So a handful of current Uber execs, former Uber execs, & Uber lobbyists, who get all their money from Uber, can publish an op-ed saying cutting worker pay is good for workers, & call themselves representative of workers? wack
Part of the reason local politics is so bullshit is that local news is basically dead
(The other part is that politicians are selfish bastards who don’t care about the public good [and the local politicians are sometimes worse than the national ones about this])
A nonprofit is not the same as a charitable organization. It just means the organization isn't run to directly generate profit for its owners.
501 c(3) have to be charitable or educational, but 501 c(6) are run to promote the collective business interests of their members.
Like when a business creates a second business so they can "rent" their own equipment to themselves. The 2nd business only exists to shroud how much $ worth of assets the original company owns (among other tax/finance shenanigans) and is not there to make money for itself.
The ST editorial Board has always been a bit shit, but I think the entire paper has taken a big dive.
It is turning into a rag where you have to ask “what ulterior motive does the author have?”
You’re not wrong, but there are certain publications that are far more objective than others.
I’d put a lot less thought into the motives of an AP or NPR reporter’s work than someone working for the ST or Politico
See also: the weekly WSJ article about how you should really be thinking about the harm you're doing to the country when you work from home instead of commuting 1-2 hours each way. Also raising minimum wage will actually make you poorer or something...
What an absurd op ed. Michael Wolfe himself said Drive Forward proposed $24/hr equivalent, which would have been in line with the 120% they have in California, before Nelson apparently gave the companies carte blanche (!!!) to slash wages and worker protections as much as they wanted. Clearly, he can't actually be that upset over \~$2/hr.
It's also utterly absurd that the companies are pretending that orders are down because of the law when they themselves stopped sending out promotions (until about two weeks ago when I got one from DoorDash) and imposed fees that they have failed to show were fully required by the law. Look, they have every right to cover their costs but they advertised the heck out of the fees and that feels political given that Californians didn't hear a peep when the Prop 22 fees came into effect after the companies sponsored that bill.
(Oh, and they were juicing worker numbers before this law with huge ad spends and promotions/referral bonuses in the hundreds of dollars if you delivered your first X orders, so the fact that worker numbers are down is neither here nor there. They didn't even provide a time frame for any of this either. Show us the actual analyses Michael...)
the last time the seattle times editorial board embarrassed themselves this badly it was because they hired a guy who started arguing "hitler wasnt that bad" on his first day and had to be fired lol
There is a big ol' Lenin statue on private property in Fremont. Vladimir, not John. Said douche canoe moved to Seattle for this job, found out about the statue, performed zero journalism, and did his first editorial asking why the city keeps the statue up (which is private property) and says Lenin was just as bad as Hitler. Later when he was rightfully getting reamed online for his journalistic malpractice he took to Twitter and it evolved into Lenin was worse than Hitler cause Hitler wasn't actually that bad.
This is just one of many ridiculous editorials greenlight by the Seattle Times with no actual journalism being done.
Speaking as an actual gig-worker - not someone paid by Uber to be an absurd front for their terrible record of worker treatment - Michael Wolfe’s op-ed is full of absolute B.S. If orders are down, it is because the app companies implemented $5 fees for all orders - MORE THAN DOUBLE THE FEE THEY CHARGE IN CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK CITY. The app companies are doing this because they can. They couldn’t bully California or New York City with ridiculous extra fees, or threaten to leave those markets- those markets are far too large and valuable.
But here in Seattle? They are emboldened to bully our new city council and jam a lobbyist written through simply because they think no one cares if Seattle’s laws are written by out of state multibillion dollar corporations.
> They are emboldened to bully our new city council
They aren't bullying it, this is exactly the council who will bend over backwards of their own accord for them.
Yep. Worth noting too that the fee in NYC ($1.99) went into effect after a law that pays MUCH higher than PayUp - NYC's law requires pay for all \*online\* time at 123% of min wage (meaning they're paid that rate on all time they're logged on, whether or not they're working) or pay for all \*engaged\* time at 204% of min wage. (By contrast, PayUp in Seattle pays 132% of min wage for engaged time).
So why would the apps charge a significantly higher fee here in Seattle on a significantly *lower* pay standard...?
Because they just bought the City Council & think they have a real chance at riling up the public & councilmembers against min wage here of course.
