Academic Journal
The Perils and Promise of Direct Democracy: Labour Ballot Initiatives in the United States
| العنوان: | The Perils and Promise of Direct Democracy: Labour Ballot Initiatives in the United States |
|---|---|
| المؤلفون: | Andrias, Kate |
| المصدر: | Faculty Scholarship |
| بيانات النشر: | Scholarship Archive |
| سنة النشر: | 2023 |
| المجموعة: | Columbia Law School: Scholarship Repository |
| مصطلحات موضوعية: | ballot initiative, platform worker, gig worker, independent contractor, National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), AB5, workers rights, King's Law Journal, Constitutional Law, Labor and Employment Law, Law, Legislation |
| الوصف: | In September 2019, California legislators approved a bill, known as AB5, that extended employee status to many workers previously classified as independent contractors, including workers at the rideshare platforms Uber and Lyft. The law aimed to reshape the platform economy — also known as the ‘gig,’ or ‘on-demand’ economy — to protect exploited workers and make work less precarious. Just over a year later, however, in November 2020, voters repealed significant parts of the bill through a state-wide ballot initiative, stripping ride-share drivers and other platform workers of employee status and limiting the ability of the California legislature to protect such workers in the future. This Essay uses the California fight over platform workers as a jumping off point to explore the role of the ballot initiative and referendum in United States labour policy. Part I details the California experience, including the extraordinary amount of money and aggressive communication tactics that platform companies employed to advance the initiative. The next two Parts put the California experience in legal and historical context. Part II surveys the law of ballot initiatives in the United States as well as their progressive origins and aspirations. Part III explores what kinds of labour ballot initiatives have been pursued in the past across the United States, and whether they have prevailed, focusing on the last fifteen years. Part IV augments the existing scholarly literature with the labour experience to analyze under what circumstances state-level initiatives are pro-worker; when and why are they captured by business interests; and, more generally, to what extent are they riddled with the same pathologies that affect the rest of our democracy. Ultimately, the experience in California and with labour initiatives in the United States more broadly suggests that, under certain conditions, ballot initiatives can be an important pro-worker and pro-democratic tool. However, when wealthy corporate interests are united ... |
| نوع الوثيقة: | text |
| اللغة: | unknown |
| Relation: | https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4171 |
| DOI: | 10.1080/09615768.2023.2253593 |
| الاتاحة: | https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/4171 https://doi.org/10.1080/09615768.2023.2253593 |
| رقم الانضمام: | edsbas.7C4B18C |
| قاعدة البيانات: | BASE |
| DOI: | 10.1080/09615768.2023.2253593 |
|---|