Author: Megan Rose Dickey

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Google’s co-lead of Ethical AI team says she was fired for sending an email

Timnit Gebru, a leading researcher and voice in the field of ethics and artificial intelligence, says Google fired her for an email she sent to her direct reports.  According to Gebru, Google fired her because of an email she sent to subordinates that the company said reflected “behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.”

Gebru, the co-leader of Google Ethical Artificial Intelligence team, took to Twitter last night, shortly after the National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint against Google alleging surveillance of employees and unlawful firing of employees.

Gebru says no one explicitly told her she was fired, but that she received an email from one of her boss’s reports, saying:

“Thanks for making your conditions clear. We cannot agree to #1 and #2 as you are requesting. We respect your decision to leave Google as a result, and we are accepting your resignation.”

That email, according to Gebru, went on to say that “certain aspects of the email you sent last night to non-management employees in the brain group reflect behavior that is inconsistent with the expectations of a Google manager.”

It’s not clear what exactly was contained in the email. We’ve reached out to both Gebru and Google for comment.

As Bloomberg reported, Gebru has been outspoken about the lack of diversity in tech as well as the injustices Black people in tech face. According to Bloomberg, Gebru believes Google let her go to signal to other workers that it’s not ok to speak up.

Gebru is a leading voice in the field of ethics and artificial intelligence. In 2018, Gebru collaborated with Joy Buolamwini, founder of the Algorithmic Justice League, to study biases in facial recognition systems. They found high disparities in error rates between lighter males and darker females, which led to the conclusion that those systems didn’t work well for people with darker skin.

Since Gebru’s announcement, she’s received an outpouring of support from those in the tech community.

Developing…

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Google faces complaint from NLRB alleging surveillance of employees and other labor violations

The National Labor Relations Board today issued a complaint against Google after investigating the firing of several employees last November. The complaint alleges Google violated parts of the National Labor Relations Act by surveilling employees, and generally interfered with, restrained and coerced employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed by Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.

The NLRB also alleges Google discouraged “its employees from forming, joining, assisting a union or engaging in other protected, concerted activities,” the complaint states.

“This complaint makes clear that workers have the right to speak to issues of ethical business and the composition of management,” Laurence Berland, one of the fired Google employees, said in a statement. “This is a significant finding at a time when we’re seeing the power of a handful of tech billionaires consolidate control over our lives and our society. Workers have the right to speak out about and organize, as the NLRB is affirming, but we also know that we should not, and cannot, cleave off ethical concerns about the role management wants to play in that society.”

Ex-Googlers Berland and Kathryn Spiers previously filed a federal complaint with the NLRB arguing Google fired them for organizing, which is a protected activity. They had organized around a variety of topics, including Google’s treatment of its temporary, vendor and contractor workers, Google’s alleged retaliation against employees who organized, the company’s work with Customs and Border Protection and more.

Additionally, in November 2019, Google put Rebecca Rivers and Berland on leave for allegedly violating company policies. At the time, Google said one had searched for and shared confidential documents that were not pertinent to their job, and one had looked at the individual calendars of some staffers. Following a protest in support of the two, Rivers, Berland, Duke and Waldman were fired.

“Google has always worked to support a culture of internal discussion, and we place immense trust in our employees,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement to TechCrunch. “Of course employees have protected labor rights that we strongly support, but we have always taken information security very seriously. We’re confident in our decision and legal position. Actions undertaken by the employees at issue were a serious violation of our policies and an unacceptable breach of a trusted responsibility.”

This comes shortly after the NLRB issued a formal complaint against Google contractor HCL, alleging the company repeatedly violated the rights of unionized workers. Moving forward, Berland and Spiers are hoping the NLRB prosecutes the case against Google and seeks reinstatement and damages for them. But the next step is for the complaint to head to the desk of an administrative judge.

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Human Capital: Uber’s Black employee base shrinks

Welcome back to Human Capital, where I break down the latest in diversity, equity and inclusion, and labor in tech.

TL;DR: This week, Apple announced its third head of diversity and inclusion in four years, Uber’s Black employee base shrunk despite the company committing to anti-racism and Reddit brought on its second Black board member this year. 

Meanwhile, Facebook’s content moderators spoke out against the company for forcing some of them to work in the office during a pandemic and a new report from Silicon Valley Rising showed 63% of blue-collar tech workers are Black or Latinx. 

