Under the legal definition of “employee,” gig workers are misclassified as independent contractors

The economy is undergoing a profound shift to platform-mediated work, and the conditions around labor are rapidly changing. While the rules of the future of work are currently being debated and litigated, let’s not forget that in centuries past, people died for what we have today: the 8-hour workday, minimum wage, and the prohibition of child labor... See more

We’re concerned that the gig model is reliant on the misclassification of workers, and fear for the future of work in this country should the model continue to gain steam without significant updates.

While the gig model delivers real benefits to customers in terms of convenience and low prices, the paradigm exists in a legal gray area in terms of worker classification, depriving workers of minimum wage protection, workers’ compensation, health insurance, retirement plans, and paid time off.

The classical idea in economics that competitive-equilibrium pricing maximizes social welfare relies on the assumption that every participant in the market has the same welfare weight—but that’s not the case in markets where there is significant inequality.

And importantly, though the nature of work is constantly evolving, Prop 22 requires a seven-eighths supermajority of the California legislature to amend, making it next to impossible to change the law in the future.

We acknowledge that the views in this letter may be controversial, especially among our peers in Silicon Valley. But we felt a need to put a stake in the ground that we believe all workers deserve to be treated with dignity and to have a minimum level of benefits and protections.

New models focus on wealth creation for participants, not just hourly payments or one-time transactions.

As the 6 most expensive ballot measures in the past 20 years have all gone in favor of the bigger spender, it seems like Uber et. al. have a good chance of winning. But is this the kind of country we want to live in, one in which special interest groups are re-writing and buying their own employment law?