California’s Prop. 22
Hello there again readers, and welcome back to Coffee Break Liberty, a blog where I tackle books, news, and many other things under the sun where liberty is a guiding principle. If this is your first time here I would like to extend a special warm welcome to you and hope you enjoy yourself while here.
In a follow up to the most recent post here I wanted to shortly discuss Prop. 22 on the ballot this year in California. To start I will say that I support Prop. 22 but I also believe it doesn’t address the underlying issue, that will be discussed later in the post.
Prop. 22 is a ballot measure supported by Lyft and Uber and essentially gives those companies, among a few others, an exemption from AB5, the law that Uber and Lyft have been fighting for some time that will increase regulation upon them so much they have threatened to leave California. A stay in an appeal has halted the implementation of the law and the possible move for now. If the stay expires before the vote on Nov. 3rd has yet to be seen. That said I want to discuss the proposition more.
If you listen to the detractors they will tell you that prop. 22 just gives these firms a free space to operate essentially outside of the law allowing the firms to classify their workers as outside of the regulations. What these detractors won’t tell you is that prop. 22 also requires the firms to pay certain benefits at a tiered level based upon how much the driver works. Where in contrast AB5 requires the firms to classify all employees the same and thus requiring the firms to pay large amounts of benefits for workers that just might simply not work that much as others. A break down of these tiers can be found here. Those that don’t support this proposition don’t see the huge step forward that Uber and Lyft are even trying to take. It’s a way for the new gig economy to fall into the current marriage between state regulation and employment. Applying the old laws that were written decades ago before the gig economy arose is just not feasible.
Now though onto my issue with prop. 22 and the whole idea that the government is regulating firms as to not only what they classify their employees as but also what benefits that must be awarded to said employees. In a truly free society, the agreement between an employer and employee would be just between those two parties. For example, there might be some employees willing to give up certain benefits in a trade-off for more pay or increased benefits elsewhere. When the state gets involved with regulating what kind of benefits a firm must provide and how much the firm must provide, it leaves the employee with little to no option to negotiate. These laws and regulations take away the freedom of the employee and employer all because a few elected officials feel they know what’s best for the 40 million people in California. The ruling class has once again lost touch with the people and have taken it upon themselves to no longer serve the people but regulate and tax them more and more.
We libertarians know better and must be better. It’s no secret that getting Libertarians elected is difficult but it is upon us to change the conversation back towards liberty and away from authoritarianism.
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Keep that coffee warm for us
LWS
