Tag: tech at work

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Human Capital: Moving away from ‘master/slave’ terminology

TGIF, am I right? Welcome back to Human Capital, where we explore some of the latest news in labor, diversity and inclusion in tech.

This week, we’re looking at the use of “master/slave” terminology in computer programming and the current state of gig workers in California.

Human Capital will soon be available as a weekly newsletter. You can sign up here.

Stay Woke

GitHub to sunset master/slave terminology 

This probably isn’t news to developers, but it was news to me when I found out many tech companies still use slave-master language. Now, Microsoft-owned GitHub is gearing up to remove these references to slavery by naming primary code repositories “main” instead of “master.” These changes will go into effect on October 1.

GitHub talked about making these changes as early as June, when CEO Nat Friedman tweeted that it was something the company was already working on. But GitHub is by no means the first company to consider and make these changes. In 2014, open-source platform Drupal moved to replace “master/slave” with “primary/replica.” 

One of its reasons for making the change was, “The word ‘slave’ has negative connotations (although this might or might not be relevant in the naming of a technical term) including multi-century history of slavery to benefit European colonial powers, prison laborers today forced to work in conditions at times resembling that slavery, young girls sold into sex slavery in many parts of the world today.”

Then, in 2018, programming language Python ditched the racist terminology. Meanwhile, Twitter began taking steps to replace those terms earlier this year and hopes to finish replacing that terminology by the end of 2021, according to CNET. 

What’s wild is that these terms ever existed in the first place and are just now being addressed. While Los Angeles city officials way back in 2003 asked its manufacturers and suppliers to stop using the terminology, they did not require it.

So perhaps it’s no wonder why some tech companies struggle to retain Black employees. In 2019, for example, Google reported its attrition rates of Black and Latinx talent — which indicate the rate at which employees leave on an annual basis — were higher than the national average. When racism is built into the technical framework of a company, it perpetuates a false idea that white people are superior to Black people. 

Gig Work

The latest in the battle over Prop 22 and AB 5

Two big things are happening pertaining to gig workers: Prop 22, the California bill backed by Uber, Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash that seeks to keep workers classified as independent contractors and lawsuits rooted in AB 5, the California law that went into effect earlier this year that lays out how to properly classify gig workers.

Let’s start with Prop 22. A new poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that it’s going to be a close election. In a survey of 5,900 likely voters, UC Berkeley’s IGS found that 39% of voters would vote yes on Prop 22 while 36% said they would vote no. The other 25% are undecided.

As we mentioned last week, the Yes on 22 campaign has put in about $180 million into the campaign while the No on 22 side has put in about $4.6 million. Meanwhile, we’re seeing ads for Yes on 22 inside on-demand apps.

Image Credits: Screenshot of DoorDash app via TechCrunch

On the AB 5 side of things, Uber and Lyft are still in court after California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with city attorneys from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco sued the companies, alleging they are misclassifying their workers. In the appeals court, which granted a stay on the preliminary injunction that would force Uber and Lyft to immediately reclassify their drivers, a number of amicus briefs have been filed.

In a brief filed by the National Employment Law Group, the ACLU and other civil rights groups, they say Uber and Lyft harm workers of color by classifying them as independent contractors:

Many poor workers of color and immigrants are stuck in a separate and unequal economy where they are underpaid, put in harm’s way on the job, and left to fend for themselves without access to paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, workers’ compensation, and other protections. By insisting that their drivers are not employees, Lyft and Uber further distance workers of colors from the bedrock workplace rights that provide real flexibility and economic security. Instead, their business models trap poor workers into intractable cycles of poverty and economic exclusion.

In the event Uber and Lyft are forced to reclassify their drivers, both Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi and Lyft CEO Logan Green filed sworn statements earlier this month that confirmed they both have plans to comply with an order requiring them to reclassify their respective workforces.

In Khosrowshahi’s statement, he simply said “Uber has developed implementation plans” to comply with an order within no more than 30 days. In Green’s statement, he said “such an implementation may include ceasing rideshare operations in all or some parts of California.”

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Have tips? Comments? Send me an email at megan@techcrunch.com 

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Human Capital: The Black founder’s burden

Welcome back to Human Capital, where we unpack all-things diversity, inclusion and labor in tech. This week, we’re looking at Google’s internal message board problem, as well as some highlights from TechCrunch Disrupt, where I had the pleasure of chatting with actress, producer and tech investor Kerry Washington about her investment strategy and her thoughts on The Wing’s internal turmoil.

Later, we’ll also highlight some other gems from Disrupt speakers on imposter syndrome, representation syndrome, the hidden burden of being a Black founder, and the importance of encouraging other Black and brown folks to enter this industry and stay.

Also, Human Capital will soon be available as a weekly newsletter. You can sign up here.

Google’s internal message board problem

Google found itself asking employees to be more active in moderating some of the internal message boards, according to CNBC. The issue is that Google has reportedly seen more posts being flagged for racism or abuse on its message boards. Some of these posts reportedly reinforce negative racial stereotypes, use harmful gendered phrases of insult Google employees based on their nationality. Here’s a snippet from Google’s internal blog, via CNBC:

“Our world is going to get more complicated as the year continues,” the team stated in the internal blog. “Tensions continue specifically for our Black+ community with Black Lives Matter, and our Asian Googlers with coronavirus and China/Hong Kong. All of this is compounded by the additional stress of working from home, social isolation, and caregiver responsibilities — to name a few. This new world creates urgency to keep work a welcoming place.”

Yes, tough conversations are the theme of the year. But we also know Google has had issues with employees before. You may remember James Damore, the now former Google employee who sent around an anti-diversity manifesto back in 2017. Google ultimately fired Damore that same month.

We reached out to Google for comment but have not heard back.

Kerry Washington on The Wing scandal

At TechCrunch Disrupt, I had the pleasure of virtually interviewing Kerry Washington, best known for her work in Hollywood as the lead actress on “Scandal” and “Little Fires Everywhere.” But she’s also invested in a handful of tech companies, including Community, Byte and The Wing. The Wing, however, went through some turmoil earlier this year. Employees alleged mistreatment of Black and brown workers, which ultimately led to The Wing CEO Audrey Gelman’s resignation.

