Activism

Fight for Uber, Lyft Drivers to Remain Independent Heats Up as November Vote Approaches

Published

6 years ago

August 6, 2020

As the general election in November gets closer, rideshare and app-based delivery drivers are rounding up support to defeat a ballot initiative that will decide the fate of app-based work in California.

Proposition 22 asks voters to decide whether app-based drivers should be classified as independent contractors or W-2 employees.

App-based companies, including Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates and Instacart funded the initiative. If voters approve it, drivers who work with those app-based service companies will continue to be classified as independent contractors, but they will begin receiving some benefits including a net basic earning and healthcare subsidies.

If the measure fails, those drivers will have to be reclassified as full-time employees under AB 5, the controversial labor law that went into effect Jan. 1, 2020.

AB 5 made it more difficult for companies to enter into contracts with freelancers and independent contractors.

Representatives from a coalition of groups, including the California State NAACP, California Black Chamber of Commerce and Si Se Puede Foundation signed a letter to the California Legislature registering their support for Prop. 22. The letter argues that the majority of drivers are from minority communities who rely on the flexibility of the work and the immediate income it can provide.

“With California’s unemployment rate reaching a record high, the very characteristics of working with app-based rideshare and delivery platforms – especially high flexibility and low barriers to entry – have proven to be key forms of work for many lower-income families needing access to income during this current pandemic,” the letter reads.

Arguments in favor of Prop. 22 have also focused on protecting the drivers’ choice to operate with independence and flexibility. For Judah Bell, a driver in favor of Prop. 22, the flexibility of being an independent contractor allowed her to manage her schedule around caring for family.

“A lot of [drivers] are caregivers. I was a caregiver to multiple people. My mom got sick so I had to take one to two weeks off for six months,” said Bell, who lives in Vallejo. “I was flying from here to Atlanta one to two weeks out of each month. A traditional job would not have allowed me to do that, and then come back and work for two weeks, then go back.”

Opponents of Prop. 22 include drivers’ advocacy groups, such as Rideshare Drivers United. One strong concern within drivers’ advocacy groups is that rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft could change the app’s algorithms and payment structures however they want, and the drivers would have no input.

“Right now, we’re working with basically all of the workplace protections that existed in like 1890,” said Peter Young, a driver based in L.A. “They have total power over us, and we have no leverage against them. They could cut my pay in half tomorrow and I would have nothing to do about it. At the end of the day, they’re the ones who control everything and we don’t have the government on our side.”

Drivers opposed to Prop. 22 are also concerned about the lack of support that rideshare companies provide. There have been reports that Lyft has not distributed free P.P.E. to enough drivers, as well as complaints that the companies were selling P.P.E. to drivers in their online stores.

“[There are] so many drivers, as we went through this pandemic waiting for unemployment, which some of us still haven’t received, and Uber and Lyft has done nothing, absolutely nothing to assist 80% of the drivers, even if you get sick,” said Michael Franzier, a driver based in Los Angeles.

Cherri Murphy, a lead organizer for Rideshare Drivers United, argued that the proposition is discriminatory against Black and Brown drivers by making it impossible to receive benefits.

“It is an attempt to ensure a caste system for workers who are mostly Black and Brown and immigrants. It creates a sham of our democracy by ensuring that workers will be kept in poverty with no protections and no benefits and no voice for generations to come,” she said. “If this ballot measure is passed, it prevents future elected officials from amending the law requiring an unprecedented seven-eighths majority to amend the law.”

“It’s imperative that we enforce AB 5 so that rideshare drivers can have the benefits and protections that we deserve, considering that the times that we find ourselves in. We deserve unemployment insurance. We deserve worker’s compensation if we get hurt on the job. It’s imperative that we say no,” Murphy said.

Quinci LeGardye, California Black Media

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Activism

Oakland Post: Week of July 8 – 14, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of July 8 – 14, 2026

Published

2 days ago

July 12, 2026

Oakland Post

To enlarge your view of this issue, use the slider, magnifying glass icon or full page icon in the lower right corner of the browser window.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Diabetes in Black California: Turning the Tide from Crisis to Control

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, nearly 17.9% of Black adults in California have been diagnosed with diabetes — above the national Black adult average of 16.8%, and nearly five points higher than California’s overall adult rate of 12.6% across all races. California ranks 24th out of 39 states with available data for Black adult diabetes rates.

Published

1 week ago

July 5, 2026

Oakland Post

Dr. Khadijah Lang is a family physician with a clinic in Los Angeles who specializes in several family medical practices, including prenatal care. Lang believes in family medicine. She says it is important to treat all members of a family. Thursday, June 5, 2026. Photo by Solomon O. Smith/California Black Media.

By Charlene Muhammad, California Black Media

Crystal Lambert knew something was terribly wrong with her three-year-old granddaughter as she sped down the street trying to get her to the hospital.

“I thought she got a hold of some poison,” Lambert recalled.

Doctors found Lambert’s granddaughter had a blood sugar level over 800, diagnosing her with Diabetic Ketoacidosis(DKA), a state in which the body, starved of insulin, begins to shut down.

Lambert said she was born with a pancreas that was not fully functioning — it lacked the specialized cells required to produce insulin.

Her granddaughter survived and is five years old today. Now, she gives herself insulin shots, asks endless questions about her condition, and runs like the spirited child she is. But the terror of that night transformed Lambert — and ultimately inspired her to launch the We Fight Back Organization, a mobile health and food access initiative serving underserved communities across California. Lambert is the executive director.

The Crisis by the Numbers

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data, nearly 17.9% of Black adults in California have been diagnosed with diabetes — above the national Black adult average of 16.8%, and nearly five points higher than California’s overall adult rate of 12.6% across all races. California ranks 24th out of 39 states with available data for Black adult diabetes rates.

Nationally, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Black Americans were 24% more likely than the overall U.S. population to have diabetes in 2024. They also died from diabetes 78% more often than the general population in 2022. Black Americans are also more than twice as likely as the overall population to develop kidney failure caused by diabetes.

According to the California Health Care Foundation’s 2024 Health Disparities Almanac, Black Californians have the shortest life expectancy in the state at just 74.6 years — due in part to chronic conditions like diabetes and its devastating complications.

Leon Rock, co-founder of the African American Diabetes Association, believes statistics, though revealing, only tell part of the story.

“There are a whole bunch of Black folks that don’t tell you that they have diabetes — or don’t know,” he said.

And the disease itself, Rock is careful to note, is not what kills. “They die from the complications. That’s heart attack, that’s stroke, that’s amputations of legs, of feet. Going blind. All those complications are inherent in a system that has impacted Black folks with diabetes in California and across America.”

Crystal Lambert, creator and executive director of We Fight Back. She started the organization out of a need to learn more about diabetes on behalf of her granddaughter. Now she is looking to spread the impact of her organization to the valley. Friday, June 6, 2026. Photo by Solomon O. Smith/California Black Media.

Crystal Lambert, creator and executive director of the We Fight Back Organization, started out of a need to learn more about diabetes on behalf of her granddaughter. Now she is looking to spread her organization to the valley, on Friday, June 6, 2026 Photo by Solomon O. Smith/ California Black Media

An Information Gap Fuels the Crisis

For Rock, part of the solution is diagnosis. He says the medical and public health systems are failing Black Californians by the absence of information designed for them.

“That is the bottom line. We need good information. Information that is culturally specific,” said Rock.

Telling people to eat healthy or exercise, he added, falls short when culturally specific alternatives are not provided, and when many residents of urban communities do not feel safe exercising in some neighborhoods – or outside at night.

Dr. Khadijah Lang, a family medicine physician and president of the Golden State Medical Association, agrees that the roots of the crisis run deeper than individual behavior — and blaming patients misses the point.

“We are not genetically predisposed to diabetes,” Lang said. “But the system under which we live increases the likelihood that we will develop it.”

What the Body Needs — What Communities Are Denied

Type 2 diabetes, which accounts for 90 to 95% of all diabetes cases, according to the CDC, develops when the body can no longer use insulin effectively to regulate blood sugar. Left unmanaged, it damages nerves, kidneys, eyes, and the cardiovascular system. The hemoglobin A1C test is a blood draw that reveals how the body has processed sugar over the previous three months — not just at the moment of the test. It is the standard tool for both diagnosis and ongoing monitoring.

That distinction matters, Lang emphasized, because patients cannot manipulate three months of blood sugar history the way they might fast for a day before a single blood draw.

“The pill is not meant to undo or control a sugar level that’s being constantly stressed,” Lang said. “It’s meant to work in conjunction with a low-carbohydrate diet and exercise.” She recommended at minimum 30 minutes of physical activity five days a week — breakable into 10-minute sessions for those who need it.

Lang stressed that education must be delivered in language people recognize and can relate to. The goal is to inform them of the choices that serve their health best, she said.

But for many Black Californians, even those informed choices remain out of reach, Lambert said.

“They need access to healthy foods and medication, too” she said.

California has made some critical policy advances. The state has expanded access to the Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM), which has transformed diabetes care for state residents. Assembly Bill 365, introduced in 2024, proposed requiring Medi-Cal to cover the costs of CGM and other related medical equipment but it failed in the State Senate. Since then, the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) reports that the core Medi-Cal CGM benefit now available to eligible patients was solidified through previous budget actions and pharmacy policy updates.

These measures, while meaningful, have not closed the gap for the communities most at risk, according to advocates.

Control Through Community

Health care advocates conclude that the solution must be communal, culturally grounded, and sustained — not a fad, not a celebrity moment, not a single clinic visit. For example, observed Lang, lifestyle shaped by shared values and collective accountability can move the needle where individual prescriptions have not.

Rock is building infrastructure to match the urgency, establishing local chapters of the African American Diabetes Association across the country, with California next.

“We have to do for self, period,” he said. “Health is wealth. We have to eat to live.”

And Lambert, whose granddaughter unknowingly started all of this for her, keeps showing up.

“Diabetes advocacy is about dignity, education, prevention, and hope,” she said.

Video: Diabetes Disparity Exposed in California

This article is supported by the California Health Care Foundation

(CHCF). Visit www.chcf.org