A year and a half after a California judge invalidated a referendum on employment at Uber, Lyft & Co., an appeals court has now overturned the decision. The long dispute over “Proposition 22” is entering a new round, because in the US state it is expected that the local constitutional court will now be appealed to. The dispute is about a law that is intended to give drivers of transport service providers or food delivery services the status of employees and the associated entitlement to social benefits.
Years of litigation
How the San Francisco Chronicle now explains, the Court of Appeal ruled that the referendum held in November 2020 was legally correct. They contradict Alameda County District Judge Frank Roesch, who ruled in August 2021 that an unlawful portion of the referendum nullified the entire decision. By a majority of 2 to 1, the judges at the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco ruled that the invalid portion did not invalidate the entire vote. In turn, the third judge in the federal government contradicted this on 64 pages, but was unable to convince his colleagues.
A dispute that started there could soon end at the Supreme Court of California. In 2018, he derived criteria for distinguishing between the self-employed and employees from current law. According to this, someone who works under the control of the employer and does not otherwise run an independent business of the same kind is employed. In 2020, a law came into force that provides exceptions for a number of professional groups, but not for chauffeurs from ride brokers such as Uber and Lyft. In the vote on “Proposition 22”, a majority in the state then voted in favor of this exception also applying to Uber, Lyft & Co. The state Supreme Court will probably decide that now.
While Uber is now talking about a “victory for app-based workers” in view of the decision, there has been heavy criticism from unions. “Everyone in California should be concerned about the growing influence that corporations have in our democracy and their ability to spend millions of dollars misleading voters and buying legislation,” said the Service Employees chief International Union according to the New York Times. Law professor Veena Dubal tweeted, “the oligarchs are dancing in the streets todayUber, Lyft and others in the industry had poured nearly $200 million into advertising campaigns per Proposition 22, the most expensive popular vote campaign in US history.
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