“Well, you know, I’m not new to scandal, so there’s that,” Washington told me in response to a question about her reaction to the news. “I was and I am really deeply still inspired by the original vision of the company. And, I think like a lot of companies in this time, because of the several pandemics that we’re facing, whether it’s our awareness around racial injustice, or COVID, lots of people are in a moment of recalibration and self-reflection. So I think that there is incredible space to improve the dynamics. And as somebody who’s an investor, as a woman of color, it’s important to me that there is increased transparency and also accountability.”

Over the past few months, Washington said her role as an investor has been “really just supporting leadership in this transition,” as well as expressing to those leaders a “deep desire” for transparency and accountability.

On imposter syndrome and representation 

Also at Disrupt, my homegirl Kirsten Korosec led a wonderful conversation with Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins of PromisePay and Jessica Matthews of Uncharted Power, two Black female founders, about how they both successfully pivoted their companies while navigating the pressures that come with being an underrepresented founder in Silicon Valley.

Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, founder and CEO at PromisePay:

It feels like tech has failed so significantly in investing in people they don’t know and missed out in growing companies because of that. So I think our obligation is to help make sure that we are not the only ones.

Jessica Matthews, founder and CEO at Uncharted Power:

It’s not imposter syndrome, it’s representation syndrome because I feel the exact same way. When we raised our Series A, the immediate thing I thought was, ‘Oh, man. I can not lose these people’s money.’ This is huge and if we don’t work, it’s not even about us, it’s about every other person who looks like me.

Michael Seibel on the Black founder experience

In a panel on the Black founder experience at Disrupt, Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel spoke about a “hidden burden” for underrepresented founders.

“I think that there’s so much deserved activism around access to this world for underrepresented founders, that I feel as though there’s like, more pressure to succeed, in a weird way,” he said. “And I think that can be helpful to a point, but I think that it can be challenging. I also think that there’s so much emphasis around the toxicity in the technology world that a lot of really talented people believe it’s horrible, like believe that our world looks like Jim Crow South. And so therefore they shouldn’t even step any foot into it where like, I would challenge anyone trying to be successful in any industry to be able to avoid the types of problems that exists in the technology industry, if they come from an underrepresented background. So I don’t think the environment’s significantly different in our world than other worlds. I think that the environment is hard. You know, there is bias if you’re underrepresented, across the board, no matter what industry you go to. So if you’re gonna be successful, you’re going to figure out a way to get around it.”

But that’s not to say you’ll have to figure it out on your own, Seibel said. He pointed to how there are people who are willing and able to help. That includes him and the many other Black founders present in Silicon Valley.

“But if we somehow scare talented people away from this world, we won’t ever fix this world,” he said. “And we won’t ever, even more importantly than fixing this world, there’ll be huge swaths of the world that don’t have products and services that they deserve and that they need. And so I think we have to be careful to make sure we communicate that opportunities exist here. And that if you’re trying to be a high powered lawyer, or if you’re trying to be, you know, a top banker, you’re gonna go through the same bullshit. Like, different industries, same bullshit. So if you’re trying to make an impact in the world, strap in. If you’re an underrepresented founder, you’re gonna have to deal with these issues, no matter where you do it.”

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Human Capital: The battle over the fate of gig workers continues

Welcome back to Human Capital, where we unpack the latest in tech labor and diversity and inclusion. This week, we’re looking at the latest developments in the battle over the classification of gig workers, the rise of labor unions in tech and and Instagram’s latest move to be woke.

Human Capital will soon be available as a newsletter. Be sure to sign up here.

Gig Work

Both sides of Prop 22 are going full steam ahead in their efforts to sway California voters. Uber, Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash each committed another $17.5 million to Yes on Prop 22 last Friday, according to a late contributions filing. 

As of August 24, the Yes on 22 campaign had contributed just north of $110 million while the No on 22 campaign had put $4.6 million into its efforts. The latest influx of cash brings Yes on 22’s total contributions to more than $180 million. Of all the measures on this November’s ballot, Yes on Prop 22 has received the most contributions, according to California’s Fair Political Practices Commission. 

Bastian Lehman, CEO of Postmates, also penned an op-ed on CNN about gig workers and how there needs to be a third classification of workers, which is essentially what Prop 22 is pushing. 

Meanwhile rideshare drivers took to the streets of Oakland, Calif. to protest Uber’s ads and Prop 22. 

All this Prop 22 activity comes amid a lawsuit brought forth by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a handful of local city attorneys that seeks to force Uber and Lyft to classify their drivers as employees. In Lyft’s sworn statement addressing how Lyft would go about transitioning its drivers from independent contractors to employees, CEO Logan Green said the company might cease operations in all or parts of California if forced to reclassify drivers, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. 

Tech unions

This year has marked a new wave of organizing among tech workers. Unions, which act as a sort of intermediary between workers and their employers, advocate on behalf of employees for better wages, working conditions and other benefits through collective bargaining. Among full-time wage and salary workers, union members had weekly earnings of $1,095, compared to $892 for non-union members in 2019, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In February, Kickstarter employees voted to form a union after months of what appeared to be union busting at the hands of Kickstarter leadership. In September 2019, Kickstarter fired two people who were actively organizing the union. Now, the National Labor Board has found merit that Kickstarter unlawfully fired those two people. 

Kickstarter’s successful organizing made it become the first major tech company in the U.S. to unionize and joined OPEIU Local 153. Then, one month later, collaborative coding platform Glitch voted to unionize with Code-CWA.*

Now, at least ten tech companies are actively trying to unionize, according to Grace Reckers, the lead northeast union organizer of OPEIU, told TechCrunch. Part of what’s driving this increased interest in unions is the abuse of data and privacy by tech giants.

“Employees are seeing that they don’t actually have control of how the products they make are being used,” she said. “Even though most of the messaging in Silicon Valley is about creating a better world for us, making our lives easier and innovating, it also moves under the philosophy of move fast and break things.”

