Pittsburgh
There is are two new blog posts:
Gig economy
California’s Proposition 22 really isn’t working out well.[1] But what’s really striking is that apparently Uber and Lyft got some drivers to support the proposition.[2] Which is to say those drivers actually trusted the companies.
“A huge part of [Uber and Lyft’s] Prop. 22 campaign was to get the drivers on their side,” says Veena Dubal, a labor law expert at UC’s Hastings College of the Law and a critic of Uber and Lyft. “So they rolled out these things they knew that drivers would be excited about and would make them feel independent. And of course they’ve thrown them away.”[3]
And now those drivers are shocked to see the promises have not been kept.[4] Well, gee. No shit, Sherlock.
They probably think they’re going to get rich driving for the companies too.
This is an occasion where I’d say they got what they deserved. Unfortunately, a lot of other drivers are getting it too.
Michael Hiltzik, “Uber reneges on the ‘flexibility’ it gave drivers to win their support for Prop. 22,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-28/uber-flexibility-prop-22
In my Twitter bubble, Alexandria Ortega-Cortez, the rest of “the Squad,” and even Bernie Sanders have been taking a lot of criticism from progressives for failure to deliver on any of their signature programs.
AOC is an armchair social justice warrior, not a legislator. It seems she likes the perks of the gig, just not the gig itself. AOC presents the illusion of industriousness to distract from her uselessness.
In other words, she was born to be in Congress.
— Kathy Padden (@crankypantskat) May 27, 2021
There certainly is a problem with progressives getting co-opted by the mainstream Democratic Party but there’s also a larger problem that all of these people have worked from a presumption that system reform is possible from within. That presumption is, at best, dubious.
- [1]Alexander Sammon, “Prop 22 Is Here, and It’s Already Worse Than Expected,” American Prospect, January 15, 2021, https://prospect.org/labor/prop-22-is-here-already-worse-than-expected-california-gig-workers/; Michael Hiltzik, “Uber reneges on the ‘flexibility’ it gave drivers to win their support for Prop. 22,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-28/uber-flexibility-prop-22; José Rodríguez, Jr., “The Aftermath Of Prop 22 Is Not As Happy As Big Tech Promised,” Jalopnik, February 18, 2021, https://jalopnik.com/the-aftermath-of-prop-22-is-not-as-happy-as-big-tech-pr-1846299686↩
- [2]Michael Hiltzik, “Uber reneges on the ‘flexibility’ it gave drivers to win their support for Prop. 22,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-28/uber-flexibility-prop-22↩
- [3]Michael Hiltzik, “Uber reneges on the ‘flexibility’ it gave drivers to win their support for Prop. 22,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-28/uber-flexibility-prop-22↩
- [4]Michael Hiltzik, “Uber reneges on the ‘flexibility’ it gave drivers to win their support for Prop. 22,” Los Angeles Times, May 28, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-28/uber-flexibility-prop-22↩