More than 800,000 drivers for ride-hailing companies in California will soon be able to join a union and bargain collectively for better wages and benefits under a measure signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
For radicals, to unionize is to come together to use direct action to forward a common goal at work. This is what the knights of labor and the IWW meant.
For most Americans, it means to give a mass-membership non-profit the right to bargain an employment contract on your behalf within the framework of US contract and labor law
This second thing is a legal right which can be given or taken, and it is the legal right Newsome just gave to contractors.
Unfortunately, in the United States, only “employees” are explicitly given the right to unionize by the NLRA, which is a big part of why classifying gig workers as “independent contractors” (even when they don’t have the ability of ICs to do things like negotiate prices) is so important to companies.
Additional context here: there was a statewide ballot measure in 2020 that would have classified gig workers as employees rather than contractors, thereby guaranteeing minimum wage, insurance, unionization, etc.
Uber spent record-breaking amounts of money fighting it and it went down in flames thanks to the Socal treatlerites.
Obviously, the state legislature could have passed a bill that would have made them employees, thereby granting them far more benefits, but this way they can just do this, knowing full well nothing will come of it.
“signs bill giving drivers the right to unionize” did they not have that right already? How does the state grant (and take away) that right?
Its a difference in what it means to unionize
For radicals, to unionize is to come together to use direct action to forward a common goal at work. This is what the knights of labor and the IWW meant.
For most Americans, it means to give a mass-membership non-profit the right to bargain an employment contract on your behalf within the framework of US contract and labor law
This second thing is a legal right which can be given or taken, and it is the legal right Newsome just gave to contractors.
Unfortunately, in the United States, only “employees” are explicitly given the right to unionize by the NLRA, which is a big part of why classifying gig workers as “independent contractors” (even when they don’t have the ability of ICs to do things like negotiate prices) is so important to companies.
Additional context here: there was a statewide ballot measure in 2020 that would have classified gig workers as employees rather than contractors, thereby guaranteeing minimum wage, insurance, unionization, etc.
Uber spent record-breaking amounts of money fighting it and it went down in flames thanks to the Socal treatlerites.
Obviously, the state legislature could have passed a bill that would have made them employees, thereby granting them far more benefits, but this way they can just do this, knowing full well nothing will come of it.
Jesus fuck. “They can’t organize against me bc they aren’t even my workers! They’re just the labor force that makes my business run!”
Thank u and @ufcwthrowaway@hexbear.net for educating me
They’re taking the company’s right to use public security forces to bash their uppity workers heads in