Uber and Lyft vs California
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 7 January 2020
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
A battle is looming over the future of the gig economy. A law classifying Uber and Lyft drivers as employees came into force in California on 1 January, but the ridesharing giants say their drivers are independent contractors, and proposed their own laws. Ed Butler speaks to Edan Alva, a Lyft driver in San Francisco and a member of the advocacy group Gig Workers Rising, and to Stacey Wells, spokesperson for the Coalition to Protect App-Based Drivers & Services – the group sponsored by Uber and Lyft to push alternative legislation in California. And Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center, tells us what this means for the broader gig economy.
(Photo: Lyft and Uber pickup point in Los Angeles, California. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:05.0 | Coming up, why Uber and Lyft drivers in California want full workers' rights. |
| 0:11.1 | The costs of living as well as the car, the gas, no sick time, no disability, no pension, no nothing. |
| 0:20.4 | All these make it very, very difficult to exist. |
| 0:24.4 | But are such complaints sufficient to justify abandoning the ride-sharing revolution? |
| 0:30.0 | 66% of drivers want to remain independent contractors versus employees. They say it allows them |
| 0:37.2 | to fit their work around their life rather than fitting their |
| 0:40.6 | life around their work. |
| 0:42.2 | Regulating, ride sharing. |
| 0:43.8 | That's Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:48.7 | What do we want? |
| 0:50.1 | Downstairs. |
| 0:51.1 | One do we want it? |
| 0:52.0 | No. |
| 0:53.2 | The sound there of Uber drivers protesting pay and conditions in New York last year. |
| 0:59.4 | A campaign in the Big Apple did lead to citywide regulations coming in, |
| 1:03.8 | guaranteeing drivers a certain rate of pay, |
| 1:06.8 | but now wider measures are coming into effect in California. |
| 1:10.9 | A law in the state has been introduced for those working for right-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft, |
| 1:16.9 | as well as other gig economy workers, to classify them as employees. |
| 1:21.7 | In truth, millions are now working worldwide, part or full-time for these quasi-taxie firms, |
| 1:27.3 | and they use the company's software, |
... |
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