Rideshare companies' effort to kill California employment bill is failing miserably

California's Assembly Bill 5 isn't radical: it merely affirms the obvious fact that Uber and Lyft drivers (and other "gig economy" workers) are employees, something that the California Supreme Court already made obvious in the Dynamex decision.

However, it does mean that the bezzle that is Uber and Lyft is in deep, deep shit. Having to treat their employees like employees is antithetical to their business-model, which is basically a Ponzi scheme that redistributes cash from later investors and drivers (especially those who don't know how to calculate depreciation or read a predatory car-lease) to the early money into the companies.

And here's the amazing thing: it looks like AB5 is going to pass. This situation has Uber and Lyft so scared that they've offered to pay drivers $21/h (but only when they've got passengers), offer paid sick-leave, and allow drivers to "have a collective voice" (a usefully ambiguous phrase that may refer to the unions drivers are trying to form, or maybe to the company's practice of forcing drivers to go to arbitration rather than suing).

It's too little, too late. State legislature watchers in Sacramento say AB5 is going to pass, and that means that the Uber/Lyft Ponzi is a little closer to its inevitable implosion.

Still, Californias passage of AB5 could have a domino effect that inspires other states to codify their own ABC misclassification tests, said Shannon Liss-Riordan, an attorney who represented thousands of drivers in a class action suit against Uber. But it will run into strong resistance from Uber and Lyft, which have deep pockets to spend on lobbying and public relations campaigns.