Ideological obsession is employers persisting in arbitrariness and covering up of undeclared work

Statement by AKEL C.C. Spokesperson Stefanos Stefanou on the cuts in the funding of the labour inspection service

AKEL C.C. Press Office, 13th December 2019, Nicosia

DISY characterizes the existence of controls to fight undeclared and illegal work as AKEL’s “ideological obsession”. We could reverse the characterisation. Ideological obsession is employers persisting in arbitrariness and covering up of undeclared work at the work place.

Is this what DISY and the parties DIKO, EDEK, Solidarity and ELAM want who cut the funding for the Inspection Service?

And since, according to DISY, AKEL is “ideologically obsessed”, what does it have to say about the fierce reaction of all the trade union organisations? Does DISY then consider the trade unions also “ideologically driven”?

Is protecting labour and working people’s rights “ideological obsession”?

It is well-known that DISY stands unreservedly on the side of employers and is indifferent to working people and wage earners. But what about the other political parties that supported DISY’s position in this unacceptable action – what do they have to say to working people?

France: WFTU Solidarity with the general strike on December 5

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU), the only international expression of the class-oriented trade union movement and representing 97 million workers in 130 countries around the world, expresses its warmest support and internationalist solidarity with the general strike of December 5 in France.

The working class of France, after the call of the CGT France, will take the streets and stop production, claiming its contemporary needs, against the recipes of capital, the bourgeois government of Macron and the European Union.

The main sectors of the country will participate in the class-oriented mobilizations, especially transport, commerce and services, education, energy, public services, refineries, agri-food industry, the waste collection and treatment sector, the automobile industry, hospitals, firefighters, ports and  media among others.

While the mobilizations of the last period showed that bourgeois power can bleed, now the workers of France can further strengthen the resistance of the peoples of Europe against the anti-labor measures promoted in every corner of the continent, paralyzing and blocking production.

The WFTU commits itself to continue steadily on the side of the working class of France, supporting its just struggles, for the end of capitalist exploitation.

We call on all workers in France, regardless of their union affiliation, to participate in the December 5 strike and ignore the calls of the ETUC bureaucratic nomenclature which is aligned with the European bourgeois class.

Dear colleagues, hold fast !

All united in the struggle !

The WFTU Secretariat

WFTU announcement on International Day of Persons with Disabilities

On the occasion of the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the World Federation of Trade Unions expresses its solidarity with people with special needs and supports their demands for free and public healthcare, for employment and life with rights and dignity.

Worldwide, people with disabilities face health problems, lower participation in education and higher rates of unemployment and poverty. They suffer barriers to access to health, education, transport services. These difficulties are exacerbated in the poor population or in developing countries, where disability rates are higher than in developed countries, since poverty can lead to the emergence of health conditions associated with disability, such as low birth weight, malnutrition, lack of clean water or adequate hygiene, unsafe work and injuries.

The world militant trade union movement calls upon all workers to strengthen our struggle for the improvement of living conditions of the persons with disabilities and demands:

• Access to free, public and high quality health and rehabilitation services for people with disabilities
• Adequate free state services and infrastructure for their daily care, moving and communicating
• Health and safety measures for all workers at the workplaces and especially for persons with disabilities
• Employment for all persons with disabilities who are able to work under state responsibility
• Benefits and pensions that can assure them a dignified life

Τhe Secretariat

Uber Fined $649 Million for Saying Drivers Aren’t Employees

New Jersey’s move against Uber reflects an intensifying national debate over how
app-based companies treat their work force.Credit...Jeenah Moon for The New York Times

The move by New Jersey could reverberate across the gig economy.

By Matthew Haag and Patrick McGeehan

·     

 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/nyregion/uber-new-jersey-drivers.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

New Jersey has demanded that Uber pay $649 million for years of unpaid employment

taxes for its drivers, arguing that the ride-hailing company has misclassified the workers as independent contractors and not as employees.

The state’s Department of Labor and Workforce Development issued the request this week to Uber and a subsidiary, Raiser, after an audit uncovered $530 million in back taxes that had not been paid for unemployment and disability insurance from 2014 to 2018. Because of the nonpayment, the state is seeking another $119 million in interest.

