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"content": "\u003cp>Last summer, Imelda Arroyo and a co-worker at an Oakland fast food restaurant filed a complaint with the California agency in charge of enforcing health and safety regulations in the workplace. Colleagues had been diagnosed with COVID-19, but their boss hadn’t notified staff and had failed to ensure all employees and customers wore face masks, Arroyo said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I felt like they were putting us and customers at too great of a risk,” she said, in Spanish. “I was afraid. I knew that at any moment I could get sick at work, and get my family sick.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The mother of three worried about bringing the coronavirus home to her kids and a diabetic sister with a higher risk of severe illness. Arroyo wanted state inspectors from Cal/OSHA to come investigate quickly and make her workplace safer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the months that followed, her employers at the restaurant still failed to follow state \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/dosh_publications/COVIDOnePageFS.pdf\">rules\u003c/a> to prevent exposure to the virus, and more co-workers got infected, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Imelda Arroyo, Oakland fast food worker\"]‘I was asking for protection. But they didn’t listen to me, and they took too long.’[/pullquote]“I was asking for protection,” Arroyo said. She submitted her complaint to Cal/OSHA in June 2020 after trying unsuccessfully to get her manager to address the concerns. “But they didn’t listen to me, and they took too long.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Arroyo finally heard back from Cal/OSHA nine months later, on Feb. 22, 2021, officials said their inspection had found no violations at the restaurant. Yet no Cal/OSHA inspector had ever interviewed her, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, Cal/OSHA, more formally known as the Division of Occupational Safety and Health, has been understaffed. But vacancies in the ranks of field inspectors, who conduct investigations, only worsened during the pandemic, crippling the agency’s ability to protect millions of workers who faced new risks from COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, as the head of Cal/OSHA and the state’s labor secretary are in line for top positions in the Biden administration, the lack of enforcement in California is facing new scrutiny.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Enforcement of health and safety regulations has been minimal to non-existent due to the lack of occupational health inspectors,” staffers of a California Senate committee wrote in a February 2021 \u003ca href=\"https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20792875/02252021_sub-5-agenda-final.pdf\">report on Cal/OSHA\u003c/a>. “As a result, workers in California continue to be exposed to COVID-related and other health hazards, and sustain serious illnesses and injuries, including death.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government has also identified deficiencies. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has long criticized low staffing levels at Cal/OSHA which have resulted in delays in issuing citations for violations, according to the same report by the California Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As COVID-19 cases, and deaths, spiked across the state last fall and winter, Cal/OSHA received thousands of worker complaints related to the virus. Yet the vacancy rate for field inspectors doubled to 26% as of late February, compared to 13% two years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Garrett Brown, former Cal/OSHA field inspector\"]‘It’s a very sad situation. It has never been this bad.’[/pullquote]In recent months, the agency has hired some new inspectors, but others have left, and 52 positions — 22% of the total — remained vacant statewide as of April 30, according to officials with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees Cal/OSHA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a very sad situation. It has never been this bad,” said Garrett Brown, a former field inspector who worked for more than two decades at Cal/OSHA, and who has been \u003ca href=\"https://insidecalosha.org/staffing/\">tracking\u003c/a> low staffing levels at the agency since the 1990s. “And it has just a tremendously adverse, harmful impact on the health, safety and rights of workers in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the pandemic began, Cal/OSHA has received 13,000 complaints related to COVID-19, out of about 18,500 complaints overall. The agency conducted on-site, workplace inspections in 18% of the coronavirus cases, while responding to the rest with letters requiring employers to address safety and health concerns. As of May 20, the agency had issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/COVID19citations.html\">citations\u003c/a> for 550 violations, assessing $5.1 million in proposed penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokeswoman with the Department of Industrial Relations said both agencies “have been working hard” to find qualified candidates for field inspector positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past several months, we have conducted a nationwide recruitment campaign in order to fill industrial hygienist and safety engineer positions,” DIR spokeswoman Erika Monterroza said, in a statement. “Cal/OSHA’s goal is to fill all enforcement positions as quickly as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for most of the last two years, the hiring process has been slower than normal, in part because the Department of Industrial Relations lost its authority to make hires directly due to a nepotism \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Major-California-labor-official-accused-of-13728257.php\">scandal\u003c/a> involving former director Christine Baker, who retired in 2018. From April 2019 to March 2021, DIR required pre-approval from the California Human Resources Department to hire staffers, Monterroza said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Related Coverage' tag='calosha']Brown, the former Cal/OSHA inspector, said the dysfunction in hiring dates back many years. He faulted the current agency director, Doug Parker, and especially state Labor Secretary Julie Su, who previously served as state \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/\">labor commissioner\u003c/a>, for not doing more to solve it. Both officials could soon leave their positions, Parker to head federal OSHA and Su to become deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very disappointing, is all I can say,” said Brown. “Julie Su had quite a successful record of protecting worker rights as labor commissioner, but as labor secretary, she presided over the hollowing out of Cal/OSHA.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through her special assistant, Colton Stadtmiller, Su declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, who heads the state Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment, was less critical of Su and Parker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think this falls necessarily with one individual including the department heads, I think this is something that has been long-standing,” said Kalra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalra said the pandemic has made hiring a challenge for all sorts of employers, and it’s difficult to recruit qualified personnel to inspector positions. But he is hopeful that Cal/OSHA can begin to do a better job of enforcing safety and health regulations, because worker protection is getting fresh attention from the governor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom has \u003ca href=\"https://esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/2122/FY2122_ORG7350_BCP4475.pdf\">proposed\u003c/a> to increase funding for the agency to create 70 new positions, including 33 inspectors, with potentially more in coming years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a great sign,” Kalra said. “If that’s the governor’s intention…I think it gives us momentum to fill these positions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Cal/OSHA staffs up, he said, it should hire inspectors who speak different languages, because many of the state’s nearly 6 million frontline workers are immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government has also identified deficiencies. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has long criticized low staffing levels at Cal/OSHA which have resulted in delays in issuing citations for violations, according to the same report by the California Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As COVID-19 cases, and deaths, spiked across the state last fall and winter, Cal/OSHA received thousands of worker complaints related to the virus. Yet the vacancy rate for field inspectors doubled to 26% as of late February, compared to 13% two years earlier.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘It’s a very sad situation. It has never been this bad.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In recent months, the agency has hired some new inspectors, but others have left, and 52 positions — 22% of the total — remained vacant statewide as of April 30, according to officials with the Department of Industrial Relations, which oversees Cal/OSHA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a very sad situation. It has never been this bad,” said Garrett Brown, a former field inspector who worked for more than two decades at Cal/OSHA, and who has been \u003ca href=\"https://insidecalosha.org/staffing/\">tracking\u003c/a> low staffing levels at the agency since the 1990s. “And it has just a tremendously adverse, harmful impact on the health, safety and rights of workers in California.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the pandemic began, Cal/OSHA has received 13,000 complaints related to COVID-19, out of about 18,500 complaints overall. The agency conducted on-site, workplace inspections in 18% of the coronavirus cases, while responding to the rest with letters requiring employers to address safety and health concerns. As of May 20, the agency had issued \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/COVID19citations.html\">citations\u003c/a> for 550 violations, assessing $5.1 million in proposed penalties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokeswoman with the Department of Industrial Relations said both agencies “have been working hard” to find qualified candidates for field inspector positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Over the past several months, we have conducted a nationwide recruitment campaign in order to fill industrial hygienist and safety engineer positions,” DIR spokeswoman Erika Monterroza said, in a statement. “Cal/OSHA’s goal is to fill all enforcement positions as quickly as possible.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But for most of the last two years, the hiring process has been slower than normal, in part because the Department of Industrial Relations lost its authority to make hires directly due to a nepotism \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/Major-California-labor-official-accused-of-13728257.php\">scandal\u003c/a> involving former director Christine Baker, who retired in 2018. From April 2019 to March 2021, DIR required pre-approval from the California Human Resources Department to hire staffers, Monterroza said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Brown, the former Cal/OSHA inspector, said the dysfunction in hiring dates back many years. He faulted the current agency director, Doug Parker, and especially state Labor Secretary Julie Su, who previously served as state \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/\">labor commissioner\u003c/a>, for not doing more to solve it. Both officials could soon leave their positions, Parker to head federal OSHA and Su to become deputy secretary at the U.S. Department of Labor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very disappointing, is all I can say,” said Brown. “Julie Su had quite a successful record of protecting worker rights as labor commissioner, but as labor secretary, she presided over the hollowing out of Cal/OSHA.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Through her special assistant, Colton Stadtmiller, Su declined to comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Assemblymember Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, who heads the state Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment, was less critical of Su and Parker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I don’t think this falls necessarily with one individual including the department heads, I think this is something that has been long-standing,” said Kalra.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kalra said the pandemic has made hiring a challenge for all sorts of employers, and it’s difficult to recruit qualified personnel to inspector positions. But he is hopeful that Cal/OSHA can begin to do a better job of enforcing safety and health regulations, because worker protection is getting fresh attention from the governor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom has \u003ca href=\"https://esd.dof.ca.gov/Documents/bcp/2122/FY2122_ORG7350_BCP4475.pdf\">proposed\u003c/a> to increase funding for the agency to create 70 new positions, including 33 inspectors, with potentially more in coming years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That’s a great sign,” Kalra said. “If that’s the governor’s intention…I think it gives us momentum to fill these positions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Cal/OSHA staffs up, he said, it should hire inspectors who speak different languages, because many of the state’s nearly 6 million frontline workers are immigrants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>DoorDash is launching lower-priced delivery options for U.S. restaurants, responding to criticism that the commissions it charges are too high for the beleaguered industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company said Tuesday it will offer a new basic plan that will charge restaurants 15% per order for delivery, or around half the cost of previous plans. That plan will limit the delivery area and shift more delivery costs to customers — they might pay $4.99 instead of $2.99, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Restaurants can pay more — commissions of 25% or 30% — for other plans if they want a larger delivery area, more visibility in DoorDash’s app or lower customer delivery fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DoorDash said local restaurants and chains with less than 75 locations are eligible for the new rates. The company wouldn’t say how many of its partner restaurants meet that criteria. But DoorDash delivers from nearly 400,000 restaurants using a network of 1 million freelance drivers, or gig workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before the pandemic, DoorDash, Grubhub and other delivery companies had a rocky relationship with restaurants, who criticized their high fees, lack of transparency and sometimes spotty service. That relationship was further tested by the pandemic, which closed dining rooms, greatly expanded customer demand for delivery and forced many restaurants to shift to carryout and delivery to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sympathetic lawmakers temporarily capped delivery companies’ commission fees — generally at 15% — in dozens of cities and states during the pandemic in an effort to help restaurants. In those cities, DoorDash said, the new rates will go into place once those caps expire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But DoorDash insisted the caps weren’t the reason it changed its fees. Instead, the company said it was acting in response to restaurant owners who wanted more options. DoorDash Chief Operating Officer Christopher Payne said the company spent the last six months developing a plan that would help restaurants but still ensure drivers — and DoorDash itself — can make money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One size fits all really doesn’t work with restaurants,” Payne said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Payne said restaurants can change their plans depending on their needs at any given time. A new restaurant that wants to boost traffic and visibility might elect a plan with a higher commission fee, while an established restaurant that doesn’t rely much on delivery might choose a lower-cost plan. [aside tag=\"doordash, gig, gig-economy\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DoorDash said it’s also dropping its commission fee for pickup orders — which customers place through the DoorDash app but pick up themselves — to 6% from 15%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DoorDash rival Uber Eats has also been experimenting with lower-priced plans in recent months. A light plan — with a 5% commission fee — lets restaurants use their own drivers, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some restaurant owners remain wary. David Singh, who owns Mesa Pizza Co. in Santa Barbara, California, said he would welcome a plan with a 15% commission. But he is concerned there will be hidden fees attached.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singh partnered with Grubhub early in the pandemic but quickly found he was losing money on every order. Grubhub was not only charging him a 30% commission, but also a credit card processing fee, and customers were getting charged a raft of service fees on top of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Singh does his own delivery, but the liability is expensive, so he’d gladly hand that off if he could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fifteen percent I would do, as long as there are no hidden costs and they take care of my customers,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>DoorDash is launching lower-priced delivery options for U.S. restaurants, responding to criticism that the commissions it charges are too high for the beleaguered industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company said Tuesday it will offer a new basic plan that will charge restaurants 15% per order for delivery, or around half the cost of previous plans. That plan will limit the delivery area and shift more delivery costs to customers — they might pay $4.99 instead of $2.99, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Restaurants can pay more — commissions of 25% or 30% — for other plans if they want a larger delivery area, more visibility in DoorDash’s app or lower customer delivery fees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DoorDash said local restaurants and chains with less than 75 locations are eligible for the new rates. The company wouldn’t say how many of its partner restaurants meet that criteria. But DoorDash delivers from nearly 400,000 restaurants using a network of 1 million freelance drivers, or gig workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even before the pandemic, DoorDash, Grubhub and other delivery companies had a rocky relationship with restaurants, who criticized their high fees, lack of transparency and sometimes spotty service. That relationship was further tested by the pandemic, which closed dining rooms, greatly expanded customer demand for delivery and forced many restaurants to shift to carryout and delivery to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sympathetic lawmakers temporarily capped delivery companies’ commission fees — generally at 15% — in dozens of cities and states during the pandemic in an effort to help restaurants. In those cities, DoorDash said, the new rates will go into place once those caps expire.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But DoorDash insisted the caps weren’t the reason it changed its fees. Instead, the company said it was acting in response to restaurant owners who wanted more options. DoorDash Chief Operating Officer Christopher Payne said the company spent the last six months developing a plan that would help restaurants but still ensure drivers — and DoorDash itself — can make money.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One size fits all really doesn’t work with restaurants,” Payne said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Payne said restaurants can change their plans depending on their needs at any given time. A new restaurant that wants to boost traffic and visibility might elect a plan with a higher commission fee, while an established restaurant that doesn’t rely much on delivery might choose a lower-cost plan. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DoorDash said it’s also dropping its commission fee for pickup orders — which customers place through the DoorDash app but pick up themselves — to 6% from 15%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>DoorDash rival Uber Eats has also been experimenting with lower-priced plans in recent months. A light plan — with a 5% commission fee — lets restaurants use their own drivers, for example.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some restaurant owners remain wary. David Singh, who owns Mesa Pizza Co. in Santa Barbara, California, said he would welcome a plan with a 15% commission. But he is concerned there will be hidden fees attached.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Singh partnered with Grubhub early in the pandemic but quickly found he was losing money on every order. Grubhub was not only charging him a 30% commission, but also a credit card processing fee, and customers were getting charged a raft of service fees on top of that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Singh does his own delivery, but the liability is expensive, so he’d gladly hand that off if he could.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fifteen percent I would do, as long as there are no hidden costs and they take care of my customers,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "low-wage-workers-lack-covid-protections-fear-retaliation-california-survey-shows",
"title": "Low-Wage Workers Lack COVID Protections, Fear Retaliation, California Survey Shows",
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"headTitle": "Low-Wage Workers Lack COVID Protections, Fear Retaliation, California Survey Shows | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Front-line workers in the Bay Area and other parts of California say their bosses often fail to inform them of their rights during the pandemic, and sometimes even retaliate when they ask for COVID-19 protections, according to a new survey of hundreds of workers in the restaurant, home health care, janitorial and other industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.advancingjustice-alc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ALC-Workers-Rights-COVID-Report-202103-R7_digital.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a>, which was published Wednesday, polled more than 630 mostly low-wage workers as coronavirus cases spiked last fall. It found a troubling lack of workplace protections for reducing the spread of COVID-19, with many employees worried they were putting their lives at risk to earn a paycheck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About two-thirds of the survey’s respondents were concentrated in the Bay Area, and included many immigrants and people of color. Many feared contracting the virus at work and infecting others at home, as well as not being able to support their families if they got sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, employers \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/ETS.html#:~:text=California%20recently%20approved%20Cal%2FOSHA,OSHA's%20Aerosol%20Transmissible%20Diseases%20standard.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">must\u003c/a> provide health and safety information and training, and let workers know of coronavirus-related benefits available to them, such as paid sick leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But more than half of the surveyed workers said their employer did not inform them what to do if they had COVID-19 symptoms or exposure. And three in five surveyed said they weren’t informed about their right to use paid sick leave for COVID-19, according to the report titled “Few Options, Many Risks.” [pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Winnie Kao, attorney with the Asian Law Caucus\"]‘Workers really feel that they’re risking their livelihood to push back in any way, and that if you speak up either about your symptoms or about lack of protections, you’re potentially losing your job.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results are troubling for efforts to contain the virus, since one in three respondents felt uncomfortable reporting coronavirus symptoms to their bosses, said Winnie Kao, an attorney with San Francisco’s Asian Law Caucus and one of the authors of the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There might be protections out there on paper, but many folks don’t know about them,” said Kao, who leads her organization’s workers rights project. “Workers really feel that they’re risking their livelihood to push back in any way, and that if you speak up either about your symptoms or about lack of protections, you’re potentially losing your job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kao said many workers are not speaking up about COVID-19 concerns out of fear of retaliation or doubt that their employer will address the problem. But even worse, dozens of workers who did ask for COVID-19 protections, such as masks or paid leave, reported retaliation from their employers, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11870819\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11870819\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/View20recent20photos-800x919.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"919\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/View20recent20photos-800x919.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/View20recent20photos-160x184.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/View20recent20photos.jpeg 828w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lorena Velazquez, a mother of two sons, says her employer retaliated by cutting her hours after she took time off to get her COVID-19 vaccine and recover from side effects. \u003ccite>(Fight for $15 campaign)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The survey was disseminated through nonprofit groups serving immigrants and low-wage workers, and about 40% of respondents identified as Asian, with another 40% Latinos. The vast majority of participants responded to the survey in Chinese or Spanish, suggesting they were immigrants, said Kao.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lower-income communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by the virus. For example, since the beginning of the pandemic, 10,400 working-age Latinos in California have died from COVID-19, four times the number of white people in the same age group, according to California Department of Public Health figures. People who work outside the home face a higher risk of exposure to the virus, say public health experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But basic prevention measures were not available to many of the workers surveyed, with 33% of all respondents — including more than half of restaurant workers — saying they could not physically distance most of the time at work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employers in California are responsible for providing masks or reimbursing employees who buy their own, but 12% of respondents said they did not receive face coverings or protective equipment from their bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another troubling finding of the report: nearly one in five workers reported being paid less than the state’s minimum wage. The report authors say that’s often a signal of other violations in the workplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokeswoman for the California Department of Industrial Relations said the agency’s enforcement divisions have been working hard to educate employers about their responsibilities and to investigate workplace complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the beginning of the pandemic, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has issued more than $4.6 million in citations for COVID-related health and safety violations, said Erika Monterroza, with the Department of Industrial Relations. She added that the Labor Commissioner’s Office is investigating more than 1,200 wage and retaliation complaints connected to the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unsafe working conditions, wage theft and employer retaliation are long-standing problems for the lowest paid workers in the state. But the pandemic has brought a new urgency to addressing these abuses, and fixing them will require more funding, staffing and attention at the government agencies that enforce labor laws, said Alejandra Domenzain, a co-author of the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"large\" align=\"center\" citation=\"Alejandra Domenzain, program coordinator, Labor Occupational Health Program, UC Berkeley\"]‘As long as there is no vigorous enforcement of labor laws, employers will continue to violate workers’ rights.[/pullquote]\u003cbr>\n“As long as there is no vigorous enforcement of labor laws, employers will continue to violate workers’ rights,” said Domenzain, a program coordinator at the Labor Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley. “If an employer knows that there will be absolutely no accountability, then there’s very little incentive for a lot of these low-wage employers to comply with the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, workers \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/covid/paid-sick-leave.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">are entitled\u003c/a> to up to 80 hours of paid sick leave (depending on the size of their employer) if they have coronavirus symptoms, must care for a relative with COVID-19 or have vaccine-related side effects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when Lorena Velazquez took time off to get her vaccine on April 6 and then recover from an ensuing fever and arm pain, she said her employer at a McDonald’s in Oakland retaliated by cutting her hours in half.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to work four days per week regularly, but then they only gave me two days,” said Velazquez, 45, in Spanish. “Now I’m worried about paying my bills and rent.” [aside tag=\"workers-rights, low-wage\" label=\"More Related Stories\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the help of worker advocates, Velazquez filed a complaint about the alleged retaliation with the Labor Commissioner’s Office this week. Other workers at the same McDonald’s also filed complaints with Cal/OSHA, alleging their employer failed to notify them of potential exposure to co-workers confirmed with COVID-19, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/AB6852020FAQs.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as required\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The restaurant’s manager was not available to respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, Velazquez, who has two young sons to support, rallied with other fast food workers outside the McDonald’s on E. 12th St. in Oakland in support of a state bill that aims to improve conditions for fast food workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB257\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Assembly Bill 257\u003c/a>, by Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, would also make fast food franchisors liable for violations of employment, safety and other laws by their franchisees.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Resources:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Additional information on reporting a labor violation can be found \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/DLSE/Know_Your_Rights.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a> (available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Report a labor law violation \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/HowToReportViolationtoBOFE.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>How to file a retaliation/discrimination complaint can be found \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/HowToFileRetaliationComplaint.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Front-line workers in the Bay Area and other parts of California say their bosses often fail to inform them of their rights during the pandemic, and sometimes even retaliate when they ask for COVID-19 protections, according to a new survey of hundreds of workers in the restaurant, home health care, janitorial and other industries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.advancingjustice-alc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/ALC-Workers-Rights-COVID-Report-202103-R7_digital.