And “breaking things” can lead to things like employee layoffs, misuse of data or separation of families, Reckers said.

“Workers want control over how products are being created, and control of how those tools are being used,” she said. “People are realizing it’s not just about their immediate workplaces but also their impacts on local communities or global communities.”

Stay Woke

Instagram announced a new Equity team to work on “better understanding and addressing bias in our product development” the experiences people have on Instagram, Adam Mosseri, Instagram lead, wrote. Part of the responsibilities of that team include creating fair and equitable products, as well as ensuring algorithmic fairness. According to a job posting for an equity and inclusion product manager, the team will be fully focused on equity and inclusion, and “creating the most equitable experience for our global communities.”

Instagram desperately needs an effective team in this area. In June, some Instagram influencers posted photos of themselves in Blackface in a misguided attempt to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Meanwhile, Black people have reported harassment on the platform and fears of being shadowbanned.

Instagram is also looking to hire its own diversity lead. According to the job posting, the director of diversity and inclusion will be responsible for increasing and retaining people from diverse backgrounds, among other things. Facebook has had a head of diversity in place since 2013, but given how big of a company Facebook has become, it seems worthwhile to have a diversity leader specifically focused on Instagram.

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*Disclosure: My partner works at Glitch.

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Human Capital: Workers are upset about labor practices, and Amazon and Apple are on the defensive

Happy Labor Day and welcome back to Human Capital, where we unpack the latest in tech labor, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Human Capital will soon be available as a newsletter. Sign up here so you don’t miss it when it drops!

This week, we’re looking at Pinterest’s newest edition to its DEI team, a California bill that seeks to increase racial diversity at the board level, Amazon’s messy week and a court decision forcing Apple to pay its workers for time spent in security screenings.

But first, a quick history of Labor Day, which was first celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City following a proposal by the Central Labor Union in the city. On that day, between 10,000 to 20,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from NYC’s city hall to Union Square in what became the first Labor Day parade.

In the time between the first Labor Day parade and when it became a federal holiday in 1894, railroad workers went on strike after George Pullman laid off hundreds of employees and cut wages by 30 percent for those who remained. In May 1894, workers walked out and their union, the American Railway Union, called for a boycott on Pullman train cars. Shortly after, the group representing Chicago’s railroad companies called on the federal government to help shut down the strike. Once federal troops arrived in Chicago, the strike turned deadly as the National Guard killed as many as 30 people.

The troops left in July and, that same month, Labor Day became a national holiday to be celebrated the first Monday in September every year. The strike ended in early August. It’s a complicated history, but it shows labor struggles have been at the heart of American capitalism since the country’s inception (slavery). Now, more than 100 years after the first Labor Day, workers are still fighting for better protections, pay and working conditions.

Stay Woke

Pinterest brings on new head of inclusion and diversity

As Pinterest grapples with some internal unrest over claims of racial and gender discrimination, the company has brought on a new head of inclusion and diversity. Its last head of diversity, Candice Morgan, quietly left earlier this year for venture firm GV. 

Tyi McCray, the company’s new global head of inclusion and diversity, previously worked at Airbnb where she held a few different roles. She began as Airbnb’s interim director of Diversity and Belonging before becoming a diversity strategy lead and ultimately, a government affairs and strategic partnerships lead.

McCray will report directly to Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann. This marks the first time Pinterest is having a head of diversity report directly to the CEO, rather into HR. Facebook did something similar earlier this year when it began having its chief diversity officer, Maxine Williams, report directly to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg. But Facebook still fell short of having Williams report directly to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Diversity advocates for years have been calling for heads of diversity to report directly to the CEO. Many companies, however, have yet to do that. More often, tech companies have their heads of diversity report into the head of HR.

California may soon require more diversity at the board level

The tech industry has been under scrutiny for its lack of diversity for years now. Some progress has been made in terms of representation of Black and brown folks within companies, but not always at the leadership level. AB979, which is heading to California Governor Gavin Newsom’s desk, aims to accelerate diversity at the board level.

The bill would require public companies based in California to have at least one board member from an underrepresented group. If signed into law, the bill would also require companies with between four to nine directors to have at least two board members be from an underrepresented group. For boards with nine or more directors, the bill would require a minimum of three people from an underrepresented group.

The bill defines an individual from an underrepresented community as someone who self-identifies as Black, Latinx, Asian, Pacific Islander, Indigenous and/or as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

This bill seeks to build on top of preexisting law that went into effect in 2018 that mandated publicly held corporations based in California would have a minimum of one female director on its board by the end of 2019. By the end of 2021, companies with five or more directors must have a minimum of two female board members while companies with six or more directors must have at least three female board members.

The 99%

Amazon is a mess

Amazon found itself under scrutiny again over its labor practices. It started when reports surfaced that Amazon was looking to hire an intelligence analyst. Specifically, Amazon in a job posting said it was seeking someone who would inform higher-ups and attorneys “on sensitive topics that are highly confidential, including labor organizing threats against the company.” 

Amazon swiftly took down that job post, saying it was “not an accurate description of the role – it was made in error and has since been corrected,” Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti said in a statement to TechCrunch. While Amazon did not give a specific revised description, the company said the role is meant to support its team of analysts that focus on external events, like weather, large community gatherings or other events that have the potential to disrupt traffic or affect the safety and security of its buildings and the people who work at those buildings. 

However, that same day, Vice reported Amazon had been spying on workers for years to monitor for any potential strikes or protests. Amazon has since said it will stop using its social media monitoring tool.

“We have a variety of ways to gather driver feedback and we have teams who work every day to ensure we’re advocating to improve the driver experience, particularly through hearing from drivers directly,” Boschetti said in a statement. “Upon being notified, we discovered one group within our delivery team that was aggregating information from closed groups. While they were trying to support drivers, that approach doesn’t meet our standards, and they are no longer doing this as we have other ways for drivers to give us their feedback.”

Amazon did not comment on how long it had been monitoring closed Facebook groups.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported some Amazon Flex drivers have resorted to hanging smartphones in trees in order to get more work in Chicago.