The case represents a major escalation in how states nationwide view the employment practices at the core of many app-based companies, and the first time that a local government has sought back payroll taxes from Uber, which has hundreds of thousands of drivers in the United States.

A spokeswoman at Uber said the company disputed the state’s findings.

“We are challenging this preliminary but incorrect determination, because drivers

are independent contractors in New Jersey and elsewhere,” the spokeswoman, Alix Anfang, said.

SM of Kazakhstan, A call to show solidarity with workers and trade union activists of Kazakhstan!

On October 17, Yerzhan Yelshibaev, the leader of the unemployed movement of Zhanaozen and the Mangystau region, was sentenced to five years in a fabricated case and arrested in March of this year in a fabricated case about an attack on a passerby, which happened several years ago. During the trial, the victim and witnesses did not recognize him as an attacker and refused claims, however, the judge decided to send the famous public figure to jail.

This verdict provoked a storm of indignation of a large support group of activists and oil workers who clashed with police and riot police right in the city court building. As a result, several dozen people were detained, but subsequently released. All representatives of trade unions and social movements consider the condemnation of Yerzhan Yelshibaev to be political violence designed to intimidate local residents and oil workers.

A day earlier, the Al-Farabi district court of the city of Shymkent decided to send Yerlan Baltabay, the former head of the Decent Work Labor local union, to a pre-trial detention center. They told him that he refused to pay the fine earlier, to which he was sentenced instead of a seven-year sentence as a result of a request for clemency signed by President Kasym-Zhomart Tokaev.

Yerlan Baltabay himself considers himself innocent and accuses the KNB of fabricating a criminal case with the aim of raiding the union. He intends to justify himself through an appeal and prove that the authorities created a parallel union with the same name, which is not even the legal successor in order to completely destroy the independent association in the region and at the Shymkent oil refinery.

On October 16, more than two hundred workers of the Kezby service company organized a rally near the walls of the Akimat of Zhanaozen demanding an end to the persecution of leaders and activists of the independent trade union by the employer and his hired gangs. The fact is that in relation to the head of the trade union, Azmat Zhaparov, constantly unknown people promise to kill, and the bosses, under the threat of dismissal, are forcing ordinary members to leave the association.

Union activists intend to conclude a collective agreement and improve working conditions, but the employer does not want to endure an independent union and is making every effort to eliminate it. There is also the danger of fabricating a criminal case against the leaders of the association. All previous demands on the authorities, including on President Tokaev, remained ignored and further escalation of the situation was not ruled out.

Pressure was exerted on the part of special services, the prosecutor’s office and the akimat and on the participants in the strike at a service company with the participation of Chinese capital, Vostok Oil and Service, which suspended all drilling operations on the Kenkiyak and Zhanazhol fields in the Aktobe region on October 11. Eight drilling crews demanded a 50% increase in salaries, but the Director General, in his demand for the regional prosecutor, demanded that the participants in the strike be held criminally liable, attaching lists of activists and leaders to his statement.

Only attracting widespread attention to the strike prevented reprisals and layoffs. On October 16, the employer was forced to make concessions and sign with the yellow trade union, which always opposed the strikers, an agreement on raising wages from 10 to 50%. Despite the satisfaction of the demands of the drillers, there remains the danger of reprisals against activists and organizers of the strike, which may be held criminally liable under the article “for calls and participation in an illegal strike”.

It should be understood that the authorities and transnational corporations are frightened by a new round of the labor movement, when one of the main slogans was the demand for the equation of wages of Kazakh workers and foreign workers for equal work. This demand runs red thread through all strikes in the extractive sector. And the Nazarbayev regime intends to stop the mass protests through repression.

We urge the communist, leftist and trade union organizations to express solidarity and hold rallies at diplomatic missions or send letters of protest addressed to President Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev. Only a broad international campaign can lead to the release of the arrested comrades Yerzhan Yelshibaev and Yerlan Baltabay and to an end to the persecution of workers’ activists!

Hands off workers and trade union activists of Kazakhstan!

