One of us has been an Uber driver for three years. The other is the president of a large union that has helped workers traditionally excluded from labor protections and the right to join together turn their jobs into good, family-sustaining ones and win a voice at work.
As these on-demand platforms continue to grow, their CEOs and executives have gotten richer by not having to offer workers like me basic minimum wages, standards, conditions, protections and the right to join together in a worker organization. As a result, drivers sometimes have to sleep in our cars to be positioned at the right place at the right time to catch a ride.
Through legislation known as Assembly Bill 5 or AB5, which will be heard in the State Senate this week, California would recognize gig workers as employees, a classification already made law by the California Supreme Court's decision in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles. By passing AB5 California's legislature can give us the basic legal protections and guaranteed minimum wages we need to support our families.
SEIU helped lead the way for contract janitors in Los Angeles, who took to the streets to form their union. When they did so, they fundamentally changed the idea that contract janitors couldn't raise standards across an industry. And this year, over 34,000 Child Care Providers are on the cusp of finally winning the right to form a union and collectively bargain as we watch the positive progress AB378 is making in the California Legislature.
as usual, if newsweak states it, it must be a commandment. The only problem is, newsweak wouldn't know a fact , unless it is a smelly pile in the elevator.