Apple owes its retail workers backpay for time spent in security screenings

Apple has had intense security practices for some time now. Part of that has meant requiring workers to go through security screenings before leaving the store at the end of their shifts. 

The case dates back all the way to 2015, when a group of Apple retail workers in California filed a class-action suit arguing they should be paid while waiting for their bags to be searched.

From the ruling:

Employees estimate that the time spent waiting for and undergoing an exit search pursuant to the Policy typically ranges from five to twenty minutes, depending on the manager or security guard’s availability. Some employees reported waiting up to forty-five minutes to undergo an exit search. Employees receive no compensation for the time spent waiting for and undergoing exit searches, because they must clock out before undergoing a search pursuant to the
Policy.

In February, CA Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. But a US District judge later granted Apple’s request for a summary judgment since some workers part of the class were not required to go through searches since they didn’t bring bags or devices to work. This week, however, an appeals court ruled that it wasn’t relevant if workers did or did not bring their devices or bags to work. Now, Apple must pay more than 12,000 class members for time spent waiting for security screenings.

Apple did not respond for our request for comment.

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Human Capital: ‘People were afraid of being critical with me’

Welcome back to Human Capital, where we break down the latest in labor, and diversity and inclusion in tech. This week, we’re looking at the launch of the Diversity Riders initiative in venture capital and how it can go further, Instacart’s labor practices and some alternative, more inclusive approaches to running a startup. Also, Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel recently shared a compelling anecdote about his experience as a Black founder raising money back in 2016.

Justice for Jacob Blake and Breonna Taylor.

 

Stay Woke

Diversity Riders commitment needs to go further

Earlier this week, Act One Ventures launched a new diversity and inclusion initiative called The Diversity Term Sheet Rider for Representation at the Cap Table. The purpose of the Diversity Rider is to increase the number of Black and other underrepresented investors in deals by making them co-investors. 

Already, firms like Greycroft Partners, First Round Capital, Maveron, Fifth Wall, Plexo Capital and Precursor Ventures have committed to it. What that means is firms will include boilerplate language in their standard term sheets:

In order to advance diversity efforts in the venture capital industry, the Company and the lead investor, [Fund Name], will make commercial best efforts to offer and make every attempt to include as a co-investor in the financing at least one Black [or other underrepresented group including, but not limited to LatinX, women, LGBTQ+] check writer (DCWs), and to allocate a minimum of [X]% or [X] $’s of the total round for such co-investor.

This is certainly a good step on the road to creating additional wealth opportunities for Black, Latinx and Indigenous people, as well folks from other underrepresented groups in tech. However, a stronger step would be to remove the parts about “best efforts” and “make every attempt” because, as it’s currently written, the commitment hedges on rather subjective conditions. Instead, the following would be better:

In order to advance diversity efforts in the venture capital industry, the Company and the lead investor, [Fund Name], will make commercial best efforts to offer and make every attempt to include as a co-investor in the financing at least one Black [or other underrepresented group including, but not limited to LatinX, women, LGBTQ+] check writer (DCWs), and to allocate a minimum of [X]% or [X] $’s of the total round for such co-investor.

Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel on raising funding as a Black founder

At All Raise’s second annual event for Black female founders, When Founder Met Funder, Planet FWD CEO Julia Collins interviewed YC CEO Michael Seibel about his experience in tech and tips for founders. 

“When I started doing startups, it was 2006 and there weren’t many people who looked like any of us that were doing startups,” he told the audience. “I think what you would’ve expected was overt discrimination but actually I got something else, which was no feedback.”

He went on to say that people were afraid to be critical of him, for fear of being perceived a certain way. 

“People were afraid of being critical with me,” he said. 

That’s partly why Seibel says he’s become the type of person who will tell founders what everyone is thinking. 

“Agree with it or disagree with it, I want you to have a good mental model of what people are thinking and not saying,” Seibel said. 

Gig Work

Instacart is under fire again 

Instacart shoppers, via Gig Workers Collective, made their voices heard again this week. In light of the wildfires and other anticipated climate change-related disasters, Instacart workers want the company to provide disaster pay at a daily rate equal to the average rate of daily pay, including tips, over the previous 30 days for each day Instacart’s operations are shutdown. Additionally, GWC wants Instacart to shut down its operations in markets where a city has declared a state of emergency or issued evacuations.

The demands came shortly after Instacart agreed to distribute $727,985 among some San Francisco-based Instacart workers as part of a settlement pertaining to health care and paid sick leave benefits.

Meanwhile, Instacart is also facing a new lawsuit from DC’s attorney general over its “deceptive” service fees. The suit seeks restitution for consumers who paid those service fees, as well as back taxes and interest on taxes owed to D.C.

Alt VC

Tech cooperatives have the potential to upset wealth inequality 

We began exploring earlier in the year the case for cooperative startups, where workers and users have the opportunity to gain true ownership and control in a company, and where any profits that are generated are returned to the members or reinvested in the company.

The way many tech companies are built today don’t need to be that way. Start.coop, a tech accelerator for cooperatives, is trying to help build this new future. This week, Start.coop, received a $150,000 commitment to help fund two new classes of startups per year. Start.coop invests $15,000 in each startup and all graduates become shareholders in Start.coop, which is a cooperative itself that distributes ownership among workers, investors, advisors and startups that go through the accelerator.

Start.coop founder Greg Brodsky previously told me:

Technology has disrupted almost every part of the economy. It’s disrupted the gig economy, gaming, shopping and how to book hotels. But the one thing that the technology sector has not been willing to touch is ownership itself. That is, who gets rich and who benefits from the growth of these companies. That really hasn’t changed. In some ways, the tech sector is just recreating the wealth inequality in every other part of the economy.

There’s more to an exit than IPOs and acquisitions 

Meanwhile, the folks behind the Exit to Community movement are gearing up to release a zine outlining startup paths to outcomes other than IPOs and acquisitions. E2C is a working project that explores ways to help startups transition investor-owned to community ownership, which could include users, customers, workers or some combination of all stakeholders. 

