Or maybe Uber et al outspending their opponents on political advertising by hundreds of millions of dollars had something to do with it? Not to mention constant advertising for free in their apps. They had the “no on prop 22” people hopelessly outgunned.
Even the idea that Uber drivers themselves wanted to keep their contractor status is questionable given that they collected those statistics via polls in the driver app. There is/was legitimate concern that Uber et al would collect that info and retaliate. There is no recourse for this on the workers’ behalf because they don’t have a union! This is a TEXTBOOK example of why gig workers need to be given the right to collectively bargain. Now, thanks to prop 22, overturning its provisions needs a 7/8 majority in the state legislature. Aka, not gonna happen, and that’s by the design of some really cynical lawyers.
More generally, the prop 22 campaign is an indictment of the referendum process, and how easily it can be abused in the absence of sensible campaign finance laws.
Your assumption seems to be that the side that spends more money wins - the prop 16 vote, with the YES side spending 20 million and the NO side spending just 1.5 million would seem to refute that idea.
Is it possible that maybe the voters actually have their own opinions regarding these ballot propositions? So maybe Californian voters think that drivers should have the right to decide for themselves whether to work with Uber or not?
Yes on 22 spent nearly $300 million on the campaign, along with utilizing their established network of apps to tell CA residents to vote yes on 22. The comparison isn't at all equivalent. Uber et al used their vast resources to essentially purchase a law and it's astounding to me that anyone would defend them for it.
The biggest thing you're ignoring is that Prop 22 brings real, tangible benefits to workers compared to what they have today. It has companies pay I believe 41% of their healthcare costs, whereas previously this was 0%. And it includes the 120% of minimum wage provision, on top of vehicle maintenance costs. This is real money that real drivers and couriers will be "topped up" in certain cases, that they simply weren't being paid before.
The choices were 1. the previous system where drivers were purely contractors, 2. the AB5 world where the vast majority of them can't work at all anymore but the ones that remain are full-time employees, without the flexibility that attracted many of them to this work in the first place as opposed to, say, getting a job at a traditional taxi company, or 3. a compromise where the work stays fundamentally the same but pays more in many cases.
Most of the people I saw opposing prop 22, which I'm guessing includes the above commenter, and certainly included the legislator behind AB5, were just bystanders who viewed it as yet another a philosophical showdown of unionized full-time work vs anything goes exploitation. Even though that framework is a poor fit for the details of this particular situation.
The people with skin in the game saw it differently, the details actually mattered to them and they voted accordingly.
> overturning its provisions needs a 7/8 majority in the state legislature.
Given that prop 22 overturns a law that had recently been passed by the current sitting legislature, there wouldn't have been any point to doing it if it could just be immediately repealed by the same people. Prop 22 can be still be overturned with just a >50% vote by a future ballot proposition.
> the AB5 world where the vast majority of them can't work at all anymore but the ones that remain are full-time employee
Why do people keep lying that AB5 had a requirement for people to be full-time employees? I know in many office-based work environments, there is a strong preference for all regular (non-contract) employees to be full-time employees, but that’s not true in lots of industries, and there is nothing in AB5 that requires people working in conditions which it defines as employees rather than contractors to be full-time.
It's really not just a norm that office workers assume most employees will be full-time. Many aspects of labor law are set up with the assumption that full-time is the normal state of affairs and part-time work is for exceptional or temporary situations. And legally many benefits are tied to full-time status. If you are part-time and get laid off you might not be able to collect unemployment, depending how few hours you were working. Under the ACA companies only need to offer healthcare options to full-time employees.
The bigger point though is there would still be major limitations on flexibility even if Uber/Lyft was able to offer every driver the option of full or part-time. They still wouldn't be able to set their own hours, only work a few weeks here and there with no predictable schedule, sign up and start working immediately with minimal overhead, etc.
Every analysis ever has basically concluded that money in politics only matters up until the point of name recognition. Once voters know about both sides of an issue, you actually have to convince them. That's why money is really only interesting for obscure offices (like judges)
FWIW, I've asked a number of Uber drivers how they felt about Prop 22 and they were all overwhelmingly enthusiastic about it. On the day that it passed, one was so excited he was telling me about the big bottle of vodka he was going to drink to celebrate. He was particularly thrilled that he was now going to get health benefits while keeping his contractor status.
I mean, it's a small sample of course. But the effect size was large.
Even the idea that Uber drivers themselves wanted to keep their contractor status is questionable given that they collected those statistics via polls in the driver app. There is/was legitimate concern that Uber et al would collect that info and retaliate. There is no recourse for this on the workers’ behalf because they don’t have a union! This is a TEXTBOOK example of why gig workers need to be given the right to collectively bargain. Now, thanks to prop 22, overturning its provisions needs a 7/8 majority in the state legislature. Aka, not gonna happen, and that’s by the design of some really cynical lawyers.
More generally, the prop 22 campaign is an indictment of the referendum process, and how easily it can be abused in the absence of sensible campaign finance laws.