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">report\u003c/a>, which was published Wednesday, polled more than 630 mostly low-wage workers as coronavirus cases spiked last fall. It found a troubling lack of workplace protections for reducing the spread of COVID-19, with many employees worried they were putting their lives at risk to earn a paycheck.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About two-thirds of the survey’s respondents were concentrated in the Bay Area, and included many immigrants and people of color. Many feared contracting the virus at work and infecting others at home, as well as not being able to support their families if they got sick.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, employers \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/ETS.html#:~:text=California%20recently%20approved%20Cal%2FOSHA,OSHA's%20Aerosol%20Transmissible%20Diseases%20standard.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">must\u003c/a> provide health and safety information and training, and let workers know of coronavirus-related benefits available to them, such as paid sick leave.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But more than half of the surveyed workers said their employer did not inform them what to do if they had COVID-19 symptoms or exposure. And three in five surveyed said they weren’t informed about their right to use paid sick leave for COVID-19, according to the report titled “Few Options, Many Risks.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘Workers really feel that they’re risking their livelihood to push back in any way, and that if you speak up either about your symptoms or about lack of protections, you’re potentially losing your job.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The results are troubling for efforts to contain the virus, since one in three respondents felt uncomfortable reporting coronavirus symptoms to their bosses, said Winnie Kao, an attorney with San Francisco’s Asian Law Caucus and one of the authors of the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There might be protections out there on paper, but many folks don’t know about them,” said Kao, who leads her organization’s workers rights project. “Workers really feel that they’re risking their livelihood to push back in any way, and that if you speak up either about your symptoms or about lack of protections, you’re potentially losing your job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kao said many workers are not speaking up about COVID-19 concerns out of fear of retaliation or doubt that their employer will address the problem. But even worse, dozens of workers who did ask for COVID-19 protections, such as masks or paid leave, reported retaliation from their employers, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11870819\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-11870819\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/View20recent20photos-800x919.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"919\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/View20recent20photos-800x919.jpeg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/View20recent20photos-160x184.jpeg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2021/04/View20recent20photos.jpeg 828w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lorena Velazquez, a mother of two sons, says her employer retaliated by cutting her hours after she took time off to get her COVID-19 vaccine and recover from side effects. \u003ccite>(Fight for $15 campaign)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The survey was disseminated through nonprofit groups serving immigrants and low-wage workers, and about 40% of respondents identified as Asian, with another 40% Latinos. The vast majority of participants responded to the survey in Chinese or Spanish, suggesting they were immigrants, said Kao.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lower-income communities of color have been disproportionately impacted by the virus. For example, since the beginning of the pandemic, 10,400 working-age Latinos in California have died from COVID-19, four times the number of white people in the same age group, according to California Department of Public Health figures. People who work outside the home face a higher risk of exposure to the virus, say public health experts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But basic prevention measures were not available to many of the workers surveyed, with 33% of all respondents — including more than half of restaurant workers — saying they could not physically distance most of the time at work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employers in California are responsible for providing masks or reimbursing employees who buy their own, but 12% of respondents said they did not receive face coverings or protective equipment from their bosses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Another troubling finding of the report: nearly one in five workers reported being paid less than the state’s minimum wage. The report authors say that’s often a signal of other violations in the workplace.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokeswoman for the California Department of Industrial Relations said the agency’s enforcement divisions have been working hard to educate employers about their responsibilities and to investigate workplace complaints.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since the beginning of the pandemic, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (Cal/OSHA) has issued more than $4.6 million in citations for COVID-related health and safety violations, said Erika Monterroza, with the Department of Industrial Relations. She added that the Labor Commissioner’s Office is investigating more than 1,200 wage and retaliation complaints connected to the coronavirus.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Unsafe working conditions, wage theft and employer retaliation are long-standing problems for the lowest paid workers in the state. But the pandemic has brought a new urgency to addressing these abuses, and fixing them will require more funding, staffing and attention at the government agencies that enforce labor laws, said Alejandra Domenzain, a co-author of the report.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cbr>\n“As long as there is no vigorous enforcement of labor laws, employers will continue to violate workers’ rights,” said Domenzain, a program coordinator at the Labor Occupational Health Program at UC Berkeley. “If an employer knows that there will be absolutely no accountability, then there’s very little incentive for a lot of these low-wage employers to comply with the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, workers \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/covid/paid-sick-leave.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">are entitled\u003c/a> to up to 80 hours of paid sick leave (depending on the size of their employer) if they have coronavirus symptoms, must care for a relative with COVID-19 or have vaccine-related side effects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But when Lorena Velazquez took time off to get her vaccine on April 6 and then recover from an ensuing fever and arm pain, she said her employer at a McDonald’s in Oakland retaliated by cutting her hours in half.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I used to work four days per week regularly, but then they only gave me two days,” said Velazquez, 45, in Spanish. “Now I’m worried about paying my bills and rent.” \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With the help of worker advocates, Velazquez filed a complaint about the alleged retaliation with the Labor Commissioner’s Office this week. Other workers at the same McDonald’s also filed complaints with Cal/OSHA, alleging their employer failed to notify them of potential exposure to co-workers confirmed with COVID-19, \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dosh/coronavirus/AB6852020FAQs.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">as required\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The restaurant’s manager was not available to respond to requests for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Tuesday, Velazquez, who has two young sons to support, rallied with other fast food workers outside the McDonald’s on E. 12th St. in Oakland in support of a state bill that aims to improve conditions for fast food workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB257\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Assembly Bill 257\u003c/a>, by Democratic Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego, would also make fast food franchisors liable for violations of employment, safety and other laws by their franchisees.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Resources:\u003c/h3>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>Additional information on reporting a labor violation can be found \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/DLSE/Know_Your_Rights.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a> (available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese).\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>Report a labor law violation \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/HowToReportViolationtoBOFE.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>How to file a retaliation/discrimination complaint can be found \u003ca href=\"https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/HowToFileRetaliationComplaint.htm\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>.\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "the-biggest-tech-unionization-effort-is-happening-at-the-new-york-times",
"title": "The Biggest Tech Unionization Effort Is Happening at the New York Times",
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"headTitle": "The Biggest Tech Unionization Effort Is Happening at the New York Times | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>Thirty years ago, The New York Times did not have a website. Now, the company employs more than 700 tech workers, almost half its number of journalists. On Tuesday, those tech workers \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/13/business/stock-market-today#new-york-times-tech-workers-form-a-union\">announced they want to form a union\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost half the Times is already unionized, including most of the journalists, along with more traditional newspaper technologists: the printers. Now, the tech workers want to join the journalists in their union, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nyguild.org/about-the-new-york-times\">The NewsGuild\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Times’ tech workers include everyone from software engineers and data scientists to designers and project managers. These are the people who develop the apps and website, make tools for journalists, analyze data about traffic, and just like the journalists, work around the clock when there is big news like an election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the latest in a series of unionizing efforts by both white collar tech workers and blue collar workers impacted by the internet and digital technology. If the Times workers are successful in their union bid, it will become the largest of any contemporary white collar tech worker organizing effort to be recognized by the National Labor Relations Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At KQED, we have been covering tech worker union efforts, but this story hits closer to home. My older brother is a programmer at the Times and part of the organizing effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I would obviously be partial when it comes to any negotiations with management, so I’m not reporting on any of that. Katie Robertson at The New York Times \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/13/business/stock-market-today#new-york-times-tech-workers-form-a-union\">is covering how the union came together and how this union bid is being received\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What is happening at the Times though is a major development in a bigger story I have been reporting on for years: the growing realization among tech workers that they don’t have as much say on the job as they’d wish, and how organizing could be a way to change that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The New York Times is a large media company, but like many remaining big newsrooms it’s also a growing tech company. Some of the tech workers do jobs specific to media, like making sure the story layouts transfer to print or helping journalists create visualizations for data. But there are teams of developers and engineers doing the same kind of work that happens at Google or Facebook: building apps, managing traffic and analyzing user data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke with tech workers at The New York Times about why they wanted to form a union and how they see themselves in relation to other workers in the economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Organizing to Make a Different Kind of Tech Company\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Senior software engineer Nozlee Samadzadeh helps build the internal site for Times journalists to compose and edit their stories. She got into tech after working as a writer and editor herself. Samadzadeh says it’s important for her to have a say in what she builds and how it is used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samadzadeh says, “Unionizing is the only way to introduce a democratic process in your workplace, to kind of get a seat at the table with people in charge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='More Labor Coverage' tag='labor']Like many of the tech workers at the Times, Samadzadeh says she’s at the company because of the mission. She doesn’t want to work at big tech companies or startups. “I just could not ever, I think, justify that for myself,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samadzadeh says she couldn’t be somewhere focusing primarily on profit instead of social good. She hopes a union will help workers at the Times advocate for the company to resist that influence from Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shay Culpepper is an engineer who makes dashboards to track metrics on the Times’ homepage. She feels the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really like going to work every day and not having to sit and contemplate the ethics of the tech I am building,” Culpepper says. “There are definitely ethical considerations, but I am not having cognitive dissonance about the things we are building.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the workers have firsthand experience of doing exactly that in Silicon Valley. Dylan Nugent is a senior software engineer at the Times. He works on tools to take the stories input by journalists and display them across all the Times’ platforms. Before that, he worked at startups in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of these companies were not very diverse, and did not have an emphasis on diversity and inclusivity,” Nugent says. “A lot of them had the mentality of like: ‘We pay you well so any form of mistreatment or unpaid overtime, well, you shouldn’t have to worry about it because you’re already compensated well.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nugent says tech workers, and especially white men like him, should organize so they can use their relative privilege to help others in tech, as well as those in industries where workers have less power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I have a more powerful voice, let me use it to amplify the concerns of the people who aren’t being listened to,” he says. “Let me use it to help build a democratic workplace.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Kathy Zhang, New York Times senior analytics manager\"]‘There is this myth of meritocracy that says, ‘If you can work really hard or if you gain these specialized skills, that will set you apart from everyone else and you’ll be able to reap these benefits that other people don’t have.”[/pullquote]Kathy Zhang is senior analytics manager on a team that measures traffic and other data for Times news products. She is excited to be part of a union that can push for diversity and equity in the workplace. She says tech workers need to realize they have something to gain from organizing just like any other worker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is this myth of meritocracy that says, ‘If you can work really hard or if you gain these specialized skills, that will set you apart from everyone else and you’ll be able to reap these benefits that other people don’t have,’ ” Zhang says. “But I don’t think of myself as apart from other people. I don’t think that, just because I can write SQL and I can put some dashboards together, that means I should think of myself as exceptional. I don’t make any decisions in front of the board at shareholders meetings, right? I work for a paycheck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of the tech workers I spoke with were drawn to the Times by the mission and journalism of the organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Allowing citizens around the world to be well-informed and to understand things, I think that sense of purpose is so beautiful,” Culpepper says. On top of that, she says the paper was doing incredible things digitally. She says she was obsessed with the cooking and sudoku apps before she started working there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My brother, Benjamin Harnett, used to read the paper cover to cover when he was a boy, and our mother had to politely ask for him to stop filling in the crossword before she got to it. He has been an engineer at the Times for nine years, disregarding the stream of recruitment emails from companies like Google and Facebook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The normal thing in the tech industry is to hop from company to company every two years,” he says. “You do a big project, get a promotion and then move on. You can’t build anything meaningful that way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samadzadeh sees the union as a way for workers to be more involved and committed to the company. She says, “Everyone at the Times cares so much. The ability to get a chance to be part of making the Times better is just so exciting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Tech Workers Are Workers\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The tech workers at the Times could get material advantages they currently don’t have by joining The NewsGuild: things like overtime, a pension and a say in their health care through union reps. None of that is typical in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guild organizer Marybeth Seitz-Brown says there is an interesting parallel between the tech workers of today and the journalists at The New York Times who first organized back in the 1930s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Intellectual workers, like journalists, were often identifying as professionals instead of workers that have things in common with the people they work with,” Seitz-Brown says. “In some ways, we are seeing the next wave of that same process that journalists went through.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While tech workers are relatively well paid compared to some other workers in the economy, they have similar concerns over pay and job protection as all workers. Over the decades they have faced the same kinds of attacks by management and owners that KQED detailed in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/howwegothere\">a three-hour documentary on the erosion of worker power\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There have been abrupt layoffs of tech workers during economic crises, with the pandemic being the latest example. Hundreds of workers at some companies were fired en masse, \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52091615\">sometimes over Zoom\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1990s, tech companies pioneered techniques to cut labor costs by outsourcing, contracting and temping workers, \u003ca href=\"https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-vizcaino-v-microsoft-corp\">all of which led to a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft\u003c/a>. Today \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11741371/two-tiered-caste-system-the-world-of-white-collar-contracting-in-silicon-valley\">there is a distinct two-tiered system in Silicon Valley\u003c/a> of full-time workers with benefits, and part timers and contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11741371 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/04/04182019_Google-qut-1020x697.jpg']There is a lot of misinformation about the wealth of tech workers. Big payouts can come from stock options, but that’s rare. Most tech workers are not at startups or high up at big tech companies. A majority rely on their wages, which have been relatively \u003ca href=\"https://www.computerworld.com/article/2493845/if-tech-is-so-important--why-are-it-wages-flat-.html\">stagnant for decades\u003c/a> along with everyone else’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>An Upswing in Organizing Despite Opposition\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Big tech companies have made organizing harder for tech workers than it is at media organizations like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, where some tech workers are already unionized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one, the big tech companies are much larger than a media organization like the Times. On top of that, companies like Google and Facebook have divided their workers through contracting and outsourcing all over the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech giants are also actively fighting unionization efforts at the top and bottom of their workforces. Just last week, Amazon \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/09/982139494/its-a-no-amazon-warehouse-workers-vote-against-unionizing-in-historic-election\">defeated efforts to unionize workers\u003c/a> at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Amazon stopped the union for blue collar workers, union efforts are growing among white collar tech workers. Over 800 workers at Alphabet, Google’s parent company, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11853806/its-not-easy-to-unionize-at-tech-companies-but-google-employees-are-doing-it\">are organizing\u003c/a>. It’s a small fraction of the company’s approximately 250,000 workers – but just a few years ago you would have been hard pressed to find any tech worker in Silicon Valley \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11679302/in-a-direct-challenge-to-their-employers-tech-workers-begin-to-organize\">who was even talking about organizing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Ruth Milkman, City University of New York\"]‘If you look historically at labor movements, they don’t grow incrementally, they grow in spurts. Everyone is wondering at the moment, are we at the early stage at such a spurt?’[/pullquote]The organizing movement in tech has spread from less privileged workers upward. First, service workers at companies like Apple and Facebook joined unions like the Teamsters and SEIU. Uber and Lyft drivers and other gig workers formed groups like \u003ca href=\"https://www.drivers-united.org/\">Rideshare Drivers United\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://gigworkersrising.org/\">Gig Workers Rising\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White collar tech worker organizing has been spurred by conflicts with management, but also over issues like a lack of diversity and equity, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11714714/time-is-up-employee-unrest-grows-at-silicon-valley-companies\">and more political concerns about what their companies are building and how the products are being used\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech workers have formed organizations like the \u003ca href=\"https://techworkerscoalition.org/\">Tech Workers Coalition\u003c/a> and employees at companies like Google and Microsoft have spoken out publicly against contracts with the military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, a group of around 90 subcontracted workers at Google in Pittsburgh joined the United Steelworkers union. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11839817/how-a-scrappy-group-of-tech-workers-formed-one-of-the-only-unions-in-the-industry\">Smaller companies like Kickstarter\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/02/following-unionization-glitch-signs-collective-bargaining-agreement/\">Glitch\u003c/a> started their own unions. Alongside this organizing, a string of online media organizations \u003ca href=\"https://culturalworkersorganize.org/digital-media-organizing-timeline/\">like Quartz, Vox and Slate have unionized\u003c/a>. The bid for a union at The New York Times is by far the biggest effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you look historically at labor movements, they don’t grow incrementally, they grow in spurts,” says Ruth Milkman, a sociologist who teaches labor studies at the City University of New York. “Everyone is wondering at the moment, are we at the early stage at such a spurt?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Milkman says we’re seeing lots of more privileged, educated workers starting to organize, which bodes well for the labor movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Skilled workers, in manufacturing and construction have often been in the vanguard of organizing, not so much out of a sense of, you know, that they can help their coworkers, but partly because they have the leverage,” Milkman says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the future of more and more companies rests on their tech workers. Milkman says the core grievance of workers at The New York Times is simple — and the same as the factory workers of the past — they want more say on the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Thirty years ago, The New York Times did not have a website. Now, the company employs more than 700 tech workers, almost half its number of journalists. On Tuesday, those tech workers \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/13/business/stock-market-today#new-york-times-tech-workers-form-a-union\">announced they want to form a union\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Almost half the Times is already unionized, including most of the journalists, along with more traditional newspaper technologists: the printers. Now, the tech workers want to join the journalists in their union, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nyguild.org/about-the-new-york-times\">The NewsGuild\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Times’ tech workers include everyone from software engineers and data scientists to designers and project managers. These are the people who develop the apps and website, make tools for journalists, analyze data about traffic, and just like the journalists, work around the clock when there is big news like an election.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This is the latest in a series of unionizing efforts by both white collar tech workers and blue collar workers impacted by the internet and digital technology. If the Times workers are successful in their union bid, it will become the largest of any contemporary white collar tech worker organizing effort to be recognized by the National Labor Relations Board.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At KQED, we have been covering tech worker union efforts, but this story hits closer to home. My older brother is a programmer at the Times and part of the organizing effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I would obviously be partial when it comes to any negotiations with management, so I’m not reporting on any of that. Katie Robertson at The New York Times \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/04/13/business/stock-market-today#new-york-times-tech-workers-form-a-union\">is covering how the union came together and how this union bid is being received\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>What is happening at the Times though is a major development in a bigger story I have been reporting on for years: the growing realization among tech workers that they don’t have as much say on the job as they’d wish, and how organizing could be a way to change that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The New York Times is a large media company, but like many remaining big newsrooms it’s also a growing tech company. Some of the tech workers do jobs specific to media, like making sure the story layouts transfer to print or helping journalists create visualizations for data. But there are teams of developers and engineers doing the same kind of work that happens at Google or Facebook: building apps, managing traffic and analyzing user data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I spoke with tech workers at The New York Times about why they wanted to form a union and how they see themselves in relation to other workers in the economy.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Organizing to Make a Different Kind of Tech Company\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Senior software engineer Nozlee Samadzadeh helps build the internal site for Times journalists to compose and edit their stories. She got into tech after working as a writer and editor herself. Samadzadeh says it’s important for her to have a say in what she builds and how it is used.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samadzadeh says, “Unionizing is the only way to introduce a democratic process in your workplace, to kind of get a seat at the table with people in charge.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Like many of the tech workers at the Times, Samadzadeh says she’s at the company because of the mission. She doesn’t want to work at big tech companies or startups. “I just could not ever, I think, justify that for myself,” she says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samadzadeh says she couldn’t be somewhere focusing primarily on profit instead of social good. She hopes a union will help workers at the Times advocate for the company to resist that influence from Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shay Culpepper is an engineer who makes dashboards to track metrics on the Times’ homepage. She feels the same.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really like going to work every day and not having to sit and contemplate the ethics of the tech I am building,” Culpepper says. “There are definitely ethical considerations, but I am not having cognitive dissonance about the things we are building.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the workers have firsthand experience of doing exactly that in Silicon Valley. Dylan Nugent is a senior software engineer at the Times. He works on tools to take the stories input by journalists and display them across all the Times’ platforms. Before that, he worked at startups in the Bay Area.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A lot of these companies were not very diverse, and did not have an emphasis on diversity and inclusivity,” Nugent says. “A lot of them had the mentality of like: ‘We pay you well so any form of mistreatment or unpaid overtime, well, you shouldn’t have to worry about it because you’re already compensated well.’ ”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nugent says tech workers, and especially white men like him, should organize so they can use their relative privilege to help others in tech, as well as those in industries where workers have less power.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If I have a more powerful voice, let me use it to amplify the concerns of the people who aren’t being listened to,” he says. “Let me use it to help build a democratic workplace.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Kathy Zhang is senior analytics manager on a team that measures traffic and other data for Times news products. She is excited to be part of a union that can push for diversity and equity in the workplace. She says tech workers need to realize they have something to gain from organizing just like any other worker.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is this myth of meritocracy that says, ‘If you can work really hard or if you gain these specialized skills, that will set you apart from everyone else and you’ll be able to reap these benefits that other people don’t have,’ ” Zhang says. “But I don’t think of myself as apart from other people. I don’t think that, just because I can write SQL and I can put some dashboards together, that means I should think of myself as exceptional. I don’t make any decisions in front of the board at shareholders meetings, right? I work for a paycheck.