“The purpose of the zine is to provide an initial roadmap to all of the aspects of the conversation that need to happen so we can save founders pain in recognizing and validating they’re in the wrong fit and we need to co-create what does fit,” Zebras Unite co-founder and zine co-author Mara Zepeda told TechCrunch. “It’s not a silver bullet. It’s not like there’s this other perfect thing that everyone needs to do. I describe it as running a Cambrian explosion of experiments in order to figure out what this future is. It’s not just one thing. That’s how what we’re doing is really different. Sometimes there are these niche products or movements that pop up and say, “this is the answer. There isn’t one answer for this moment.” 

Be on the lookout for a deeper-dive into this next week. For now, here’s some additional reading on the topic.

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Human Capital: What’s next in Uber and Lyft’s court battle and a look at board diversity in Silicon Valley

Welcome back to Human Capital, where we unpack the latest in diversity, equity and inclusion, and labor issues in the tech industry.

In this week’s edition, we’re looking at the latest in Uber and Lyft’s court battle to keep their drivers classified as independent contractors, Pinterest’s well-timed announcement of a Black board member, overall board diversity in tech and the Kapor Center for Social Impact’s action campaign to advance racial justice.

Gig Life

Appeals judge grants Uber and Lyft a temporary stay

The Uber-Lyft vs people of California saga continued this week. The latest is that Uber and Lyft will not be shutting down their respective ridehailing services today. That decision came following an appeals court judge’s decision to grant them a temporary stay on the preliminary injunction order that seeks to force them to immediately reclassify their drivers as employees. 

There’s no saying when this will all be resolved, but here’s what happens next:

8/25: Uber and Lyft must file written statements by 5pm PT agreeing to expedited procedures in the appeals process. If they agree, the stay will remain in place until the appeal is resolved.

9/4: Both Uber and Lyft must submit sworn statements with implementation plans for complying with the law within 30 days if the court upholds the trial court’s injunction order and if their California ballot measure that aims to keep drivers classified as independent contractors, Prop 22, doesn’t pass.

10/13: Oral arguments in the appeal case begin. 

Meanwhile, as Uber and Lyft were threatening to shut down and awaiting a ruling from the judge, rideshare drivers held an action outside of Uber’s San Francisco headquarters. At the rally, San Francisco Supervisor Matt Haney showed his support for drivers.

Stay Woke

100 days of action for racial justice 

The folks over at the Kapor Center for Social Impact are urging people to take action for racial justice. 

“The murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Rayshard Brooks, the most recent in a long history of police brutality against Black men and women have inspired protests and uprisings in support of the Black Lives Matter movement,” they write. “In doing so, it has challenged America to confront the systemic racism that has been embedded in every institution, from education to policing to the economy, from its inception.”

As part of the organization’s 100 days of action for racial justice campaign, they’re urging people to participate across three areas: educational equity, civic engagement and economic justice. That last area, economic justice, is what is especially geared toward the tech industry. The campaign calls for tech leaders to deploy capital Black and Indegenous people of color, renegotiate the terms of their employee resource groups, support paths into tech jobs and more. 

As Kapor Capital Partner Brian Dixon outlined in June, there are three immediate actions VC firms can take to make headway:

  • Hire Black investors
  • Fund Black founders
  • Hold your firm accountable

Pinterest appoints first Black board member

Andrea Wishom became the first Black board member at Pinterest earlier this week. The announcement came a couple of days after Pinterest employees staged a virtual walkout to demand systemic change as it relates to gender and racial discrimination. The walkout was a direct response to former Pinterest employees speaking out against gender and racial discrimination. Last week, former Pinterest COO Françoise Brougher sued the company, alleging gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination. Prior to that, Aerica Shimizu Banks and Ifeoma Ozoma also accused Pinterest of discrimination.

Over the last few years, tech companies have done a better job than usual around diversity at the board level. Following Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian stepping down from its board of directors and urging the company to add a Black person to its board, Reddit appointed Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel. Other companies that have added Black board members in recent years include Facebook, Airbnb, Slack, Twitter and Apple.

Here’s a quick scorecard of racial diversity at big tech companies. Below, you can see how these major tech companies all have at least one Black board member, but how Black people are still underrepresented on boards of directors.

Image Credits: TechCrunch

 

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Human Capital: A timeline of Uber and Lyft’s fight against AB 5 and Pinterest’s fall from grace

Welcome back to Human Capital, where we look at all things labor and diversity, equity and inclusion. This week, Uber and Lyft’s legal battle against a California law pertaining to independent contractors continued. As of right now, it’s looking like Uber and Lyft are going to temporarily cease operations in California next week if they can’t get their way.

Meanwhile, Pinterest employees reached their breaking point when former COO Françoise Brougher sued Pinterest alleging gender discrimination and wrongful termination. Now, they’re demanding systemic change at the company in light of the latest allegation of discrimination. 

Gig Life

Uber and Lyft say they’ll have to temporarily pause operations in California

A lot happened with Uber and Lyft this week, so let’s break down exactly what transpired. But first, a quick recap of the events leading up Uber threatening to cease operations in California. 

Jan 1, 2020: Assembly Bill 5 becomes law. The bill, first introduced in December 2018, codified the ruling established in Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v Superior Court of Los Angeles. In that case, the court applied the ABC test and decided Dynamex wrongfully classified its workers as independent contractors. According to the ABC test, in order for a hiring entity to legally classify a worker as an independent contractor, it must prove (A) the worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity, (B) performs work outside the scope of the entity’s business and (C) is regularly engaged in an “independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as the work performed.”

May 2020: CA Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with city attorneys from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, filed a lawsuit asserting Uber and Lyft gain an unfair and unlawful competitive advantage by misclassifying workers as independent contractors.

The suit argues Uber and Lyft are depriving workers the right to minimum wage, overtime, access to paid sick leave, disability insurance and unemployment insurance. The lawsuit, filed in the Superior Court of San Francisco, seeks $2,500 in penalties for each violation, possibly per driver, under the California Unfair Competition Law, and another $2,500 for violations against senior citizens or people with disabilities. 

June 2020: Becerra and others file motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to force Uber and Lyft to immediately classify their drivers as employees.