Political Council of the Socialist Movement of Kazakhstana

Central Committee of the Kazakhstan Workers Union “Zhanartu” 

 http://socialismkz.info/?p=23758

India is mourning along with the militant, international trade union movement

Comrade Gurudas Das Gupta of the AITUC

Burdensome and harsh, the message came from Kolkata. Comrade Gurudas Das Gupta passed away. A top leader, a worthy child of the proud working class, who started the struggle since he was a child and a young man, and climbed slowly but stably all the stairways of the struggle until the top. Where he shone for his intelligence, his class-oriented point of view, his internationalist and uniting insight and spirit.

Today the World Federation of Trade Unions is mourning the loss of its worthy child. Of a consistent soldier of the international army which struggles for the abolition of the capitalist exploitation. Of a consistent defender of the WFTU and its class-oriented strategy.

Comrade Gurudas was born in 1936 in Barisal City and quickly became a leader of the students’ movement in Bengal, while right after he was elected as General Secretary of the Trade Unions in West Bengal. He was a member of the CPI, member of its national secretariat, deputy General Secretary of the CPI.

From 2001 until December 2017, he was elected as AITUC General Secretary. He was at the forefront of the organization and success of the great Pan-Indian strike in 2009.

For many years, he served as a member of the Indian Parliament , where he transferred the problems and claims of the ordinary people, both women and men. He wrote many important books and articles.

On behalf of the WFTU, we convey to AITUC and his family our condolences and once more we unite our forces with the working class and the peoples of India in their goals for a better world. His life and example will be an illuminating guide for all of us and the future generations.

Nothing ever goes to waste. The seeds that comrade Gurudas sowed with his life will grow!

The Secretariat

Support the right to organize a union; Protect your rights on the job

On September 6 of this year, Victoria Whipple, a quality control worker at Kumho Tire in Macon, Georgia, became a statistic. At eight months pregnant, she was terminated for passing out union shirts to her coworkers during a union organizing effort in her workplace.

What happened to Victoria happens all the time. Workers are fired in one of every three organizing efforts. It’s illegal, but employers face no real financial penalties for breaking federal labor law.They feel free to suspend, fire, or threaten anyone they want to deter workers from forming a union. The Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act (H.R. 2474) is historic legislation that  would change labor law as we know it, shifting power away from greedy companies and back to workers. 

The PRO Act will:

• Establish stronger and swifter remedies to stop employers from breaking the law.
• Make companies recognize contractors as part of the collective bargaining process so they can no longer continue to whittle down our membership by subcontracting.
• Force an employer to reach a first contract in a timely manner with a newly organized group of workers. No more dragging out first contracts.
• Reverse so-called Right to Work, regardless of state laws.
• Prohibit employers from forcing employees to attend anti-union meetings.
• And much more!

This critical legislation could get a vote in the U.S. House in the near future. Please help us build support by making a call to your Representative today.

Please Make a Call Right Now!
Our National Day of Action begins today, but please continue calls throughout the week.

Action Instructions:

• Dial our toll-free number to the U.S. House: 866-202-5409.
• Tell the office who you are and where you are from.
• Tell them to stand up for workers and support H.R. 2474, the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act.

SAVE THE U.S. POSTAL SERVICE

Trump is making a MAJOR push to privatize the Postal Service. That can’t happen! Privatizing the U.S. Postal Service would result in mass layoffs and office closings. That’s why we’re collecting 5,000 grassroots signatures to demand Congress SAVE the Post Office from Trump. Click below to add your name:

                                                                   SIGN YOUR NAME

The proposed mega-merger between T-Mobile and Sprint is bad news for consumers and workers. If the deal moves forward, it would mean higher prices for consumers, 30,000 lost jobs across the United States, and lower wages for wireless workers. Trump’s Department of Justice has already approved the merger, but we still have a chance to stop it.

Attorneys General from 17 states and D.C. are pursuing a lawsuit to block the merger in an effort to stop these two corporate giants from gaining excessive market power at the expense of workers, consumers, and communities.

T-Mobile and Sprint executives are acting as if this merger is a done deal, but this lawsuit could stop it dead in its tracks. Can you join the fight to stop the T-Mobile/Sprint merger by signing the petition to stand with the Attorneys General? Click below to add your name.

