Unions Against Oligarchy
70,000 Uber and Lyft drivers win in Massachusetts
The rise of the oligarchs and the decline of labor unions in America are two sides of the same coin. It’s not so simple that today’s oligarchs seized power by breaking American labor unions. But feedback loops between increasing billionaire power and declining worker power are part of the puzzle what produced the unprecedented wealth that oligarchs have amassed in modern America. An America without oligarchy will require dismantling these feedback loops.
So it’s an encouraging and instructive development that 70,000 Uber and Lyft drivers just succeeded in unionizing in Massachusetts. To my knowledge, this is the largest private sector unionization victory in decades. And the first large scale unionization of workers at Big Tech platform monopolies. They won by passing a state law to give gig independent contractors some (but not full) union rights that have been gutted from federal labor law over several decades.
To learn more, I recommend the American Prospect’s reporting on the unionization drive. The Prospect’s daily newsletter is one my go-to sources for keeping track of the deluge of news on Big Tech, Wall Street, the oligarchs, and challenges to their power.
One footnote in the Prospect’s reporting, Uber and Lyft spent $200 million in California on a ballot initiative that overturned a law that would have made gig workers regular employees instead of independent contractors. That would have given California gig workers a different path to unionization, and many other rights under federal law. With that path blocked, it will be interesting to see if the independent contractor union of Massachusetts drivers can win wages and rights that match or surpass traditional employee counterparts. If so, the Massachusetts victory might be a prelude expanding the fight nationally, and returning to California where gig workers number in the hundreds of thousands.
