Of Course They Are Getting Screwed

That was the whole purpose of the massive funding for Proposition 22 in California, to get a license to treat their employees like crap.

Anyone who says that they voted for Prop 22 because they thought that it would improve the lot of the Gypsy cab drivers and food delivery folks is either a liar or an idiot:

Weeks after Proposition 22 went into effect in California and exempted some major tech firms from fully complying with labor laws, workers for rideshare and delivery apps in the state claim poor working conditions have persisted and pay has decreased.

Drivers and labor groups opposed Prop 22, saying it would allow companies to sidestep their obligations to provide benefits and standard minimum wages to their workers even as they make billions of dollars. But the measure passed at the ballot box.

“It’s clear that as soon as Prop 22 passed, it was open season to start cutting my pay again,” said Peter Young, a rideshare driver for four years in Los Angeles. “I’m looking for other work. I can’t keep doing this at this pay. I’m doing food delivery right now. Everyone is ordering food online so there’s demand. It’s just that what they are choosing to pay me isn’t reliable any more and it’s getting lower.”

………

“I was under the impression that I was going to get an additional $0.30 per mile after Prop 22,” said [Uber driver Ben] Valdez, but he hasn’t received that extra compensation because, according to Uber’s metrics, his pay exceeds their calculation of 120 percent of minimum wage.

A study by labor economists at the University of California, Berkeley, in October 2019 found Prop 22 guarantees a minimum wage of $5.64 an hour, as only engaged time is accounted for in the wage calculations.

“A lot of drivers were duped because they expected they were magically going to be able to qualify for benefits that the companies made it sound like they were going to pay for up front and that drivers were going to be getting reimbursement for the mileage,” said Valdez. “They also made drivers believe that if Prop 22 didn’t pass then Uber and Lyft were going to leave the state of California because they couldn’t afford to pay drivers as employees.”

It's pretty simple.  The gig companies won because they lied and because they spent a lot of money.

Start collecting signatures for a repeal, and come back again, and again.

Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and have lots of venture capital money, but no meaningful profits.

Between the lies, and the limits of their VCs, eventually they will lose.