Sign up here to get this as a newsletter in your inbox every Fridays at 1 p.m. PT. However, I’m taking next week off so you won’t be hearing from me until December 4.

Facebook content moderators demand better protections and benefits

A group of more than 200 Facebook  content moderators, as well as some full-time employees, demanded the tech company “stop needlessly risking moderators’ lives,” they wrote in an open letter to Facebook and the company’s contractors that manage content moderators, Accenture and Covalen. The demands came after The Intercept reported how some Facebook content moderators — who deal with things like sexual abuse and graphic violence — were required to come back into the office during the pandemic. Shortly after they returned to the office, a Facebook content moderator reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.

Facebook later defended its decision to bring some content moderators into the office, saying it’s “not able to route some of the most sensitive and graphic content to outsourced reviewers at home,” its VP of Integrity Guy Rosen said on a press call. “This is really sensitive content. This is not something you want people reviewing from home with their family around.”

Turo commits $1 million to addressing wealth inequality

Car-sharing marketplace Turo teamed up with Kiva to offer interest-free loans to Black people and folks from traditionally underserved communities to buy cars and then share them on Turo. The $1 million commitment aims to address the issue of wealth inequality in the United States.

Called the Turo Seed Initiative, those who are eligible can raise up to $15,000 via crowdfunding and Turo’s matching program. In order to raise money on Kiva, folks must use the funding for business purposes, which includes car sharing on Turo. Through Kiva, they can raise up to $7,500 and Turo will then match up to $7,500. From there, they can buy a car and list it on Turo.

Tech’s cafeteria workers, security officers, etc. are predominantly Black or Latinx

A Silicon Valley Rising report recently showed about 63% of blue-collar tech workers are Black or Latinx. These are the workers who cook and serve food in tech company cafeterias, drive tech shuttles or work as security officers or custodians.

Also this week, a group of cafeteria workers who formerly worked inside Verizon Media’s offices protested outside its CEO’s home in San Francisco. These workers were laid off by Verizon Media contractor Compass in September. Meanwhile, LinkedIn stopped paying more than 260 food service workers at the end of June and Tesla laid off 280 janitors and bus drivers in April. 

Transitioning from Trump to Biden: Now is not the time for complacency 

On this week’s episode of TC Mixtape, we spoke with Y-Vonne Hutchinson of Ready Set about DEI and what a new administration means for the work she and so many others are doing. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation:

While I’m optimistic and so thrilled at the prospect that we’re not going to see harm like we did under the Trump administration, I also remember the Obama administration. This isn’t like these structures that got spun up — this didn’t happen out of the blue.

I hope that we have learned some really valuable lessons when it comes to the impact that not just like lack of diversity inclusion, because that feels so milk toast to say, but like these exclusionary and harmful organizations, platforms, powerful people in our industry, like I hope we’ve learned from our mistakes there. But I think that there’s always going to be a temptation to say, ‘well, we got Trump out and the work is done’ [or] feel a little bit complacent. I worry about that complacency. Because, you know, the dirty, nasty undercurrents, all of that stuff that got us to where we are today — all of that’s still there, all that festering toxicity.

We still have work to do, and I’m not saying that everybody’s a bad actor and you know, get rid of it. But I think that we really need to be critical and think about what accountability looks like for our industry and make sure that we’re not falling into the same bad habits that we did that got us here in the first place. So I’m kind of waiting to see how that plays out.

Apple announces a new head of D&I 

Apple recently announced Barbara Whye, former head of D&I at Intel, will be joining them as its VP of inclusion and diversity in early 2021. The announcement came after its former head of D&I, Christie Smith, left the company in June “to spend time with her family,” an Apple spokesperson said at the time. Smith had been in the role since late 2017, after Denise Young Smith, the company’s first-ever VP of diversity and inclusion, left after only being in the role for six months.

Uber’s D&I efforts fall short this year

Uber recently released its latest diversity report, showing a decline in the overall representation of Black employees in the U.S. despite an increased focus on racial justice this year in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. In 2019, Uber was 9.3% Black while this year, only 7.5% of its employees are Black.

Uber attributes the decline in Black employees to its layoffs earlier this year, where about 40% of its employees in community operations were laid off, Uber Chief Diversity Officer Bo Young Lee told TechCrunch.