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of the tech workers I spoke with were drawn to the Times by the mission and journalism of the organization.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Allowing citizens around the world to be well-informed and to understand things, I think that sense of purpose is so beautiful,” Culpepper says. On top of that, she says the paper was doing incredible things digitally. She says she was obsessed with the cooking and sudoku apps before she started working there.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>My brother, Benjamin Harnett, used to read the paper cover to cover when he was a boy, and our mother had to politely ask for him to stop filling in the crossword before she got to it. He has been an engineer at the Times for nine years, disregarding the stream of recruitment emails from companies like Google and Facebook.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The normal thing in the tech industry is to hop from company to company every two years,” he says. “You do a big project, get a promotion and then move on. You can’t build anything meaningful that way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Samadzadeh sees the union as a way for workers to be more involved and committed to the company. She says, “Everyone at the Times cares so much. The ability to get a chance to be part of making the Times better is just so exciting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Tech Workers Are Workers\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The tech workers at the Times could get material advantages they currently don’t have by joining The NewsGuild: things like overtime, a pension and a say in their health care through union reps. None of that is typical in Silicon Valley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Guild organizer Marybeth Seitz-Brown says there is an interesting parallel between the tech workers of today and the journalists at The New York Times who first organized back in the 1930s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Intellectual workers, like journalists, were often identifying as professionals instead of workers that have things in common with the people they work with,” Seitz-Brown says. “In some ways, we are seeing the next wave of that same process that journalists went through.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While tech workers are relatively well paid compared to some other workers in the economy, they have similar concerns over pay and job protection as all workers. Over the decades they have faced the same kinds of attacks by management and owners that KQED detailed in \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/howwegothere\">a three-hour documentary on the erosion of worker power\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There have been abrupt layoffs of tech workers during economic crises, with the pandemic being the latest example. Hundreds of workers at some companies were fired en masse, \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52091615\">sometimes over Zoom\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the 1990s, tech companies pioneered techniques to cut labor costs by outsourcing, contracting and temping workers, \u003ca href=\"https://www.lexisnexis.com/community/casebrief/p/casebrief-vizcaino-v-microsoft-corp\">all of which led to a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft\u003c/a>. Today \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11741371/two-tiered-caste-system-the-world-of-white-collar-contracting-in-silicon-valley\">there is a distinct two-tiered system in Silicon Valley\u003c/a> of full-time workers with benefits, and part timers and contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There is a lot of misinformation about the wealth of tech workers. Big payouts can come from stock options, but that’s rare. Most tech workers are not at startups or high up at big tech companies. A majority rely on their wages, which have been relatively \u003ca href=\"https://www.computerworld.com/article/2493845/if-tech-is-so-important--why-are-it-wages-flat-.html\">stagnant for decades\u003c/a> along with everyone else’s.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>An Upswing in Organizing Despite Opposition\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Big tech companies have made organizing harder for tech workers than it is at media organizations like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, where some tech workers are already unionized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For one, the big tech companies are much larger than a media organization like the Times. On top of that, companies like Google and Facebook have divided their workers through contracting and outsourcing all over the globe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech giants are also actively fighting unionization efforts at the top and bottom of their workforces. Just last week, Amazon \u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2021/04/09/982139494/its-a-no-amazon-warehouse-workers-vote-against-unionizing-in-historic-election\">defeated efforts to unionize workers\u003c/a> at its warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Amazon stopped the union for blue collar workers, union efforts are growing among white collar tech workers. Over 800 workers at Alphabet, Google’s parent company, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11853806/its-not-easy-to-unionize-at-tech-companies-but-google-employees-are-doing-it\">are organizing\u003c/a>. It’s a small fraction of the company’s approximately 250,000 workers – but just a few years ago you would have been hard pressed to find any tech worker in Silicon Valley \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11679302/in-a-direct-challenge-to-their-employers-tech-workers-begin-to-organize\">who was even talking about organizing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The organizing movement in tech has spread from less privileged workers upward. First, service workers at companies like Apple and Facebook joined unions like the Teamsters and SEIU. Uber and Lyft drivers and other gig workers formed groups like \u003ca href=\"https://www.drivers-united.org/\">Rideshare Drivers United\u003c/a>, and \u003ca href=\"https://gigworkersrising.org/\">Gig Workers Rising\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>White collar tech worker organizing has been spurred by conflicts with management, but also over issues like a lack of diversity and equity, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11714714/time-is-up-employee-unrest-grows-at-silicon-valley-companies\">and more political concerns about what their companies are building and how the products are being used\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tech workers have formed organizations like the \u003ca href=\"https://techworkerscoalition.org/\">Tech Workers Coalition\u003c/a> and employees at companies like Google and Microsoft have spoken out publicly against contracts with the military and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, a group of around 90 subcontracted workers at Google in Pittsburgh joined the United Steelworkers union. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11839817/how-a-scrappy-group-of-tech-workers-formed-one-of-the-only-unions-in-the-industry\">Smaller companies like Kickstarter\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/02/following-unionization-glitch-signs-collective-bargaining-agreement/\">Glitch\u003c/a> started their own unions. Alongside this organizing, a string of online media organizations \u003ca href=\"https://culturalworkersorganize.org/digital-media-organizing-timeline/\">like Quartz, Vox and Slate have unionized\u003c/a>. The bid for a union at The New York Times is by far the biggest effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you look historically at labor movements, they don’t grow incrementally, they grow in spurts,” says Ruth Milkman, a sociologist who teaches labor studies at the City University of New York. “Everyone is wondering at the moment, are we at the early stage at such a spurt?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Milkman says we’re seeing lots of more privileged, educated workers starting to organize, which bodes well for the labor movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Skilled workers, in manufacturing and construction have often been in the vanguard of organizing, not so much out of a sense of, you know, that they can help their coworkers, but partly because they have the leverage,” Milkman says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Today, the future of more and more companies rests on their tech workers. Milkman says the core grievance of workers at The New York Times is simple — and the same as the factory workers of the past — they want more say on the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>There was a day in early December when Maria Cruz thought she might not make it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One morning my chest was in so much pain, I began to cry because honestly I panicked,” she said, recalling the cough, body aches and shivers during the grueling weeks she spent with COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So when her employer, Monterey Mushrooms in Morgan Hill, offered its employees vaccines allotted by Santa Clara County, she drowned out anything negative she’d heard about the shots and signed up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The process was easy enough: During a Sunday shift in late February, she walked from her workstation to an outdoor vaccine line. The whole process took less than 30 minutes, including the 15 minutes she sat in observation after her shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has more than \u003ca href=\"https://farmworkerfamily.org/information\">half a million farmworkers\u003c/a> – and they appear to be eager to get vaccinated. Counties only recently started offering vaccinations to this hard-hit workforce, but agricultural workers are so far accepting the vaccine at high rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Diana Tellefson Torres, executive director, United Farm Workers Foundation\"]‘We want to make sure the process is accessible. Just having something on a website isn’t going to get farmworkers somewhere because there is limited digital literacy and that limitation has been a huge barrier.’[/pullquote]Large employers like Foster Farms, Pom Wonderful and Terranova Ranch reported about a 90% vaccination rate in recent, on-site worker vaccination clinics, according to the Fresno County Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A big part is seeing how much growers really want it,” said Irene de Barraicua with \u003ca href=\"http://www.liderescampesinas.org/\">Lideres Campesinas\u003c/a>, a nonprofit network of women farmworkers based in Oxnard. “Some (growers) weren’t crazy about getting workers tested or bringing doctors to the fields, but vaccines are different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom has visited farmworker vaccine events in the Central Valley, touting the state’s commitment to the workers who feed America and promising them more vaccines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But workplace vaccination events are still few and far between in California, so farmworkers face many obstacles getting the vaccine, advocates say. The clinics are sometimes only open to workers of certain companies, and they are reliant on how many doses a county sets aside for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>United Farm Workers Foundation Executive Director Diana Tellefson Torres said targeting farmworkers at their work sites is the best way to make the vaccine easy for them to get. But success will take more available doses, and also more coordination and ingenuity to ensure that vaccines are available where the workers are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to make sure the process is accessible. Just having something on a website isn’t going to get farmworkers somewhere because there is limited digital literacy and that limitation has been a huge barrier,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some counties like Riverside have sent mobile clinics to agricultural worksites. Tulare County has opened its large \u003ca href=\"https://www.internationalagricenter.com/\">International Agri-Center\u003c/a>, well known in its farming community, where growers can send their employees for vaccinations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmworkers, like other essential employees, can also get vaccinated at other distribution sites, like pharmacies, but that often requires taking time off work, navigating a county or pharmacy website or the My Turn online form and getting lucky finding an appointment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a nationwide United Farm Workers Foundation survey of 10,149 farmworkers – the vast majority of them in California – 73% said they would get the vaccine as soon as possible while only 5% said they would not. Twenty-two percent said they were neutral. That’s slightly more pro-vaccine than the 69% of all Americans who say they have been or will be vaccinated and the 30% who say they would not, according to a new \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/03/05/growing-share-of-americans-say-they-plan-to-get-a-covid-19-vaccine--or-already-have/\">Pew Research Center survey\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Higher Infection Rates\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>About \u003ca href=\"https://ag.purdue.edu/agecon/Pages/FoodandAgVulnerabilityIndex.aspx?_ga=2.152868540.4695762.1607534115-582371292.1607534115\">46,000\u003c/a> agricultural workers in California have been infected with COVID-19, according to estimates from Purdue University researchers. Their infection rates tend to run higher than the general population – 13% of farmworkers recruited for a study in the Salinas Valley tested positive for COVID-19 between July and November, compared to 5% of the general population, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/12/02/california-farmworkers-hit-hard-by-covid-19-study-finds/\">UC Berkeley study\u003c/a> published in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Cruz, Mauricio Chavez of Hollister got his COVID-19 shot at Monterey Mushrooms. Although he works at a different, neighboring mushroom farm, its workers were invited to the vaccine clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At work they told us this wasn’t mandatory, it was voluntary,” he said. But he didn’t think twice about it. “I haven’t seen my parents in a year, they’re 80 and 82 … that’s a year we don’t get back.” Because his parents were also recently immunized, “this opens up the opportunity for me to see them again soon,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11860883 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/02/SanJose_COVIDTesting-1038x576.jpg']Chavez said agricultural workers may be more inclined to get the vaccine because so many have either been infected or know someone who was. He has coworkers who have fallen ill, although not necessarily at work, but likely at home because they live in crowded housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have 10 or 15 people living in one house, and all you need is one person to get infected,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About four in 10 Californians who live with an agricultural or food processing worker live in an overcrowded home – defined as having more people than rooms, according to a CalMatters \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/08/guest-worker-covid-outbreak-california/\">analysis\u003c/a> of census data.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Rumors and Misinformation\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Despite some concerns about vaccine misinformation and hesitancy among farmworkers, if there is education and access, farmworkers will generally accept the vaccine, de Barraicua said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, rumors and misinformation are common. Cruz said she’s heard that the vaccine is a government ploy to track them, or an attempt to make people sick and reduce the population. Cruz brushes the rumors aside, but knows this type of gossip could discourage some of her peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other concerns are more technical. Some workers think they can’t be vaccinated because they don’t have health insurance, even though shots are free. According to a second UFW Foundation survey of nearly 15,000 farmworkers, 78% of respondents said they did not have health insurance, and 34% had medical conditions that put them at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Related Coverage' tag='farmworkers']There is also a fear about sharing any type of personal information because of their immigration status, de Barraicua said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she’s attended events where some farmworkers said they didn’t get any advanced notice about the vaccination events, giving them little time to ask questions and ease their doubts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organizations like the UFW Foundation and Lideres Campesinas have been working with health officials across the state to provide vaccine education to workers in the fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the worksite vaccination clinics are a partnership between a county and employers. Tulare County Supervisor Pete Vander Poel said he is concerned that switching to the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2021/02/california-new-covid-vaccine-system/\">new vaccine distribution system\u003c/a>, led by Blue Shield, could limit how many of these events counties can schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tulare County recently started receiving double the doses of previous weeks, increasing from 3,800 doses a week to 7,600 doses per week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s for all eligible residents. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And we have about 42,000 [agricultural] employees ready to be vaccinated,” Vander Poel said. “So that shows you the magnitude we’re dealing with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>There was a day in early December when Maria Cruz thought she might not make it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“One morning my chest was in so much pain, I began to cry because honestly I panicked,” she said, recalling the cough, body aches and shivers during the grueling weeks she spent with COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So when her employer, Monterey Mushrooms in Morgan Hill, offered its employees vaccines allotted by Santa Clara County, she drowned out anything negative she’d heard about the shots and signed up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The process was easy enough: During a Sunday shift in late February, she walked from her workstation to an outdoor vaccine line. The whole process took less than 30 minutes, including the 15 minutes she sat in observation after her shot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California has more than \u003ca href=\"https://farmworkerfamily.org/information\">half a million farmworkers\u003c/a> – and they appear to be eager to get vaccinated. Counties only recently started offering vaccinations to this hard-hit workforce, but agricultural workers are so far accepting the vaccine at high rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Large employers like Foster Farms, Pom Wonderful and Terranova Ranch reported about a 90% vaccination rate in recent, on-site worker vaccination clinics, according to the Fresno County Department of Public Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A big part is seeing how much growers really want it,” said Irene de Barraicua with \u003ca href=\"http://www.liderescampesinas.org/\">Lideres Campesinas\u003c/a>, a nonprofit network of women farmworkers based in Oxnard. “Some (growers) weren’t crazy about getting workers tested or bringing doctors to the fields, but vaccines are different.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom has visited farmworker vaccine events in the Central Valley, touting the state’s commitment to the workers who feed America and promising them more vaccines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But workplace vaccination events are still few and far between in California, so farmworkers face many obstacles getting the vaccine, advocates say. The clinics are sometimes only open to workers of certain companies, and they are reliant on how many doses a county sets aside for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>United Farm Workers Foundation Executive Director Diana Tellefson Torres said targeting farmworkers at their work sites is the best way to make the vaccine easy for them to get. But success will take more available doses, and also more coordination and ingenuity to ensure that vaccines are available where the workers are.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to make sure the process is accessible. Just having something on a website isn’t going to get farmworkers somewhere because there is limited digital literacy and that limitation has been a huge barrier,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some counties like Riverside have sent mobile clinics to agricultural worksites. Tulare County has opened its large \u003ca href=\"https://www.internationalagricenter.com/\">International Agri-Center\u003c/a>, well known in its farming community, where growers can send their employees for vaccinations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Farmworkers, like other essential employees, can also get vaccinated at other distribution sites, like pharmacies, but that often requires taking time off work, navigating a county or pharmacy website or the My Turn online form and getting lucky finding an appointment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a nationwide United Farm Workers Foundation survey of 10,149 farmworkers – the vast majority of them in California – 73% said they would get the vaccine as soon as possible while only 5% said they would not. Twenty-two percent said they were neutral. That’s slightly more pro-vaccine than the 69% of all Americans who say they have been or will be vaccinated and the 30% who say they would not, according to a new \u003ca href=\"https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/03/05/growing-share-of-americans-say-they-plan-to-get-a-covid-19-vaccine--or-already-have/\">Pew Research Center survey\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Higher Infection Rates\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>About \u003ca href=\"https://ag.purdue.edu/agecon/Pages/FoodandAgVulnerabilityIndex.aspx?_ga=2.152868540.4695762.1607534115-582371292.1607534115\">46,000\u003c/a> agricultural workers in California have been infected with COVID-19, according to estimates from Purdue University researchers. Their infection rates tend to run higher than the general population – 13% of farmworkers recruited for a study in the Salinas Valley tested positive for COVID-19 between July and November, compared to 5% of the general population, according to a \u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/12/02/california-farmworkers-hit-hard-by-covid-19-study-finds/\">UC Berkeley study\u003c/a> published in December.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Like Cruz, Mauricio Chavez of Hollister got his COVID-19 shot at Monterey Mushrooms. Although he works at a different, neighboring mushroom farm, its workers were invited to the vaccine clinic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“At work they told us this wasn’t mandatory, it was voluntary,” he said. But he didn’t think twice about it. “I haven’t seen my parents in a year, they’re 80 and 82 … that’s a year we don’t get back.” Because his parents were also recently immunized, “this opens up the opportunity for me to see them again soon,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Chavez said agricultural workers may be more inclined to get the vaccine because so many have either been infected or know someone who was. He has coworkers who have fallen ill, although not necessarily at work, but likely at home because they live in crowded housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You have 10 or 15 people living in one house, and all you need is one person to get infected,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About four in 10 Californians who live with an agricultural or food processing worker live in an overcrowded home – defined as having more people than rooms, according to a CalMatters \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2020/08/guest-worker-covid-outbreak-california/\">analysis\u003c/a> of census data.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Rumors and Misinformation\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Despite some concerns about vaccine misinformation and hesitancy among farmworkers, if there is education and access, farmworkers will generally accept the vaccine, de Barraicua said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, rumors and misinformation are common. Cruz said she’s heard that the vaccine is a government ploy to track them, or an attempt to make people sick and reduce the population. Cruz brushes the rumors aside, but knows this type of gossip could discourage some of her peers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other concerns are more technical. Some workers think they can’t be vaccinated because they don’t have health insurance, even though shots are free. According to a second UFW Foundation survey of nearly 15,000 farmworkers, 78% of respondents said they did not have health insurance, and 34% had medical conditions that put them at high risk for severe illness from COVID-19.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There is also a fear about sharing any type of personal information because of their immigration status, de Barraicua said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said she’s attended events where some farmworkers said they didn’t get any advanced notice about the vaccination events, giving them little time to ask questions and ease their doubts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Organizations like the UFW Foundation and Lideres Campesinas have been working with health officials across the state to provide vaccine education to workers in the fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of the worksite vaccination clinics are a partnership between a county and employers. Tulare County Supervisor Pete Vander Poel said he is concerned that switching to the \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/health/coronavirus/2021/02/california-new-covid-vaccine-system/\">new vaccine distribution system\u003c/a>, led by Blue Shield, could limit how many of these events counties can schedule.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tulare County recently started receiving double the doses of previous weeks, increasing from 3,800 doses a week to 7,600 doses per week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that’s for all eligible residents. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“And we have about 42,000 [agricultural] employees ready to be vaccinated,” Vander Poel said. “So that shows you the magnitude we’re dealing with.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The new union at Alphabet, the parent company of Google, launched publicly last week with around 225 workers. Now, according to union leaders, its ranks are north of 700, and growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the organizers of the Alphabet Workers Union is software engineer Alexander Peterson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peterson remembers how he felt the day he got his software engineering job at Google in 2016. “I was thrilled. It was this magical place where we all work together,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peterson said he totally nerded out on what was going on at the company, like Google’s “\u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/infrastructure\">planet-scale\u003c/a>” computer and its “\u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/announcing-googles-grace-hopper-subsea-cable-system\">oceanic cable\u003c/a>” for data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But since then, Peterson has become increasingly disenchanted. He participated in a walkout in 2018, when 20,000 Google workers protested the company’s handling of sexual harassment claims, as well its lack of diversity and the second-class status given to the temps and contractors who account for over half of its workers. The following year, he \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11668872/google-employees-quit-in-protest-over-military-artificial-intelligence-program\">supported his co-workers who opposed Google’s contracts\u003c/a> with the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really want to save Alphabet from itself, stop it from becoming just another one of these huge, inhuman, faceless entities that just bulldozes humanity for the sake of profit,” he said of the nascent union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, some of Peterson’s fellow organizers wrote an \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/opinion/google-union.html\">op-ed for the New York Times\u003c/a> detailing some of their grievances and underscoring their key goal of increasing the amount of influence employees have in the company’s operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Growing Activism in the Silicon Valley\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Although not the first labor movement in Silicon Valley, the formation of the \u003ca href=\"https://alphabetworkersunion.org/\">Alphabet Workers Union\u003c/a> marks the largest organizing effort so far among white collar employees of a prominent tech giant. It comes from years of growing worker activism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until now, there have been two tracks of labor organizing in Silicon Valley. The first includes service workers who over the last decade have been fighting for higher pay and better benefits. The second: white collar workers, many of whom have been subjected to a second-class tier as temporary contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past decade, service workers at companies like Apple and Facebook have\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/10598627/growing-labor-movement-shakes-up-silicon-valley\"> joined large unions\u003c/a> like the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union. During a major subcontracting scandal at Microsoft in the 1990s, employees there also formed a small union called the \u003ca href=\"https://washtech.org/\">Washington Alliance of Technology Workers\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11853806 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2021/01/RS33537_GettyImages-1056086262-qut-1020x680.jpg'] Following the election of President Trump in 2016, a growing number of software engineers and product developers began to question Silicon Valley contracts with the U.S. military and police departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They formed into activist groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11681049/the-latest-tech-disruption-labor-organizing\">Tech Workers Coalition\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11679302/in-a-direct-challenge-to-their-employers-tech-workers-begin-to-organize\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> publicly challenged\u003c/a> management decisions. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11714714/time-is-up-employee-unrest-grows-at-silicon-valley-companies\">Google walkout\u003c/a> in 2018 was the most dramatic public showing of this growing discontent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, a group of about 80 subcontracted white-collar workers at a Google office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, joined the U.S. Steelworkers union (\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3zav5/google-contractors-say-their-work-is-being-shipped-to-poland-after-unionizing\">and faced retaliation\u003c/a> as a result.) That same year, employees at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11839817/how-a-scrappy-group-of-tech-workers-formed-one-of-the-only-unions-in-the-industry\">Kickstarter formed their own\u003c/a> “enterprise” union, solely for employees of the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not everyone involved in recent Silicon Valley activism has joined the new Google union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among those critical of the effort is Amr Gaber, a software engineer at the company who has been involved in worker activism there for years. He has specifically criticized the union’s partnership with the Communications Workers of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had relationships with a wide range of unions and worker support groups before CWA showed up,” he recently said on Twitter. “But CWA was the only group that pulled these stunts of marking territory and publicly taking credit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the new union doesn’t represent a majority of workers at Google, it’s what’s called a “minority union.” And unlike many other trade unions, it includes a variety of workers, from software engineers to cafeteria staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fledgling union is also not yet recognized by the National Labor Relations Board or by Google itself, which in a statement responding to the union’s formation, said it “would continue engaging directly with all our employees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Barriers to Organizing\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Silicon Valley companies like Google have done a lot to make it difficult for workers to form unions, said Chris Tilly, a professor of urban planning at UCLA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of barriers to building worker solidarity within Google,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tilly said it used to be easier to organize at places like manufacturing companies, where large numbers of workers were doing similar tasks on similar contracts. But Google, like many other companies, tech and otherwise, has been effective at “fissuring” workers, hiring some as contractors, others as temps and also outsourcing labor around the globe, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The workers are in different physical locations and the contractors have different employers, making in-person organizing all the more difficult. They also have a very disparate set of employment statuses at the company — different wages, benefit packages, contracts and protections — creating a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11741371/two-tiered-caste-system-the-world-of-white-collar-contracting-in-silicon-valley\">two-tier class system\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tilly said this makes it particularly tricky to organize workers around common goals. “It also creates all kinds of divisions among workers and it potentially means different groups of workers can be pitted against each other,” he said. Temps, contractors or overseas workers, for instance, may now be seen as a threat to full-time employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concentration of wealth at these companies also plays a role in dampening unionization efforts. Companies like Google and Facebook have been able to generate large profits with a smaller number of full-time employees. They can afford to offer relatively high pay, benefit packages and perks to keep most workers satisfied, without letting them have much say in how the companies operate or what they produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Opposition\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>There has also long been an anti-union streak in Silicon Valley, \u003ca href=\"https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/01/google-alphabet-workers-union-tech\">as Jacobin editor Alex Press noted\u003c/a> in an article about the formation of the Google’s union. She referred to a famous quote by Robert Noyce, who co-founded Intel in 1968: “If we had the work rules that unionized companies have, we’d all go out of business.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Solana, a venture capitalist at Founders Fund, is an open critic of the new union. The union, he wrote on Twitter, is “appropriating the language of exploited coal miners.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/micsolana/status/1346142918600437760\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others naysayers of the effort have criticized the broad extent of grievances among union members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But labor lawyer and activist Caitlin Vega says what Google workers want is actually not much different from what workers want in any union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every union is about worker power and workers getting a say about what’s happening on the job,” she said. “And I think even when you read back to some of the earliest unions — the unions of teenage girls who were working in garment shops — their demands were also not always simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corporations have made unionizing harder by concentrating wealth, fissuring workplaces, subcontracting and relying on temporary workers, Vega said, and the Google union is organized in a way that responds to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For his part, Peterson, the Google software engineer, has one big hope for the union: He wants to send a message to other workers in Silicon Valley that they are not alone.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"title": "New Google Union Triples in Size in First Week, But Faces Formidable Challenges | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The new union at Alphabet, the parent company of Google, launched publicly last week with around 225 workers. Now, according to union leaders, its ranks are north of 700, and growing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the organizers of the Alphabet Workers Union is software engineer Alexander Peterson.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peterson remembers how he felt the day he got his software engineering job at Google in 2016. “I was thrilled. It was this magical place where we all work together,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Peterson said he totally nerded out on what was going on at the company, like Google’s “\u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/infrastructure\">planet-scale\u003c/a>” computer and its “\u003ca href=\"https://cloud.google.com/blog/products/infrastructure/announcing-googles-grace-hopper-subsea-cable-system\">oceanic cable\u003c/a>” for data.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But since then, Peterson has become increasingly disenchanted. He participated in a walkout in 2018, when 20,000 Google workers protested the company’s handling of sexual harassment claims, as well its lack of diversity and the second-class status given to the temps and contractors who account for over half of its workers. The following year, he \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11668872/google-employees-quit-in-protest-over-military-artificial-intelligence-program\">supported his co-workers who opposed Google’s contracts\u003c/a> with the military.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really want to save Alphabet from itself, stop it from becoming just another one of these huge, inhuman, faceless entities that just bulldozes humanity for the sake of profit,” he said of the nascent union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this month, some of Peterson’s fellow organizers wrote an \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/opinion/google-union.html\">op-ed for the New York Times\u003c/a> detailing some of their grievances and underscoring their key goal of increasing the amount of influence employees have in the company’s operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Growing Activism in the Silicon Valley\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Although not the first labor movement in Silicon Valley, the formation of the \u003ca href=\"https://alphabetworkersunion.org/\">Alphabet Workers Union\u003c/a> marks the largest organizing effort so far among white collar employees of a prominent tech giant. It comes from years of growing worker activism.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Until now, there have been two tracks of labor organizing in Silicon Valley. The first includes service workers who over the last decade have been fighting for higher pay and better benefits. The second: white collar workers, many of whom have been subjected to a second-class tier as temporary contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the past decade, service workers at companies like Apple and Facebook have\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/10598627/growing-labor-movement-shakes-up-silicon-valley\"> joined large unions\u003c/a> like the Teamsters and the Service Employees International Union. During a major subcontracting scandal at Microsoft in the 1990s, employees there also formed a small union called the \u003ca href=\"https://washtech.org/\">Washington Alliance of Technology Workers\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp> Following the election of President Trump in 2016, a growing number of software engineers and product developers began to question Silicon Valley contracts with the U.S. military and police departments.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They formed into activist groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11681049/the-latest-tech-disruption-labor-organizing\">Tech Workers Coalition\u003c/a> and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11679302/in-a-direct-challenge-to-their-employers-tech-workers-begin-to-organize\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> publicly challenged\u003c/a> management decisions. The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11714714/time-is-up-employee-unrest-grows-at-silicon-valley-companies\">Google walkout\u003c/a> in 2018 was the most dramatic public showing of this growing discontent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, a group of about 80 subcontracted white-collar workers at a Google office in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, joined the U.S. Steelworkers union (\u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3zav5/google-contractors-say-their-work-is-being-shipped-to-poland-after-unionizing\">and faced retaliation\u003c/a> as a result.) That same year, employees at \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11839817/how-a-scrappy-group-of-tech-workers-formed-one-of-the-only-unions-in-the-industry\">Kickstarter formed their own\u003c/a> “enterprise” union, solely for employees of the company.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not everyone involved in recent Silicon Valley activism has joined the new Google union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Among those critical of the effort is Amr Gaber, a software engineer at the company who has been involved in worker activism there for years. He has specifically criticized the union’s partnership with the Communications Workers of America.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We had relationships with a wide range of unions and worker support groups before CWA showed up,” he recently said on Twitter. “But CWA was the only group that pulled these stunts of marking territory and publicly taking credit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the new union doesn’t represent a majority of workers at Google, it’s what’s called a “minority union.” And unlike many other trade unions, it includes a variety of workers, from software engineers to cafeteria staff.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fledgling union is also not yet recognized by the National Labor Relations Board or by Google itself, which in a statement responding to the union’s formation, said it “would continue engaging directly with all our employees.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Barriers to Organizing\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Silicon Valley companies like Google have done a lot to make it difficult for workers to form unions, said Chris Tilly, a professor of urban planning at UCLA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are a lot of barriers to building worker solidarity within Google,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tilly said it used to be easier to organize at places like manufacturing companies, where large numbers of workers were doing similar tasks on similar contracts. But Google, like many other companies, tech and otherwise, has been effective at “fissuring” workers, hiring some as contractors, others as temps and also outsourcing labor around the globe, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The workers are in different physical locations and the contractors have different employers, making in-person organizing all the more difficult. They also have a very disparate set of employment statuses at the company — different wages, benefit packages, contracts and protections — creating a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11741371/two-tiered-caste-system-the-world-of-white-collar-contracting-in-silicon-valley\">two-tier class system\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tilly said this makes it particularly tricky to organize workers around common goals. “It also creates all kinds of divisions among workers and it potentially means different groups of workers can be pitted against each other,” he said. Temps, contractors or overseas workers, for instance, may now be seen as a threat to full-time employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The concentration of wealth at these companies also plays a role in dampening unionization efforts. Companies like Google and Facebook have been able to generate large profits with a smaller number of full-time employees. They can afford to offer relatively high pay, benefit packages and perks to keep most workers satisfied, without letting them have much say in how the companies operate or what they produce.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>The Opposition\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>There has also long been an anti-union streak in Silicon Valley, \u003ca href=\"https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/01/google-alphabet-workers-union-tech\">as Jacobin editor Alex Press noted\u003c/a> in an article about the formation of the Google’s union. She referred to a famous quote by Robert Noyce, who co-founded Intel in 1968: “If we had the work rules that unionized companies have, we’d all go out of business.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Michael Solana, a venture capitalist at Founders Fund, is an open critic of the new union. The union, he wrote on Twitter, is “appropriating the language of exploited coal miners.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>Others naysayers of the effort have criticized the broad extent of grievances among union members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But labor lawyer and activist Caitlin Vega says what Google workers want is actually not much different from what workers want in any union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Every union is about worker power and workers getting a say about what’s happening on the job,” she said. “And I think even when you read back to some of the earliest unions — the unions of teenage girls who were working in garment shops — their demands were also not always simple.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corporations have made unionizing harder by concentrating wealth, fissuring workplaces, subcontracting and relying on temporary workers, Vega said, and the Google union is organized in a way that responds to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For his part, Peterson, the Google software engineer, has one big hope for the union: He wants to send a message to other workers in Silicon Valley that they are not alone.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "google-illegally-fired-and-spied-on-workers-who-tried-to-organize-labor-agency-says",
"title": "Google Illegally Fired and Spied on Workers Who Tried to Organize, Labor Agency Says",
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"headTitle": "Google Illegally Fired and Spied on Workers Who Tried to Organize, Labor Agency Says | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This post has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google illegally fired two employees involved in labor organizing last year, the National Labor Relations Board alleged in a complaint on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tech giant also violated federal labor law, the agency said, by surveilling employees who viewed a union organizing presentation, interrogating others, unfairly enforcing some rules and maintaining policies that “discourage” workers from protected organizing activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside tag=\"google,labor\" label=\"more coverage\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint said Google’s actions amounted to “interfering with, restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed” by the National Labor Relations Act, the 1935 law that guarantees workers the right to unionize and to band together to improve their working conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google is “confident in our decision and legal position,” the company said in a statement. While the company supports workers’ protected labor rights, the employees in question had taken actions that were “a serious violation of our policies and an unacceptable breach of a trusted responsibility,” it said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., has been rocked by employee activism in recent years over issues including\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/11/01/662851489/google-employees-plan-global-walkout-to-protest-companys-treatment-of-women\"> sexual harassment\u003c/a>, its work with the U.S. government and the company’s treatment of its large contract workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal labor agency has been investigating Google for a year, after several employees fired in late 2019 filed charges of unfair labor practices. Wednesday’s complaint accused Google of violating the rights of two of those employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers. [ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, it’s a terrible miscalculation on the part of these companies to kind of close ranks and fight back so aggressively,” Berland said in an interview with KQED. “I think that probably, they correctly calculate that it will give them a short-term sort of win, if you can think of it as winning to be oppressing their own workforce.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berland was one of four employees fired days before Thanksgiving 2019 for what Google described at the time as data security violations, including accessing and sharing information from other employees’ work materials and calendars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spiers was fired soon after. After the company hired a consulting firm known for anti-union work, Spiers created a pop-up notification reminding Google employees of their right to organize. Google said Spiers was fired for abusing her access to internal tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This complaint makes clear that workers have the right to speak to issues of ethical business and the composition of management,” Berland said in a statement on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium' align='right' citation='Laurence Berland']‘You know, it’s a terrible miscalculation on the part of these companies to kind of close ranks and fight back so aggressively, I think that probably, they correctly calculate that it will give them a short term sort of win, if you can think of it as winning to be oppressing their own workforce’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Google does not settle the complaint, the agency’s case will be brought to trial in front of an administrative judge, who could order the company to reinstate Berland and Spiers and give them back pay with interest and stock options to make them whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Colleagues and strangers believe I abused my role because of lies told by Google management while they were retaliating against me,” Spiers said in a statement. “The NLRB can order Google to reinstate me, but it cannot reverse the harm done to my credibility.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency’s complaint did not include allegations about the firings of three other employees dismissed at the same time as Berland, who had also filed charges with the NLRB. They had protested Google’s work with Customs and Border Protection and the hiring of a former Trump administration official, according to Laurie Burgess, the employees’ lawyer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to UC Hastings labor law professor Veena Dubal, their lack of inclusion doesn’t add up to much of a deterrent to managerial misbehavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aside from bad press, there is not a lot that is going to happen that will hurt Google. And the toothlessness of federal labor law, again, is the problem,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burgess said in a statement those employees intend “to vigorously appeal the dismissed charges to the NLRB to ensure that the right to engage in this type of protected activity is not encroached upon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Rachael Myrow contributed to this story. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Editor’s note: \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Google is among NPR’s financial supporters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Google+Illegally+Fired+And+Spied+On+Workers+Who+Tried+To+Organize%2C+Labor+Agency+Says&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This post has been updated.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google illegally fired two employees involved in labor organizing last year, the National Labor Relations Board alleged in a complaint on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tech giant also violated federal labor law, the agency said, by surveilling employees who viewed a union organizing presentation, interrogating others, unfairly enforcing some rules and maintaining policies that “discourage” workers from protected organizing activities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The complaint said Google’s actions amounted to “interfering with, restraining and coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed” by the National Labor Relations Act, the 1935 law that guarantees workers the right to unionize and to band together to improve their working conditions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google is “confident in our decision and legal position,” the company said in a statement. While the company supports workers’ protected labor rights, the employees in question had taken actions that were “a serious violation of our policies and an unacceptable breach of a trusted responsibility,” it said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google, which is owned by Alphabet Inc., has been rocked by employee activism in recent years over issues including\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/2018/11/01/662851489/google-employees-plan-global-walkout-to-protest-companys-treatment-of-women\"> sexual harassment\u003c/a>, its work with the U.S. government and the company’s treatment of its large contract workforce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal labor agency has been investigating Google for a year, after several employees fired in late 2019 filed charges of unfair labor practices. Wednesday’s complaint accused Google of violating the rights of two of those employees, Laurence Berland and Kathryn Spiers. \u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, it’s a terrible miscalculation on the part of these companies to kind of close ranks and fight back so aggressively,” Berland said in an interview with KQED. “I think that probably, they correctly calculate that it will give them a short-term sort of win, if you can think of it as winning to be oppressing their own workforce.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Berland was one of four employees fired days before Thanksgiving 2019 for what Google described at the time as data security violations, including accessing and sharing information from other employees’ work materials and calendars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Spiers was fired soon after. After the company hired a consulting firm known for anti-union work, Spiers created a pop-up notification reminding Google employees of their right to organize. Google said Spiers was fired for abusing her access to internal tools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This complaint makes clear that workers have the right to speak to issues of ethical business and the composition of management,” Berland said in a statement on Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Google does not settle the complaint, the agency’s case will be brought to trial in front of an administrative judge, who could order the company to reinstate Berland and Spiers and give them back pay with interest and stock options to make them whole.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Colleagues and strangers believe I abused my role because of lies told by Google management while they were retaliating against me,” Spiers said in a statement. “The NLRB can order Google to reinstate me, but it cannot reverse the harm done to my credibility.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agency’s complaint did not include allegations about the firings of three other employees dismissed at the same time as Berland, who had also filed charges with the NLRB. They had protested Google’s work with Customs and Border Protection and the hiring of a former Trump administration official, according to Laurie Burgess, the employees’ lawyer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to UC Hastings labor law professor Veena Dubal, their lack of inclusion doesn’t add up to much of a deterrent to managerial misbehavior.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Aside from bad press, there is not a lot that is going to happen that will hurt Google. And the toothlessness of federal labor law, again, is the problem,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Burgess said in a statement those employees intend “to vigorously appeal the dismissed charges to the NLRB to ensure that the right to engage in this type of protected activity is not encroached upon.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s Rachael Myrow contributed to this story. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>\u003cstrong>Editor’s note: \u003c/strong>\u003c/em>\u003cem>Google is among NPR’s financial supporters.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cdiv class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Google+Illegally+Fired+And+Spied+On+Workers+Who+Tried+To+Organize%2C+Labor+Agency+Says&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/div>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California Proposition 22 was a big win for tech companies. Its passage allows a handful of corporations — like Uber and Lyft — to create a new “gig” contractor category for their workers that doesn’t have to include employee protections and benefits, like unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Now, those same companies that won in California want to expand beyond the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">Guest: \u003c/b>\u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/SamWHarnett\">Sam Harnett\u003c/a>, Silicon Valley Reporter for KQED\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Listen to our special series ‘How We Got Here’ with Sam \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/howwegothere\">here.\u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c!-- iframe plugin v.4.3 wordpress.org/plugins/iframe/ -->\u003cbr>\n\u003ciframe loading=\"lazy\" frameborder=\"0\" height=\"200\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https://playlist.megaphone.fm?e=KQINC8406238167&light=true\" width=\"100%\" class=\"iframe-class\">\u003c/iframe>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Read the transcript \u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/3eSSCCw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">here\u003c/a>. And sign up for our newsletter \u003ca href=\"https://bit.ly/2Ij412e\">here\u003c/a>!\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "prop-22-explained-why-gig-companies-are-spending-huge-money-on-an-unprecedented-measure",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This story was updated Wednesday, Nov. 4 at 12:40pm\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">UPDATE: Proposition 22 was approved by California voters Tuesday, Nov. 3. \u003c/b>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">\u003ca class=\"c-link\" href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844725/proposition-22-passes-locking-in-sub-employee-status-for-gig-workers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-stringify-link=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844725/proposition-22-passes-locking-in-sub-employee-status-for-gig-workers\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Read the full details here\u003c/a>\u003c/b>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Original story:\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision California voters face on Proposition 22 boils down to this: should a handful of companies be allowed to create a new gig contractor category for their workers that doesn’t include employee protections and benefits, like unemployment insurance and workers compensation? Or should companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash have to follow state labor law and classify their drivers as employees, which could mean directing more revenue to workers, higher prices for consumers and increased requirements for more casual drivers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the choice on the ballot. But there’s so much more going on with this unprecedented and far-reaching proposition — a proposition that recent polling indicates will come down to Californians who are still undecided. As of Oct. 26, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11843691/poll-measure-pushed-by-uber-lyft-falling-just-short-of-passage-many-voters-still-undecided\">polling of likely voters\u003c/a> shows 46% in favor, 42% opposed and 12% undecided. Here’s everything you’d need to know about the proposition and its backstory before you vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Skip to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#backstory\">The Backstory\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: How companies like Lyft, Uber and DoorDash have avoided employee classification for eight years despite pressure from workers, labor groups and every branch of state government\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#written\">What’s Actually in Prop. 22?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: An explanation of the limited worker benefits and why the “7/8ths provision” would make it nearly impossible to change this law in the future\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#money\">Unprecedented Money\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: Gig companies are spending record amounts of cash to market Prop. 22 — and it’s being framed as a social justice issue\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#surveys\">Those Driver Surveys, and What’s Wrong With Them\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: What do drivers want? Surveys used to market Prop. 22 are often flawed and don’t tell the full story\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#directtovoter\">Unprecedented Direct-to-Voter Connection\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: Millions of apps in millions of pockets, workers asked to deliver political ads and pop ups galore — win or lose, a new election playbook is being written\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#ramifications\">The Ramifications\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: If Prop. 22 passes, what will it mean for gig work, labor protections, election campaigning and local governance?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"backstory\">\u003c/a>The Backstory\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843145\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843145\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache.jpg\" alt=\"Lyft car with mustache\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1250\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache-800x521.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache-1020x664.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache-1536x1000.