The Seattle City Council voted unanimously to allow for-hire drivers to unionize, becoming the first city to do so. But Mayor Ed Murray has reservations, writing to the Council that

City costs of administering the collective bargaining process remain unknown and the Council has placed the burden of significant rulemaking on City staff.

Additionally,

Because Seattle is the first jurisdiction to adopt such a model, there will also be significant costs associated with defending this Bill in the courts . . . .

I wrote yesterday about some of the legal arguments against this ordinance. Still, the New York Times had quoted council member Mike O'Brien as saying "he believed the law would be 'legally defensible' if it passed, having developed the ordinance 'in consultation with our law department.'" On the other hand, PubliCola quotes council member Bruce Harrell as saying, "We have concerns from our law department, valid concerns about whether this will be legally challenged."

Following the Council vote, the mayor said,

Since my concerns were not adequately addressed in this legislation, I will not sign this bill. Under the City Charter, the ordinance will become law without my signature.

(See Article IV, Section 12 of the Seattle City Charter.) The mayor also said,

The tremendous growth of TNCs in Seattle, both in terms of popularity and the number of trips, demonstrates that this new business model is changing how people move around the city. These companies are providing valuable new tools for city residents and innovating at a tremendous pace.

. . . we buy many products or services not because we want ownership of them per se, but because we want access to the service they provide. . . .

 

Until recently, in order to access these services, we would have bought a drill, bought a car, and permanently hired the worker. We would have sought to own rather than rent these services because the cost of transacting each time we wanted them would have been too high. . . .

 

Now entrepreneurs are solving these problems for us. Despite the protestation of taxi drivers, ride-sharing apps like Uber are not just successful because of a lighter regulatory regime – but because they give us options and price information instantly, provide trust mechanisms through ranking systems and driver identity features, and allow for immediate payment without even having to open your wallet. In short, they make it more efficient to rent services.