August 6, 2020: CA Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman hears arguments pertaining to the preliminary injunction. At the hearing, Uber and Lyft maintained that an injunction would require them to restructure their businesses in such a material way that it would prevent them from being able to employ many drivers on either a full-time or part-time basis. Uber and Lyft’s argument, effectively, is that classifying drivers as employees would result in job loss.

“The proposed injunction would cause irreparable injury to Lyft and Uber, and would actually cause massive harm to drivers and harm to riders,” Rohit Singla, counsel for Lyft, said at the hearing.

For example, Lyft estimates it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars simply to process the I-9 forms, which verify employment eligibility. It doesn’t cost anything to file that form, but it would require Uber and Lyft to further invest in their human resources and payroll processes.

August 9, 2020: Judge Schulman grants the preliminary injunction, which goes into effect on August 20, 2020. 

“The Court is under no illusion that implementation of its injunction will be costly,” Judge Schulman wrote in the order. “There can be no question that in order for Defendants to comply with A.B. 5, they will have to change the nature of their business practices in significant ways, such as by hiring human resources staff to hire and manage their driver workforces.”

Meanwhile, Uber and Lyft made clear their respective plans to file emergency appeals. 

August 12, 2020: Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says Uber will have to temporarily shutdown in California if the court doesn’t overturn the preliminary injunction. Lyft says it, too, will be forced to temporarily cease operations in California.

August 13, 2020: Judge Schulman denies Uber and Lyft’s appeal. Uber says it plans to file another appeal while Lyft says it will seek a further stay from the state’s appellate court. 

Looking ahead

August 20, 2020: Preliminary injunction is set to go into effect and Uber and Lyft will likely be temporarily ceasing operations in California.

November 2020: Californians will vote on Prop 22, a ballot measure majorly funded by Uber, Lyft and DoorDash. Prop 22 aims to keep gig workers classified as independent contractors. The measure, if passed, would make drivers and delivery workers for said companies exempt from a new state law that classifies them as W-2 employees. 

The ballot measure looks to implement an earnings guarantee of at least 120% of minimum wage while on the job, 30 cents per mile for expenses, a healthcare stipend, occupational accident insurance for on-the-job injuries, protection against discrimination and sexual harassment and automobile accident and liability insurance.

Stay Woke

Pinterest’s fall from grace

Back in 2015, Pinterest was known as one of the companies doing some of the best work around diversity, equity and inclusion. That perception changed this year. 

Pinterest was one of the first tech companies to set concrete hiring goals. In 2015, those goals were to increase hiring rates for full-time engineering roles to 30 percent female, increase hiring rates for full-time engineers to 8 percent from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds; increase hiring rates for non-engineering roles to 12 percent from underrepresented backgrounds; and implement a Rooney Rule requirement where at least one person from an underrepresented background and one female candidate is interviewed for every open leadership position.

Pinterest has lowered its hiring goals for women in engineering roles

Pinterest was also one of the first companies to hire a head of diversity and inclusion. In 2016, Pinterest hired Candice Morgan for the role. Morgan left the company earlier this year and joined VC firm GV as its equity, diversity and inclusion partner. Still, Morgan had one of the longest stints at any tech company’s diversity and inclusion department.

In the company’s 2020 diversity report, Pinterest showed it beat all of its hiring goals but what was missing from that report was retention data. When TechCrunch asked in January if they would make the data available, a Pinterest spokesperson said, “unfortunately, we can’t share the retention metrics publicly, but it will continue to be an internal priority.”

Now, transparency about retention data is just one of a handful of demands Pinterest employees have. Two days ago, former Pinterest COO Françoise Brougher sued the company, alleging gender discrimination, retaliation and wrongful termination. Prior to that, Aerica Shimizu Banks and Ifeoma Ozoma, also accused Pinterest of discrimination.

In light of those allegations, Pinterest employees are walking out today to demand change at the company. The walkout is directly in response to recent accusations of racial and gender discrimination at Pinterest. In addition to the walkout, there’s a petition circulating throughout the company demanding systemic change. The change they seek entails full transparency about promotion levels and retention, total compensation package transparency and for the people within two layers of reporting to the CEO to be at least 25% women and 8% underrepresented employees.

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Human Capital: Uber and Lyft’s ongoing battle with the law and a brief history of diversity at Snap

Welcome back to Human Capital (formerly known as Tech at Work), which looks at all things labor in tech. This week presented Uber and Lyft with a fresh labor lawsuit as a judge heard arguments from Uber, Lyft and lawyers on behalf of the people of California in a separate suit brought forth by California’s attorney general. Meanwhile, Snap recently released its first-ever diversity and inclusion report — something the company had been holding off on doing for years. 

Below, we’ll explore the nuances and the significance of these lawsuits, as well as Snap’s track record with diversity and inclusion. Let’s get to it.

Gig life

CA Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman heard arguments regarding a preliminary injunction that seeks to force Uber and Lyft to reclassify their drivers as employees

In May, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with city attorneys from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, sued Uber and Lyft, alleging the companies gain an unfair and unlawful competitive advantage by misclassifying workers as independent contractors. The suit argues Uber and Lyft are depriving workers of the right to minimum wage, overtime, access to paid sick leave, disability insurance and unemployment insurance. In June, plaintiffs filed a preliminary injunction in an attempt to force Uber and Lyft to comply with AB 5 and immediately stop classifying their drivers as independent contractors.

This week, more than 100 people tuned in to the hearing regarding the preliminary injunction. The hearing, held on Zoom, initially was only able to hold just 100 people. But the interest in the case forced the court to increase its webinar capabilities to 500. There hasn’t been a ruling yet, but Judge Schulman said we could expect one likely within a matter of days, rather than weeks.

In the hearing, Schulman expressed how hard it is to determine the impact of a preliminary injunction in this case. For example, how Uber and Lyft would comply with the injunction is unknown, as are the economic effects on drivers, such as their ability to earn income, the hours they would be able to work and their eligibility for state benefits, Schulman said.

“I feel a little bit like I’m being asked to jump into a body of water without really knowing how deep it is, how cold the water is and what’s going to happen when I get in,” he said.