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Lyft driver with one of the early fuzzy pink mustaches drives in downtown San Francisco in January, 2014. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It all began in 2012 with a fuzzy pink mustache and a fist bump. It was Lyft, not Uber, that first started paying drivers to use their own cars to do taxi work. Both companies cast themselves not as taxi companies, but platforms to connect riders to drivers, and tech journalists helped propel this image. \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3668606\">Here’s the even deeper backstory on how that all went down\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using the platform argument, the gig companies classified their workers as contractors, which shielded them from liability and allowed them to avoid paying for protections like overtime and unemployment insurance. Regulators and the government at the state and federal levels did not stop Uber and Lyft, and soon, companies like Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates began following suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this contractor model was legally suspect from the start. In California, the determination of whether a worker was a contractor or an employee was made by the Borello test, which is a \u003ca href=\"https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-supreme-court/1774638.html\">complex set of 11 factors established by a 1989 California Supreme Court case\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"Election 2020\" link1=\"https://www.kqed.org/voterguide,KQED's California Voter Guide\" hero=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45342_001_KQED_SanFrancisco_Election2020_MailinBallot_10122020-qut-1020x680.jpg\"]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was arguable that under those parameters, gig workers were not independent entrepreneurs running their own businesses on a platform provided by “tech” companies, but instead, employees of a transportation company in the case of Uber and Lyft, a service company in the case of TaskRabbit and a delivery company in the case of Postmates or DoorDash.\u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-drivers-lawsuit/uber-drivers-granted-class-action-status-in-lawsuit-over-employment-idUSKCN0R14O920150901\"> Lawyers began trying to make the case\u003c/a> with big lawsuits against gig companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers were and still are fighting almost all the battles over employee protections and benefits behind closed doors. That’s because gig companies make workers sign arbitration clauses, which prevent them from taking any grievance to court. That has helped preempt and neutralize class-action lawsuits. Law professor Charlotte Garden \u003ca href=\"https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1794&context=faculty\">wrote a whole academic paper\u003c/a> on how the gig economy relies on mandatory arbitration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, as Uber and Lyft began to slash wages in a price war, workers increased their protest, but they could make no headway toward employment status. Gig companies leaned on customer support for political support, and consumers loved these cheap rides, which were kept low by the contractor model and venture capital. It took six years for any notable action from California’s government. And it came first from the judicial branch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a ruling on a case known as \u003ca href=\"https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/dynamex-operations-west-inc-v-superior-court-34584\">Dynamex in 2018\u003c/a>, California’s Supreme Court simplified the Borello test, boiling it down to just three factors, called the ABCs. A worker could now only be classified as a contractor if they:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>A) Were free from the control and direction of the hirer\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>B) Performed work outside the hirer’s normal course of business\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>C) Had their own independently established trade, occupation or business\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The ruling made it much more difficult for gig companies to deny workers employee benefits and protections. But still, gig companies kept classifying workers as contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the state Supreme Court, the Legislature took up the fight. Lawmakers passed \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5\">Assembly Bill 5\u003c/a>, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. AB 5 codified the Dynamex ruling and was designed with gig companies in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the new law also affected a number of other industries that have come to rely on contractors. The bill was amended after a backlash, and a number of professions got exemptions, like fine artists, foresters and translators — but not gig workers. Still, gig companies kept classifying workers as contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11833598 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/09182019_uber-lyft-qut-1020x640.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in May, several months into the coronavirus pandemic, with tens of thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers seeking unemployment funds that didn’t exist because the companies had never paid into the state unemployment fund, the executive branch got involved. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with a handful of city attorneys, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11816321/california-city-attorneys-sue-uber-and-lyft-over-worker-misclassification\">sued Uber and Lyft for misclassifying workers\u003c/a>. On Oct. 22 Uber and Lyft \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-10-22/uber-and-lyft-must-comply-with-labor-law-ab-5-appeals-court-orders\">lost an appeal\u003c/a>, and will have to start classifying workers as employees in 30 days — unless Proposition 22 passes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After AB 5 passed, the gig companies started their ballot initiative campaign, hoping that voters would enshrine their gig contractor model into law. Now, with all three branches of California’s government pressuring them to classify workers as employees, they are pouring money into Proposition 22. It’s become \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/What_were_the_most_expensive_ballot_measures_in_California\">the most well-funded ballot initiative in California history\u003c/a>. And it’s designed to be a conclusive victory for gig companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"written\">\u003c/a>What’s Actually in Prop. 22?\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843210\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843210\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A San Francisco resident fills out their mail-in ballot on Oct. 6, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Proposition 22 is written as an exemption from AB 5 for any company that provides transportation or delivery services through an app. It would enshrine in law a kind of third employment category: the contract gig worker. This has been a goal of gig companies for years. They have pursued it at the federal level, and have already \u003ca href=\"https://www.nelp.org/publication/rights-at-risk-gig-companies-campaign-to-upend-employment-as-we-know-it/\">had success in getting legislation on the books in a number of states\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the measure has several other provisions built around the central premise of exempting gig companies from AB 5.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Limited Employee Benefits\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Prop. 22 would guarantee gig workers some limited benefits and protections. As contractors, they currently have none. But the benefits are not as straightforward as they appear at first read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most murky benefit is the guaranteed wage floor. Prop. 22 would ensure 120% of minimum wage and 30 cents per mile for drivers, adjusted for inflation. But there’s a pretty big catch. The guarantee is only for “engaged” driving time, defined as the time between “accepting a service request and completing the request.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of gig work is spent waiting for a job in the app. \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-uber-lyft-ballot-initiative-guarantees-only-5-64-an-hour-2/\">UC Berkeley’s Labor Center did a study\u003c/a> where they tried to take time between rides into account, along with wear and tear on the vehicle. Adding those factors in the mix, the study found the wage guarantee drops to just $5.64 an hour, a drastic pay cut from the $13 minimum wage they would be guaranteed as employees in California. Uber and Lyft disputed the findings in the study, and \u003ca href=\"https://ucreconomicforecast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Prop22_Driver_Earnings_Analysis_August2020.pdf\">they commissioned another study\u003c/a> that put the earnings at between $25 and $27 an hour. That prompted \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-effects-of-proposition-22-on-driver-earnings-response-to-a-lyft-funded-report-by-dr-christopher-thornberg/#_edn5\">a rebuttal from UC Berkeley.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from the wage floor, Prop. 22 includes a number of benefits that are substitutes for protections guaranteed by traditional employment. In each case, these protections are weaker than what workers would get as employees, and some are contingent on driving a certain number of hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of health care, drivers who put in over 25 hours per week of engaged driving time would get health care subsidies. Instead of workers compensation, companies would offer occupational accident insurance for medical expenses, lost income and disability. Companies would also offer accidental death insurance. It is not clear if these insurance plans would be given to workers automatically, or if they would only be guaranteed the opportunity to purchase them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843841\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843841\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut.jpg\" alt=\"ride-hail driver in Oakland\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A ride-hail driver in Oakland In March, 2020. Prop. 22 would guarantee gig workers some limited benefits and protections. As contractors, they currently have none. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Prop. 22 also includes provisions to address long-term accountability issues in the gig industry, like discrimination, sexual misconduct, a lack of background checks and drivers working more than 12 hours a day. Gig companies would be required to create anti-discrimination and sexual harassment policies, develop training programs for drivers and require criminal background checks — all things that the companies have been criticized for lacking in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the issues these final provisions would address are things that are exacerbated by the contractor status of workers. If these workers were actually employees, gig companies would be far more liable for things like car accidents, sexual misconduct and criminal activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Prop. 22 Would Be Nearly Impossible to Change\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>If Proposition 22 passes, it would prevent local governments from passing laws that require companies to provide additional benefits and protections for gig workers not included in Prop. 22. It would also be the hardest statute for the Legislature to alter, aside from a handful of propositions that bar any amendment whatsoever. That’s because of the 7/8ths provision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A single sentence on page 18 of the initiative requires a 7/8ths vote of both the state Assembly and Senate in order to amend Prop. 22 in any way. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-amendment-threshold-proposition-22/\">This particular requirement is unprecedented\u003c/a>. Some propositions have required 2/3rds or 3/5s — but never 7/8ths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it passes, Prop. 22 would be harder to amend than the state’s Wildlife Protection Act, the Clean Air and Transportation Improvement Act or the Cruelty to Farm Animals Act. Amending it would take eight more votes than are needed to override a governor’s veto or revise the state Constitution, according to data provided to KQED by Alex Vassar, communications manager at the California State Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11840343,news_11841547,news_11841059 label='Election 2020 Resources']In California, a proposition can only be undone by another ballot initiative. So why is the threshold for amendment so high on Prop. 22? Part of the reason is that a section of the proposition’s stated purpose is contradictory to the wishes of gig companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 22 states that it would “require rideshare and delivery network companies to offer new protections and benefits for app-based rideshare and delivery drivers.” That might sound good to voters who want more protections for workers, but it could cause problems for gig companies. The Legislature could, for example, alter Prop. 22 once it becomes statute or pass new laws to increase benefits for workers beyond what gig companies want. The 7/8ths provision presents a very high barrier to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prop. 22 would also stop local governments from requiring gig companies to increase benefits and protections to gig workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Proposition 22 lops off the top by cutting off the state Legislature’s ability to amend the law, and it lops off the bottom [by] preventing local governments from ever modifying its requirements,” said Rey Fuentes, a fellow at The Partnership for Working Families, an advocacy group for workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities in California are often where laws that grant the most rigorous worker benefits and protections start: things like the Healthy SF program, or San Francisco’s mandatory sick leave. Cities have also been the most proactive in requiring gig companies to provide additional benefits to workers. San Francisco and San Jose, for instance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Two-Bay-Area-cities-poised-to-approve-paid-sick-15185145.php\">extended COVID-19 emergency benefits to gig workers\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/seattle-extends-sick-leave-to-gig-workers-including-food-delivery-workers-more-heroes-of-the-covid-19-crisis/\">Seattle passed a similar ordinance\u003c/a>. Prop. 22 has a clause that would preempt future measures like these.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes on Prop. 22 Spokesperson Geoff Vetter said the issue is consistency for workers who cross city and county lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Given the cross-jurisdictional nature of the service,” Vetter said, “it would be impossible to allow all 58 counties and 480+ cities to establish separate requirements. Prop. 22 establishes uniform statewide standards for app-based driver scheduling, benefits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"money\">\u003c/a>Unprecedented Money\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843334\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843334\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield.jpg\" alt=\"A driver who drives for both Uber and Lyft\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber and Lyft have spent nearly $100 million combined in support of Prop. 22. \u003ccite>(ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Proposition 22 is on track to become the most well-funded ballot initiative in California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has already drawn about $200 million, most of it on the pro side. As of 10 days before the election, the anti-side had around $19 million, coming mainly from labor organizations. The pro-side has over $199 million coming from gig companies. As of the beginning of October, Uber had contributed over $50 million; Lyft, $48 million; DoorDash, $47 million; InstaCart, $28 million; and Postmates, $11 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That money is not just being spent on TV and digital advertising. The Yes on Prop. 22 campaign has also contributed to political parties, including $2 million to the California Republican Party. It has spent millions hiring consultants, lobbyists and PR firms like MB Public Affairs, which is known for working with tobacco companies. These firms have launched personal and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnet.com/features/uber-lyfts-fight-over-gig-worker-status-as-campaign-against-labor-activists-mounts/\">intrusive attacks on academics like Veena Dubal\u003c/a>, a UC Hastings law professor who has been critical of gig companies and Proposition 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Yes on Prop. 22 campaign has also sent money to newsrooms in return for digital advertising. By the middle of September, it had sent almost $48,000 to the Sacramento Bee, $13,500 to the San Diego Union Tribune and a little over $36,000 to the San Francisco Chronicle. Both the Tribune and the Chronicle endorsed the measure, but in their endorsements made no mention of the ad revenue they had received.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Marketing Prop. 22 as a Social Justice Measure\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Many workers in the gig economy in California are people of color – a fact reflected in the advertising campaign for Prop. 22, which presents the initiative as a boon for social justice. In the past, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11643681/lyft-gains-on-uber-by-appealing-to-progressive-political-ideals\">Lyft had leaned heavily on social justice messaging\u003c/a> to appeal to liberals and distinguish itself from Uber, especially after Trump was elected. Now, this tactic has become a major thrust of the entire Yes on Prop. 22 campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Rep Barbara Lee\"]‘You have very clearly crossed the line when you try to claim the equity mantle for a campaign that has always been about allowing multi-billion-dollar app companies to write their own law so they can keep exploiting drivers.’[/pullquote]PR firms working for the campaign \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Fake-progressive-mailers-urge-yes-on-Uber-Lyft-15635173.php\">have created a number of political mailers\u003c/a> that urge people to vote yes on Prop. 22 and are designed to look like voter guides coming from progressive sources. In small letters at the bottom of these mailers it says the guides are prepared by organizations like “Feel the Bern, Progressive Voter Guide,” “Council of Concerned Women Voters Guide” and “Our Voice, Latino Voter Guide,” which are all fake progressive organizations. They don’t actually exist. After these mailers were reported, Bernie Sanders \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1315650084567121920?s=20\">came out publicly against\u003c/a> Proposition 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the ads in the Yes on Prop. 22 campaign feature people of color, like Aisha A. from Los Angeles, who say they need this flexible job to survive. Uber ran an ad campaign this summer with billboards in many major cities that said “If you tolerate racism, delete Uber.” Lyft \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yImMyOkeaKQ\">created a television ad\u003c/a> using a recording of Maya Angelou reading her poem, “On the Pulse of Morning.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yImMyOkeaKQ\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Lyft ad begins with a voiceover of Angelou saying “Lift up your eyes upon / This day breaking for you.” You see Black and brown people getting ready for work. And then it transitions to the inside of a Lyft. There’s a montage of drivers, all people of color, picking up passengers. “Each new hour holds new chances / For a new beginning.” Angelou says “Do not be wedded forever / To fear, yoked eternally / To brutishness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Getting the California NAACP to endorse Proposition 22 was a big win for gig companies. The organization has authored voter guides telling people to vote yes, and Alice Huffman, head of the California NAACP, has been writing editorials in support of the proposition. Huffman also happens to run a consulting firm called AC Public Affairs. That firm has so far received $85,000 from the Yes on Prop. 22 Campaign. Huffman has a history of receiving contributions from corporations to support their ballot initiatives. The Yes on Prop. 22 money \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2020/09/california-naacp-president-helps-corporate-ballot-measure-campaigns/\">is part of $1.2 million her firm has already received this year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Black and Latino leaders in California have come out against Proposition 22; Rep. Barbara Lee from Oakland, Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and members of both the Latino and Black California Legislative Caucus were part of a group that \u003ca href=\"https://thehill.com/policy/technology/520671-democrats-accuse-tech-companies-of-deceitful-tactics-in-campaign-against\">publicly denounced\u003c/a> Proposition 22 in mid-October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addressing the gig companies on the call, Lee said, “You have very clearly crossed the line when you try to claim the equity mantle for a campaign that has always been about allowing multi-billion-dollar app companies to write their own law so they can keep exploiting the drivers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response, Vetter said “Prop. 22 not only protects the jobs of drivers of color and their freedom to work independently, it would provide drivers an earnings guarantee, access to benefits like health care and provide drivers and passengers alike with new safety protections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"surveys\">\u003c/a>Those Driver Surveys, and What’s Wrong With Them\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843323\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843323\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver.jpg\" alt=\"Uber driver Sergei Fyodorov holds a flyer supporting a yes vote on Proposition 22 in Oakland.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1290\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver-1020x685.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver-1536x1032.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber driver Sergei Fyodorov, in Oakland, holds a flyer suggesting his riders ask him about why he supports Proposition 22. \u003ccite>(Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many ads from the Yes on Prop. 22 campaign say four out of five drivers prefer being independent contractors. This data comes from a survey done on the blog of \u003ca href=\"https://therideshareguy.com/\">Harry the Rideshare Guy\u003c/a>. It’s one of a slew of surveys the gig companies have been using to advocate for Prop. 22. These surveys are often methodologically flawed, and they never tell the whole story of what drivers want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Harry the Rideshare Guy survey has been a central piece of advertising for Proposition 22 and used in legal arguments, it is a non-scientific, informal poll done on a blog. There was no guarantee that respondents were drivers, let alone that there was a representative sample in terms of demographics, hours driven or political leanings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harry Campbell, CEO of The Rideshare Guy blog, said he believes the site’s survey reflects what he has been hearing from drivers. Yes on Prop. 22 campaign spokesperson Geoff Vetter agreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Rideshare Guy polled app-based drivers in California and did it without offering payment to the respondents,” Vetter said. “All this makes for a much fuller, more accurate data set and one that correctly demonstrates how drivers feel about Prop. 22 and independent contractor v. employee status.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But The Rideshare Guy survey is indicative of a number of the broader issues that the No on Prop. 22 campaign and scholars studying the gig economy have with how drivers are being surveyed. Juliet Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College who has spent years studying the gig economy, said these surveys don’t capture the full picture. There is often bias in the sample, flawed and misleading questions and information presented that influences responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843775\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 411px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-11843775\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey-800x466.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"411\" height=\"239\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey-800x466.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey-1020x595.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey-160x93.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey.png 1501w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 411px) 100vw, 411px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Drivers got this prompt before being asked if they supported Proposition 22. \u003ccite>(Edelson Survey Screenshot)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This \u003ca href=\"https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/themes/5ef0e34fc294806719977470/attachments/original/1592866174/cadriversurvey.pdf?1592866174\">survey from Edelman\u003c/a> is a good example. In a question about Prop. 22, the survey included a snippet from a TechCrunch article that cast the proposition in positive light. Given that prompt, 72 percent of respondents said they supported the measure. On August 19, Lyft issued a survey that had a common flaw in the questioning, equating contractor status to freedom. The survey asked if “the freedom of being an independent contractor outweighs the benefits of being an employee.” Conflating freedom with being an independent contractor is misleading. Employees can have autonomy and freedom, and likewise contractors can be constrained and coerced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, there is the sample issue. The surveys give equal weight to those who drive only a few hours a week with those who drive much more. And the surveys only poll active workers, which could have a distorting effect on the results. There have been tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in California who have done some work for these gig companies and then stopped. These workers represent a large percentage of the labor that has been done for these companies, yet their opinions are being left out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a big methodological weakness of the surveys,” Schor said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schor and her research team have interviewed hundreds of gig workers over the years, ethnographic data that can capture what a survey doesn’t. She says there is actually a lot of consistency in what drivers want. They want to be autonomous and have flexibility, but they also want to earn enough that they can pay their bills, buy insurance, and have money set aside if something goes wrong. Schor said she thinks a lot of gig workers in California are answering surveys with what they wish they could have: independent status and enough money to truly be their own bosses. \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3488009\">Veena Dubal wrote an entire academic paper unpacking all of this\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Driver Noemi Torres agreed with Schor’s conclusions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to be independent contractors, but Uber doesn’t treat us like independent contractors,” said Torres, who has been driving for seven years outside of North Hollywood. “Initially, we would get paid enough to support ourselves in terms of getting our own health insurance, but since they keep lowering the rates, you don’t have the flexibility.” She opposes Proposition 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drivers who support Proposition 22 often don’t sound that different when it comes to what they want. They just believe the ballot proposition can get it for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I decided to vote yes on Prop. 22, because it would allow me and my fellow drivers to retain the flexibility we need while ensuring we get the benefits and protections we deserve,” said Dave Thomasson, a driver from West Covina.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"directtovoter\">\u003c/a>Unprecedented Direct-to-Voter Connection\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843415\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843415\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1317\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad-800x549.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad-1020x700.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Lyft app displays a message asking users to vote yes on Proposition 22. \u003ccite>(JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last month, Hector Castellanos started seeing the pop-ups while driving for Uber. Under a dialog box emblazoned with “Prop. 22 is progress,” Castellanos had to click either “Yes on Prop. 22” or “OK” to proceed with his ride. At the same time, his riders were getting pop ups that said their drivers support Prop. 22 and that they should talk with them about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Castellanos drives full-time, and throughout the day kept seeing the pop up again and again. Castellanos opposes Proposition 22 and he didn’t want to have to click yes or OK, but he had no option. “Drivers have to click ‘yes’ even if they don’t want it,” he said. “They have to click yes or OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_11842964 hero='https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Uber-Driver-1020x701.jpg']Uber spokesperson Davis White said Castellanos’s experience is not the norm, and that drivers should only see the pop up once when signing off the app, and that the pop up has been changed so drivers can just close it without selecting an answer. \u003ca href=\"https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20398520-uber-prop-22-complaint\">Castellanos and another driver are now suing\u003c/a> Uber for allegedly infringing on their right to be free of political coercion at work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber’s popups are an example of the unprecedented advantage gig companies have in this ballot campaign: their own apps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With their apps already used by millions of California workers and consumers, proponents of no other ballot proposition have ever had direct-to-voter connection at this scale — and gig companies are using the opportunity. They’re sending emails, push notifications to phones and using pop-ups to continually send the pro-Prop. 22 message directly to their customers and workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"David McCuan, Sonoma State University\"]‘It is the holy grail of political communication.’[/pullquote]Lyft and Uber have been particularly aggressive in using apps to market Prop. 22 to customers. In the Uber app, riders will see a little blue text bubble coming out of the car image that says “Yes on 22.” Uber is sending push notifications that pop up on phones saying things like “Vote early on Prop. 22. Support drivers and help keep Uber in your city.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11842964/gig-companies-are-making-their-workers-promote-prop-22\">gig companies are also pressuring their workers\u003c/a> to spread pro-Prop. 22 messages to consumers. In October, Instacart asked workers through the app to put pro-Prop. 22 stickers in customers’ orders at a Bay Area store. The sticker said “Yes 22, Save App-Based Jobs and Services.” DoorDash is providing free delivery bags to restaurants that have Prop. 22 ads on their sides. Then workers have to use these bags to bring food to customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After backlash online, Instacart is no longer asking workers to add stickers to orders. But DoorDash is continuing to send pro-Prop. 22 delivery bags to restaurants. The company says restaurants have requested over 4 million bags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This widespread use of apps to spread messages is unprecedented in a proposition campaign, and it could prove to be a powerful tactic that other corporations want to emulate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is the holy grail of political communication,” said David McCuan, professor of political science at Sonoma State University who has been studying ballot propositions for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the gig companies are successful in getting Prop. 22 passed, McCuan said it could change the way ballot initiatives are fought in California. Companies with apps and money to leverage them may see ballot initiatives as a worthwhile way to get their policies enacted if this campaign shows that apps can be used to sway voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"ramifications\">\u003c/a>The Ramifications\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>If Proposition 22 fails, gig companies would have to reclassify workers as employees. That could mean redirecting more revenue to pay for basic employee protections, increasing fares and increased requirements to work on these apps, especially for more casual, part-time drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gig companies could be responsible for years of back pay, lost benefits, taxes and unpaid unemployment insurance, which could be an especially big deal for Uber and Lyft. \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/press-release-what-would-uber-and-lyft-owe-to-the-state-unemployment-insurance-fund/#:~:text=BERKELEY%2C%20CA%20%E2%80%94%20A%20new%20report,Fund%20between%202014%20and%202019.\">A report from UC Berkeley’s Labor Center\u003c/a> estimates they could owe as much as $413 million for the period between 2014 to 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber has said prices \u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-fares-double-small-cities-if-voters-reject-prop-22-2020-10\">could double in small cities\u003c/a>. The Yes on Prop. 22 campaign has suggested that 80% to 90% of drivers could lose work. Given the lack of data from gig companies, it is hard to know how much each would have to change their prices or operations. Also Uber and Lyft are still not profitable, so some change is bound to happen to their services regardless of what happens with Proposition 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gig companies have also said they could leave California temporarily. In the past, Uber and Lyft have left places like Austin in order to urge lawmakers to overturn regulations they didn’t like. The companies have always come back, and they’ve never pulled out of a market as big as California. \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/tusk-venture-partners/initial-thoughts-on-what-the-2020-election-means-for-you-b7d8200b1bf6\">Bradley Tusk is a former political advisor to Uber, and he assumes\u003c/a> gig companies would use their billions of dollars to continue appealing to the Legislature and to voters to find a way to maintain their gig contractor model if Prop. 22 fails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Proposition 22 passes, California would have a third category of worker — the gig contractor — enshrined in law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gig companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates and Instacart would get a carve out from state labor law and would be allowed to classify workers as gig contractors, thereby denying them basic employee benefits. The door would be open for other companies to develop apps to take advantage of this new gig worker category.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure would become the \u003ca href=\"#written\">hardest statute to amend\u003c/a> in California history, and local governments would have no power to enact laws that provide gig workers with additional benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would \u003ca href=\"#directtovoter\">establish a playbook\u003c/a> for other companies that want to use an app to market a ballot initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A handful of companies will have proven that they can use a ballot initiative to maintain a business practice that has been deemed illegal either directly or indirectly by all three branches of California’s government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There would certainly be lawsuits over things like the 7/8ths provision, but barring a new ballot proposition or a major legal victory, gig workers would have to continue working without basic employee protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The state's most expensive ballot measure ever would lock-in a new category of worker in California - and it would be nearly impossible to change.",