“As a company that has so publicly stated its stance on anti-racism, that’s not acceptable,” she said.

That unintentional decline in the Black population at Uber “led to a lot of soul searching,” she said. “Dara was certainly upset by it. Every leader was. It reinforced how easy it is to lose some ground after all the work you’ve done.”

Reddit adds another Black director to the board

Reddit has appointed Paula Price, who has served on the board of six public companies, including Accenture and Deutsche Bank, to its board of directors. Price’s appointment makes her one of two Black directors on the company’s board.

“Paula’s vast experience as a world-class financial leader and strategic advisor will be a tremendous asset to us in the years ahead,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in a statement. “Best of all, she embodies the two qualities most important to us for this Board seat: expertise leading companies through periods of transformative growth and real passion for Reddit’s mission.”

Before Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian stepped down from the board and urged the company to appoint a Black director to take his place, Reddit had zero Black board members. Reddit took Ohanian’s advice and appointed Y Combinator Michael Seibel to the board.

LAPD bans commercial facial recognition

Following an inquiry from Buzzfeed regarding officers’ use of Clearview, the LAPD has banned the use of commercial facial recognition programs. That’s not to say LAPD won’t continue using facial recognition that compares images to suspect booking records but it will no longer use facial recognition tools that rely on social media and other websites. 

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Despite commitment to anti-racism, Uber’s Black employee base has decreased

Uber today released its latest diversity report, showing a decline in the overall representation of Black employees in the U.S. despite an increased focus on racial justice this year in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd. In 2019, Uber was 9.3% Black while this year, only 7.5% of its employees are Black.

Uber attributes the decline in Black employees to its layoffs earlier this year, where about 40% of its employees in community operations were laid off, Uber Chief Diversity Officer Bo Young Lee told TechCrunch.

“As a company that has so publicly stated its stance on anti-racism, that’s not acceptable,” she said.

That unintentional decline in the Black population at Uber “led to a lot of soul searching,” she said. “Dara was certainly upset by it. Every leader was. It reinforced how easy it is to lose some ground after all the work you’ve done.”

Lee said her diversity, equity and inclusion team was consulted prior to the layoffs in an attempt to ensure there was no disparate impact on any one group.

“The unfortunate thing that wasn’t understood at the time was our customer service org in particular was hit pretty hard,” she said. “The overall rate of layoffs was 25-26% in most parts.”

But in the customer service organization, about 40% of employees were affected. And that part of the company had a higher representation of Black and Latinx folks than in other areas.

While Uber saw a decline in its overall Black population, it saw an overall net increase in women of color. And in order to get even more granular, Uber plans to start disaggregating the Asian community and Latinx community.

Uber first set diversity goals just last year. Those goals entailed increasing the percentage of women at levels L5 (manager level) and higher to 35% and increasing the percentage of underrepresented employees at levels L4 (senior associate) and higher to 14% by 2022.

Source: Uber. Uber’s overall U.S. racial breakdown

Currently, Uber is 59.7% male, 44.8% white, 37.2% Asian, 7.5% Black, 8.4% Latinx, 1.3% multiracial, 0.3% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and 0.5% Native American.

Uber does not break out the demographics of its gig workforce, but many studies have shown people of color make up a large portion of the gig economy.

In San Francisco, 78% of gig workers are people of color and 56% of gig workers are immigrants, according to a study conducted by San Francisco’s Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO) and led by UC Santa Cruz professor Chris Benner.

While Lee is not directly responsible for the driver and delivery population, she said they also represent a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. With that in mind, her team does advise other parts of Uber in policy setting as it relates to gig workers.

Uber has had a contentious relationship with its drivers and delivery workers for the last couple of years, especially in California. That all came to a head when California voters passed Proposition 22, a ballot measure that will keep gig workers classified as independent contractors. Uber, Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash collectively proposed and backed the measure with $206 million in funding.

On the other side of the proposition were labor groups representing gig workers. But it wasn’t just gig workers who opposed the measure. Inside Uber, engineer Kurt Nelson spoke out against the measure. In fact, he credited the measure as being the final straw that led him to seek out other job opportunities.

