In the summertime of 2019, Uber, Lyft and different corporations that use contract drivers confronted a disaster in California. The State Legislature was poised to cross a regulation that may successfully require them to deal with their drivers as staff, which means the gig corporations must pay drivers a minimal wage, cowl their bills and contribute to state unemployment — all important new prices.
Determined for a means out, the businesses pushed legislators to exempt their drivers from the brand new regulation, saying they confronted enormous financial losses. However they wished the backing of the state’s unions for the exemption, and promised to increase some new advantages for drivers if the unions obtained on board.
So Uber introduced in a crew of high-powered consultants, together with one whose connections with organized labor had been unimpeachable: Laphonza Butler, the previous president of California’s largest union, a department of the Service Staff Worldwide Union.
Ms. Butler, working by a distinguished California consulting agency, suggested Uber on how one can cope with unions just like the Teamsters and S.E.I.U., and sat in on a number of face-to-face conferences between the gig corporations and union representatives, based on these aware of the negotiations.
The overture to labor divided union activists, a few of whom bristled at negotiating with the businesses, and finally, it failed. However Ms. Butler’s chapter with Uber proved to be a pivotal second in her profession, transferring from labor activism to the world of high-powered political consulting, which additionally concerned a task in advising Vice President Kamala Harris in her 2020 presidential marketing campaign.
On Sunday, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California introduced that he was naming Ms. Butler because the state’s subsequent senator, changing Dianne Feinstein, who died final week. Many Democrats cheered the appointment of Ms. Butler, the third Black girl to serve within the Senate and a distinguished determine in Democratic politics for greater than a decade who most lately served as president of Emily’s Checklist, the political motion committee that works to elect girls and candidates who help abortion rights.
However the appointment has additionally drawn ire from labor advocates, who haven’t forgotten Ms. Butler’s work consulting with Uber, which some noticed as an uncomfortable reversal from her historical past within the labor motion and the values she promoted there.
“The sense was she was betraying her dedication to working folks,” mentioned Veena Dubal, a professor on the College of California, Irvine, College of Regulation, who has argued that Uber’s drivers ought to be categorized as staff. “She bought out in a very large means.”
The negotiations Ms. Butler was concerned in finally fell aside, and the gig corporations turned to a poll initiative with related provisions, Proposition 22, that voters handed the next 12 months.
Supporters of Ms. Butler mentioned her time consulting for Uber was scarcely a blip in contrast along with her lengthy historical past of labor advocacy, which incorporates organizing a whole bunch of hundreds of staff in nursing houses and home-based care and efficiently pushing for a statewide $15-per-hour minimal wage.
“Labor hasn’t had a union chief within the Senate in 60 years — not to mention a union president who spent practically twenty years main profitable campaigns to lift the minimal wage and assist staff set up,” mentioned Jeffrey Lerner, the performing chief of employees for Ms. Butler. “That’s Senator Butler’s résumé and people are her values.”
Ms. Butler declined to be interviewed for this text however instructed The San Francisco Chronicle this week that she believed gig drivers “ought to have the protections of employment,” and mentioned her function with Uber “was one which was per my résumé.” Uber additionally declined to remark.
In 2019, Mr. Newsom’s administration inspired the gig corporations and labor unions to work out their variations over the difficulty, a number of folks concerned within the discussions mentioned. Uber and Lyft wished to influence the unions to again a invoice they may convey to the Legislature that may exempt their drivers from Meeting Invoice 5, which might deal with many classes of gig staff, like freelance writers and janitors, as staff for the needs of employment regulation.
In change for the exemption, the gig corporations would agree that the drivers may obtain some restricted advantages and be a part of “community driver advocacy organizations” by which the state’s unions would signify them and negotiate for some labor rights.
Ms. Butler was introduced in as effectively, with Uber paying the crew on the consulting agency the place she labored, SCRB Methods, now referred to as Bearstar Methods, $185,000 in 2019 and 2020. She was seen basically as a translator, serving to firm managers perceive the subtleties of labor leaders’ positions and body arguments in ways in which would enchantment to the unions, based on a number of folks aware of the discussions, who declined to be recognized as a result of they weren’t licensed to debate inner Uber points or didn’t need to air inner conflicts within the labor motion.
One individual mentioned Ms. Butler was anticipated to tackle different duties as effectively, together with speaking along with her former union colleagues a few potential compromise. It was additionally anticipated that she may assist with a public relations technique to influence lawmakers and most people that AB-5 may have detrimental results on gig staff, although it was not clear whether or not she agreed to take action.