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"title": "Prop. 22 Explained: Why Gig Companies Are Spending Huge Money on an Unprecedented Measure | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">This story was updated Wednesday, Nov. 4 at 12:40pm\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">UPDATE: Proposition 22 was approved by California voters Tuesday, Nov. 3. \u003c/b>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">\u003ca class=\"c-link\" href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844725/proposition-22-passes-locking-in-sub-employee-status-for-gig-workers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-stringify-link=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11844725/proposition-22-passes-locking-in-sub-employee-status-for-gig-workers\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\">Read the full details here\u003c/a>\u003c/b>\u003cb data-stringify-type=\"bold\">.\u003c/b>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ci data-stringify-type=\"italic\">Original story:\u003c/i>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The decision California voters face on Proposition 22 boils down to this: should a handful of companies be allowed to create a new gig contractor category for their workers that doesn’t include employee protections and benefits, like unemployment insurance and workers compensation? Or should companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash have to follow state labor law and classify their drivers as employees, which could mean directing more revenue to workers, higher prices for consumers and increased requirements for more casual drivers?\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s the choice on the ballot. But there’s so much more going on with this unprecedented and far-reaching proposition — a proposition that recent polling indicates will come down to Californians who are still undecided. As of Oct. 26, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11843691/poll-measure-pushed-by-uber-lyft-falling-just-short-of-passage-many-voters-still-undecided\">polling of likely voters\u003c/a> shows 46% in favor, 42% opposed and 12% undecided. Here’s everything you’d need to know about the proposition and its backstory before you vote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>Skip to:\u003c/strong>\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#backstory\">The Backstory\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: How companies like Lyft, Uber and DoorDash have avoided employee classification for eight years despite pressure from workers, labor groups and every branch of state government\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#written\">What’s Actually in Prop. 22?\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: An explanation of the limited worker benefits and why the “7/8ths provision” would make it nearly impossible to change this law in the future\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#money\">Unprecedented Money\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: Gig companies are spending record amounts of cash to market Prop. 22 — and it’s being framed as a social justice issue\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#surveys\">Those Driver Surveys, and What’s Wrong With Them\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: What do drivers want? Surveys used to market Prop. 22 are often flawed and don’t tell the full story\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#directtovoter\">Unprecedented Direct-to-Voter Connection\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: Millions of apps in millions of pockets, workers asked to deliver political ads and pop ups galore — win or lose, a new election playbook is being written\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>\u003cstrong>\u003ca href=\"#ramifications\">The Ramifications\u003c/a>\u003c/strong>: If Prop. 22 passes, what will it mean for gig work, labor protections, election campaigning and local governance?\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"backstory\">\u003c/a>The Backstory\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843145\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843145\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache.jpg\" alt=\"Lyft car with mustache\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1250\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache-800x521.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache-1020x664.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache-160x104.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Lyft-moustache-1536x1000.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Lyft driver with one of the early fuzzy pink mustaches drives in downtown San Francisco in January, 2014. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>It all began in 2012 with a fuzzy pink mustache and a fist bump. It was Lyft, not Uber, that first started paying drivers to use their own cars to do taxi work. Both companies cast themselves not as taxi companies, but platforms to connect riders to drivers, and tech journalists helped propel this image. \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3668606\">Here’s the even deeper backstory on how that all went down\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Using the platform argument, the gig companies classified their workers as contractors, which shielded them from liability and allowed them to avoid paying for protections like overtime and unemployment insurance. Regulators and the government at the state and federal levels did not stop Uber and Lyft, and soon, companies like Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates began following suit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But this contractor model was legally suspect from the start. In California, the determination of whether a worker was a contractor or an employee was made by the Borello test, which is a \u003ca href=\"https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-supreme-court/1774638.html\">complex set of 11 factors established by a 1989 California Supreme Court case\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It was arguable that under those parameters, gig workers were not independent entrepreneurs running their own businesses on a platform provided by “tech” companies, but instead, employees of a transportation company in the case of Uber and Lyft, a service company in the case of TaskRabbit and a delivery company in the case of Postmates or DoorDash.\u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/article/us-uber-tech-drivers-lawsuit/uber-drivers-granted-class-action-status-in-lawsuit-over-employment-idUSKCN0R14O920150901\"> Lawyers began trying to make the case\u003c/a> with big lawsuits against gig companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers were and still are fighting almost all the battles over employee protections and benefits behind closed doors. That’s because gig companies make workers sign arbitration clauses, which prevent them from taking any grievance to court. That has helped preempt and neutralize class-action lawsuits. Law professor Charlotte Garden \u003ca href=\"https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1794&context=faculty\">wrote a whole academic paper\u003c/a> on how the gig economy relies on mandatory arbitration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2014, as Uber and Lyft began to slash wages in a price war, workers increased their protest, but they could make no headway toward employment status. Gig companies leaned on customer support for political support, and consumers loved these cheap rides, which were kept low by the contractor model and venture capital. It took six years for any notable action from California’s government. And it came first from the judicial branch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a ruling on a case known as \u003ca href=\"https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/dynamex-operations-west-inc-v-superior-court-34584\">Dynamex in 2018\u003c/a>, California’s Supreme Court simplified the Borello test, boiling it down to just three factors, called the ABCs. A worker could now only be classified as a contractor if they:\u003c/p>\n\u003cul>\n\u003cli>A) Were free from the control and direction of the hirer\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>B) Performed work outside the hirer’s normal course of business\u003c/li>\n\u003cli>C) Had their own independently established trade, occupation or business\u003c/li>\n\u003c/ul>\n\u003cp>The ruling made it much more difficult for gig companies to deny workers employee benefits and protections. But still, gig companies kept classifying workers as contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After the state Supreme Court, the Legislature took up the fight. Lawmakers passed \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5\">Assembly Bill 5\u003c/a>, which went into effect on Jan. 1, 2020. AB 5 codified the Dynamex ruling and was designed with gig companies in mind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, the new law also affected a number of other industries that have come to rely on contractors. The bill was amended after a backlash, and a number of professions got exemptions, like fine artists, foresters and translators — but not gig workers. Still, gig companies kept classifying workers as contractors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Then in May, several months into the coronavirus pandemic, with tens of thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers seeking unemployment funds that didn’t exist because the companies had never paid into the state unemployment fund, the executive branch got involved. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with a handful of city attorneys, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11816321/california-city-attorneys-sue-uber-and-lyft-over-worker-misclassification\">sued Uber and Lyft for misclassifying workers\u003c/a>. On Oct. 22 Uber and Lyft \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-10-22/uber-and-lyft-must-comply-with-labor-law-ab-5-appeals-court-orders\">lost an appeal\u003c/a>, and will have to start classifying workers as employees in 30 days — unless Proposition 22 passes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After AB 5 passed, the gig companies started their ballot initiative campaign, hoping that voters would enshrine their gig contractor model into law. Now, with all three branches of California’s government pressuring them to classify workers as employees, they are pouring money into Proposition 22. It’s become \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/What_were_the_most_expensive_ballot_measures_in_California\">the most well-funded ballot initiative in California history\u003c/a>. And it’s designed to be a conclusive victory for gig companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"written\">\u003c/a>What’s Actually in Prop. 22?\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843210\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843210\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS45263_001_KQED_ElectionStockPhotos_TikaHall_10062020-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A San Francisco resident fills out their mail-in ballot on Oct. 6, 2020. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Proposition 22 is written as an exemption from AB 5 for any company that provides transportation or delivery services through an app. It would enshrine in law a kind of third employment category: the contract gig worker. This has been a goal of gig companies for years. They have pursued it at the federal level, and have already \u003ca href=\"https://www.nelp.org/publication/rights-at-risk-gig-companies-campaign-to-upend-employment-as-we-know-it/\">had success in getting legislation on the books in a number of states\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the measure has several other provisions built around the central premise of exempting gig companies from AB 5.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Limited Employee Benefits\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Prop. 22 would guarantee gig workers some limited benefits and protections. As contractors, they currently have none. But the benefits are not as straightforward as they appear at first read.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The most murky benefit is the guaranteed wage floor. Prop. 22 would ensure 120% of minimum wage and 30 cents per mile for drivers, adjusted for inflation. But there’s a pretty big catch. The guarantee is only for “engaged” driving time, defined as the time between “accepting a service request and completing the request.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Much of gig work is spent waiting for a job in the app. \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-uber-lyft-ballot-initiative-guarantees-only-5-64-an-hour-2/\">UC Berkeley’s Labor Center did a study\u003c/a> where they tried to take time between rides into account, along with wear and tear on the vehicle. Adding those factors in the mix, the study found the wage guarantee drops to just $5.64 an hour, a drastic pay cut from the $13 minimum wage they would be guaranteed as employees in California. Uber and Lyft disputed the findings in the study, and \u003ca href=\"https://ucreconomicforecast.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Prop22_Driver_Earnings_Analysis_August2020.pdf\">they commissioned another study\u003c/a> that put the earnings at between $25 and $27 an hour. That prompted \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-effects-of-proposition-22-on-driver-earnings-response-to-a-lyft-funded-report-by-dr-christopher-thornberg/#_edn5\">a rebuttal from UC Berkeley.\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aside from the wage floor, Prop. 22 includes a number of benefits that are substitutes for protections guaranteed by traditional employment. In each case, these protections are weaker than what workers would get as employees, and some are contingent on driving a certain number of hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead of health care, drivers who put in over 25 hours per week of engaged driving time would get health care subsidies. Instead of workers compensation, companies would offer occupational accident insurance for medical expenses, lost income and disability. Companies would also offer accidental death insurance. It is not clear if these insurance plans would be given to workers automatically, or if they would only be guaranteed the opportunity to purchase them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843841\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843841\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut.jpg\" alt=\"ride-hail driver in Oakland\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/RS41942_005_KQED_Oakland_RideHail_03102020_-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A ride-hail driver in Oakland In March, 2020. Prop. 22 would guarantee gig workers some limited benefits and protections. As contractors, they currently have none. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Prop. 22 also includes provisions to address long-term accountability issues in the gig industry, like discrimination, sexual misconduct, a lack of background checks and drivers working more than 12 hours a day. Gig companies would be required to create anti-discrimination and sexual harassment policies, develop training programs for drivers and require criminal background checks — all things that the companies have been criticized for lacking in the past.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the issues these final provisions would address are things that are exacerbated by the contractor status of workers. If these workers were actually employees, gig companies would be far more liable for things like car accidents, sexual misconduct and criminal activity.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Prop. 22 Would Be Nearly Impossible to Change\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>If Proposition 22 passes, it would prevent local governments from passing laws that require companies to provide additional benefits and protections for gig workers not included in Prop. 22. It would also be the hardest statute for the Legislature to alter, aside from a handful of propositions that bar any amendment whatsoever. That’s because of the 7/8ths provision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A single sentence on page 18 of the initiative requires a 7/8ths vote of both the state Assembly and Senate in order to amend Prop. 22 in any way. \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-amendment-threshold-proposition-22/\">This particular requirement is unprecedented\u003c/a>. Some propositions have required 2/3rds or 3/5s — but never 7/8ths.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If it passes, Prop. 22 would be harder to amend than the state’s Wildlife Protection Act, the Clean Air and Transportation Improvement Act or the Cruelty to Farm Animals Act. Amending it would take eight more votes than are needed to override a governor’s veto or revise the state Constitution, according to data provided to KQED by Alex Vassar, communications manager at the California State Library.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In California, a proposition can only be undone by another ballot initiative. So why is the threshold for amendment so high on Prop. 22? Part of the reason is that a section of the proposition’s stated purpose is contradictory to the wishes of gig companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 22 states that it would “require rideshare and delivery network companies to offer new protections and benefits for app-based rideshare and delivery drivers.” That might sound good to voters who want more protections for workers, but it could cause problems for gig companies. The Legislature could, for example, alter Prop. 22 once it becomes statute or pass new laws to increase benefits for workers beyond what gig companies want. The 7/8ths provision presents a very high barrier to that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Prop. 22 would also stop local governments from requiring gig companies to increase benefits and protections to gig workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Proposition 22 lops off the top by cutting off the state Legislature’s ability to amend the law, and it lops off the bottom [by] preventing local governments from ever modifying its requirements,” said Rey Fuentes, a fellow at The Partnership for Working Families, an advocacy group for workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Cities in California are often where laws that grant the most rigorous worker benefits and protections start: things like the Healthy SF program, or San Francisco’s mandatory sick leave. Cities have also been the most proactive in requiring gig companies to provide additional benefits to workers. San Francisco and San Jose, for instance, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Two-Bay-Area-cities-poised-to-approve-paid-sick-15185145.php\">extended COVID-19 emergency benefits to gig workers\u003c/a>. \u003ca href=\"https://www.capitolhillseattle.com/2020/06/seattle-extends-sick-leave-to-gig-workers-including-food-delivery-workers-more-heroes-of-the-covid-19-crisis/\">Seattle passed a similar ordinance\u003c/a>. Prop. 22 has a clause that would preempt future measures like these.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yes on Prop. 22 Spokesperson Geoff Vetter said the issue is consistency for workers who cross city and county lines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Given the cross-jurisdictional nature of the service,” Vetter said, “it would be impossible to allow all 58 counties and 480+ cities to establish separate requirements. Prop. 22 establishes uniform statewide standards for app-based driver scheduling, benefits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"money\">\u003c/a>Unprecedented Money\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843334\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843334\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield.jpg\" alt=\"A driver who drives for both Uber and Lyft\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/UberLyftWindshield-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber and Lyft have spent nearly $100 million combined in support of Prop. 22. \u003ccite>(ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Proposition 22 is on track to become the most well-funded ballot initiative in California history.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It has already drawn about $200 million, most of it on the pro side. As of 10 days before the election, the anti-side had around $19 million, coming mainly from labor organizations. The pro-side has over $199 million coming from gig companies. As of the beginning of October, Uber had contributed over $50 million; Lyft, $48 million; DoorDash, $47 million; InstaCart, $28 million; and Postmates, $11 million.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That money is not just being spent on TV and digital advertising. The Yes on Prop. 22 campaign has also contributed to political parties, including $2 million to the California Republican Party. It has spent millions hiring consultants, lobbyists and PR firms like MB Public Affairs, which is known for working with tobacco companies. These firms have launched personal and \u003ca href=\"https://www.cnet.com/features/uber-lyfts-fight-over-gig-worker-status-as-campaign-against-labor-activists-mounts/\">intrusive attacks on academics like Veena Dubal\u003c/a>, a UC Hastings law professor who has been critical of gig companies and Proposition 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Yes on Prop. 22 campaign has also sent money to newsrooms in return for digital advertising. By the middle of September, it had sent almost $48,000 to the Sacramento Bee, $13,500 to the San Diego Union Tribune and a little over $36,000 to the San Francisco Chronicle. Both the Tribune and the Chronicle endorsed the measure, but in their endorsements made no mention of the ad revenue they had received.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>Marketing Prop. 22 as a Social Justice Measure\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Many workers in the gig economy in California are people of color – a fact reflected in the advertising campaign for Prop. 22, which presents the initiative as a boon for social justice. In the past, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11643681/lyft-gains-on-uber-by-appealing-to-progressive-political-ideals\">Lyft had leaned heavily on social justice messaging\u003c/a> to appeal to liberals and distinguish itself from Uber, especially after Trump was elected. Now, this tactic has become a major thrust of the entire Yes on Prop. 22 campaign.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘You have very clearly crossed the line when you try to claim the equity mantle for a campaign that has always been about allowing multi-billion-dollar app companies to write their own law so they can keep exploiting drivers.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>PR firms working for the campaign \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Fake-progressive-mailers-urge-yes-on-Uber-Lyft-15635173.php\">have created a number of political mailers\u003c/a> that urge people to vote yes on Prop. 22 and are designed to look like voter guides coming from progressive sources. In small letters at the bottom of these mailers it says the guides are prepared by organizations like “Feel the Bern, Progressive Voter Guide,” “Council of Concerned Women Voters Guide” and “Our Voice, Latino Voter Guide,” which are all fake progressive organizations. They don’t actually exist. After these mailers were reported, Bernie Sanders \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1315650084567121920?s=20\">came out publicly against\u003c/a> Proposition 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many of the ads in the Yes on Prop. 22 campaign feature people of color, like Aisha A. from Los Angeles, who say they need this flexible job to survive. Uber ran an ad campaign this summer with billboards in many major cities that said “If you tolerate racism, delete Uber.” Lyft \u003ca href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yImMyOkeaKQ\">created a television ad\u003c/a> using a recording of Maya Angelou reading her poem, “On the Pulse of Morning.”\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/yImMyOkeaKQ'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/yImMyOkeaKQ'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>The Lyft ad begins with a voiceover of Angelou saying “Lift up your eyes upon / This day breaking for you.” You see Black and brown people getting ready for work. And then it transitions to the inside of a Lyft. There’s a montage of drivers, all people of color, picking up passengers. “Each new hour holds new chances / For a new beginning.” Angelou says “Do not be wedded forever / To fear, yoked eternally / To brutishness.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Getting the California NAACP to endorse Proposition 22 was a big win for gig companies. The organization has authored voter guides telling people to vote yes, and Alice Huffman, head of the California NAACP, has been writing editorials in support of the proposition. Huffman also happens to run a consulting firm called AC Public Affairs. That firm has so far received $85,000 from the Yes on Prop. 22 Campaign. Huffman has a history of receiving contributions from corporations to support their ballot initiatives. The Yes on Prop. 22 money \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/2020/09/california-naacp-president-helps-corporate-ballot-measure-campaigns/\">is part of $1.2 million her firm has already received this year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many Black and Latino leaders in California have come out against Proposition 22; Rep. Barbara Lee from Oakland, Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and members of both the Latino and Black California Legislative Caucus were part of a group that \u003ca href=\"https://thehill.com/policy/technology/520671-democrats-accuse-tech-companies-of-deceitful-tactics-in-campaign-against\">publicly denounced\u003c/a> Proposition 22 in mid-October.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Addressing the gig companies on the call, Lee said, “You have very clearly crossed the line when you try to claim the equity mantle for a campaign that has always been about allowing multi-billion-dollar app companies to write their own law so they can keep exploiting the drivers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response, Vetter said “Prop. 22 not only protects the jobs of drivers of color and their freedom to work independently, it would provide drivers an earnings guarantee, access to benefits like health care and provide drivers and passengers alike with new safety protections.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"surveys\">\u003c/a>Those Driver Surveys, and What’s Wrong With Them\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843323\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843323\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver.jpg\" alt=\"Uber driver Sergei Fyodorov holds a flyer supporting a yes vote on Proposition 22 in Oakland.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1290\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver-800x538.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver-1020x685.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver-160x108.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/YesOn22Driver-1536x1032.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber driver Sergei Fyodorov, in Oakland, holds a flyer suggesting his riders ask him about why he supports Proposition 22. \u003ccite>(Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Many ads from the Yes on Prop. 22 campaign say four out of five drivers prefer being independent contractors. This data comes from a survey done on the blog of \u003ca href=\"https://therideshareguy.com/\">Harry the Rideshare Guy\u003c/a>. It’s one of a slew of surveys the gig companies have been using to advocate for Prop. 22. These surveys are often methodologically flawed, and they never tell the whole story of what drivers want.