Here are some other key quotes from the hearing:

Rohit Singla, counsel for Lyft

The proposed injunction would cause irreparable injury to Lyft and Uber, and would actually cause massive harm to drivers and harm to riders.

Matthew Goldberg, deputy city attorney for San Francisco

We think the parties have drastically overstated precisely what they would need to do to be in compliance with the law.

The other lawsuits against Uber and Lyft

Earlier in the week, California Labor Commission sued Uber and Lyft in separate lawsuits. The goals of the separate suits are to recover the money that is allegedly owed to these drivers. By classifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, both Uber and Lyft have not been required to pay minimum wage, overtime compensation, nor have they been required to offer paid breaks or reimburse drivers for the costs of driving.

What these lawsuits share is a core focus and argument that Uber and Lyft are misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors and breaking the law. These two companies have been sued many, many times for their labor practices, specifically as they pertain to the classification of their respective drivers as independent contractors. What’s different about the latest string of lawsuits is that they’re coming in light of a new law that went into effect in California earlier this year that is supposed to make it harder for these gig economy companies to classify their workers this way. The lawsuits are also coming from legislative bodies, rather than from drivers themselves. 

This moment has been a long time coming. Uber faced its first high-profile labor lawsuit back in 2013, when Douglas O’Connor and Thomas Colopy sued Uber for classifying them as 1099 independent contractors. Uber settled the lawsuit several years later in 2019 by paying out $20 million to O’Connor and Colopy, as well as the other class members. 

Stay Woke

Snap finally releases a diversity report

Snap, after declining to release diversity numbers for years, finally decided now was the time to make them public. Before we jump in, let’s take a quick look at Snap’s history with diversity.

2016: Snap came under fire for a couple of filters that many people called out as being racist. The first was a Bob Marley filter that basically enabled some sort of digital blackface. The second time it had to do with a lens that was supposed to be a take on anime characters. Instead, there was an outcry about Snapchat enabling yellowface.

2017: “We fundamentally believe that having a team of diverse backgrounds and voices working together is our best shot at being able to create innovative products that improve the way people live and communicate. There are two things we focus on to achieve this goal. The first—creating a diverse workplace—helps us assemble this team. We convene at the conferences, host the hackathons, and invest in the institutions that bring us amazing diverse talent every year. The second—creating an inclusive workplace—is much harder to get right, but we believe it is required to unleash the potential of having a diverse team. That’s because we believe diversity is about more than numbers. To us, it is really about creating a culture where everyone comes to work knowing that they have a seat at the table and will always be supported both personally and professionally. We started by challenging our management team to set this tone every day with each of their teams, and by investing in inclusion-focused programs ranging from community outreach to internal professional development. We still have a long and difficult road ahead in all of these efforts, but believe they represent one of our biggest opportunities to create a business that is not only successful but also one that we are proud to be a part of” – Snap’s S-1

2018: A former Snap engineer criticized the company for a “toxic” and “sexist” culture. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel later said the letter was “a really good wake-up call for us.”

2019: Snap hired its first head of diversity and inclusion, Oona King. King previously worked at Google as the company’s director of diversity strategy.

June 2020: Spiegel reportedly said in an all-hands meeting the company will not publicly release its numbers. Snap, however, disputed the report, saying it would release that data.

August 2020: Snap releases its first-ever diversity report showing its global workforce is just 32.9% women, while its U.S. workforce is 4.1% Black, 6.8% Latinx and less than 1% Indigenous.

Snap’s numbers are not good, but also nothing out of the ordinary for the tech industry. What’s novel about Snap’s report, however, is the intersectional data breakdown. You’ll note that the representation of Black women (1.3%) is lower than the representation of Black men (2.8%). The same goes for all race/ethnicity categories. Across all distinct races, there are more men than women. Again, this is not good, but it’s to be expected, unfortunately.

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Human Capital: Uber and Lyft’s ongoing battle with the law and a brief history of diversity at Snap

Welcome back to Human Capital (formerly known as Tech at Work), which looks at all things labor in tech. This week presented Uber and Lyft with a fresh labor lawsuit as a judge heard arguments from Uber, Lyft and lawyers on behalf of the people of California in a separate suit brought forth by California’s attorney general. Meanwhile, Snap recently released its first-ever diversity and inclusion report — something the company had been holding off on doing for years. 

Below, we’ll explore the nuances and the significance of these lawsuits, as well as Snap’s track record with diversity and inclusion. Let’s get to it.

Gig life

CA Superior Court Judge Ethan P. Schulman heard arguments regarding a preliminary injunction that seeks to force Uber and Lyft to reclassify their drivers as employees

In May, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, along with city attorneys from Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, sued Uber and Lyft, alleging the companies gain an unfair and unlawful competitive advantage by misclassifying workers as independent contractors. The suit argues Uber and Lyft are depriving workers of the right to minimum wage, overtime, access to paid sick leave, disability insurance and unemployment insurance. In June, plaintiffs filed a preliminary injunction in an attempt to force Uber and Lyft to comply with AB 5 and immediately stop classifying their drivers as independent contractors.

This week, more than 100 people tuned in to the hearing regarding the preliminary injunction. The hearing, held on Zoom, initially was only able to hold just 100 people. But the interest in the case forced the court to increase its webinar capabilities to 500. There hasn’t been a ruling yet, but Judge Schulman said we could expect one likely within a matter of days, rather than weeks.

In the hearing, Schulman expressed how hard it is to determine the impact of a preliminary injunction in this case. For example, how Uber and Lyft would comply with the injunction is unknown, as are the economic effects on drivers, such as their ability to earn income, the hours they would be able to work and their eligibility for state benefits, Schulman said.

“I feel a little bit like I’m being asked to jump into a body of water without really knowing how deep it is, how cold the water is and what’s going to happen when I get in,” he said.

Here are some other key quotes from the hearing:

Rohit Singla, counsel for Lyft

The proposed injunction would cause irreparable injury to Lyft and Uber, and would actually cause massive harm to drivers and harm to riders.