SIGN HERE

This deal would dramatically change the wireless landscape to the benefit of wealthy wireless CEOs at the expense of everyone else. The deal is inherently anti-competitive and would further reduce competition in the sector, leading to higher prices.

Workers at T-Mobile and Sprint would see their stores close and wages would be driven down across the industry. Both companies have a long history of interfering with their workers' freedom to join a union. And without union protections, workers have virtually no way to protect themselves from the negative impacts of this merger.

We thank the Attorneys General for standing up against these powerful wireless companies to protect consumers and workers and urge you to stand with them by signing the petition.

https://go.ourrevolution.com/tmobile-sprint-merger

Alicia Garza attacks Jill Stein at Behest of the Working Families Party and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

REPRINTED FROM BLACK AGENDA REPORT

                                             Alicia Garza attacks Jill Stein at Behest                                                  of the Working Families Party and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex

Servile to corporate power, Garza repeated the racist “Bernie Bro” trope to vilify the most multiracial base of the Democratic Party.

 “Non-profits function as both an economic engine for the rich and a tool of surveillance of the poor.”

The Black uprising otherwise known as Black Lives Matter struck fear in the heart of America’s racist state. That fear materialized into a two-pronged war to neutralize the movement’s growth and impact. Black rebellions in Ferguson and other cities across the country were first met with a militarized police occupation and an ongoing FBI operation to subvert “Black Identity Extremism.” State repression was reinforced by an ideological war waged from the board rooms of the corporate media. Black rage was criminalized while respectability politics was rewarded with non-profit careers. The movement was swept off the streets and into the halls of the non-profit industrial complex. 

The non-profit industrial complex is a trillion-dollar operation.  Oligarchs not only receive a tax deduction for their investment, but many of the richest individuals sit on the board of foundations and non-profits to steer their “mission driven” organizations. Non-profit boardrooms are not accountable to the people, but to funders. In the social justice sector of the non-profit industrial complex, donors mainly reside in the Democratic Party “liberal” camp . Robert Allen’s seminal text, Black Awakening in Capitalist America,  traces the genesis of non-profit surveillance of Black politics to the Ford Foundation’s support of mainstream Civil Rights organizations such as the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The Ford Foundation, a conduit for the Democratic Party, once has again immersed itself in Black politics by giving over 100 million in donations  to Movement for Black Lives organizations starting in 2015.

“Non-profit boardrooms are not accountable to the people, but to funders.”

Reliance upon the Ford Foundation and other corporate philanthropists ensures that the movement is, in the final analysis, controlled by the very white capitalist system responsible for Black misery. Subservience to the non-profit industrial complex requires that one also pledge loyalty to the Democratic Party. This explains why Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter Network organization, was so quick to condemn former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein’s critique of the Working Families Party. Stein’s comment that the WFP’s endorsement of Elizabeth Warren mirrors the DNC’s hit job  of Sanders in 2016 struck a visceral chord with Garza. Garza proceeded to devalue Stein’s opinion  with her followers and hand pick a few trolls on Twitter to demonstrate just how anti-Black Sanders’ base can be.  

Attacking Bernie Sanders and the Green Party is likely to please many corporate philanthropists in the Democratic Party camp. Tax documents from Demos, a Democratic Party think-tank once headed by Elizabeth Warren’s daughter Amelia Warren Tyagi, show that the organization made three different donations of $15,000 to the WFP in 2017-2018 . It is no wonder then that the WFP’s leadership opted for Warren over Sanders. Garza claimed she was defending the WFP’s director Maurice Mitchell from racist attacks and penned an open letter  that avoided the substance of Jill Stein’s critique of the WFP altogether. Garza opted to publicly shame Stein and the Green Party because there was little else to defend about the WFP’s decision to endorse Warren. Warren stands markedly to the right of Bernie Sanders on every issue of concern to Black Americans, workers, and poor people. Her deplorable white liberal racism toward indigenous people is also a liability in a general election against the arch racist loose cannon, Donald Trump.

“Subservience to the non-profit industrial complex requires that one also pledge loyalty to the Democratic Party.”

