Tech industry likely to qualify initiative that would reverse gig economy crackdown
February 27, 2020
News
By Jeremy B. White – Reporter, Politico
The tech industry appears likely to qualify a November initiative that would reverse the state’s gig economy crackdown, with the campaign saying today it has collected more than a million signatures.
That’s far more than the 623,212 signatures needed to qualify a ballot initiative, and that buffer of hundreds of thousands of superfluous signatures would likely be enough to compensate for a certain amount being tossed as invalid.
The new employment law compels businesses to treat many more workers as employees, rather than independent contractors — an existential threat to gig work companies whose app-dispatched drivers and delivery people are currently classified as contractors.
Five of those companies have kicked in a cumulative $110 million to pass a ballot initiative that would prevent those workers from being re-classified as employees. Organized labor, which championed CA AB5 (19R), has vowed to defend the law at the ballot box.