Prop 22 Fight stirs outrage from Veena Dubal's Sock Puppets

I have written extensively about University of California Hastings School of Law professor Veena Dubal, and the evil she has caused to those affected by the California law AB5. You can read those articles here, here, AND here.

Dubal helped assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez ruin the lives of 4.5 million independent contractors by supplying the bones of the AB5 text, and in her vocal support and advocacy of the so-called “gig workers” law. Apparently, she now feels it is her goal to debunk and convince people to vote NO on Proposition 22, which is on the California November ballot. This ballot initiative is Uber and Lyft’s response to AB5: Let the voting public and drivers decide how they wish to be treated: as independent contractors, or employees. Proposition 22’s stated goal is, “protects app-based drivers' flexibility while establishing new earnings and benefit guarantees, and protecting public safety and consumer choice”.

Should this initiative pass, it would do damage to AB5. Independent contractors and freelancers know this, gig workers and drivers know this, and it's sure as hell Lorena Gonzalez and the Unions know it. Which is why Veena Dubal and her league of unexceptional followers are on the warpath to tear the Proposition down.

Here is what is wrong with this: Veena Dubal delights in using her so-called scholarship to insert herself into debates about labor law and how best to use it to destroy the independent contractor model; this is exactly what is being done with AB5 law and the nationwide PRO Act bill.

However, when legitimately challenged on her positions, Veena turns tail and blocks the critics from her Twitter. But she goes beyond this by rallying her sock puppet followers to cry foul and claim harassment on her behalf.

Dubal freely admitted this after the publication of my series:

Dubal would know about dissemination of false information. When independent contractors, freelancers and gig workers were desperate to get PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance) payments, and the California Employment Development Department was playing fast and loose with giving them that information, Ms. Dubal directed them to file for unemployment in order to bolster the misclassification claims against Uber and Lyft. Once those claims were rightly denied, she steered them toward a Legal Aid lawyer as referenced here:

This is the same woman who applauded the rising Covid-19 numbers because it justified the need for "employee protections":

Veena Dubal is neither innocent, nor ignorant of the molotov cocktails she throws, nor of the damage it causes, no matter how much she tries to hide behind the: I'm just a scholar, I don't influence laws schtick.

If anything, she revels in it, particularly when she has a sock puppet army to supply cover.

The campaign for Yes on Proposition 22, freely admits it is funded by Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash. What people don't bother to check is who is funding the opposition: Those astroturf driver's rights groups like Gig Workers Rising (GWR), the one who Dubal freely supports and retweets.

Among the heavy funding from non-profit organizations, GWR gets financial support from the Teamsters and SEIU, the two biggest labor unions in the country. These same unions funded Lorena Gonzalez and the other California legislature tools who pushed through AB5.

So please, cry me a river about the heavy corporate funding on Yes on Prop 22.

The Yes on Prop 22 campaign has been going gangbusters, spotlighting the drivers who want to continue to work unencumbered by "employee protections", and keeping us all abreast of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra's campaign to destroy the app companies.

On August 6, the campaign took to Twitter to mock Dubal’s hypocrisy and how easily she uses her Blocker Trigger Finger against her critics.

This is a question that has been asked by independent contractors, freelancers, and gig workers who have been the recipient of this treatment. So a representation of the 4.5 million affected by AB5, and who have been blocked by Dubal responded:

There were even responses by some who never even engaged Dubal on Twitter, but were pre-emptively blocked!

Why is someone who is 1) a labor lawyer; 2) an academic; and 3) claims to be a champion for the marginalized so feckless at defending her own positions?

More importantly, how do you get unions and politicians to come to your defense? Along with the drivers, union-sponsored accounts, and yes, bots, District 27 Assemblyman Ash Kalra, who co-sponsored and championed for the passage of AB5 waded into the melee to express his outrage.

One wonders where his outrage was over South African immigrant and domestic worker Carmel Foster, who his colleague Assemblyman Phil Ting bedded and used for four years to craft legislation. But, I digress....

Then Nicole Moore, a supposed Lyft driver leapt to Dubal's defense.

Nicole Moore is active on Twitter to expose the “extremely exploitative business models” of Uber and Lyft and defend the need for drivers to unionize. What has been discovered is that she is a union plant. Several drivers and independent contractors have pointed this out, but this one brings the receipts.

Now, the unionized writers have gotten into the game. Slate writer Aaron Mak came to Dubal's defense with a piece titled, “Why Is an Advocacy Group Funded by Uber and Lyft Hounding a Law Professor on Twitter?” Writer Mak decries the “targeting a law professor on Twitter over her efforts to get their workers classified as employees.”

To Mack’s credit, he does point out that Dubal has been a prominent advocate of AB5 and vocal critic of Prop 22. Here is where he starts shredding the truth: “On Twitter, she was buffeted with threats and vulgar harassment, often denigrating her identity as a woman of color. Other accounts circulated false rumors about her, alleging that she was harassing independent contractors on Twitter.”

Mak then supplies tweets (with the names blocked out—how considerate), to back up these “threats and vulgar harassment”, while ignoring other tweets (the majority, frankly) calling Dubal to account for her involvement in AB5 and in pushing an agenda to derail Prop 22.

Dubal’s sock puppets want to paint every critic who has been blocked by her as evil, or the typical response of those who have no defense, as bots bought and paid for by Uber and Lyft, when much of the push back she receives is either legitimate concern that her “scholarship” and advocacy hurts not just drivers, but freelancers, independent contractors, and the self-employed. While this writer cannot yet find a union connection to Dubal's fixation in destroying the independent contractor model, the fact that the propagandist for the California Federation of Labor and Union salter Nicole Moore come to her defense reeks to high heaven.

But if fully addressed, that would change the narrative from poor, put upon academic who is just trying to help “the worker” gain equity, to a narcissistic, privileged, and entitled fraud who cannot take any criticism, and manipulates people into defending her empty scholarship, gaslighting, and lies.