It also seems a bit disingenuous to say this is allowing an industry to write its own laws. It's just an ad-hominem - who cares who wrote the law? It's the content of the law that is important, and the process that it goes through to pass. In this case if it is voted on and approved by the public, that seems like a perfectly legitimate example of direct democracy.
(Whether you think direct democracy is a good idea for nuanced policy decisions, or whether what amounts to a constitutional amendment that can't be changed by the legislature is a good process for regulating a fast-changing new industry, are separate questions. Those are very valid concerns IMO. But that has nothing to do with the arguments you brought up).
Edit: and thinking about a precedent that this sets, I see that differently as well. AB5 was pretty clearly a bad law, and the legislators behind it completely shut off all negotiations with rideshare companies and were intent on playing hardball instead of coming up with a compromise. It was clearly all about retaliating against these companies that these legislators didn't like, with no thought given to how it would actually work or what would be best for constituents (as evidenced by just how many other industries, from journalists to musicians, were caught in the crossfire and had to be exempted one by one).
Given that, I think this sets a precedent to legislators that they actually need to do their jobs. They need to do the hard work of designing practical laws that will actually work for all of their constituents. Their job is not just to make bold symbolic gestures to fire up the most extreme members of their base, and if they do and they insist on doubling down on bad policies that work against a large number of their constituents best interests, it can backfire like it did with prop 22.
> Earlier this month, before California users of the app could call for a ride, they had to “confirm” they’d seen a message that described how wait times and prices would rise if Prop 22 wasn’t passed
> Last week, Uber users complained on social media about in-app notifications stating that “Prop 22 will save lives,” in an apparent violation of Apple’s app developer agreement
> “Almost every time we log on, we are fed more one-sided information to pressure us into supporting Prop 22,” Ben Valdez, a driver for Uber and one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement. That includes in-app videos of drivers speaking about why “Prop 22 would make a difference,” reinforcing Uber’s stance that the measure should pass.
https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/22/21529082/uber-drivers-la...
Maybe we could disagree on whether this was a misinformation campaign, but it's still certainly not coercion. Still doesn't even seem like misinformation to me, the reality was that every driver who did not want to work full-time on the company's schedule would lose the ability to work if AB5 stands. (And if the companies shut down operations altogether in CA or demand took a big hit due to higher prices, then some or all of the rest of the drivers would lose their jobs too). I don't see how advertising that to drivers is dishonest.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/if_it_looks_like_a_duck,_swim...
And again, a threat implies it is done maliciously. You think it would be better if the companies just stayed quiet, and then just out of blue one day said "sorry we're shutting down operations, you're all out of jobs"?
Persuasion via force is exactly in line with the definition that you gave.
It's hard to avoid the conclusion that the California Assembly brought this situation on the citizens by writing a bad law.
The CA law was created directly to change Uber, Lyft, etc and was backed by lobbying groups with lots of funding. So this exemption being funded by Uber is just as bad.
I’d rather laws be created based on actual first principles with goals to help the people. I think this ping pong game of lobby/counter lobby is not good for society.
They were free to not participate in any of that, just as anyone else.
If you take on a job from a customer and it has certain terms to be paid, and you agree to those terms, that isn’t coercion: it’s work.
It’s possible that you view the very nature of the societal work-for-money as coercive, which has its own argument, as people need food and shelter to survive. If that’s the argument, make that one. In that’s not the argument for this being “coercive”, however, then I can’t really see it, as they could have simply not done the thing you claimed they were being coerced into doing.
They’re independent, remember: they can just not sign in to the app if it demands they do things with which they are uncomfortable.
Then why did people need so much money to make it pass if it is a good law most people like? Because there is so much misinformation going around about prop 22! Even in this thread most people still think that prop 22 means drivers wont have healthcare or minimum wage, meaning the Californian union lobbying got to most of you. They don't need money to spread misinformation, they just go to their journalist friends and gets biased articles written for free. How many articles were written which mentioned all the benefits prop 22 gave drivers? Not many, most just said it was so Uber could continue to oppress workers.