On occasion, I have driven both Lyft and Uber. It's like any other job: if you put the time and the effort in, you get something out of it. I have been a supporter of A.B. 5 all along. I still support the law. I find Uber and Postmates' opposition to the law a prime example of amoral capitalism. I worked for Postmates one evening: their driver application is designed to confuse and startle drivers into accepting deliveries. All three companies take much more than half of either of the mark up to food delivered or one fare. None give a driver clear terms on what the break down of what payment would be for any offer of a fare or delivery before a driver can choose to accept or reject the work. All must have agents in Sacramento, there is no way that they could have missed the author announcing the legislation on social media; yet none of them tried to negotiate a law that they could work with.
Currently, the law is a work in progress. Omitting a challenge by plebiscite, I suspect that there will be plenty of tweaks to it at least throughout the current legislative session.
The law passed last autumn. I have heard from freelance journalists and writers, they have lost work because of this. The stories are real, but still, they are anecdotes. I ask for facts about the results of the legislation; I got silence instead:
The problem that anyone who opposes A.B.5 has is that few lack the capacity to not end up in the same pot with the neo-fascist ideologues who attack the bill's author because of their bigotry. There are a lot of people on social media who attack anything that Gonzalez does, from anything substantial to the most trivial. Those who do have good faith arguments against A.B. 5 have chosen to remain silent rather than be cast alongside those who blurt with no respect for themself or others (sic). Then I engage with people who are as rational about the legislation as those who oppose vaccinating children. As you can see, it didn't go well. These graduates from the Rupert Murdoch School of Civil Discourse aren't helping to fix A.B. 5 - they are more interested in burning it or Lorena Gonzalez or liberal governance down. That obscures the genuine flaws of the dominant half of the Partisan Duopoly in California.
When there are meaningful statistics about the effects that A.B. 5 has had on gig workers or independent contractors, Californians can have a meaningful discussion about the law. Only if that data makes it above the din made by ideologues and those who muddy up civil discourse, California will know if the law works for them.