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Harry the Rideshare Guy survey has been a central piece of advertising for Proposition 22 and used in legal arguments, it is a non-scientific, informal poll done on a blog. There was no guarantee that respondents were drivers, let alone that there was a representative sample in terms of demographics, hours driven or political leanings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Harry Campbell, CEO of The Rideshare Guy blog, said he believes the site’s survey reflects what he has been hearing from drivers. Yes on Prop. 22 campaign spokesperson Geoff Vetter agreed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The Rideshare Guy polled app-based drivers in California and did it without offering payment to the respondents,” Vetter said. “All this makes for a much fuller, more accurate data set and one that correctly demonstrates how drivers feel about Prop. 22 and independent contractor v. employee status.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But The Rideshare Guy survey is indicative of a number of the broader issues that the No on Prop. 22 campaign and scholars studying the gig economy have with how drivers are being surveyed. Juliet Schor, a professor of sociology at Boston College who has spent years studying the gig economy, said these surveys don’t capture the full picture. There is often bias in the sample, flawed and misleading questions and information presented that influences responses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843775\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 411px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-11843775\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey-800x466.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"411\" height=\"239\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey-800x466.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey-1020x595.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey-160x93.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/edelson-survey.png 1501w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 411px) 100vw, 411px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Drivers got this prompt before being asked if they supported Proposition 22. \u003ccite>(Edelson Survey Screenshot)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This \u003ca href=\"https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/themes/5ef0e34fc294806719977470/attachments/original/1592866174/cadriversurvey.pdf?1592866174\">survey from Edelman\u003c/a> is a good example. In a question about Prop. 22, the survey included a snippet from a TechCrunch article that cast the proposition in positive light. Given that prompt, 72 percent of respondents said they supported the measure. On August 19, Lyft issued a survey that had a common flaw in the questioning, equating contractor status to freedom. The survey asked if “the freedom of being an independent contractor outweighs the benefits of being an employee.” Conflating freedom with being an independent contractor is misleading. Employees can have autonomy and freedom, and likewise contractors can be constrained and coerced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Finally, there is the sample issue. The surveys give equal weight to those who drive only a few hours a week with those who drive much more. And the surveys only poll active workers, which could have a distorting effect on the results. There have been tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in California who have done some work for these gig companies and then stopped. These workers represent a large percentage of the labor that has been done for these companies, yet their opinions are being left out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s a big methodological weakness of the surveys,” Schor said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Schor and her research team have interviewed hundreds of gig workers over the years, ethnographic data that can capture what a survey doesn’t. She says there is actually a lot of consistency in what drivers want. They want to be autonomous and have flexibility, but they also want to earn enough that they can pay their bills, buy insurance, and have money set aside if something goes wrong. Schor said she thinks a lot of gig workers in California are answering surveys with what they wish they could have: independent status and enough money to truly be their own bosses. \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3488009\">Veena Dubal wrote an entire academic paper unpacking all of this\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Driver Noemi Torres agreed with Schor’s conclusions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to be independent contractors, but Uber doesn’t treat us like independent contractors,” said Torres, who has been driving for seven years outside of North Hollywood. “Initially, we would get paid enough to support ourselves in terms of getting our own health insurance, but since they keep lowering the rates, you don’t have the flexibility.” She opposes Proposition 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Drivers who support Proposition 22 often don’t sound that different when it comes to what they want. They just believe the ballot proposition can get it for them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I decided to vote yes on Prop. 22, because it would allow me and my fellow drivers to retain the flexibility we need while ensuring we get the benefits and protections we deserve,” said Dave Thomasson, a driver from West Covina.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"directtovoter\">\u003c/a>Unprecedented Direct-to-Voter Connection\u003c/h1>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843415\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843415\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1317\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad-800x549.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad-1020x700.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/LyftAppProp22Ad-1536x1054.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Lyft app displays a message asking users to vote yes on Proposition 22. \u003ccite>(JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Last month, Hector Castellanos started seeing the pop-ups while driving for Uber. Under a dialog box emblazoned with “Prop. 22 is progress,” Castellanos had to click either “Yes on Prop. 22” or “OK” to proceed with his ride. At the same time, his riders were getting pop ups that said their drivers support Prop. 22 and that they should talk with them about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Castellanos drives full-time, and throughout the day kept seeing the pop up again and again. Castellanos opposes Proposition 22 and he didn’t want to have to click yes or OK, but he had no option. “Drivers have to click ‘yes’ even if they don’t want it,” he said. “They have to click yes or OK.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Uber spokesperson Davis White said Castellanos’s experience is not the norm, and that drivers should only see the pop up once when signing off the app, and that the pop up has been changed so drivers can just close it without selecting an answer. \u003ca href=\"https://beta.documentcloud.org/documents/20398520-uber-prop-22-complaint\">Castellanos and another driver are now suing\u003c/a> Uber for allegedly infringing on their right to be free of political coercion at work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber’s popups are an example of the unprecedented advantage gig companies have in this ballot campaign: their own apps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>With their apps already used by millions of California workers and consumers, proponents of no other ballot proposition have ever had direct-to-voter connection at this scale — and gig companies are using the opportunity. They’re sending emails, push notifications to phones and using pop-ups to continually send the pro-Prop. 22 message directly to their customers and workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Lyft and Uber have been particularly aggressive in using apps to market Prop. 22 to customers. In the Uber app, riders will see a little blue text bubble coming out of the car image that says “Yes on 22.” Uber is sending push notifications that pop up on phones saying things like “Vote early on Prop. 22. Support drivers and help keep Uber in your city.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11842964/gig-companies-are-making-their-workers-promote-prop-22\">gig companies are also pressuring their workers\u003c/a> to spread pro-Prop. 22 messages to consumers. In October, Instacart asked workers through the app to put pro-Prop. 22 stickers in customers’ orders at a Bay Area store. The sticker said “Yes 22, Save App-Based Jobs and Services.” DoorDash is providing free delivery bags to restaurants that have Prop. 22 ads on their sides. Then workers have to use these bags to bring food to customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After backlash online, Instacart is no longer asking workers to add stickers to orders. But DoorDash is continuing to send pro-Prop. 22 delivery bags to restaurants. The company says restaurants have requested over 4 million bags.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This widespread use of apps to spread messages is unprecedented in a proposition campaign, and it could prove to be a powerful tactic that other corporations want to emulate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is the holy grail of political communication,” said David McCuan, professor of political science at Sonoma State University who has been studying ballot propositions for decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the gig companies are successful in getting Prop. 22 passed, McCuan said it could change the way ballot initiatives are fought in California. Companies with apps and money to leverage them may see ballot initiatives as a worthwhile way to get their policies enacted if this campaign shows that apps can be used to sway voters.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch1>\u003ca id=\"ramifications\">\u003c/a>The Ramifications\u003c/h1>\n\u003cp>If Proposition 22 fails, gig companies would have to reclassify workers as employees. That could mean redirecting more revenue to pay for basic employee protections, increasing fares and increased requirements to work on these apps, especially for more casual, part-time drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gig companies could be responsible for years of back pay, lost benefits, taxes and unpaid unemployment insurance, which could be an especially big deal for Uber and Lyft. \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/press-release-what-would-uber-and-lyft-owe-to-the-state-unemployment-insurance-fund/#:~:text=BERKELEY%2C%20CA%20%E2%80%94%20A%20new%20report,Fund%20between%202014%20and%202019.\">A report from UC Berkeley’s Labor Center\u003c/a> estimates they could owe as much as $413 million for the period between 2014 to 2019.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber has said prices \u003ca href=\"https://www.businessinsider.com/uber-fares-double-small-cities-if-voters-reject-prop-22-2020-10\">could double in small cities\u003c/a>. The Yes on Prop. 22 campaign has suggested that 80% to 90% of drivers could lose work. Given the lack of data from gig companies, it is hard to know how much each would have to change their prices or operations. Also Uber and Lyft are still not profitable, so some change is bound to happen to their services regardless of what happens with Proposition 22.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gig companies have also said they could leave California temporarily. In the past, Uber and Lyft have left places like Austin in order to urge lawmakers to overturn regulations they didn’t like. The companies have always come back, and they’ve never pulled out of a market as big as California. \u003ca href=\"https://medium.com/tusk-venture-partners/initial-thoughts-on-what-the-2020-election-means-for-you-b7d8200b1bf6\">Bradley Tusk is a former political advisor to Uber, and he assumes\u003c/a> gig companies would use their billions of dollars to continue appealing to the Legislature and to voters to find a way to maintain their gig contractor model if Prop. 22 fails.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If Proposition 22 passes, California would have a third category of worker — the gig contractor — enshrined in law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gig companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates and Instacart would get a carve out from state labor law and would be allowed to classify workers as gig contractors, thereby denying them basic employee benefits. The door would be open for other companies to develop apps to take advantage of this new gig worker category.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The measure would become the \u003ca href=\"#written\">hardest statute to amend\u003c/a> in California history, and local governments would have no power to enact laws that provide gig workers with additional benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It would \u003ca href=\"#directtovoter\">establish a playbook\u003c/a> for other companies that want to use an app to market a ballot initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A handful of companies will have proven that they can use a ballot initiative to maintain a business practice that has been deemed illegal either directly or indirectly by all three branches of California’s government.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There would certainly be lawsuits over things like the 7/8ths provision, but barring a new ballot proposition or a major legal victory, gig workers would have to continue working without basic employee protections.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>Even as gig companies \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based_Drivers_as_Contractors_and_Labor_Policies_Initiative_(2020)\">spend a record amount\u003c/a> of advertising money on Proposition 22, they’re making their gig workers help them market the ballot initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 22 would create a carve out from \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5\">California labor law\u003c/a> to allow a handful of gig companies to continue classifying their workers as contractors, making them ineligible for employee protections and benefits like unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Lyft, Uber, Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates have spent almost $200 million on the pro-Proposition 22 campaign. Where does the money go? Ads, obviously, and political consultants – but it’s also going to in-app messages, flyers and takeout packaging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"William Gould, Stanford University law professor\"]‘If ever there was compelled speech, and an interference with a right of freedom of speech, which is protected in California for private sector workers, this is it.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve taken a ride with Uber or Lyft recently, you’ve probably seen a pro-Proposition 22 ad in the app. That marketing is also directed at drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month at work, Hector Castellanos started seeing it while he was driving for Uber. Under a dialog box emblazoned with “Prop 22 is progress,” Castellanos had to click either “Yes on Prop 22” or “Okay.” At the same time, his riders were getting pop ups that said their drivers support Proposition 22 and that they should talk with them about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843019\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 577px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843019\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Pop-Up-Drivers-e1603233411510.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"577\" height=\"575\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Pop-Up-Drivers-e1603233411510.jpeg 577w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Pop-Up-Drivers-e1603233411510-160x159.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 577px) 100vw, 577px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A screenshot from Uber driver Hector Castellanos’ phone. There was no option for him to click ‘no’ to close the pop up. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Hector Castellanos)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Castellanos drives full-time, and throughout the work day, he kept seeing the pop up again and again. “Drivers have to click ‘yes’ even if they don’t want it,” he said. “They have to click yes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was particularly upsetting to Castellanos because he opposes Proposition 22. A few years ago, he got into an accident while driving for Lyft and needed surgery on his shoulder. He couldn’t work for eight months, and because he is not an employee, he did not get worker’s compensation. His oldest daughter had to drop out of college and go to work to help the family pay the bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was something that really got to my heart,” Castellanos says, “I was probably just one case in thousands like me.” He decided drivers like him had to be employees to get basic protections like guaranteed minimum wage and workers compensation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An Uber spokesperson says the company changed the pop up recently to be more informational and give drivers an option to close it. Also, the spokesperson said that the pop up should have only appeared one time when drivers go offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But drivers sometimes log off when they switch between all different apps they work for, which means they could have to click through the pop up repeatedly. Castellanos estimates that he was seeing it 25 or 30 times a day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/SamWHarnett/status/1318289882347786240?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber isn’t the only company using workers to spread pro-Proposition 22 messages to consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kp5yq/instacart-asked-its-gig-workers-to-distribute-propaganda-that-would-hurt-them\">Instacart asked workers through the app\u003c/a> to put pro-Proposition 22 stickers in customers’ orders at a Bay Area store. \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2020/10/16/21520005/doordash-prop-22-gig-workers-ab5-apps\">DoorDash is providing free pro-Proposition 22 food delivery bags\u003c/a> to restaurants, which workers then have to use to bring food to customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11842965\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11842965\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-1104x1104.jpg 1104w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-912x912.jpg 912w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-550x550.jpg 550w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-470x470.jpg 470w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of the millions of pro-Proposition 22 delivery bags that DoorDash sent to restaurants, and that gig workers have to use to deliver food to customers. \u003ccite>(DoorDash)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stanford law professor William Gould says all three of these instances could be violating the protected speech of workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If ever there was compelled speech, and an interference with a right of freedom of speech, which is protected in California for private sector workers, this is it,” Gould said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federally these workers have little protection. Since the Supreme Court protected the speech of corporations as if they were people in its 2010 Citizens United decision, companies have had far more ability to \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/07/politics-at-work-employee-mobilization-lobbying\">mobilize their workers toward particular political goals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However what these gig companies have made workers do “could be in violation of California \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1101&lawCode=LAB\">labor code sections 1101 and 1102\u003c/a>,” said David Levine, a law professor at UC Hastings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those sections prevent an employer from attempting to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of their employees. The gig companies contend their workers are actually contractors not employees – which means they would not be protected by these sections of the labor code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, that very employment status is the central issue at stake with Proposition 22 – and if it passes, gig companies would have a much easier time having workers distribute political materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the assertion that distributing these materials infringed on freedom of speech, a spokesperson for the Yes on Prop. 22 campaign said “Each company is communicating with their customers in various ways because of the high stakes in this election.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After backlash online, Instacart is no longer asking workers to add stickers to orders. But DoorDash is continuing to send pro-Prop. 22 delivery bags to restaurants. The company says it has sent more than 4 million of the bags to over 600 restaurants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Update: \u003c/em>\u003cem>A spokesperson for DoorDash says more than 4 million bags have been requested by restaurants, but that the company has only sent out around 150 thousand.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Even as gig companies \u003ca href=\"https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based_Drivers_as_Contractors_and_Labor_Policies_Initiative_(2020)\">spend a record amount\u003c/a> of advertising money on Proposition 22, they’re making their gig workers help them market the ballot initiative.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 22 would create a carve out from \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5\">California labor law\u003c/a> to allow a handful of gig companies to continue classifying their workers as contractors, making them ineligible for employee protections and benefits like unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Lyft, Uber, Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates have spent almost $200 million on the pro-Proposition 22 campaign. Where does the money go? Ads, obviously, and political consultants – but it’s also going to in-app messages, flyers and takeout packaging.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If you’ve taken a ride with Uber or Lyft recently, you’ve probably seen a pro-Proposition 22 ad in the app. That marketing is also directed at drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month at work, Hector Castellanos started seeing it while he was driving for Uber. Under a dialog box emblazoned with “Prop 22 is progress,” Castellanos had to click either “Yes on Prop 22” or “Okay.” At the same time, his riders were getting pop ups that said their drivers support Proposition 22 and that they should talk with them about it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11843019\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 577px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11843019\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Pop-Up-Drivers-e1603233411510.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"577\" height=\"575\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Pop-Up-Drivers-e1603233411510.jpeg 577w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Pop-Up-Drivers-e1603233411510-160x159.jpeg 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 577px) 100vw, 577px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A screenshot from Uber driver Hector Castellanos’ phone. There was no option for him to click ‘no’ to close the pop up. \u003ccite>(Courtesy Hector Castellanos)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Castellanos drives full-time, and throughout the work day, he kept seeing the pop up again and again. “Drivers have to click ‘yes’ even if they don’t want it,” he said. “They have to click yes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This was particularly upsetting to Castellanos because he opposes Proposition 22. A few years ago, he got into an accident while driving for Lyft and needed surgery on his shoulder. He couldn’t work for eight months, and because he is not an employee, he did not get worker’s compensation. His oldest daughter had to drop out of college and go to work to help the family pay the bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That was something that really got to my heart,” Castellanos says, “I was probably just one case in thousands like me.” He decided drivers like him had to be employees to get basic protections like guaranteed minimum wage and workers compensation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An Uber spokesperson says the company changed the pop up recently to be more informational and give drivers an option to close it. Also, the spokesperson said that the pop up should have only appeared one time when drivers go offline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">But drivers sometimes log off when they switch between all different apps they work for, which means they could have to click through the pop up repeatedly. Castellanos estimates that he was seeing it 25 or 30 times a day.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Uber isn’t the only company using workers to spread pro-Proposition 22 messages to consumers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kp5yq/instacart-asked-its-gig-workers-to-distribute-propaganda-that-would-hurt-them\">Instacart asked workers through the app\u003c/a> to put pro-Proposition 22 stickers in customers’ orders at a Bay Area store. \u003ca href=\"https://sf.eater.com/2020/10/16/21520005/doordash-prop-22-gig-workers-ab5-apps\">DoorDash is providing free pro-Proposition 22 food delivery bags\u003c/a> to restaurants, which workers then have to use to bring food to customers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11842965\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1200px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11842965\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1200\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags.jpg 1200w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-800x800.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-1020x1020.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-160x160.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-1104x1104.jpg 1104w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-912x912.jpg 912w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-550x550.jpg 550w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/Prop-22-Bags-470x470.jpg 470w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">One of the millions of pro-Proposition 22 delivery bags that DoorDash sent to restaurants, and that gig workers have to use to deliver food to customers. \u003ccite>(DoorDash)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Stanford law professor William Gould says all three of these instances could be violating the protected speech of workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If ever there was compelled speech, and an interference with a right of freedom of speech, which is protected in California for private sector workers, this is it,” Gould said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Federally these workers have little protection. Since the Supreme Court protected the speech of corporations as if they were people in its 2010 Citizens United decision, companies have had far more ability to \u003ca href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/07/politics-at-work-employee-mobilization-lobbying\">mobilize their workers toward particular political goals\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However what these gig companies have made workers do “could be in violation of California \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?sectionNum=1101&lawCode=LAB\">labor code sections 1101 and 1102\u003c/a>,” said David Levine, a law professor at UC Hastings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those sections prevent an employer from attempting to control or direct the political activities or affiliations of their employees. The gig companies contend their workers are actually contractors not employees – which means they would not be protected by these sections of the labor code.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Of course, that very employment status is the central issue at stake with Proposition 22 – and if it passes, gig companies would have a much easier time having workers distribute political materials.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In response to the assertion that distributing these materials infringed on freedom of speech, a spokesperson for the Yes on Prop. 22 campaign said “Each company is communicating with their customers in various ways because of the high stakes in this election.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After backlash online, Instacart is no longer asking workers to add stickers to orders. But DoorDash is continuing to send pro-Prop. 22 delivery bags to restaurants. The company says it has sent more than 4 million of the bags to over 600 restaurants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Update: \u003c/em>\u003cem>A spokesperson for DoorDash says more than 4 million bags have been requested by restaurants, but that the company has only sent out around 150 thousand.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>It’s not every day a worker in the tech sector will speak on the record, let alone two dozen of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies like Google, Facebook and Apple make workers sign nondisclosure agreements, and typically demand employees run all media requests through their human resources departments. On top of that, workers who do make public remarks have no union to protect them from being fired if the company is unhappy with what they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I once had an eyewitness at a fire in San Francisco decline to give a comment because he worked at Apple. As the apartment building burned in front of us, he told me he’d be uncomfortable commenting unless his managers signed off on the statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Clarissa Redwine\"]‘Having power and having a voice in the workplace are different things. A lot of us feel like we have a voice and can speak up, but does that actually change anything?’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the story is different at Kickstarter, where over 24 current and former employees have given lengthy interviews about their experiences working for the crowdfunding platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interviews are featured in “\u003ca href=\"https://eclive.engelberg.center/\">Kickstarter Union: Oral History\u003c/a>,” a recently released podcast by former employee Clarissa Redwine that documents how workers at the company succeeded earlier this year in forming \u003ca href=\"https://kickstarterunited.org/\">the first white-collar union\u003c/a> at a tech startup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine says the effort led to her and others being forced out of the company. But now that the union is there, she says, workers have more power and protection to speak out in public.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Organizing Challenges\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The story of what happened at Kickstarter shows how difficult it is to organize workers at a company that primarily relies on programming and the internet to do business, and the unique challenges involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine says she hopes her oral history project encourages other tech workers to unionize and provides a roadmap for them to avoid the pitfalls that stymied her team. The interviews and recordings she has gathered provide a unique inside look at a modern tech company from the perspective of those who are usually unable or unwilling to tell their stories publicly.