More than 800,000 ride-hailing drivers in California will soon be able to join a union and negotiate for higher wages and better benefits under a measure signed Friday by the governor, Gavin Newsom.
Supporters said the new law will open a path for the largest expansion of private-sector collective bargaining rights in the state’s history. The legislation is a significant compromise in the years-long battle between labor unions and tech companies.
California is the second state where Uber and Lyft drivers can unionize as independent contractors; Massachusetts voters passed a ballot referendum in November allowing unionization, while drivers in Illinois and Minnesota are pushing for similar rights.
“Donald Trump is holding the government hostage and stripping away worker protections,” Newsom said in a statement, referring to the estimated 750,000 federal employees who are furloughed as a result of the first federal government shutdown since 2018, with the administration planning to implement another sweeping wave of cuts.
“In California, we’re doing the opposite: proving government can deliver – giving drivers the power to unionize while we continue our work to lower costs for families. That’s the difference between chaos and competence,” he added.
A white Kansas sheriff’s deputy charged with murder in the death of an incarcerated Black person shoved his knee into the cuffed man’s back for 1 minute and 26 seconds after he was wheeled back to his cell from the infirmary, newly released court records show.
Texas megachurch founder Robert Morris pleaded guilty in an Oklahoma court on Oct. 2 to sex crimes against a girl that started in 1982 and continued for years.
s boats from the Global Sumud Flotilla prepared to set sail toward Gaza from the coasts of Italy, Spain, and Tunisia, a representative of Genoa’s Dockworkers’ Union (CALP), now part of Unione Sindacale di Base, declared that if anything happened to the flotilla, workers would “block everything.”
At least 53 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since dawn across Gaza as Israel threatened tens of thousands remaining in Gaza City with a forced order to leave, saying it was their “last opportunity” to flee or face the “full force” of Israel’s assault.
Mediators have made contact with the head of Hamas's military wing in Gaza, who has indicated he does not agree to the new US ceasefire plan, the BBC understands.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has warned that supplying US Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine would lead to a “whole new level of escalation”, including in relations between Moscow and Washington. Responding to questions at a forum in Sochi, Putin said it would not change the situation on the battlefield, where the Russian army is making slow but steady advances.
