This week has been pretty relentless. It's been hard to keep up with every twist and turn of the presidential election, let alone think about all the other races in the country. So you'd be forgiven if you missed a vote in California. It was on a state ballot proposition, and this vote, it has the potential to change

the way millions of people work, not just in California, but across the country. In the context of the

United States, people often look at California as this giant blue state, this sort of idealistic

democratic state. That's Sam Harnett. He covers tech and labor for KQED, a public broadcaster in California.

And yeah, since the 1990s, California has had a reputation for progressive politics.

Every current statewide officeholder is a Democrat.

Fuel emission standards are strict. Marijuana is legal. And just this week, the state voted to restore voting rights to some

formerly incarcerated residents. But, you know, being a tech reporter in Silicon Valley for the last

10 years, like a lot of what you see here in terms of income inequality, in terms of capital

accumulation, it looks very much like what you would associate with the Republican Party.

So when it comes to statewide votes, they aren't always that progressive.

You sort of get out, like, what is a progressive liberal person in California?

And you would assume that a progressive person would support what labor supports.

It would be on the side of the

worker.

But this week, labor organizers lost.

And Californians, by and large, sided with the tech companies.

Californians voted yes on Proposition 22, an effort bankrolled by companies like Uber and Lyft.

Prop 22 allows those companies to continue treating their app-based workers, like ride-chair

drivers or DoorDash couriers, as independent contractors, not employees.

It's a huge win for these companies, and it's a blueprint for what they want to do across the country.

As soon as Prop 22 pass, in their sort of celebratory emails,

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