<nettime> California passes Prop 22

[Felix Stalder <felix@openflows.com>]

While we all wait for the counting to finish (and the law cases to
start), here's the best article I could find on the major victory for
the platform capitalists on California, overturning a state-wide labor
law (AB5) which would have forced them to reclassify most gig-workers as
employees (with benefits) rather than contractors (without benefits).
This will likely affect not only the gig economy more widely, but it
also shows how power is leveraged. Not good. Felix



UBER AND LYFT HAD AN EDGE IN THE PROP 22 FIGHT: THEIR APPS

https://www.theverge.com/2020/11/4/21549760/uber-lyft-prop-22-win-vote-app-message-notifications

The apps told California voters to vote yes on Proposition 22. And the
voters listened.

Uber and Lyft spent over $200 million on the ballot measure to keep
their drivers classified as independent contractors, but their most
effective bit of lobbying may actually have been just a few lines of code.

In the weeks leading up to Election Day, the companies used their
respective apps to bombard riders and drivers with messages urging them
to vote for Prop 22, the ballot measure. Its victory will set a
precedent for other states’ labor laws around gig work, as well as for
how huge companies with an easy way to communicate to millions of voters
can lobby against laws they don’t like.

The outcome on Prop 22 was never certain, with polling in the run-up to
the election showing the electorate sharply divided over whether Uber
and Lyft should treat drivers like employees. Most notably, at least a
quarter of voters said they were undecided just weeks before the vote,
according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Studies poll. This gave Uber and
Lyft an opportunity to define the issue to voters using their apps, said
Arun Sundararajan, a professor at NYU’s school of business and author of
The Sharing Economy: The End of Employment and the Rise of Crowd-Based
Capitalism.

“I doubt whether the average voter would have weighed the pros and cons
of the labor law around AB5 versus the new initiative,” Sundararajan
said. “They feel positively towards the platforms, they don’t want to
see a disruption in something that they depend on, and so they vote for
the platform’s position.”

Prop 22 cements gig workers’ status in California as independent
contractors. The ballot measure, which won with 58 percent of the vote,
exempts gig economy companies from a state law requiring them to
classify their workers as employees. It also mandates that gig workers
receive new benefits, such as minimum hourly earnings. Critics say these
benefits fall short of the full protections that come with employment,
as they may have had to under another law, AB5 — which originally took
aim at gig work.

The companies splashed out a historic sum that probably influenced the
outcome. The companies’ “Yes on 22” campaign spent over $200 million on
billboards, digital, print, and radio ads. They also deployed dozens of
lobbyists, and sent voter mailers that critics said were misleading. At
the same time, Uber and Lyft’s top executives undertook a media tour in
which they threatened to leave the state if Prop 22 failed. And they
even sponsored academic research to support their claims about the
benefits of Prop 22. Labor groups, which opposed the law, raised only a
tenth as much money.

It’s notoriously difficult to secure a yes vote on a ballot measure in
California. Major companies have outspent their opponents by tens of
millions of dollars and still come up short. In 2010, for example, PG&E
spent $43 million to pass a measure to deter government-run power
providers, but the measure was defeated by a large margin.

But the gig companies’ digital reach and their use of in-app messages to
reach voters was unique, setting it apart from ballot fights of the
past. In the weeks leading up to the vote, Uber and Lyft served users
with a pop-up message threatening longer wait times and higher prices if
Prop 22 failed. They also claimed drivers would lose their livelihoods.
In order to request a ride, users had to tap the “confirm” button on the
message.

Uber and Lyft’s use of their apps to push a political message may be
legal, but it still felt improper, said Erica Smiley, executive director
of Jobs with Justice, a nonprofit that opposed Prop 22. “If anyone else
collected data from people for one reason, and then used it for another
political purpose, they would be in a world of trouble,” she said.

The fight was certainly asymmetrical. Anti-Prop 22 groups were able to
fund a modest ad campaign arguing against the ballot measure, but lacked
direct access to voters through their smartphones.

Uber was also lobbying its drivers through the app. In a lawsuit filed
recently, Uber drivers accused the company of pressuring them to support
Prop 22 through the app. The drivers claimed they were getting messages
reading “Prop 22 is progress,” as well as dire warnings about what would
happen to their jobs if Prop 22 were to fail. Like riders, drivers had
to click “OK” before they could move forward in the app. A judge
rejected the lawsuit on the grounds that the outcome of Prop 22 would
render it “moot.” The judge also dismissed the drivers’ allegations of
“political coercion,” stating that there was no evidence of any Uber
driver being punished for not supporting Prop 22.

This isn’t the first time Uber wielded its app to score a political
victory. In 2015, the company was feuding with New York City Mayor Bill
de Blasio over his effort to limit the number of new ride-hail vehicles
on the road. To marshal its user base to oppose the mayor, Uber added a
“DE BLASIO” option that illustrated how ride requests could vanish and
vehicles could slow to a crawl if the mayor’s proposal was approved.

Other tech companies have embedded political messages in their products
before. In 2012, Google blacked out its logo on its search page in
protest against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act
(PIPA) that passed the House of Representatives.

“Different tech platforms have tried to engage consumers through their
tech in different ways,” Sundararajan said. “But Uber is probably among
the most sophisticated at using the app, and it was particularly
important in this case, given that it was a ballot initiative.”

Jobs with Justice’s Smiley argues for stricter laws around companies
using apps to push political messages. “They have to create separate
political PACs to be able to talk to consumers or workers,” she said,
“and build those lists based on that premise, not based on the need to
fulfill a service.”

Uber’s messages to riders and drivers are not considered political
advertisements, though the Yes on 22 campaign still included them in a
disclosure statement as a non-monetary contribution, a spokesperson for
the company said. “Uber’s app shared the voice of tens of thousands of
drivers, 72 percent of whom support Prop 22, with millions of riders in
California and keeping them informed of the stakes on this issue,” the
spokesperson said in a statement. “We have previously shared videos from
drivers with riders and this week MADD’s endorsement of prop 22 because
of ridesharing’s impact on reducing drunk driving.”

A Lyft spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It’s unclear whether states will step in to restrict these types of
mass-messaging campaigns. In California, app notifications appeared to
be fair game. In a statement to the LA Times, the state’s Fair Political
Practices Commission said political advertising only needs proper
disclosure to let the public know who’s paying for it to be in
compliance with the law.

The pro-Prop 22 notifications on Uber’s app included a small line of
gray print reading “paid for by Uber.”

Attachment: OpenPGP_0x0BBB5B950C9FF2AC.asc
Description: application/pgp-keys

Attachment: OpenPGP_signature
Description: OpenPGP digital signature

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime>  is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org
#  @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: