A California judge ruled Friday that Proposition 22 — a measure that let so-called gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft limit worker protections — is unconstitutional.
“This is a MAJOR and deserved win for drivers and gig workers,” the California Labor Federation tweeted Friday in response to the ruling.
Passed last November after over $200 million in campaign spending by major gig companies, Prop 22 let the companies classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees.
Morgan Harper, senior advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project, previously called Prop 22 “not just the most expensive ballot initiative of all time” but “an egregious display of the ways dominant corporations use ill-won profits to entrench their power, shape public discourse, influence government policy, and avoid accountability.”
The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and drivers filed suit, with a February challenge at the Alameda County Superior Court after the California Supreme Court declined to hear their petition. The workers alleged in part that the measure denied the state Legislature the ability to grant workers the right to organize for better working conditions.
We’re proud to stand with Gig Drivers in the fight against #Prop22, which aimed to unconstitutionally deny gig drivers their fundamental rights. We’re proud to support drivers in their fight for basic rights and for the integrity of our democracy. pic.twitter.com/gS86halQpH
— SEIU California (@seiucalifornia) August 21, 2021
Siding with the workers, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch said Friday that Prop 22 was “unenforceable,” citing in part the law’s “difficult to the point of near impossibility” requirement of the support of seven-eighths of the state Legislature to make any changes.
“A prohibition on legislation authorizing collective bargaining by app-based drivers does not promote the right to work as an independent contractor, nor does it protect work flexibility, nor does it provide minimum workplace safety and pay standards for those workers,” Roesch wrote. “It appears only to protect the economic interest of the network companies in having a divided, ununionized workforce, which is not a stated goal of the legislation.”
Bob Schoonover, president of the SEIU California State Council, welcomed the development, saying Friday the “ruling by Judge Roesch striking down Proposition 22 couldn’t be clearer: The gig industry-funded ballot initiative was unconstitutional and is therefore unenforceable.”
“Companies like Uber and Lyft spent $225 million in an effort to take away rights from workers in a way that violates California’s constitution,” he said, accusing the companies of having “tried to boost their profits by undermining democracy and the state constitution.”
Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California Hastings Law School who filed a court brief in support of the workers, previously said Prop 22’s passage amounted to “the most radical undoing of labor legislation since Taft-Hartley in 1947.”
In a tweet hours after Roesch’s ruling, she pointed to a still-long road ahead for worker rights.
“We won tonight, but make no mistake,” Dubal wrote. “Victory is never handed by legal edict to working people. To the contrary, our collective struggles are just beginning. May the platform plantation owners lose sleep as we build solidarity and power for equality and justice.”
The coalition representing the gig economies, meanwhile, has announced its intention to appeal.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy