Giving Compass' Take:

· Writing for CityLab, Sarah Holder reports that workers at a San Francisco electric scooter company called Spin have opted to join the local Teamsters union.

· How did California state law lay the groundwork for this movement? How are micromobility organizations impacted by this new California state legislation?

· Check out this article to read more about micromobility and how it's helping advance cities. 

Early this month, San Francisco employees at Spin, the electric scooter and micromobility company owned by Ford, voted to join Teamsters Local 665. For this emerging industry, it represented a historic milestone—the first unionization of the dockless e-scooter workforce.

Part of the organizing efforts’ success could be attributed to Spin’s role within Ford, a company whose relationship with the Teamsters goes back to the middle of the 20th century. But it was a new California law—and a local governing body with the will to enforce it—that lay the groundwork from which organizing was built.

After months of debate, California’s state government passed Assembly Bill 5 this fall. The legislation, introduced by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez, pushes industries across the state to reclassify certain independent contractors as employees. Lawmakers and labor experts who supported the bill say AB5 will correct for rampant job misclassification, allowing ride-hail drivers and other gig workers to obtain the benefits and job protections non-contractors enjoy. Foes like Uber, Lyft, and Postmates are planning on fighting the legislation with a ballot measure that they’ve collectively spent $90 million to back, worried that the reclassification will result in lost revenue and an erosion of driver flexibility.

Scooter companies are also affected by the legislation: several startups use non-employee contractors tasked with picking up, charging, and sometimes maintaining scooters. Even before AB5 officially takes effect on January 1, 2020, the companies have been pushed to follow its mandate.

Last year, only two scooter companies, Scoot and Skip, were granted permission to operate in San Francisco in a one-year pilot. This year, the city decided to expand its scooter program. To win a permit to operate permanently from the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, 11 e-scooter companies were asked to submit new applications that detailed their maintenance, business, and labor practices. In September, Joe Fitzgerald reported in the San Francisco Examiner that Spin knew that part of the reason its application was rejected last year was because it depended on independent contractors—and that in advance of this year’s application process, Spin was eying a union deal and “labor harmony agreement” with the Teamsters, because they believed the commitment to employee protections “may give them an edge” in the new application process. The S.F. Board of Supervisors signed a resolution endorsing AB5 in October.

Read the full article about unions and micromobility by Sarah Holder at CityLab.