These are people who know less about what it's like to work at Uber or don't have very much skin in the game. In any voting system, if you let people vote who don't know very much about the environment they are voting in or don't have much at stake, it makes fair representation difficult (unless you have fractional votes). To take an extreme example: people who visit Louisiana or have family there are certainly affected by state laws but that does not necessarily mean it is fair for them to vote on the same footing as Louisiana residents.
From a certain point of view you can see these as people who don't have much skin in the game -- so they are willing to sell their votes.
A more insidious way for this to work is that Uber could slightly favor candidates who are likely to vote their way during the on-boarding process -- varying their strategy on a month by month basis, depending on what issues are coming up for vote. You don't need a crushing margin -- and maybe don't want one -- just a good solid 3-4%.
Its more then that. People who drive for Uber rarely or are new to it don't want to pay union dues and are likely going to vote against the union.
The city didn't want a bunch of part-time or brand new drivers killing a union for the larger "full-time" group over union dues. Its a smart and relatively fair play by the authors of the law. The reason Uber/Lyft want these folks to vote is that they're likely to opt out just because of the dues.
I get that union dues can be a contentious issue for members. However, does organizing necessitate membership fees? It feels like jumping the gun to assume right away that an uber-drivers'-union would both have dues and they would be expensive enough to put off new members.
However, does organizing necessitate membership fees?
The union is going to hire an attorney to represent them in negotiations right?
And yes dues are a huge issue for new unions where members don't know what the benefits are yet - particularly for part-timers. My wife who's a management side labor attorney actually raised this point and said it was significant - and the law was written smartly to address this.
* People who are new to Uber.
* People who don't work at Uber very much.
These are people who know less about what it's like to work at Uber or don't have very much skin in the game. In any voting system, if you let people vote who don't know very much about the environment they are voting in or don't have much at stake, it makes fair representation difficult (unless you have fractional votes). To take an extreme example: people who visit Louisiana or have family there are certainly affected by state laws but that does not necessarily mean it is fair for them to vote on the same footing as Louisiana residents.