been given the opportunity to gain unprecedented rights for workers in the economy of the larger economy. Both have negotiated a potential deal under the auspices of Governor Gavin Newsom's office – and the framework released by Uber and Lyft on Thursday represents the most concrete negotiating stance to date.

The proposal does not explicitly address the problem of classification of workers, but it would give companies immunity from costly class actions resulting in allegations of misclassification.

The California Labor Federation (California Labor Federation), California's flagship labor group, immediately opposed the proposal. Spokesman, Steve Smith, told POLITICO that the proposed agreement "would deprive drivers of the basic rights they are already entitled to under the law" bypassing the issue of worker classification, and promised that workers would fight against both a possible bill and a possible initiative to vote. The Federation of Labor is sponsoring the bill that would include the California Supreme Court decision in state law.

"It's more the same empty promises of companies that are simply trying to get out of the law of providing basic protections for their workers, and we will vigorously oppose this with a unified labor movement," he said. Smith said.

Be that as it may in California, a national precedent could be created at a time when similar proposals for the classification of workers are coming to Congress – questions that the technology industry has asked Washington to consider. to hand over to Sacramento – and, as Democratic presidential candidates, increasingly agree to give more rights to employment.

These conditions largely reflect a statement released Wednesday by Newsom's chief of staff, Ann O-Leary, in which she sought to rebut a powerful union construction group that had attacked the governor's office for its willingness to conclude a deal. Public conflict illuminated the loopholes within the organized labor movement when the International Union of Service Employees, plunged into discussions, broke with the construction unions and indicated that they would be receptive to the kind of compromise with the unions. technology companies sought by the Newsom office.

In her statement, Ms. O. Leary said that the administration had always "looked for real unions with real collective bargaining rights," without, however, explicitly mentioning the thorny issue of employee classification.

On Wednesday, O 'Leary highlighted the issues, suggesting that California could be at the forefront of a model that does not rely on a federal labor regulation that, as a result of the Trump administration, has reiterated that entertainment workers should remain independent contractors.

"The reality is that these drivers do not have a voice under federal law," O'Leary said. "The only way for them to come together and form a union is if California intervenes."