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Yet another #NoOnProp22 rant... One of my first jobs after graduation was as a messenger. This was before smart phones. The company paid to install a CB radio in my brand new car. I've been racking my brain lately, trying to remember how much I got paid for wait time and can't...
...but I'm sure it was a pittance. The bulk of my paycheck came from commissions. And after a certain amount of time, paltry but not entirely useless health care kicked in. Enough to cover my asthma inhaler, which was all I needed.
Snagging jobs was a free for all. The dispatcher would call them out over the radio as they came in, then all the drivers who were near would scramble to be the first to claim it...
The only way to make money was to snag both long haul jobs (my longest was Orange County to San Luis Obisbo. that was a good day) and stack up a whole bunch of shorter jobs. But it was tough to do the latter and get them all delivered on time, which docked your pay.
Every once and a while the dispatcher would slip you a long haul job without opening it up to the free for all. As the only woman driver, I got a few of those thanks to the hot lesbian lead dispatcher who looked out for me...
This made up for the torrent of lewd jokes, teeth sucking, and cat calls that came over the CB every time I called out for a job.
I grew really proud of my ability to strategically stack jobs to get the most out of my day. I was rarely late. I got to know So Cal really well. (Again, no smart phones. My passenger seat was stacked with Thomas Guides.)
One day the owner of the company sat in as a dispatcher. Often the jobs I'd snag didn't make immediate sense, and I got a few "are you sure?" But once I linked them all together in a non obvious way, getting everything delivered quicker than promised, he got it...
I got a call at the end of the day saying how impressed he was, and how he hoped I'd stay. That I'd make a good dispatcher some day. I was young and idealistic then. Also really bad at math (still am). I thought, this could be a good fall back if the whole writing thing bombs.
I was basically left to my own devices, shaping my own day, listening to music or audiobooks as I drove. And I love driving. Really seemed like an ideal situation.
But after a few months, it became clear I was BARELY breaking even. (This was back when gas prices hovered around a dollar a gallon.) I was putting 300+ miles a day on my car. And I was better at the gig than literally every dude doing it.
If I'd had a kid to feed? I'd have been in a hole. If gas prices had gone up? Hole. Car broke down? Fucked. I managed to find myself an assistant gig at an art gallery and bailed. The transmission in my car died on the highway a year later.
I think about these 9 months of my life every time I get in a car with a ride share driver. This set up is hard enough as an employee with meager benefits. It's an impossible pyramid scheme as an independent contractor. Drivers absorb ALL of the risk.
It's their personal vehicles they're putting hundreds of miles on every day. Or maybe a lease they get through the ride share company, which is set up like indentured servitude, tethering them to a break even job.
The reason we can get a car to our door in 10 mins is because hundreds of people are sitting on their ass, waiting, without getting paid for their time. And the vampire capitalists want to convince us this is freedom? That most drivers prefer this?
If you make use of these services but have never had to work under these conditions, I implore you to take a minute to imagine yourself in this position. Then imagine how much worse it could get if your bosses wrote a law governing your employment that could never be changed.
That's what prop 22 is. It not only enshrines in law a system where workers bare all of the risk while receiving almost none of the reward from their labor, it makes the law effectively impossible to change. (When's the last time a regulatory bill passed with a 7/8ths majority?)
Prop 22 is despicable, destructive, and dehumanizing. Now, that also describes our entire economic system, which is the case non-corporate YES proponents make in its favor. These jobs are better than no jobs. If that's your position, enjoy your surrender.
There will be no living to fight another day. That 7/8ths lock in ensures that if Prop 22 passes, the war is over.
Truth is, if it fails, they'll take AB5 all the way to the supreme court. And unless we've flipped congress and the WH and those middle of the road goobers grow the guts to expand the bench, the war will be lost there. But I'd much rather live to fight again.
In the meantime... UNIONS FOR EVERYONE and tip your drivers big time. #NoOnProp22
