Dear John,

At a time when we urgently need to be pulling together and lifting up frontline workers and their families, companies like Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates have chosen profit over people.

These companies are spending more than  $110 million pushing Proposition 22 — a California ballot initiative that would deny workers basic protections like a living wage, unemployment insurance, or access to sick leave. Indeed, $110 million would cover hundreds of thousands of sick days for app-based workers — a critical need as these essential workers face a resurgent pandemic.

These corporations would rather make a nine-figure investment to dispossess workers of their rights, all the while maintaining that it would be impossible to comply with the law because of the expense. If successful, their workers — 78 percent of whom are Black, Latinx, Asian or multi-racial and a majority immigrant — would be stripped of rights like overtime pay and workers’ compensation, but never benefit from state and local laws that could curtail discrimination or wage theft.

To begin pushing back against this harmful initiative, the Partnership for Working Families and the National Employment Law Project, supported by Working Partnerships USA, today released two new resources to defeat Prop 22 and strengthen employment laws:

• REPORT: Rigging the Gig: How Uber, Lyft and DoorDash’s Ballot Initiative Would Put Corporations Above the Law and Steal Wages, Benefits and Protections from California Workers (with a companion “Top 10” summary here)
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• VIDEO: The ABC’s of Independent Contractor Status, an explainer video about a simple test that states can use to determine whether a worker is a true independent contractor or an employee — the very test Proposition 22 would weaken. 
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Our new report reveals how this company-funded initiative would protect corporate wealth and power at the expense of worker health, safety, and dignity — while all but eliminating the ability of future legislatures or cities across the state to hold these companies accountable.  

Come November, Californians must vote NO on Proposition 22. This initiative would set a dangerous standard whereby some of the richest companies in the world can permanently exempt themselves from the law.

Will you help us get the word out by retweeting and sharing today’s report on social media? 

In unity,

Rey Fuentes
Legal Fellow
Partnership for Working Families