Uber and Lyft pledge $60M for a CA ballot measure declaring their drivers non-employees, if AB 5 bill, which hinders classifying drivers as contractors, passes
With California's AB 5 threatening to force ride-hail drivers onto payrolls, Uber and Lyft are moving the fight out of the legislature: a $60M pledge funds a ballot measure that would let voters, not Sacramento, decide driver classification. It is the opening move of a strategy the industry then escalates — by October, after AB5 passed, a driver group launches its own ballot measure to keep gig workers as contractors, and Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash raise their combined commitment to $90M.
The parallel tracks matter because the legal route was closing: by mid-2020 the state AG moved for an injunction to force reclassification under AB5 before the case could even be heard. The ballot-measure path is what ultimately delivered — Proposition 22 exempted Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and others from having to treat drivers as employees.
First-order effects
Uber and Lyft lock $60M into a campaign whose product is a carve-out written into the California constitution, converting an employment-law dispute into an election they can outspend.
California drivers become the direct subjects of both outcomes: employee status under AB5's enforcement push, or contractor status with whatever benefits the platforms define themselves.
Second-order effects
DoorDash joins the fund at $90M total, turning a two-company defense into a cross-category gig-industry bloc — delivery apps now have as much at stake in the classification precedent as ride-hail.
The AG's injunction effort forces Uber and Lyft to litigate reclassification in court while simultaneously bankrolling the ballot escape hatch, doubling their exposure on the same question.
Third-order effects
After Proposition 22 passes, Uber and Lyft unveil guaranteed minimum earnings and health care stipends for California drivers — establishing platform-defined benefits rather than statutory employment as the new settlement model, one other states' legislatures will be asked to copy.
The trend: Gig platforms are converting worker-classification defeats into self-funded statewide ballot measures, with spending escalating from $60M toward $90M as more of the industry joins.
New: Uber & Lyft are each putting $30 million into a campaign account for a potential ballot measure that would ensure they can keep treating drivers as non-employees, in case they can't get a legislative deal https://www.bloomberg.com/... Consultants are hired & language is draf…
BREAKING NEWS: Uber, Lyft and DoorDash Pledge $90 Million to Fight Drivers Becoming Employees in California Instead of hating and fighting drivers use the $90 Million to pay back all the fares you have stolen from drivers through upfront pricing https://www.nytimes.com/...
Looks like the California legislature will pass a new law requiring Uber & Lyft to treat their drivers as employees, not independent contractors. Alarmed, Uber, Lyft & DoorDash have put together a $90 million campaign war chest to overturn such a law through a ballot initiative h…
A California bill could soon force Uber and Lyft to treat their drivers like employees. But the 2 companies said that they will spend $60 million on a ballot initiative that would essentially exempt them from the proposed law. https://www.nytimes.com/...
New: Uber & Lyft commit $60 million to fund a state-wide ballot initiative to keep treating their workers as contractors. This announcement comes a day after execs from both cos met w/ Gov. Newsom in part to discuss what they're proposing as an alternative https://www.latimes.com…
“Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. are putting $60 million behind a potential ballot measure to ensure they don't have to reclassify their California drivers as employees.” #AB5 update from @josheidelson https://www.bloomberg.com/...
Updated: DoorDash is putting $30 million into a separate ballot measure campaign account, bring total gig firms committed today to $90 million https://www.bloomberg.com/... Company says it's confident that if ballot measure is necessary, platform firms will unify behind a single …
AB 5 author @LorenaSGonzalez calls the potential measure part of California's “long history of Wall Street billionaires pumping a fortune into ballot measures to further erode the middle class.” https://www.bloomberg.com/... https://twitter.com/...
I could not agree more. David Weil says that “people are really playing with fire...Creating carve-outs for this kind of model risks undermining the entire system of employment protections that we've had in places for decades.” #yesonab5 & NO to compromise https://www.bloomberg.c…