Matthew Goldberg, deputy city attorney for San Francisco

We think the parties have drastically overstated precisely what they would need to do to be in compliance with the law.

The other lawsuits against Uber and Lyft

Earlier in the week, California Labor Commission sued Uber and Lyft in separate lawsuits. The goals of the separate suits are to recover the money that is allegedly owed to these drivers. By classifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, both Uber and Lyft have not been required to pay minimum wage, overtime compensation, nor have they been required to offer paid breaks or reimburse drivers for the costs of driving.

What these lawsuits share is a core focus and argument that Uber and Lyft are misclassifying their drivers as independent contractors and breaking the law. These two companies have been sued many, many times for their labor practices, specifically as they pertain to the classification of their respective drivers as independent contractors. What’s different about the latest string of lawsuits is that they’re coming in light of a new law that went into effect in California earlier this year that is supposed to make it harder for these gig economy companies to classify their workers this way. The lawsuits are also coming from legislative bodies, rather than from drivers themselves. 

This moment has been a long time coming. Uber faced its first high-profile labor lawsuit back in 2013, when Douglas O’Connor and Thomas Colopy sued Uber for classifying them as 1099 independent contractors. Uber settled the lawsuit several years later in 2019 by paying out $20 million to O’Connor and Colopy, as well as the other class members. 

Stay Woke

Snap finally releases a diversity report

Snap, after declining to release diversity numbers for years, finally decided now was the time to make them public. Before we jump in, let’s take a quick look at Snap’s history with diversity.

2016: Snap came under fire for a couple of filters that many people called out as being racist. The first was a Bob Marley filter that basically enabled some sort of digital blackface. The second time it had to do with a lens that was supposed to be a take on anime characters. Instead, there was an outcry about Snapchat enabling yellowface.

2017: “We fundamentally believe that having a team of diverse backgrounds and voices working together is our best shot at being able to create innovative products that improve the way people live and communicate. There are two things we focus on to achieve this goal. The first—creating a diverse workplace—helps us assemble this team. We convene at the conferences, host the hackathons, and invest in the institutions that bring us amazing diverse talent every year. The second—creating an inclusive workplace—is much harder to get right, but we believe it is required to unleash the potential of having a diverse team. That’s because we believe diversity is about more than numbers. To us, it is really about creating a culture where everyone comes to work knowing that they have a seat at the table and will always be supported both personally and professionally. We started by challenging our management team to set this tone every day with each of their teams, and by investing in inclusion-focused programs ranging from community outreach to internal professional development. We still have a long and difficult road ahead in all of these efforts, but believe they represent one of our biggest opportunities to create a business that is not only successful but also one that we are proud to be a part of” – Snap’s S-1

2018: A former Snap engineer criticized the company for a “toxic” and “sexist” culture. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel later said the letter was “a really good wake-up call for us.”

2019: Snap hired its first head of diversity and inclusion, Oona King. King previously worked at Google as the company’s director of diversity strategy.

June 2020: Spiegel reportedly said in an all-hands meeting the company will not publicly release its numbers. Snap, however, disputed the report, saying it would release that data.

August 2020: Snap releases its first-ever diversity report showing its global workforce is just 32.9% women, while its U.S. workforce is 4.1% Black, 6.8% Latinx and less than 1% Indigenous.

Snap’s numbers are not good, but also nothing out of the ordinary for the tech industry. What’s novel about Snap’s report, however, is the intersectional data breakdown. You’ll note that the representation of Black women (1.3%) is lower than the representation of Black men (2.8%). The same goes for all race/ethnicity categories. Across all distinct races, there are more men than women. Again, this is not good, but it’s to be expected, unfortunately.

Don’t miss

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Tech at Work: Amazon caravan protest, Genderify’s algorithmic bias and using ‘BIPOC’

Welcome back to Tech at Work, where we look at labor, diversity and inclusion. Given the amount of activity in this space, we’re going to ramp this up from bi-weekly to weekly.

This week, we’re looking at the latest action from a group of Amazon warehouse workers in the San Francisco Bay Area, how to avoid Genderify’s massive algorithmic bias fail and the rise of the use of BIPOC, which stands for Black, Indigenous and people of color, and how to properly use the term.

Stay woke

Amazon warehouse workers stage sunrise action

Amazon delivery drivers in the San Francisco Bay Area are kicking off the month by protesting the e-commerce giant’s labor practices related to the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of a caravan, workers plan to head to Amazon’s San Leandro warehouse this morning to pressure the company to shut down the facility for a thorough cleaning.

“They are having COVID cases reported and they’re not being truthful about how many, and they’re not being reported right away,” Amazon worker Adrienne Williams told TechCrunch. “We’re seeing this pattern of Amazon finding out and then not telling people for two weeks so they don’t have to pay anyone.”

In a statement to TechCrunch, Amazon said:

Nothing is more important than health and well-being of our employees, and we are doing everything we can to keep them as safe as possible. We’ve invested over $800 million in the first half of this year implementing 150 significant process changes on COVID-19 safety measures by purchasing items like masks, hand sanitizer, thermal cameras, thermometers, sanitizing wipes, gloves, additional handwashing stations, and adding disinfectant spraying in buildings, procuring COVID testing supplies, and additional janitorial teams.

In addition to shutting down the warehouse for sanitizing, workers are asking for better communication.

“The drivers have no idea if there are ever any cases because we don’t have access to the internal warehouse A to Z communications they have,” Williams, who works at the Richmond warehouse, said. “So we never get the alerts if there are COVID cases. We’re not on that internal communication but we go in those warehouses twice a day to get our shifts and packages.”

Because drivers are generally employed by delivery service partners, Amazon says it does not have direct communication with them. However, Amazon says it immediately notifies the delivery service partner who then communicates with the drivers.

By staging the action so early, the hope is to prevent workers from being able to load delivery vehicles, Williams said.

“If the vans are left in the warehouse, Jeff Bezos takes the financial hit,” she said. “Halting deliveries and keeping them in the warehouse means Amazon gets hit with the bill.”

Lesson for startups: Treat all of your workers with dignity and respect.