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RECOGNITION UNDER AB 1340 IS ONE STEP
WINNING REAL CHANGES FOR DRIVERS WILL TAKE MUCH MORE THAN BARGAINING.

A STATEMENT FROM RIDESHARE DRIVERS UNITED - AUGUST 10, 2026 

The California Public Employment Relations Board has determined that the signatures filed by the California Gig Workers Union/SEIU demonstrate support from at least 30 percent of active rideshare drivers. Under AB 1340, this begins a 30-day waiting period before CGWU is certified as the bargaining representative for California rideshare drivers.

Rideshare Drivers United respects every driver who has organized for better pay, fair treatment, and a voice on the job. Drivers urgently need more power over the billion-dollar companies that control our work through secretive algorithms, constantly changing pay systems, and the threat of deactivation. We applaud the efforts of thousands of drivers and organizers to achieve this milestone. It is our hope that collective bargaining under this law will be a strong tool to bring drivers justice.

RDU is a grassroots union with more than 20,000 California driver members. Thousands of our members signed union authorization cards and recruited other drivers to support RDU as their representative under AB 1340. While SEIU/CGWU will likely be certified through this process, RDU is not going anywhere. We will continue as the union drivers built themselves, organizing, building power, and advancing a program shaped by the priorities of RDU members.

It is important to recognize that collective bargaining alone will not be enough to bring justice to California drivers. As is true for any group of workers who win collective bargaining rights, that is just the beginning of a process whose success depends on drivers building significant power through strategic action, and must ultimately be measured by what drivers actually win. We believe collective bargaining is only one of multiple strategies that must be used for drivers to win what drivers deserve. 

Collective Bargaining Without Labor Rights - A Challenge

The sectoral bargaining system created by AB 1340 is new and untested in the American taxi and rideshare industry. The highest standards for app-drivers in the US has thus far been achieved in NYC through regulation, won through powerful grassroots fights, without collective bargaining rights. In New York, drivers won a data-based rate card - a per mile/per minute payment minimum - pay that accounts for wait time and expenses, while allowing drivers the flexibility to work multiple apps. In NY, as in most other places, companies ignore minimum wage and other labor laws, but have been forced through the mandated rate card to pay drivers over minimum wage, and through litigation, drivers are covered by other safety net labor rights such as unemployment insurance.   

Our concern is that under Prop 22, drivers in California - after our significant expenses for operating our vehicles and for unpaid wait time - are averaging less than $6 an hour, nearly a third of California minimum wage. For a contract to substantially achieve drivers’ number one issue - pay - the contract would need to triple our wages just to achieve minimum wage. Fighting for anything less for the workforce that powers the profits of these billion dollar companies would be a tragic miscarriage of labor justice. 

How to Achieve Equity & Justice Under These Conditions

Proposition 22 remains the greatest legal barrier to driver justice in California. Under its company-written pay formula, companies can legally pay drivers less than $6 an hour after expenses and unpaid waiting time. In most industries, workers bargain upward from a minimum-wage floor. California rideshare drivers may be forced to bargain for years simply to reach the minimum-wage protections that other California workers already have.

That is why weakening and ultimately overturning Proposition 22 must remain central to our driver movement. No union agreement should normalize Prop 22, protect it from challenge, or treat its poverty-level pay formula as an acceptable starting point.

The wage theft claims brought by thousands of California drivers are also critical. The lawsuit, initiated by 5,000 RDU drivers, and litigated by the California Labor Commission, Attorney General, and three CA Cities, represents tens of billions of dollars owed to California drivers in pay, expenses, and damages. Uber and Lyft must be held accountable for wages stolen from drivers. Drivers deserve full compensation for what was taken from us as well as enforceable forward-facing relief that prevents the same wage theft from continuing. The leverage from this collective wage action is critical for drivers - and for California’s labor future. 

The autonomous vehicles beginning to dominate high traffic areas of our bigger California cities are navigating based on the uncompensated data that rideshare drivers created over the past 10+ years. With virtually no guardrails to protect the public from safety issues or workers from job loss, California’s entire labor future is threatened as AI takes this same pathway forward in so many other industries. The importance of drivers’ leadership in a fight to contain algorithmic and AI management in the future of work is critical. RDU will continue to build with other organizations to achieve regulation and protections from these technologies.

