from Hacker News

California companies wrote their own gig worker law. Now no one is enforcing it

by agiacalone on 9/4/24, 7:54 PM with 60 comments

• by roughly on 9/4/24, 10:09 PM

  The gig work companies spent $200M pushing Prop 22, if you were curious how profitable that business model has been and how much money isn’t making its way to the people who aren’t their employees. https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...

  If anyone had any notion at all that any part of Prop 22 was going to work out for the workers, all I can say is keep that starry-eyed naivety, because the world’s a cold place and we could use some optimists, I guess.

• by jameslk on 9/5/24, 12:23 AM

  AB5 was a stupidly blunt law that had so many carve-outs for arbitrary professions. I remember being a software developer contractor in California at the time worrying about whether I'd get fired from contracts because of that law. Prop 22 ultimately left the parts of AB5 that screwed over everyone but the intended targets (ride share companies).

  I'm sure there's many who will claim Prop 22 was solely voted in because the ride share companies badgered all their gig workers to vote it in. This is likely true to an extent, but AB5 also presented a real existential threat to many gig workers (and contractors in general such as myself): as employees, no longer could we write off business expenses against our taxes. For ride share drivers, this would be wear and tear on their vehicle, repairs, gas mileage, insurance, phone/cell service, and plenty of other things they have to pay for as their own business. And it's definitely not something the ride share companies would of started paying for either.

  The incentive for the state made plenty of sense though: they could finally collect state unemployment taxes and do away with the business expense tax write offs.

• by deepsun on 9/4/24, 10:44 PM

  I remember talking to a Lyft driver who was persuaded that being an employee means working fixed shifts.

  Nice job by Uber/Lyft to plant that idea in people's minds!

  https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/workhours/flexibleschedule...

• by glzone1 on 9/5/24, 12:12 AM

  AB5 was tough on a lot of groups nonprofits included. They're are now so many exceptions to AB5 because on a principles basis it was very difficult things to work - for example, getting a gig musician playing music for an hour at a bar to be an employee of of the bar was too much of a headache.

  Another common struggle was anyone getting paid flat sums under 1099's for things that involved thinking / writing - say you wanted to have some people give talks / present a paper at your "thoughts and talks" thing. No one wanted to keep timesheets or pay for time sitting on the toilet thinking of the talk.

  Now of course there are tons of exceptions, but the way they are worded are going to be landmines for everyone.

  I wouldn't be surprised to see more exceptions work their way into the law over time but cleanups / simplification I think likely too hard.

• by treebeard901 on 9/5/24, 6:50 AM

  Selective enforcement of the law is a major problem in our system of Government. It is a widespread problem and a major source of corruption and bribery.

  In a sense the only laws that exist are the ones that someone is willing to enforce.

  Often then the highest bidder or the ones who have financial leverage over an agency, judicial member or law enforcement agent. Maybe a company or person donated to a local DA or a Judge. Maybe someone is getting a kickback for enforcing the law against a competitor but not you.

  It extends beyond business law and regulations into criminal law as well. It's possible to be accused of a crime with no statute of limitations in the United States and then investigated your entire life where the investigation itself is used to punish you and take your life away. All because it was claimed you broke a law. Which enables an endless investigation to be started basically removing any rights you have. The Government can then say you do not have a Constitutional right to be charged if accused of a crime. Then maybe the DA decides to prosecute someone else for the same accused crime.

  There are endless examples and excuses. DAs and police will say they have to prioritize cases. Agencies will say they can only enforce laws and regulations on certain people due to resources.

  Behind the scenes though, that priority is usually driven by financial interests.

  Everything is about money.

• by insane_dreamer on 9/5/24, 1:55 PM

  If there's no mechanism for enforcement of a new regulation, then those regulations are useless. Whereas as employees gig workers would fall under existing long-standing mechanisms for enforcement (including labor law suits -- nothing gets a company making changes like those). This is why gig companies spent $$$$ to defeat that law.

  I thought this was telling as to the lies that these gig companies spew:

  > Gig companies have said that, due in part to the initiative’s earnings guarantee, workers now make more than $30 an hour. But a May study by the UC Berkeley Labor Center found that, for California ride-hailing drivers, average earnings after expenses, not including tips, is about $7.12 an hour, and for delivery workers, $5.93. With tips, drivers’ average hourly earnings are $9.09 an hour, and $13.62 for delivery workers, the study found.

• by yieldcrv on 9/4/24, 9:45 PM

  AB5 is the issue and creature of the legislature, Prop 22 is a patch by unrelated corporate parties seeking an exemption who got citizens to pass it

  Its a confusing distortion and mess to a labor market that really needs a third categorization

  Classifying independent contractors as employees just so you can extend corporate health insurance to them is lazy and patronizing, not to rehash an old debate but not everyone is a victim or aspires to be an employee.

  and now this mess about how to enforce labor violations on Prop 22 gig workers?

  repeal AB5 in its entirety and come up with something more holistic