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Title: How California Reached a Union Deal With Tech Giants Uber and Lyft

Link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/09/15/2034...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Politico: In roughly six weeks,
three California Democrats, a labor head and two ride-hailing leaders managed
to pull off what would have been unthinkable just one year prior: striking a
deal between labor unions and their longtime foes, tech giants Uber and Lyft.
California lawmakers announced the agreement in late August, paving a path
for ride-hailing drivers to unionize as labor wanted, in exchange for the
state drastically reducing expensive insurance coverage mandates protested by
the companies. It earned rare public support from Gov. Gavin Newsom and
received final approval from state lawmakers this week. The swift speed of
the negotiating underscores what was at risk: the prospect of yet another
nine-figure ballot measure campaign or lengthy court battle between two
deeply entrenched sides, according to interviews with five people involved in
the talks. Their accounts shed new light on how the deal came together: how
the talks started, who was in the room, and the lengths they went to in order
to turn around such a quick proposal -- from taking video meetings while
recovering from surgery to the unexpected aid of one lawmaker's newborn baby.
"This was really quite fast," said Ramona Prieto, Uber's chief policy expert
in Sacramento. "It wasn't like this was months of negotiating." The landmark
proposal is only the second time a state has reached such a framework for
Uber and Lyft drivers, after Massachusetts did so in 2024. And unlike
Massachusetts, it came together without reverting to a ballot fight.
California already saw its most expensive ballot measure effort to date in
2020, when Uber and Lyft spent more than $200 million backing an initiative
to bar app-based workers from being classified as traditional employees,
known as Proposition 22. Its passage sparked a legal challenge from labor
leaders that wasn't resolved until July 2024, when California's Supreme Court
affirmed the ballot measure's constitutionality. [...] But the compromise
still faces hurdles ahead. A recent lawsuit has raised fresh scrutiny of how
the deal came together and what truly motivated it. Further criticism from
those left out of the negotiating room is putting dealmakers on the defense
as they try to sell it more widely. Plus, the final deal isn't what some
labor leaders hoped when they first set out to strengthen drivers' rights in
2019. [...] And while the deal allows gig workers to unionize, that doesn't
guarantee the necessary 10 percent of the state's 800,000 ride-hailing
drivers actually will. Many who drive for Uber and Lyft do so part-time, and
labor leaders acknowledge the challenge of organizing a disparate population
that doesn't have a space to meet one another.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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