Fact check: Do Trump, Black Lives Matter Sacramento support the gig worker initiative?
It’s an endorsement season in California, with an election just about a month away.
But for Proposition 22, which would keep gig workers such as Uber and Lyft as independent contractors, figuring out who endorsed the initiative can be a bit tricky.
Neither President Donald Trump nor Black Lives Matter Sacramento has endorsed Proposition 22.
Yet opponents of the initiative have been hammering it on social media, saying the president supports it – a claim that could be seen as damaging in a deep blue state like California.
Proponents, meanwhile, have claimed the endorsement of Black Lives Matter Sacramento. Postmates made the statement in an e-mail sent to California users on Wednesday, Sept. 30.
The Trump campaign did release a statement in August criticizing the state’s Assembly Bill 5, which seeks to reclassify drivers as employees.
“Lyft and Uber drivers’ livelihoods are being threatened thanks to Biden and Harris’s support for a law demanded by liberal special interests who want to take away workers’ opportunity to make their own schedules and participate in a free and open gig economy,” Trump campaign’s communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement on Aug. 20 as the two companies threatened to pull out of California after a judge ruled the companies must follow the AB 5 and classify their drivers as employees.
But the campaign’s statement was specific to AB 5, not the initiative, Murtaugh said this week. Murtaugh referred questions about Proposition 22 to the White House, which did not respond to a request for comment.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he opposed it in a May tweet that called on voters to cast a ballot against the initiative.
As for the Black Lives Matter Sacramento, the organization’s president supports the initiative personally, but not as an organization. The organization is neutral on the initiative, the Yes on 22 campaign said in a statement Thursday, Oct. 1.
The campaign released the statement a day after Postmates’ e-mail and a tweet from the Black Lives Matter Sacramento saying it’s “waiting for the info to be corrected.” Black Lives Matter Sacramento is no longer in the list of supporters for the Yes on 22 campaign website.
“There was a miscommunication between our campaign and the president of Black Lives Matter Sacramento regarding their personal support of Prop 22 versus an organizational endorsement of the campaign,” the campaign said. “They’ve since clarified their position.”
This story was originally published October 3, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Fact check: Do Trump, Black Lives Matter Sacramento support the gig worker initiative?."