Unfair Playing Field for Grassroots, Driver-Led Unions

As for the law, AB 1340 was written in a way that placed grassroots driver organizations like RDU at a severe disadvantage. To qualify as a driver organization, in addition to proving years of experience advocating for drivers, the law requires any qualifying organization to also have experience negotiating collective bargaining agreements, administering contracts, filing grievances, and bringing unfair labor practice charges. 

RDU has organized California rideshare drivers for nine years. Drivers built this union from the ground up. We have organized strikes, fought wage theft, challenged unfair deactivations, opposed Proposition 22, advanced legislation, and brought drivers together across California. But because app-based drivers have historically been denied collective bargaining rights, and in fact did not have those rights until 1340 became a law, RDU could meet the law’s requirements only through affiliation with an established union.

At the same time, SEIU asserted exclusive jurisdiction over California rideshare drivers through an AFL-CIO process, effectively closing off RDU’s ability to affiliate with another AFL-CIO union. The result was a process that promised drivers freedom of choice while creating barriers that made meaningful choice nearly impossible.

Despite those barriers, RDU members have been actively working to qualify as a driver organization under AB 1340 and become the union chosen by California drivers. “Thousands of drivers signed cards with RDU because they wanted a union built and led by drivers who understand this work,” said RDU Vice President Alvaro Bolainez. “The process may keep RDU off the ballot, but it can’t erase what drivers have built or transfer their support to another organization. Those drivers still have a voice, and RDU will keep organizing together with all our members.”

What does this mean for RDU supporters?

Under the law, once an organization submits evidence of support from at least 30 percent of active drivers, another organization has only 30 days to demonstrate that it both meets the criteria to become the union and has also reached the 30 percent threshold and trigger an election. Based on our assessment of the numbers and the extremely compressed timeline now imposed by the law, RDU does not believe we will be able to reach the requirements within the 30 days.

This means that CGWU/SEIU will represent drivers for the purposes of collective bargaining. Recognition under this law does not constitute ownership of California drivers or a blank check to negotiate in our name without our meaningful involvement. Drivers regardless of their union affiliation can participate in that process. It does not mean California drivers unanimously chose CGWU. It means that the law’s requirements, combined with the effort to deny RDU an established union partner, have prevented those drivers from having their chosen union on a ballot. Since collective bargaining is not the only pathway to holding these companies accountable and improving drivers’ working conditions and pay, RDU will continue to fight together as we have always done!

Remember, all California drivers have the right to organize, speak out, act collectively, and participate directly in the decisions that affect our lives.

What happens next for RDU?

RDU will continue to organize drivers and fight for:

• Fair pay that covers all working time and all expenses

• A transparent, data-based rate card, with a per mile, per minute minimum

• Just cause and fair hearings before deactivation

• Accountability and compensation for wage theft

• Transparency and worker control over algorithmic management

• The right to strike and take collective action

• The weakening and ultimate repeal of Proposition 22

• Protections from AI management and AVs taking our jobs.

For nine years, RDU members have built a real, grassroots union of California drivers. Recognition under one law does not erase that history, silence RDU members, or end our fight.  RDU will continue fighting on every front until every California driver can work with dignity, security, and a fair share of the wealth our labor creates.

“RDU supports collective bargaining because it is another way drivers can exert their collective power to confront Uber and Lyft,” said RDU President Nicole Moore. “But recognition under one law does not erase the grassroots union drivers have built over the last nine years, nor is the only way to achieve justice. RDU will continue organizing and fighting on every front until drivers win fair pay, accountability, and real control over our working lives.”

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To join RDU, sign up at www.drivers-united.org.

For help with deactivation, contact us by filling in this form - we are working with law students and lawyers to protect drivers’ rights who have been deactivated unfairly by the companies. https://www.drivers-united.org/deactivation-clinic 

Join our wage claims campaign by signing this petition: https://www.drivers-united.org/wage-theft-campaign