Garza and the WFP’s endorsement of Warren demonstrate clearly that non-profit leaders are primarily interested in advancing their careers within the non-profit industrial complex. The non-profit industrial complex builds a network of careerists by tackling social problems through a single-issue lens. Single-issue campaigns channel grassroots energy away from the principles of class struggle and self-determination. Class struggle and self-determination only materialize when oppressed people and workers unite against their common enemy and demand that power and wealth be redistributed back to the producers of society. That enemy, the capitalist class, is committed to retaining its dominance at all costs and has deployed non-profits to curtail the power of the people at the public’s expense.

Non-profits function as both an economic engine for the rich and a tool of surveillance of the poor. This aligns well with the Democratic Party’s own function as the graveyard of social movements, so it should come as no surprise that the DNC’s influence over social justice-oriented philanthropy is palpable. DNC-influence over Black Lives Matter affiliated non-profits is clear in the Garza-led Black Census Project. According to Executive Editor of BAR, Glen Ford, the project “performed a kind of lobotomy on the Black polity in the United States, excising from public policy discussion Black Americans’ views on the nation’s endless military and economic wars against people of color around the world.” Instead of asking Black Americans about their position on endless war, the Black Census Project focused on how Democratic Party candidates can perfect their engagement with politically active Black voters and ensure Black loyalty to the Democratic Party. Garza’s project collected information that the Democratic Party will need when formulating its lies and false promises for the 2020 election cycle.

“Non-profit leaders are primarily interested in advancing their careers within the non-profit industrial complex.”

The Democratic Party cultivates Black leaders who will speak to the needs of the party’s donors over the needs of humanity. Non-profits create optimal conditions for the development of leaders, Black and otherwise, who are servile to corporate power. Most non-profits look and act like corporate enterprises. A Board of Directors (mainly white oligarchs) chooses an Executive Director to generate revenue in the same manner that a CEO of a major corporation is chosen to run the affairs of a multinational giant. The most influential players in a non-profit, the donors, operate behind the scenes to shape the agenda of the agency just as shareholders wield their influence over corporate enterprises. 

Thus, non-profit and for-profit corporations are two of the most undemocratic institutions to evolve from the process of capitalist exploitation. These institutions are not accountable to anyone but the capitalist class. Unlike corporations, however, non-profits are heavily branded as institutions that stand for and work toward social justice. Yet most non-profits do not practice social justice within their organizations, let alone outside of them. Neither the Working Families Party nor the Black Lives Matter Network organization share their financial information with the public. Doing so would burst asunder their social justice veneer, leaving only the naked hypocrisy of the non-profit industrial complex for the people to wrestle with.

“Non-profits create optimal conditions for the development of leaders, Black and otherwise, who are servile to corporate power.”

The non-profit industrial complex is the institutional mechanism from which the Democratic Party turns social movements into business opportunities. Non-profits are so prominent in the political and economic life of the United States that they comprise a vital sector of the capitalist economy. Workers and oppressed people have come to know non-profits as hospitals, workers centers and social service agencies. Thus, the non-profit industrial complex is not merely an agent of co-optation. Non-profits have fueled their growth by exploiting the impoverished conditions of workers, especially Black workers. Excluding the misleaders and careerists, millions of workers and well-meaning activists are employed by the non-profit industrial complex. This means that opposition to the material and ideological stranglehold of the non-profit industrial complex over the political development of the masses must strategize over how to win people over to a form of political organizing that is independent of donations from corporate and state actors. 

To begin this process, the most visible and prominent leaders of the non-profit industrial complex should be held accountable for their attacks on progressives and leftists who challenge the Democratic Party. Jill Stein is not the enemy of the people. The Green Party platform is far more progressive and left politically than even he most leftish elements of the Democratic Party’s agenda. Elizabeth Warren’s milquetoast candidacy is being used by the Democratic Party to thwart the immensely popular anti-austerity agenda of Bernie Sanders. Garza repeated the racist “Bernie Bro” trope to vilify the most multiracial base of the Democratic Party. Garza and her partners in the non-profit industrial complex are silent over Warren’s acceptance of being labeled the first female of color professor at Harvard Law. They also remain silent over the DNC’s undeniable loyalty to candidates such as Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, two of the foremost architects of the mass incarceration regime. The message is clear. If you are seeking upward mobility in the non-profit industrial complex, then protecting the Democratic Party and attacking the real left is just part of the job description in the non-profit industrial complex.

Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto Sirvent are co-authors of the book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News--From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror (Skyhorse Publishing).He can be reached at wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com, on Instagram at danny_haiphong, and on Twitter at @SpiritofHo. 

Statement of NYS AFL-CIO President Mario Cilento on UAW’s Strike against General Motors

Albany, NY - The 2.5 million members of the New York State AFL-CIO stand with our brothers and sisters of UAW across this country including here in New York State at Local 774 in Buffalo, Local 686 in Lockport and Local 1097 in Rochester, in their fight for a fair contract. 

These dedicated men and women work hard every day and are the reason GM has been able to make record-level profits.

The decision to strike comes with many hardships and is never taken lightly. We strongly urge General Motors to do the right thing and quickly resolve the issues so the tens of thousands of GM workers including more than 3,500 at Western New York plants can get back to work.

The labor movement speaks with one voice and will stand shoulder to shoulder in support of our union brothers and sisters for as long as it takes to get a fair and equitable contract. Our UAW brothers and sisters will have the full resources of the New York State AFL-CIO at their disposal throughout this fight. 

###

The New York State AFL-CIO is a federation of 3,000 unions, representing 2.5 million members, retirees and their families with one goal; to raise the standard of living and quality of life of all working people. We keep New York State Union Strong by fighting for better wages, better benefits and better working conditions. For more information on the Labor Movement in New York, visit www.nysaflcio.org.

California Bill Makes App-Based Companies Treat Workers as Employees

Supporters of a bill that reclassifies contractors as employees
 gathered outside the State Capitol in Sacramento last month.CreditCreditRich Pedroncelli/Associated Press

By Kate Conger and Noam Scheiber

The New York Times

SACRAMENTO — California legislators approved a landmark bill on Tuesday that requires companies like Uber and Lyft to treat contract workers as employees, a move that could reshape the gig economy and that adds fuel to a years’ long debate over whether the nature of work has become too insecure.

The bill passed in a 29 to 11 vote in the State Senate and will apply to app-based companies, despite their efforts to negotiate an exemption. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, endorsed the bill this month and is expected to sign it after it goes through the State Assembly, in what is expected to be a formality. Under the measure, which would go into effect Jan. 1, workers must be designated as employees instead of contractors if a company exerts control over how they perform their tasks or if their work is part of a company’s regular business.

The bill may influence other states. A coalition of labor groups is pushing similar legislation in New York, and bills in Washington State and Oregon that were similar to California’s but failed to advance could see renewed momentum. New York City passed a minimum wage for ride-hailing drivers last year but did not try to classify them as employees.

In California, the legislation will affect at least one million workers who have been on the receiving end of a decades-long trend of outsourcing and franchising work, making employer-worker relationships more arm’s-length. Many people have been pushed into contractor status with no access to basic protections like a minimum wage and unemployment insurance. Ride-hailing drivers, food-delivery couriers, janitors, nail salon workers, construction workers and franchise owners could now all be reclassified as employees.

But the bill’s passage, which codifies and extends a 2018 California Supreme Court ruling, threatens gig economy companies like Uber and Lyft. The ride-hailing firms — along with app-based services that offer food delivery, home repairs and dog-walking services — have built their businesses on inexpensive, independent labor. Uber and Lyft, which have hundreds of thousands of drivers in California, have said contract work provides people with flexibility. They have warned that recognizing drivers as employees could destroy their businesses.

“It will have major reverberations around the country,” said David Weil, a top Labor Department official during the Obama administration and the author of a book on the so-called fissuring of the workplace. He argued that the bill could set a new bar for worker protections and force business owners to rethink their reliance on contractors.

California legislators said the bill, known as Assembly Bill 5 and proposed by State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, a Democrat, would set the tone for the future of work.

“Today the so-called gig companies present themselves as the innovative future of tomorrow, a future where companies don’t pay Social Security or Medicare,” said State Senator Maria Elena Durazo, a Democrat. “Let’s be clear: there is nothing innovative about underpaying someone for their labor.”

She added, “today we are determining the future of the California economy.”

Ride-hailing drivers hailed the bill’s passage. “I am so proud of rideshare drivers who took time out of their lives to share their stories, stand up, speak to legislators and hope they take a moment to bask in a victory,” said Rebecca Stack-Martinez, a driver and an organizer with the group Gig Workers Rising.

Uber did not immediately have a comment. Earlier on Tuesday, it laid off 435 workers in its product and engineering teams, the company’s second round of cuts in recent months.

Lyft said it was disappointed. “Today, our state’s political leadership missed an important opportunity to support the overwhelming majority of rideshare drivers who want a thoughtful solution that balances flexibility with an earnings standard and benefits,” said Adrian Durbin, a Lyft spokesman.

Gig-type work has been under the spotlight for years as companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash in the United States — as well as Didi Chuxing in China and Ola in India — have grown into behemoths even as the contractors they relied on did not receive the benefits or minimum pay guaranteed to employees. Many of the companies have worked assiduously to beat back efforts to classify their workers as employees, settling class-action lawsuits from drivers and securing exemptions from rules that might have threatened the drivers’ freelancer status.

While regulators in California and at least three other states — New York, Alaska and Oregon — had found that ride-hailing drivers were employees under state laws for narrow purposes, like eligibility for unemployment insurance, those findings could be overridden by state laws explicitly deeming the drivers as contractors. About half the states in the nation had passed such provisions.

But more recently, the tide began changing. Two federal proposals introduced since 2018 have sought to redefine the way workers are classified to allow more of them to unionize. Those proposals have received support from candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, including Senators Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. The presidential hopefuls also lent their endorsement to the California bill.

In Britain, Uber has appealed a decision by a labor tribunal that drivers must be classified as workers entitled to minimum wage and vacation. The country’s Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments in the case next year.

“Some form of benefits to some population of drivers seems inevitable,” said Lloyd Walmsley, an equity research analyst at Deutsche Bank who follows the ride-hailing industry.

A critical question is how gig economy companies will react to California’s new law. Industry officials have estimated that having to rely on employees rather than contractors’ raises costs by 20 to 30 percent.

Uber and Lyft have repeatedly warned that they will have to start scheduling drivers in advance if they are employees, reducing drivers’ ability to work when and where they want.

Experts said that there is nothing in the bill that requires employees to work set shifts, and that Uber and Lyft are legally entitled to continue allowing drivers to make their own scheduling decisions.

In practice, Uber and Lyft might choose to limit the number of drivers who can work during slow hours or in less busy markets, where drivers may not generate enough in fares to justify their payroll costs as employees. That could lead to a reduced need for drivers overall.

But Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said it would still generally be advantageous for Uber and Lyft to rely on incentives like bonus pay to ensure they had enough drivers on the road to adjust to customer demand much more nimbly than if they scheduled drivers in advance.

“It doesn’t make sense for them” to drastically limit flexibility, she said.

Some of the companies are not done fighting the bill. Uber, Lyft and Door Dash have pledged to spend $90 million to support a ballot initiative that would essentially exempt them from the legislation. Uber has also said it will litigate misclassification claims from drivers in arbitration and press lawmakers to consider a separate bill that could exempt them from A.B. 5’s impact when the legislative session begins in January.

California cities will have ways to enforce the new law. In last-minute amendments to the measure, legislators gave large cities the right to sue companies that don’t comply.

The bill was not universally supported by drivers. Some opposed it because they worried it would make it hard to keep a flexible schedule. After Uber and Lyft sent messages to drivers and riders in California in August asking them to contact legislators on the companies’ behalf, legislative aides said they had noticed a spike in calls.

As the bill wound its way through the Legislature, the ride-hailing companies sought an agreement that would create a new category of workers between contractor and employee. They met with labor groups and Governor Newsom’s office to negotiate a deal to give drivers a minimum wage and the right to organize, while stopping short of classifying them as employees.

But in July and August, labor groups balked, and the proposed deal disintegrated. Some company officials have expressed cautious optimism in recent days about striking a deal with labor after the bill’s passage.

Follow Kate Conger and Noam Scheiber on Twitter: @kateconger and @noamscheiber.

Kate Conger reported from Sacramento, and Noam Scheiber from Chicago. Adam Satariano contributed reporting from London.