I’m a software engineer at Uber and I’m voting against Prop 22

For Lee, deciding to support Prop 22 came down to paying attention to “who gets included and who gets excluded from policies.” When looking at AB 5, the California bill that changed the way companies could classify their workers, she “couldn’t help but notice the majority of independent contractor roles that were predominantly white were being excluded from AB 5.”

For example, California exempted fine artists, freelance writers, still photographers, copy editors, producers and other types of professions from AB 5.

“Maybe if AB 5 was applied differently, I would’ve landed somewhere else,” Lee said, being sure to clarify she was speaking for herself and not for Uber. “For me, I recognize that Prop 22 was the right thing at the end of the day.”

Meanwhile, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi has said the company plans to advocate for similar laws in other parts of the country and world. It’s not clear what that will specifically entail, but an Uber spokesperson said the company plans to discuss this type of framework with stakeholders in other states and countries.

Human Capital: The gig economy in a post-Prop 22 world

 

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Reddit appoints second Black board member this year

Reddit has appointed Paula Price, who has served on the board of six public companies, including Accenture and Deutsche Bank, to its board of directors. Price’s appointment makes her one of two Black directors on the company’s board.

“Paula’s vast experience as a world-class financial leader and strategic advisor will be a tremendous asset to us in the years ahead,” Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said in a statement. “Best of all, she embodies the two qualities most important to us for this Board seat: expertise leading companies through periods of transformative growth and real passion for Reddit’s mission.”

Before Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian stepped down from the board and urged the company to appoint a Black director to take his place, Reddit had zero Black board members. Reddit took Ohanian’s advice and appointed Y Combinator Michael Seibel to the board.

We’ve seen an increase in Black board members across the board at tech companies in the last couple of years. Most recently, Pinterest announced its first Black board member in August, followed by the addition of a second one in October.

Here’s a look at Black board member representation at major tech companies.

Reddit CEO defends allowing Trump ads ahead of presidential election

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Facebook content moderators demand safer working conditions

A group of more than 200 Facebook content moderators, as well as some full-time employees,* are demanding the tech company “stop needlessly risking moderators’ lives,” they wrote in an open letter to Facebook and the company’s contractors that manage content moderators, Accenture and Covalen. This comes after The Intercept reported how Facebook content moderators were required to come back into the office during the pandemic. Shortly after they returned to the office, a Facebook content moderator reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.

“After months of allowing content moderators to work from home, faced with intense pressure to keep Facebook free of hate and disinformation, you have forced us back to the office,” the group wrote. “Moderators who secure a doctors’ note about a personal COVID risk have been excused from attending in person.[1] Moderators with vulnerable relatives, who might die were they to contract COVID from us, have not.”

Moderators are now demanding Facebook allow those who are high-risk or live with someone who is high-risk for having a severe case of COVID-19 to be able to work from home indefinitely. Additionally, moderators generally want Facebook to maximize the amount of work people can do from home, offer hazard pay, offer healthcare and psychiatric care and employ moderators rather than outsource them.

“We appreciate the valuable work content reviewers do and we prioritize their health and safety,” a Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement. “While we believe in having an open internal dialogue, these discussions need to be honest. The majority of these 15,000 global content reviewers have been working from home and will continue to do so for the duration of the pandemic. All of them have access to health care and confidential wellbeing resources from their first day of employment, and Facebook has exceeded health guidance on keeping facilities safe for any in-office work.”

In the letter, moderators argue that Facebook’s algorithms are nowhere near where they need to be in order to successfully moderate content. They argue they’re “the heart” of Facebook.

“Without our work, Facebook is unusable,” the moderators wrote. “Its empire collapses. Your algorithms cannot spot satire. They cannot sift journalism from disinformation. They cannot respond quickly enough to self-harm or child abuse. We can.”

The group represents content moderators in throughout the U.S. and Europe and has support from legal advocacy firm Foxglove. Foxglove said in a tweet that it’s the “biggest joint international effort of Facebook content moderators yet.”

This post has been updated to reflect that full-time Facebook employees are also demanding these changes in solidarity with content moderators.

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Welcome raises $12 million to be the ‘Ritz Carlton for event platforms’

On the heels of Hopin’s $125 million funding round, a newcomer in the virtual events space is gaining steam. Welcome, led by co-founder and CEO Roberto Ortiz, is positioning itself as the “Ritz Carlton for virtual events,” Ortiz told me. Today, it’s announcing a $12 million Series A round led by Kleiner Perkins with participation from Y Combinator, Kapor Capital and Webb Investor Network.

“There’s a land grab opportunity in virtual events,” Ortiz said. “What Covid has done is made 2030 2020. What was going to happen in 2030 happened in 2020. Everyone has been forced into this virtual environment.”

It’s that environment that led Ortiz and his co-founders to pivot from a startup that connected restaurants and food wholesalers to a virtual events startup. While today is the official launch date, Welcome has already hosted events for a handful of clients, including Brooks Winery, Freely in Hope and Elevate 2020.

Welcome features a control room for event producers, breakout rooms for attendees, a green room for speakers, white-label branding, networking, audience question & answer functionality and more. Welcome also offers event producers the ability to hold hybrid events that are both online and in person.

Image Credits: Screenshot/Welcome demo for TechCrunch

Welcome is targeting enterprise customers for annual contracts in the five-figure range, Ortiz said. He didn’t disclose the exact pricing, but says Welcome is likely one of the more expensive virtual events platforms on the market today.

Although Welcome is currently going after the top end of the market, Ortiz said it will be easy to go down market — similar to how Tesla began as a super high-end brand that made its way to offering a more affordable car.

“Welcome is the perfect combination for Kapor Capital: cutting edge technology that is gap-closing or democratizing, a founder whose lived experience points in the direction of giving back, of making time for mentoring, of having the product used for good, and a founding team committed to building a diverse workforce and inclusive culture,” Kapor Capital Partner Freada Kapor Klein said in a statement to TechCrunch.

Obviously, the virtual events space has heat up thanks to the pandemic. But Welcome differentiates itself from its competitors by its ease of set up and quality of the final outcome.

“One person could throw an event that feels like an Apple keynote,” Ortiz said. “That can be done on our platform with one person. With any other platform, you’d need an AV crew to pull something off like that. Welcome gives you the ability to scale virtual events without compromising quality.”

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Turo puts $1 million toward helping Black people make money sharing cars

Car sharing marketplace Turo has teamed up with Kiva to offer interest-free loans to Black people and folks from traditionally underserved communities to buy cars and then share them on Turo. The $1 million commitment aims to address the issue of wealth inequality in the United States.

Called the Turo Seed Initiative, those who are eligible can raise up to $7,500 via crowdfunding small loans platform. In order to raise money on Kiva, folks must use the funding for business purposes, which includes car-sharing on Turo. Turo will then match whatever the person raises. From there, they can buy a car and list it on Turo.

“This will make it easier for people who don’t have existing assets or the right credit score or doesn’t own a car to be able to get started that way,” Turo CEO Andre Haddad told TechCrunch. “They borrow the money and only reimburse the capital.”

Throughout the program, Turo says it will also work with hosts to ensure they can be effective in sharing their cars on Turo. In terms of repayment, Turo has a one-month grace period before hosts must start repaying the funds over a period of 42 months.

The program is limited to Turo’s top 15 markets, which include San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston and Houston, in order to ensure that there’s enough to demand to make it worthwhile for hosts. On average, hosts earn around $600 per month by sharing their vehicles about 11 days per month. On top of that, hosts can also use their cars to drive for Uber or Lyft, or deliver for companies like DoorDash and GrubHub.

“We’re very confident that there is real profit to be made here,” Haddad said.

Turo has raised $467.4 million to date and competes against the likes of Getaround, Car2Go, ZipCar and others. In September, Turo says it saw 17%% year over year growth in revenue and is on track to deliver 20% year over year growth in October. In October, Getaround raised a $140 million Series E round to bring its total funding to $600 million. At the time, Getaround said its worldwide revenue had mroe than doubled from its pre-COVID baseline.

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Human Capital: Amazon and CZI face labor disputes as Biden promises gig workers better protections

Welcome back to Human Capital. In this week’s edition of HC, you’ll read about the latest labor struggles at Amazon and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, President-Elect Joe Biden’s promises to gig workers, a primary care network for Black people and people of color and more. Lastly, I pulled out some nuggets from DoorDash’s S-1 that are relevant to DEI and labor.

If you want this as an email newsletter every Friday at 1 p.m. PT, be sure to sign up here.

