Who doesn’t love the gig economy? The answer, unfortunately, is Joe Biden and the Democrats. They support policies that nearly caused Uber and Lyft to close down operations in California this month, and still might cause them to do so.
For most people, the ease and flexibility of ride-sharing, food delivery, and other such conveniences allow hundreds of millions of people to obtain useful services, and tens of millions to take on lucrative side hustles — driving, tutoring, delivering, loaning cars, etc. — for extra cash. It has been especially beneficial during the coronavirus pandemic in helping obviate unnecessary trips by people who might have otherwise spread disease.
What is less obvious about the gig economy is that it is a coping mechanism. By avoiding the formal, traditional employment arrangement, gig work has helped keep the economy dynamic in spite of forces that tend to retard, namely, high payroll taxes, employment regulations, and unionization.
Unfortunately, labor unions are acutely aware of this, and they hate it. They want to put the toothpaste back into the tube and regain their old glory days, before unions became largely irrelevant to most workers and most industries.
Because the gig economy is helping companies avoid the shackles of the backward 1930s labor policy ensconced in the National Labor Relations Act, the unions’ Democratic allies are irrevocably committed to destroying it. In California, they are succeeding. The Biden-endorsed Assembly Bill 5 forces gig workers back into traditional employment relationships with the platforms on which they work. This defeats the entire purpose of most of their services.
This bill was a naked favor to labor unions, stifling platforms that competed with union labor and situating more workers in jobs in which they could be unionized. It is already having deleterious consequences for California’s economy. Freelance journalists and other gig workers in the state, indeed every industry that hasn’t managed to get itself an exemption, have lost work. If Uber and Lyft shut down operations in the Golden State, it will instantly put half a million drivers out of work.
The only way California voters can save these services is to overturn AB 5 this November in a referendum. But even that may not be enough. If Biden and Democrats win on the national level, they will pass the same bill and put everyone out of luck, and they’ll be doing it all as a favor to the unions that have historically provided their party with its financial muscle.
Democrats are eager to defeat President Trump this fall and seize control of the Senate. Once they have eliminated the filibuster, they will not stop with just destroying the gig economy as a favor to their political allies. They also intend to nullify 27 states’ right-to-work laws. This would force many unwilling workers to pay unions for the privilege of having their own jobs.
They also want to remove any requirement for workplace secret-ballot elections for unionization, so workers have even less say in whether they become a job-security program for union bosses. This provision, known colloquially as “card check,” has been on the unions’ wish list for more than a decade. They failed to get it in 2009, when Democrats enjoyed a supermajority in the Senate, but their planned elimination of the filibuster could remove the last obstacle.
Democrats are determined to do big favors for their union paymasters. If they succeed, they could provide the second punch in a one-two combination against the economy.
If you think the internet is a cool way to get a ride, borrow a car, or find a Latin tutor, think twice before you elect Democrats. Think twice, too, about voting Democrat if you believe workers deserve a chance to choose whether to unionize without coercion.
