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Uber, Lyft ready to call California AG’s bluff, will shut down over disaster law that could leave thousands unemployed

August 20, 2020 | | Print Article

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The popular ride-sharing services Uber and Lyft are slated to suspend all their operations in California, and stranded residents who rely on the services for transportation may have nobody to blame but themselves and their own voting habits.

Last year California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed into law AB5, a radical, union-backed bill that basically outlawed full-time contractor work. Thanks to the bill, countless Californians lost their contract gigs and thus their source of income.

Here’s just one example:

To see more, just search for the hashtag #AB5Stories on Twitter:

At the time, Uber and Lyft refused to comply with the law because, like many businesses, theirs was and still remains based on contract work.

In a ruling last week, however, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman sided with California Democrats and decreed that Uber and Lyft are violating AB5 by contracting their drivers. Promptly afterward, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra reportedly pounced.

“The California Attorney General obtained a court order that requires rideshare companies to hire drivers as employees—immediately—or else shut down,” Uber announced in a blog post Tuesday.

The ride-sharing company added that unless an appeal it filed is successful, “we will need to temporarily shut down by Thursday night.”

Lyft has reportedly issued a similar warning.

“Ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft say they will temporarily suspend service in California beginning Friday if they’re forced to reclassify their self-employed drivers as employees with benefits,” the Orange County Register reported.

They’re both reportedly slated to suspend all their services until either they win an appeal or Californians en masse vote in favor of an amendment on Nov. 3rd that would exempt ride-sharing companies from AB5’s requirements.

Until then, though, riders and drivers like this will effectively be screwed:

There are already virtually countless stories on Twitter of men and women who’ve lost their livelihoods and seen their lives come apart at the seams because of AB5, and with Uber and Lyft slated to suspend operations, even more stories will no doubt emerge.

It’s been an endless cycle of pain and tragedy for Californians because of the misguided belief by California Democrats that it’s somehow unfair for businesses like Uber and Lyft, among many others, to hire contractors instead of full-time employees.

Yet Democrats — from Gov. Newsom to AG Becerra and even the bill’s nasty creator, state Rep. Lorena Gonzalez — have completely ignored all the pain. So have pseudo media reporters like CNN’s Brian Stelter who purport to care about the fate of journalists yet are too busy obsessing over Fox News to say anything about the freelance journalists in California who have also been affected.

But most frightening of all is the lack of empathy from Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, a man who’s vowed to make AB5 a nationwide law if he becomes president.

For a man who blathers on endlessly about empathy, he’s shown none — absolutely none — for people like this:

Democrats don’t care in part because they think companies like Uber and Lyft are the bad guys for not doing what they demand. But what they refuse to consider in their ignorance are the exorbitant costs of businesses complying.

Because of AB5, companies that used to provide contractors with flexible work must now either hire the contractors as full-time employees (and thus pay bundles in added overhead costs) or drastically reduce their workload (as an example, the law prohibits freelance writers from producing more than 35 pieces for a single client per year).

Businesses can’t afford these changes, just as freelancers can’t afford to have their livelihoods plucked away from them at whim. The best solution, many have argued, is to just let the free market do its thing. Alas for those who’ve already lost everything or are slated to lose everything if Biden becomes president, the Democrats refuse to listen to anybody but themselves.

Of course, the residents have the option in November to reverse some of the damage, but only if they’re willing to STOP voting for Democrats (*Language warning):

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Vivek Saxena
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