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Judge overturns initiative allowing drivers to work as contractors

August 23, 2021

By JOSH FRIEDMAN

An Alameda County Superior Court judge on Friday overturned California’s Proposition 22, the ballot initiative that allows companies to treat rideshare and delivery drivers as independent contractors.

Judge Frank Roesch ruled Prop 22 is both unconstitutional and unenforceable. Roesch found the initiative “unconstitutional because it limits the power of a future legislature to define app-based drivers as workers subject to workers’ compensation law.”

Likewise, Roesch ruled another provision of the initiative unconstitutional. That provision requires a seven-eights vote in the state Legislature in order to amend the law.

Prop 22 passed in Nov. 2020 by a vote of approximately 59 percent to 41 percent. The initiative was pushed by gig economy companies, including Uber, Lyft and DoorDash, in response to California’s AB 5, a law requiring businesses to treat numerous workers as employees, not independent contractors.

After voters approved the initiative, individual drivers and the Service Employees International Union filed a lawsuit. Uber and Lyft now plan to appeal Roesch’s ruling in the case.


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I don’t understand how rideshare drivers are anything but independent contractors. One of the big tests of contractors versus employees is that contractors set their own schedule, whereas employers get to mandate the schedule of their employees. So if all of these rideshare workers are employees, it would follow that Lyft and Uber should dictate the hours they are required to work? You can’t have it both ways. If you want to be treated as an employee, you have to act like an employee.


6

I rather have this judge determine, now that we have 1.2 gallon flush toilets, whether or not to require a second curtesy flush.


-8

Courtesy flushes are only allowed in houses with even number addresses on Tuesday and Thursday and odd number addressed houses on Monday and Wednesday, none allowed on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and never between 10am and 7pm.


-1

Stop eating so many burritos and your toilet will work fine with just one flush.


4

The labor burden on employers is way too high in this country, especially in fields where work comp is $25 per $100 or higher. This system needs a total overhaul so that wages and profits can be increased by trimming the useless compliance driven fat.


9

Why do we even vote, another judge bought and paid for….


22

I wonder the same thing. If everything the government does is suspect and you don’t believe in the integrity of our system.

Why do people who think that way even bother voting? That is a good question.


5

Proposition 22 was literally written by Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and Doordash who spent tens of dollars to get it on the ballot and then more than $200,000,000.00 in advertising and campaign contributions to see it passed. These corporations not only bought their way into the ballot, but managed to make sure that it could not be changed through the democratic process of a majority vote. Any change to this law requires a 7/8 majority. So, if you are an average citizen who tries to organize any amendment to the law, even asking for very basic workers protections like say making sure you’re paid minimum wage which in California is $14/hr (according to multiple studies is $11 short of the $25/hr you need to meet your basic needs in California) you can only do so with an 87.8% majority vote


So, yeah this government bought and paid for, but it wasn’t the judge or workers who did it.


3