In a development many wouldn’t find surprising, a collation of forces recently announced that they would like to see ride-sharing drivers for Uber and Lyft receive a guaranteed base wage, flexible benefits, and a new drivers’ association to lend a united voice to represent their interests. What is surprising? 

The two forces that joined to make this call were the leaders of Uber and Lyft themselves. In an op-ed appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle, the CEO of Uber (Dara Khosrowshahi) and the CEO and President of Lyft (Logan Green and John Zimmer) called for an “update to century-old employment laws,” so that gig economy companies can “offer certain benefits without blurring the boundaries of employment and triggering a wave of litigation in which nobody wins.” 

Their specific suggestion is to work with legislators on a fix to AB 5 – a piece of legislation currently pending before the state legislature– to exempt workers performing short-term projects or those people who control their own schedules. In exchange for such a legislative fix, the op-ed says that Uber and Lyft will be prepared to make the following three compromises, more fully fleshed out in an accompanying article published the same day.

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