Former Amazon warehouse worker sues company alleging failure to provide PPE to workers during pandemic

Christian Smalls, a former Amazon warehouse employee, filed a lawsuit against the company today alleging Amazon failed to provide personal protective equipment to Black and Latinx workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The class action suit alleges Amazon failed to properly protect its warehouse workers and violated elements of New York City’s human rights law, as well as federal and state laws.

“I was a loyal worker and gave my all to Amazon until I was unceremoniously terminated and tossed aside like yesterday’s trash because I insisted that Amazon protect its dedicated workers from COVID-19,” Smalls said in a statement. “I just wanted Amazon to provide basic protective gear to the workers and sanitize the workplace.”

Center for Black Innovation gets $2.1 million

The Knight Foundation, Surdna Foundation and Comcast NBCUNiversal put $2.1 million into the Center for Black Innovation. The plan is to support Black entrepreneurs and increase the number of Black founders in Miami and throughout the U.S. The money will go toward investor education, facilitating matchmaking sessions between founders and investors, offering courses to founders and more.

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative faces racial discrimination complaint

BERLIN, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 25: (r-l) Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and founder of the social media platform Facebook, and his wife Priscilla Chan pose for a photo before the Axel-Springer-Award on February 25, 2016 in Berlin. Mark Zuckerberg got this first time awarding price for special innovations. (Photo by Florian Gaertner/Photothek via Getty Images)

Ray Holgado, a former employee of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, recently filed a racial discrimination complaint with the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Holgado, who is Black, worked at CZI from September 2018 through August 2020.

“Despite its social justice rhetoric, CZI is not a welcoming environment for Black employees,” Holgado’s complaint states. “Black employees are underpaid, undervalued, denied growth opportunities, and marginalized. Black employees who want to advance within the organization are shut down and labeled as too assertive or aggressive, while non-Black employees are favored and encouraged. When Black employees have communicated these concerns to CZI leadership, CZI has responded defensively and failed to address the underlying issues. CZI has utterly failed to ‘build a more inclusive, just, and healthy future’ for its Black employees.”

In a statement to TechCrunch, CZI denied the claims.

“While we take any allegation of discrimination seriously and will do so here, this former employee’s specific allegations were previously raised internally, independently investigated, and found to be unsubstantiated,” the spokesperson said. “The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is committed to fair treatment, access, and advancement for all members of the CZI team. We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, full stop.”

DEI nuggets from DoorDash’s S-1

Food delivery company DoorDash filed its paperwork to go public today. It’s a long document, so I’ve pulled out the relevant items related to DEI and labor.

DoorDash says it’s committed to diversity and inclusion in its S-1, despite never having released a diversity report

At DoorDash, we are committed to growing and empowering inclusive communities in our company, our industry, and the cities we serve. We believe that a diverse and inclusive workforce is critical to helping us attract and retain the talent necessary to grow our business. We also believe we will be a more successful company if we amplify the voices of those who have not always been heard, and when everyone has ‘room at the table’ and the tools, resources, and opportunities to succeed.

DoorDash also seems to be proud of the fact that none of its 3,279 employees have unionized:

None of our employees are represented by a labor union. We have not experienced any work stoppages, and we believe that our employee relations are strong.

DoorDash, like other gig economy companies, is also gearing up to pursue Prop 22-like legislation in other states:

As such, the passage of the 2020 California ballot initiative is likely to have an adverse impact on our results of operations. In addition, several other states where we operate may be considering adopting legislation similar to the 2020 California ballot initiative, which we would expect to increase our costs related to Dashers in such jurisdictions and could also adversely impact our results of operations.

Spora Health launches primary care provider network for Black people and POC

Image Credits: Spora Health

Spora Health launched its One Medical-like primary care provider network for Black people and people of color.

“An equitable healthcare system has never existed in America, especially for Black folks and that is the goal,” Spora Health  founder and CEO Dan Miller told TechCrunch.

Spora Health, which recently closed a $1.2 million seed round, is a primary care provider for Black people and people of color. Initially, Spora Health is taking a telemedicine approach, but eventually plans to open physical locations.