Ms. Butler participated in occasional convention calls with the corporate’s public affairs crew, based on two folks with data of the calls. She answered their questions and suggested Uber to make use of fewer obscure tech trade buzzwords and be extra simple in speaking with the unions.
Ms. Butler instructed the Uber staff that she would assist them so long as it didn’t betray her values, one of many folks recalled.
Nonetheless, Ms. Butler’s presence on the opposite facet of the negotiating desk rankled most of the state’s most distinguished labor unions, a number of union officers mentioned, though they didn’t need to focus on the matter publicly as a result of they didn’t need to cross Mr. Newsom and Ms. Butler.
The months of discussions stretched from consultants’ places of work in Sacramento to accommodations in Oakland and the headquarters of Uber and Salesforce in San Francisco. They included massive group negotiations, boards for drivers to share their views with labor organizers and smaller sit-downs between the unions’ prime negotiators and gig firm executives, together with John Zimmer, the previous president of Lyft, and Tony West, Uber’s chief authorized officer and the brother-in-law of Vice President Harris.
Ms. Butler’s function throughout the conferences she attended was minimal, based on a number of folks. She sat on the sidelines listening, exchanged transient niceties with the union leaders she knew and as soon as made introductions throughout a gathering by which drivers gave their perspective to the 2 events.
Leaders of S.E.I.U., the union the place Ms. Butler had previously labored, had been essentially the most amenable to reducing a deal, based on two folks concerned within the discussions. However many different unions had been strongly opposed, fearing they had been bargaining away essential employment rights for susceptible staff. The talks fizzled out.
Meeting Invoice 5 handed that fall and took impact the next 12 months, however Uber and Lyft finally obtained what they wished anyway, becoming a member of DoorDash to spend greater than $200 million on Prop. 22, handed by voters in 2020, which maintained gig drivers’ standing as unbiased contractors and offered them restricted advantages, like a wage flooring and a few medical health insurance stipends. The measure is at present going through a authorized problem.
Ms. Butler was not concerned within the Prop. 22 marketing campaign and left the consulting agency in 2020 to turn into a director of public coverage at Airbnb, the short-term dwelling rental firm launched in San Francisco.
Like Uber, Airbnb has confronted regulatory warmth in Democratic, union-friendly strongholds like New York, the place the corporate was being blamed for pushing up rents for working class residents and hurting lodge jobs. (Airbnb has mentioned many different components have triggered rents to rise in New York and that its enterprise mannequin has helped drive down lodging prices for shoppers.) One of many firm’s chief adversaries in New York had been the Resort Trades Council, a robust union.
Mary Kay Henry, S.E.I.U.’s worldwide president, mentioned Ms. Butler was a “transformational” labor chief and prompt that her pro-worker voice being a part of Uber’s negotiating crew might have been a profit for staff.
“She’s who I’d need within the room serving to firms perceive what staff need and wish,” Ms. Henry mentioned.
However the animosity Ms. Butler engendered amongst organized labor stays, and supporters of these working for the everlasting Senate seat — who embody Representatives Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter — have been fast to resurrect the difficulty. If Ms. Butler runs for a full time period, the unions must resolve whether or not to help her. Some, together with a firefighters’ union, a movie set staff’ union and a public transit union have already endorsed Mr. Schiff.
The deadline to hunt the endorsement of the California Democratic Occasion was initially Oct. 13, however the social gathering determined this week to push again that date to Oct. 27 to present Ms. Butler time to use if she decides to run, mentioned Rusty Hicks, the state social gathering’s chair.
For some Democrats, Ms. Butler’s appointment attracts consideration to a deeper messaging drawback throughout the Democratic Occasion. Mr. Newsom may get credit score for appointing an L.G.B.T.Q. Black senator, however her consulting work, to some, highlights the social gathering’s ties to large companies.
“This is the reason many working class voters have this distaste for the Democratic Occasion and a number of them went to Trump,” mentioned Larry Cohen, the previous president of the Communications Staff of America, which represents a whole bunch of hundreds of staff at corporations like Verizon and AT&T.
Mr. Cohen is now chairman of Our Revolution, a progressive advocacy group that lately endorsed Ms. Lee.
However Anthony York, a spokesman for Mr. Newsom, defended the governor’s appointment. “Anybody casting doubt on Senator Butler’s report of combating for working households both doesn’t know what they’re speaking about or has some form of political ax to grind,” he mentioned.