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Clarissa’s Path\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In 2015, Redwine got her dream job at Kickstarter, managing fundraising projects in the tech and design category. “I was ecstatic,” she said. “When I got the email that I would be joining Kickstarter, I flipped out. I was so excited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11841339\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11841339\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1-800x600.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1-160x120.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1-632x474.png 632w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1-536x402.png 536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clarissa Redwine making ramen for her co-workers in the Kickstarter kitchen (when she still worked there). \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Clarissa Redwine)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now, five years later, Redwine is not even working in tech anymore — she’s a fellow at New York University, where she’s producing the podcast project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Redwine got into the tech industry, she never expected things would play out like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t necessarily have a strong understanding that the way that tech is traditionally infused with capital is harmful,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Kickstarter, Redwine felt empowered, she recalls, like she was doing important work. And she was content with the job for her first three years there — up until the “Always Punch Nazis” incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Power Struggle\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“Always Punch Nazis” is a comic book. In 2018, its writers were trying to raise money on Kickstarter, and they posted a video with dramatic music and images of cartoon characters punching Nazis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the last year or so, there had been growing unrest at the company. The former CEO, Perry Chen, had returned after a four-year hiatus, and not all employees were happy about it. \u003ca href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/kickstarter-perry-chen-founder-worship-turmoil\">In interviews with Buzzfeed\u003c/a>, some employees accused Chen of being domineering and making unilateral decisions, and about 50 of them either left or were fired shortly after his return.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was the “Always Punch Nazis” situation that brought tensions at the company to a boiling point and that would eventually catalyze the union organizing effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the fundraising page for the comic appeared on Kickstarter in August 2018, bloggers for the right-wing website Breitbart began complaining that the comic promoted violence and violated the company’s guidelines. In response, Kickstarter management said they’d take the project down. But many employees advocated for it to remain up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine has a recording of an emergency meeting at the height of the controversy. One employee stood up and said, “I just want to put on the record that not all of us are happy about this. This is super not chill and there is no other way to describe the feeling of being told in a room why we should be okay with this decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employees eventually pressured the company to keep the project on the site. But, according to Redwine, managers started retaliating against some of the employees involved, reprimanding them for publicly speaking out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The whole episode got Redwine and others thinking about how little power they actually had at the company; when it came to making big decisions, employees wouldn’t actually have much say unless they banded together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having power and having a voice in the workplace are different things,” Redwine said. “A lot of us feel like we have a voice and can speak up, but does that actually change anything? Through this experience, I learned no, no it doesn’t. It doesn’t change anything unless you link arms with your fellow co-workers, and use your collective power to challenge management.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Banding Together\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Redwine and others started meeting at a co-worker’s apartment — a tiny studio just around the corner from Kickstarter’s offices. They’d cram in and talk about what was bugging them at the company. In addition to the recent incidents, some of them also voiced concern about recent hiring and firing decisions, and the dearth of women and people of color in senior management. The issues varied, but it all boiled down to a general lack of control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label=\"related coverage\" tag=\"tech-industry\"]Although Kickstarter was then a company of less than 100 people, the issues raised by its employees were concerns shared by many workers at larger tech companies. For instance, during the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11714714/time-is-up-employee-unrest-grows-at-silicon-valley-companies\">Google Walkout in 2018 \u003c/a>a worker took the stage and said, “We demand structural change. We demand transparency, accountability and equity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google employees have since spoken out against the company’s contracts with the U.S. military, its two-tier class system that separates employees and contractor and sexual harassment issues. But unlike Kickstarter, Google workers have never come close to forming a union.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Getting the Ball Rolling\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>At the meetings in the cramped studio, the group of Kickstarter employees decided they should affiliate with the Office and Professional Employees International Union. Redwine said OPEIU seemed the most committed to helping them unionize and using the effort as a template for organizing workers at other tech firms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine and her co-workers presumed Kickstarter management would embrace the union or at least not actively fight against it. Many of them believed the company truly did strive to have a less hierarchical management structure, as they had consistently claimed. But OPEIU advisors warned them not to be so trusting, and Redwine says they were right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Redwine describes it, management got wind of the organizing effort and started to push back. In meetings, she says, managers spoke about how Kickstarter didn’t need a union, and sent around emails to staff trying to dissuade organizing efforts. Management then outed the unionizing effort, announcing it to the whole company before organizers had contacted everyone individually, she says. And that’s when the group realized management was going to aggressively fight the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, it’s like, ‘Fool me once, fool me twice…’ I think we got to like fool me 10 times,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kickstarter denies that it was opposed to the organizing effort. In a statement for this story, a Kickstarter spokesperson said, “We fully support and respect our staff’s decision to unionize earlier this year, and we’re proud of the fair and democratic process that got us to where we are today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11841340\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1290px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11841340\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1290\" height=\"860\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2.png 1290w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2-800x533.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2-1020x680.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2-160x107.png 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clarissa Redwine giving a talk at Kickstarter headquarters. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Clarissa Redwine)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Redwine says to pull off the union, they had to convince the software engineers to join. Much like in other tech firms, engineers — who keep the tech running — have far more power than employees in sales or marketing, and typically receive better pay and perks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group worked hard to get engineers on board, Redwine says, and after a concerted outreach effort, managed to convince many of them to join the cause. In the end, employees voted 46-to-37 in favor of unionizing, and in February officially formed \u003ca href=\"https://kickstarterunited.org/\">Kickstarter United\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Personal Loss, Group Gain\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Employees who are still with the company say that because of the union, management has been more receptive to worker grievances, especially now during the pandemic. Employees were able to ensure that staff who got laid off received severance packages and are currently in the process of hammering out a collective bargaining agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the formation of the union came at a cost to individual workers. Last fall, the company fired or pushed out three organizers, herself included. She says she was fired after a complaint by her manager following a meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine was shocked. She had just had one of the best sales quarters of her career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whenever I think back on it, I think it was a little bit of that classic tech culture individualism that made me feel a little more confident than I should have been,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, a spokesperson for Kickstarter said that Redwine was “terminated for legitimate issues that were well documented long before any organizing effort.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine’s colleague and fellow organizer Taylor Moore was fired around the same time she was. Last month, the National Labor Relations Board found sufficient evidence that Kickstarter retaliated against Moore for his organizing work. According to Vice News, \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8n37/kickstarter-settles-complaint-that-it-retaliated-against-union-organizer\">the company recently settled with Moore\u003c/a>, compensating him for more than $36,000 in backpay.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Lessons Learned\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In the end, the union did bring Kickstarter managers to the bargaining table. But the larger goal was always to inspire other tech workers to organize, Redwine says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hopes the new podcast will help other tech worker organizers avoid the mistakes that she and her co-workers made, like trusting their company’s management and thinking it would be easy to undo existing hierarchies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://techworkerscoalition.org/\">Tech Workers Coalition\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.gameworkersunite.org/\">Game Workers Unite\u003c/a> are trying. They just had success in England, \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/g5p333/uk-tech-workers-launch-first-national-effort-to-unionize-tech-industry\">where several dozen tech workers joined\u003c/a> the Communications Workers Union. And \u003ca href=\"https://www.uniglobalunion.org/news/after-500-days-striking-oracle-korea-workers-union-win-a-recognition-agreement\">in South Korea\u003c/a>, programmers working for companies like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle are unionized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, though, workers at only one other U.S. tech company have successfully followed Kickstarter’s example: the 50 employees at the video game company Glitch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>It’s not every day a worker in the tech sector will speak on the record, let alone two dozen of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies like Google, Facebook and Apple make workers sign nondisclosure agreements, and typically demand employees run all media requests through their human resources departments. On top of that, workers who do make public remarks have no union to protect them from being fired if the company is unhappy with what they say.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>I once had an eyewitness at a fire in San Francisco decline to give a comment because he worked at Apple. As the apartment building burned in front of us, he told me he’d be uncomfortable commenting unless his managers signed off on the statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the story is different at Kickstarter, where over 24 current and former employees have given lengthy interviews about their experiences working for the crowdfunding platform.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The interviews are featured in “\u003ca href=\"https://eclive.engelberg.center/\">Kickstarter Union: Oral History\u003c/a>,” a recently released podcast by former employee Clarissa Redwine that documents how workers at the company succeeded earlier this year in forming \u003ca href=\"https://kickstarterunited.org/\">the first white-collar union\u003c/a> at a tech startup.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine says the effort led to her and others being forced out of the company. But now that the union is there, she says, workers have more power and protection to speak out in public.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Organizing Challenges\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>The story of what happened at Kickstarter shows how difficult it is to organize workers at a company that primarily relies on programming and the internet to do business, and the unique challenges involved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine says she hopes her oral history project encourages other tech workers to unionize and provides a roadmap for them to avoid the pitfalls that stymied her team. The interviews and recordings she has gathered provide a unique inside look at a modern tech company from the perspective of those who are usually unable or unwilling to tell their stories publicly.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Clarissa’s Path\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In 2015, Redwine got her dream job at Kickstarter, managing fundraising projects in the tech and design category. “I was ecstatic,” she said. “When I got the email that I would be joining Kickstarter, I flipped out. I was so excited.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11841339\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 960px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11841339\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1.png 960w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1-800x600.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1-160x120.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1-632x474.png 632w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine1-536x402.png 536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clarissa Redwine making ramen for her co-workers in the Kickstarter kitchen (when she still worked there). \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Clarissa Redwine)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Now, five years later, Redwine is not even working in tech anymore — she’s a fellow at New York University, where she’s producing the podcast project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When Redwine got into the tech industry, she never expected things would play out like this.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I didn’t necessarily have a strong understanding that the way that tech is traditionally infused with capital is harmful,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At Kickstarter, Redwine felt empowered, she recalls, like she was doing important work. And she was content with the job for her first three years there — up until the “Always Punch Nazis” incident.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Power Struggle\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>“Always Punch Nazis” is a comic book. In 2018, its writers were trying to raise money on Kickstarter, and they posted a video with dramatic music and images of cartoon characters punching Nazis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the last year or so, there had been growing unrest at the company. The former CEO, Perry Chen, had returned after a four-year hiatus, and not all employees were happy about it. \u003ca href=\"https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/kickstarter-perry-chen-founder-worship-turmoil\">In interviews with Buzzfeed\u003c/a>, some employees accused Chen of being domineering and making unilateral decisions, and about 50 of them either left or were fired shortly after his return.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But it was the “Always Punch Nazis” situation that brought tensions at the company to a boiling point and that would eventually catalyze the union organizing effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When the fundraising page for the comic appeared on Kickstarter in August 2018, bloggers for the right-wing website Breitbart began complaining that the comic promoted violence and violated the company’s guidelines. In response, Kickstarter management said they’d take the project down. But many employees advocated for it to remain up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine has a recording of an emergency meeting at the height of the controversy. One employee stood up and said, “I just want to put on the record that not all of us are happy about this. This is super not chill and there is no other way to describe the feeling of being told in a room why we should be okay with this decision.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Employees eventually pressured the company to keep the project on the site. But, according to Redwine, managers started retaliating against some of the employees involved, reprimanding them for publicly speaking out.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The whole episode got Redwine and others thinking about how little power they actually had at the company; when it came to making big decisions, employees wouldn’t actually have much say unless they banded together.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Having power and having a voice in the workplace are different things,” Redwine said. “A lot of us feel like we have a voice and can speak up, but does that actually change anything? Through this experience, I learned no, no it doesn’t. It doesn’t change anything unless you link arms with your fellow co-workers, and use your collective power to challenge management.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Banding Together\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Redwine and others started meeting at a co-worker’s apartment — a tiny studio just around the corner from Kickstarter’s offices. They’d cram in and talk about what was bugging them at the company. In addition to the recent incidents, some of them also voiced concern about recent hiring and firing decisions, and the dearth of women and people of color in senior management. The issues varied, but it all boiled down to a general lack of control.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Although Kickstarter was then a company of less than 100 people, the issues raised by its employees were concerns shared by many workers at larger tech companies. For instance, during the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11714714/time-is-up-employee-unrest-grows-at-silicon-valley-companies\">Google Walkout in 2018 \u003c/a>a worker took the stage and said, “We demand structural change. We demand transparency, accountability and equity.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google employees have since spoken out against the company’s contracts with the U.S. military, its two-tier class system that separates employees and contractor and sexual harassment issues. But unlike Kickstarter, Google workers have never come close to forming a union.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Getting the Ball Rolling\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>At the meetings in the cramped studio, the group of Kickstarter employees decided they should affiliate with the Office and Professional Employees International Union. Redwine said OPEIU seemed the most committed to helping them unionize and using the effort as a template for organizing workers at other tech firms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine and her co-workers presumed Kickstarter management would embrace the union or at least not actively fight against it. Many of them believed the company truly did strive to have a less hierarchical management structure, as they had consistently claimed. But OPEIU advisors warned them not to be so trusting, and Redwine says they were right.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As Redwine describes it, management got wind of the organizing effort and started to push back. In meetings, she says, managers spoke about how Kickstarter didn’t need a union, and sent around emails to staff trying to dissuade organizing efforts. Management then outed the unionizing effort, announcing it to the whole company before organizers had contacted everyone individually, she says. And that’s when the group realized management was going to aggressively fight the effort.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, it’s like, ‘Fool me once, fool me twice…’ I think we got to like fool me 10 times,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kickstarter denies that it was opposed to the organizing effort. In a statement for this story, a Kickstarter spokesperson said, “We fully support and respect our staff’s decision to unionize earlier this year, and we’re proud of the fair and democratic process that got us to where we are today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11841340\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1290px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11841340\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1290\" height=\"860\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2.png 1290w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2-800x533.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2-1020x680.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2020/10/redwine2-160x107.png 160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1290px) 100vw, 1290px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Clarissa Redwine giving a talk at Kickstarter headquarters. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Clarissa Redwine)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Redwine says to pull off the union, they had to convince the software engineers to join. Much like in other tech firms, engineers — who keep the tech running — have far more power than employees in sales or marketing, and typically receive better pay and perks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group worked hard to get engineers on board, Redwine says, and after a concerted outreach effort, managed to convince many of them to join the cause. In the end, employees voted 46-to-37 in favor of unionizing, and in February officially formed \u003ca href=\"https://kickstarterunited.org/\">Kickstarter United\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Personal Loss, Group Gain\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>Employees who are still with the company say that because of the union, management has been more receptive to worker grievances, especially now during the pandemic. Employees were able to ensure that staff who got laid off received severance packages and are currently in the process of hammering out a collective bargaining agreement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the formation of the union came at a cost to individual workers. Last fall, the company fired or pushed out three organizers, herself included. She says she was fired after a complaint by her manager following a meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine was shocked. She had just had one of the best sales quarters of her career.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Whenever I think back on it, I think it was a little bit of that classic tech culture individualism that made me feel a little more confident than I should have been,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, a spokesperson for Kickstarter said that Redwine was “terminated for legitimate issues that were well documented long before any organizing effort.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Redwine’s colleague and fellow organizer Taylor Moore was fired around the same time she was. Last month, the National Labor Relations Board found sufficient evidence that Kickstarter retaliated against Moore for his organizing work. According to Vice News, \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en/article/xg8n37/kickstarter-settles-complaint-that-it-retaliated-against-union-organizer\">the company recently settled with Moore\u003c/a>, compensating him for more than $36,000 in backpay.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch3>\u003cstrong>Lessons Learned\u003c/strong>\u003c/h3>\n\u003cp>In the end, the union did bring Kickstarter managers to the bargaining table. But the larger goal was always to inspire other tech workers to organize, Redwine says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She hopes the new podcast will help other tech worker organizers avoid the mistakes that she and her co-workers made, like trusting their company’s management and thinking it would be easy to undo existing hierarchies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Groups like the \u003ca href=\"https://techworkerscoalition.org/\">Tech Workers Coalition\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.gameworkersunite.org/\">Game Workers Unite\u003c/a> are trying. They just had success in England, \u003ca href=\"https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/g5p333/uk-tech-workers-launch-first-national-effort-to-unionize-tech-industry\">where several dozen tech workers joined\u003c/a> the Communications Workers Union. And \u003ca href=\"https://www.uniglobalunion.org/news/after-500-days-striking-oracle-korea-workers-union-win-a-recognition-agreement\">in South Korea\u003c/a>, programmers working for companies like Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle are unionized.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, though, workers at only one other U.S. tech company have successfully followed Kickstarter’s example: the 50 employees at the video game company Glitch.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California companies must warn their workers of any potential exposure to the coronavirus and must pay their employees workers compensation benefits if they get sick with the disease under two laws that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Thursday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom, a Democrat, signed the laws over the objections of business groups, who have said they are “unworkable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200SB1159\">One of the laws\u003c/a> makes people who have the coronavirus eligible for workers compensation benefits. It takes effect immediately and applies to all workers in the state, but it treats first responders and health care workers differently than other employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Police officers, firefighters and health care workers — including janitors who are in contact with COVID-19 patients — are eligible if they get infected while on the job.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All other workers are eligible only if their workplaces experience an outbreak. For companies with between five and 100 employees, the law defines an outbreak as four or more infected workers who work at the same location within a two-week period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For companies with more than 100 employees, outbreaks are defined as at least 4% of workers working in the same location being infected during a two-week period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The rules for first responders and health care workers are permanent. The rules for everyone else expire on Jan. 1, 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Workers don’t have to prove they were infected on the job to get benefits because the law assumes they got it while working. Instead, employers must prove that their workers did not get the virus while on the job to deny coverage.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://twitter.com/CAgovernor/status/1306669752908017664?s=20\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a letter to the state Legislature last month, business groups said they supported that for first responders and other groups at high risk of contracting the disease. But they said it wasn’t fair to do that for other occupations with a lower risk of infection. They called the law “unworkable for employers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom signed the law, authored by state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, during a Zoom call with supporters, including labor union leaders and members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monique Hernandez, a nurse, said nine of her fellow nurses were infected, though she works in an area called a “clean unit” where she does not have contact with coronavirus patients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no such thing as a clean unit when it comes to COVID-19,” she said. “I took that very personal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB685\">The second law\u003c/a> that Newsom signed mandates that companies tell employees if they have been exposed to someone who has either tested positive, been ordered to isolate or died because of the virus. That law, authored by Assemblywoman Eloise Gómez Reyes, D-San Bernardino, takes effect Jan. 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies must do so within one business day of learning of the exposures or they can face fines issued by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, opposed the bill because they said the law is vague and will be difficult for businesses to comply with, resulting in “good employers” facing hefty fines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom countered that the two laws “prioritize our workforce,” including front-line workers he said politicians “pay a lot of lip service to, but often we don’t back up.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\n\u003cp>In a letter to the state Legislature last month, business groups said they supported that for first responders and other groups at high risk of contracting the disease. But they said it wasn’t fair to do that for other occupations with a lower risk of infection. They called the law “unworkable for employers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom signed the law, authored by state Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, during a Zoom call with supporters, including labor union leaders and members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Monique Hernandez, a nurse, said nine of her fellow nurses were infected, though she works in an area called a “clean unit” where she does not have contact with coronavirus patients.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no such thing as a clean unit when it comes to COVID-19,” she said. “I took that very personal.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB685\">The second law\u003c/a> that Newsom signed mandates that companies tell employees if they have been exposed to someone who has either tested positive, been ordered to isolate or died because of the virus. That law, authored by Assemblywoman Eloise Gómez Reyes, D-San Bernardino, takes effect Jan. 1.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Companies must do so within one business day of learning of the exposures or they can face fines issued by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Business groups, including the California Chamber of Commerce, opposed the bill because they said the law is vague and will be difficult for businesses to comply with, resulting in “good employers” facing hefty fines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom countered that the two laws “prioritize our workforce,” including front-line workers he said politicians “pay a lot of lip service to, but often we don’t back up.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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