[lhorie]

By that logic, legislators could have chosen not to put forth AB5 and none of this discussion would be happening. Also, as I said elsewhere, one does not simply ramp up an HR org (plus whatever else) w/ capacity for an extra 50k headcount "just in case".

[whakim]

I'm not sure how you can pin this one on legislators. Legislators make laws, private companies (and individuals) follow them. If I don't want to follow the law, that's my own choice and I bear responsibility for the consequences. As for the HR org, I'm sure Uber/Lyft could have spent some of the $100 million they've spend so far supporting Prop 22 on such a thing. If they really cared about drivers, that would have been the thing to do.

[lhorie]

> If I don't want to follow the law, that's my own choice and I bear responsibility

Sure, but the law is supposed to be in service of the people, otherwise it's no different from a dictatorship. The fact than some 100k drivers are in the prop 22 coalition alone should say something about what _they_ want.

> I'm sure Uber/Lyft could have spent some of the $100 million

How sure? More sure than the companies actually doing the due diligence of crunching those numbers to make such a large decision? $100M may seem like a lot of money, but consider that this was a one time spend, vs the ongoing cost of things like an HR org, etc

> that would have been the thing to do

TFA says they would only realistically be able to hire a fraction of current drivers (and the drivers themselves generally prefer to be contractors), and service reliability for riders would plummet to boot.

One could put it in different ways: if a driver wants to be an employee, then why not seek employment at a taxi/transportation company that works under that model? (amazon is hiring, for example) Why not put a taxi sign on a car and go line up at the airport with a zoned price model as a sole proprietorship company? As a software developer, I have the equivalent of all these options available to me. It would be inconceivable to enter a software development contract agreement with a company and then turn around and say they are now obligated by law to hire me.