Lyft on passage of Prop 22

“As we look to the future, the win on Proposition 22 in California was a landmark achievement and a major victory for drivers, our industry and the broader Lyft community,” Lyft President John Zimmer said in Lyft’s earnings report this week. “The campaign was successful because it ultimately reflected the desires and priorities of drivers. More than 120,000 drivers signed up to be part of the effort to pass Prop 22 – they rallied, they volunteered, they shared their stories. Voters saw that and stood in solidarity with them. We look forward to continuing our conversations with policymakers across the country.”

Similar to Uber, Lyft is also looking to explore similar legislation across the country. On the earnings call, Lyft CEO Logan Green said Prop 22 provides a model for other states.

Uber and Lyft request rehearing on case that upheld preliminary injunction

Uber and Lyft both filed a petition for rehearings in the case brought forth by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Last month, an appeals court upheld a lower court ruling that would force Uber and Lyft to classify their drivers as employees. But now that Proposition 22 has passed, Uber and Lyft want the court to determine if the injunction is still appropriate.

Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft will likely still face lawsuits over worker classification in California since the recently-passed proposition can not be applied retroactively. According to Bloomberg Law, those legal options, however, will be limited and damages will be capped.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International on Prop 22

In a joint statement, the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International called Prop 22 a “devastating blow to the rights” of gig workers.

Here’s a snippet:

No worker should face exploitative or otherwise abusive work conditions, but many app-based workers do. We urge app-based companies to bring their wage and labor policies and practices in line with international human and labor rights standards. We urge the government of California to explore other legal avenues for holding companies accountable for respecting workers’ rights. Finally, we urge the United States Congress and the United States Department of Labor to protect the rights of app-based workers, such as through legislative and regulatory action that helps ensure a living wage, paid sick and family leave, and workers’ compensation for illness and injury.

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Amazon faces lawsuit alleging failure to provide PPE to workers during pandemic

Christian Smalls, a former Amazon warehouse employee, filed a lawsuit against the company today alleging Amazon failed to provide personal protective equipment to Black and Latinx workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The class action suit alleges Amazon failed to properly protect its warehouse workers and violated elements of New York City’s human rights law, as well as federal and state laws.

“I was a loyal worker and gave my all to Amazon until I was unceremoniously terminated and tossed aside like yesterday’s trash because I insisted that Amazon protect its dedicated workers from COVID-19,” Smalls said in a statement. “I just wanted Amazon to provide basic protective gear to the workers and sanitize the workplace.”

Amazon did not specifically comment on the lawsuit but said it stands in solidarity with Black employees, customers and its partners.

“Amazon’s mission is to be the earth’s most customer-centric company, and this mission is central to our work in diversity and inclusion,” Amazon spokesperson Lisa Levandowski told TechCrunch. “Diverse teams help us think bigger, and differently, about the products and services that we build for our customers and the day-to-day nature of our workplace – this is reinforced within our 14 Leadership Principles, which remind team members to seek diverse perspectives, learn and be curious, and constantly earn others’ trust.”

The lawsuit suit has support from Rev. Jesse Jackson, who said he stands in solidarity with Smalls and other Amazon warehouse workers.

“COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted Black and Brown communities on so many levels, from warehouses to jailhouses,” Rev. Jackson said in a statement. “It’s an invisible enemy that is killing our communities. Chris ‘case is a classic example of how corporate greed and insensitivity can literally expose communities to untold and unnecessary risks.”

Smalls was fired from Amazon in March after organizing a walkout at one of the company’s fulfillment centers in Staten Island. As a result, New York’s attorney general is investigating if Amazon violated federal worker safety laws and New York state’s whistleblower protections laws by firing Smalls.

Smalls’ termination helped galvanize other warehouse workers who later organized formed an international organization to demand change inside Amazon’s warehouses. Organizers pointed to worker retaliation as one of the driving factors for the formation of Amazon Workers International. Meanwhile, Amazon executives reportedly discussed discrediting Smalls and making him the face of the organizing movement.

An Amazon spokesperson previously told TechCrunch the company did not fire Smalls for organizing a protest. Instead, Amazon said it fired him for “putting the health and safety of others at risk and violations of his terms of employment.”

“Mr. Smalls received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines,” the spokesperson said. “He was also found to have had close contact with a diagnosed associate with a confirmed case of COVID-19 and was asked to remain home with pay for 14-days, which is a measure we’re taking at sites around the world. Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came onsite further putting the teams at risk.”