London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

AOC warns of big tech’s influence on Biden after Prop 22 win

AOC warns of big tech’s influence on Biden after Prop 22 win

Democratic representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she is ‘very concerned’ about Uber’s role in Joe Biden’s incoming US administration.

United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has warned about the influence big technology companies may have on President-elect Joe Biden’s incoming administration, after Uber, Lyft and DoorDash won a political victory in California with the passage of Proposition 22.

Speaking to constituents during a townhall meeting on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez said she was “very concerned about the role that Uber executives would play in this administration after we saw what happened in California with Prop 22”.

Proposition 22, which passed with 58 percent support, lets firms like Uber classify their drivers as independent contractors, dodging state requirements for labour protections and workers’ benefits.

Opposition labour groups were vastly outspent by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart and Postmates, which contributed more than $200m to successfully persuade California voters to support the measure.


App-based gig worker Terresa Mercado participated in a demonstration outside Los Angeles City Hall to urge voters to vote no on Proposition 22


“Our district here, New York 14 – we are a district of cab drivers, which includes yellow cab medallion drivers, and app drivers,” said Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat who represents parts of the New York City boroughs of The Bronx and Queens.

Prop 22 allows ride-hailing and delivery companies to offer limited benefits, such as a guaranteed minimum wage and flexible hours.

“These app companies have made very public that they want to roll back the labour protections that they successfully did in California and bring that nationwide,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez’s comments are the first post-election sign of what is likely to be a fight between progressives in the new US Congress, the incoming Biden administration and Republicans about rules governing the gig economy.

“What we are seeing is a dawning of a new era whereby we are moving towards recognition of a new hybrid category of worker between a contractor and an employee,” said Richard Meneghello, a lawyer in Oregon who writes a gig economy blog.

Nationwide push


Uber Chief Executive Officer Dara Khosrowshahi told investors in an earnings call on November 5 the firm would be seeking to apply the Prop 22 model nationwide.

“We should be adding benefits to gig work to make it better, not getting rid of it altogether in favour of an employment-only system,” Khosrowshahi said on the call with investors.

Uber will “loudly advocate” for similar legislation and will “work with governments across the US and the world to make this a reality”, he said.

Tony West, the chief legal officer of Uber who was a leading advocate for Prop 22, is Vice President-elect Kamala Harris’s brother-in-law.

West is married to Harris’s sister Maya Harris and has been a longtime political adviser to Harris since she first ran for office in 2003.

Both Harris and President-elect Biden opposed Prop 22 during the campaign and Harris has told the Los Angeles Times she has never been lobbied by West, although he was a major fundraiser for the Biden campaign.

Prop 22 overrides a 2019 California law that attempted to give gig workers regular job benefits such as overtime pay, sick leave and unemployment insurance.

Uber, Lyft and other companies argued successfully the California law would crush their business models and eliminate services relied on by millions of Californians.

“What I’m going to be looking for and what I’m concerned about are picks [in the Biden transition] from big tech, that will pose an incredible, incredibly damaging role in labour rights and impact on labour,” Ocasio-Cortez said on Thursday, without specifically naming West.

‘They feel emboldened’


“It is interesting to see AOC jump into this,” said Shannon Liss-Riordan, a lawyer in Boston who has pursued class-action lawsuits against employers that classified workers as contractors to avoid paying for benefits.

“They feel emboldened after what they did in California to try to take this show on the road nationwide and it is critical that Congress and the public understand what they pulled off in California and not let them do it anywhere else,” Liss-Riordan told Al Jazeera.

Biden, who campaigned with the support of the AFL-CIO labour federation as “a union guy”, will be under pressure to roll back new regulations promulgated by Donald Trump’s administration that would make it easier for companies like Uber to classify employees as gig workers.


Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden gave a thumbs-up as campaigned with union leaders outside an AFL-CIO union hall in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania


“This is a fierce fight that has been going on for years. Those regulations are very, very pro-employer,” said Michael Maslanka, an assistant professor of law at the University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law.

Outgoing Trump Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia on Thursday said California’s Prop 22 vote was a rebuke of efforts by pro-labour politicians to prevent the liberalisation of new gig worker rules.

“That vote in California is a strong warning to progressives who believe that Americans want radical changes in our employment laws,” Scalia told a meeting of The Federalist Society, a conservative legal group, according to a Law360 report.

In September, a group of Democratic legislators led by Senators Patty Murray and Sherrod Brown introduced legislation in Congress that would provide protections and require benefits for gig workers.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
Massive Strikes in France Pressure Macron and New PM on Austerity Proposals
Trump Seeks Supreme Court Permission to Remove Fed Governor Lisa Cook
Hillary Clinton’s Reckless Rhetoric Fuels Division After Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
NASDAQ Rises to Record as Intel Soars More Than 20%, Nvidia Gains 3%
Nvidia’s $5 Billion Bet on Intel Reshapes AI Hardware Landscape
Trump and Starmer Clash Over UK Recognition of Palestinian State Amid State Visit
Trump’s Quip on Biden and Google Lawsuit Revives Debate Over Antitrust Legacy
Macron and his wife to provide 'scientific photographic evidence' that she is a real woman
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
×