Silicon Valley Democratic Club (SVDC)™

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Monday, March 15th at 7PM

for a Conversation with Ruth Silver Taube

on

Prop 22:  Were California Voters Taken for a Ride?

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Last year Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart spent a record $200 million campaigning for an Election Day ballot measure that would exempt them from California law. They won. Proposition 22 eliminates protections for rideshare workers including Workers' Compensation, unemployment benefits, minimum wage, protections against discrimination, and the ability to join a union. Prop 22 also insulates itself from future reform efforts by preempting local laws and requiring that any modifications pass the legislature with a seven-eighths supermajority. This presentation will explore the immediate impact of Prop 22 in the rideshare industry, the ripple effect of Prop 22 in related fields, options that unions are exploring in response to Prop 22, the probability of Prop 22 clones in other states, the split among Democrats on this issue, and what the Biden administration can do to blunt the effect of Prop 22.

About Ruth Silver Taube: Ruth Silver Taube is the Supervising Attorney of the Worker’s Rights Clinic at the Katharine & George Alexander Community Law Center at Santa Clara University School of Law, Special Counsel to Legal Aid at Work, and an Adjunct Professor at Santa Clara University School of Law. She is Legal Services Chair of the South Bay Coalition to End Human Trafficking, a delegate to the Santa Clara County’s Human Trafficking Commission, a delegate to the Santa Clara County’s Women’s Equality Leadership Council 2020, Coordinator of the Santa Clara County Wage Theft Coalition, an Advisory Member to the Santa Clara County Hate Crimes Task Force and a founding member of the Bay Area Equal Pay Collaborative. Ms. Silver Taube is also Supervising Attorney of the Santa Clara County Office of Labor Standards Advice Line.

After law school, Ms. Silver Taube served as a law clerk for the Honorable Ronald M. Whyte, District Court Judge for the Northern District of California, as a Federal Mediator at the EEOC, a panel mediator at the United States Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, and a partner at the Law Office of Silver and Taube where she specializes in employment law and benefits. Before law school, she was a journeywoman machinist, President of International Association of Machinists’ Local 547, and a Field Representative for SEIU Local 535. She also taught at Njala University College in Sierra Leone with the Canadian Peace Corps.

She received the Unsung Hero Award from the Santa Clara County Victim Support Network in 2013 for her workers' rights and human trafficking work. She was the keynote speaker at the Vietnamese American Bar Association's dinner in 2013. In 2007, she received the Pro Bono Service Award from the California State Bar, and, in 2016, she received the Pro Bono Recognition Award from the Santa Clara County Bar Association. She also received the Wonder Woman of the Year Award from the Santa Clara County Commission on the Status of Women in 2017 and the Promoting Justice Award from CAIR in 2018. In 2020, she was a co-recipient of the Paul and Sheila Wellstone Award from Freedom Network, USA, the largest network of anti-trafficking service providers and advocates in the United States, an award that recognizes individuals who have made a unique contribution to the anti-trafficking field in the United States or demonstrated outstanding leadership and dedication to combat human trafficking. She received the Freedom Fighter Award from the Silicon Valley/San Jose NAACP and the Modern Day Abolitionist Award for Outstanding Policy and Legal Work from the San Francisco Collaborative Against Human Trafficking in 2020.