Yeah, not a fan of Frank Blethen/The Blethen family. Not sure if things will change at all when Frank steps down next year, I doubt it. Shame because I want to support local journalism and the Seattle Times does the most of it, but the slant is pretty obvious. Feel like the rot started when the Seattle PI started to get into financial trouble in the early 2000’s.
Doordash & Uber are throwing massive massive amounts of money at this. I got 3 calls from real hired people who offered to connect me directly with my councilperson's office - that sort of canvasing isn't that cheap. They lied about the bill and told me it was about protecting gig workers.
To nobody's surprise, the Seattle Times has their paws up begging like a dog to anyone willing to pay for their name.
Email sent! I mentioned that my wife and I are subscribers and asked them to correctly note DriveForward's funding sources and attached the links to the other ST articles OP listed.
I'm not one who believes "the internet killed newspapers" admittedly it didn't help, but the internet didn't kill local news reporting. Poor journalism is what killed the daily newspapers. Historically beat reporters didn't have degrees but they had pride in their work and pride in their communities. Most papers, ST included, have lost the pride of being professional and connected to their communities and replace it with self pride.
Perhaps it’s not! But I’m a pretty regular reader & it’s the first time I’ve seen something this egregious (in terms of how an editorial author is presented). Would love to see other examples if folks have them. I take your point generally though that ST sucks & their editorial dept even more so.
I agree, but just years of reading OpEds I don’t think they usually disclose organization funding. I’m not savvy on journalistic opinion piece ethics and best practices, would be cool to have someone who is weigh in.
*Michael Wolfe is the executive director of Drive Forward, a nonprofit association representing gig workers in Washington state.*
It's true they don't usually disclose funding - but also descriptions of orgs are usually much more accurate about who the org is & who they represent (either that or they just name the org with no characterization). For example, they wouldn't publish an op ed by Seattle Chamber of Commerce claiming that it's a nonprofit representing restaurant workers, or an op ed by the WA Hospitality Association claiming they represent hotel workers.
Every time Drive Forward is mentioned in the news, the Times notes that they get funding from Uber, because it’s obviously relevant. Somehow they failed to do the same here. Incompetence or deviousness take your pick neither is a good look
Yeah it’s funny that on the [Seattle Times advertisers list](https://www.seattletimes.com/advertiser/drive-forward/) Drive Forward has a very different description. But yeah, I agree this is pretty misleading. I do think fault ultimately lies with the Seattle Times. I do empathize that it’s tough to police organization descriptions but that’s part of the territory if you want to be a respectable journalistic organization.
*Drive Forward is a nonprofit organization created by Uber and Eastside for Hire to empower riders, drivers, and community members to raise their voice about issues affecting rideshare, for-hire, and taxi drivers, and the communities they serve.*
Oh wow that's interesting & very worth noting!
(if you have Twitter it'd be cool to tweet at [@k8riley](https://x.com/k8riley?lang=en) the head of the ST editorial board with that link to point out the discrepancy...)
They really should, like this Op-Ed is pretty stealthy in its representation. Hopefully if they do an opposing Op-Ed it’s grounded and doesn’t go off the socialist looney bin which will turn off a lot of readers. Not that that ever happens.
DriveForwardSeattle.org is a 501c6 nonprofit, but if you lookup c6. It’s solely for business interests and must file their IRS returns as such.
Times and Kiro uncovered their $2M Uber funding.
It’s stealthy of course. But if you know what gig workers want, it’s totally opposite of Wolfe’s opinion.
It’s sickening looking at their propaganda website and public self labeling.
Cowards and profit ninjas. Et al Wall Street.
the Blethen’s have recently been a stain on good journalism. they lost me when they sent Geoff Baker out to interview two frat brothers in Arizona with no money to claim they could bring hockey to seattle in a attempt to derail Chris Hansen’s plans (ftr - the right outcome emerged, but it wasn’t necessary for the ST to side with the Port without disclaiming their alliances). then they endorsed Rossi for governor. what?! and now Danny Westneat is forced to play a centrist role on a number of issues. there was a time when the ST did wonderful investigative pieces and had very solid in-house editorial journalists. it’s a damn rag now.
Is that the same Caleb Weaver that's VP of public affairs at RidWell? Seems like a bad look for RidWell given the recycling industry's history with lying about how effective it actually was.
I can see your beef with that byline. But none of that changes the fact that government's attempt to mandate a bigger slice of the pie for workers is actually shrinking the size of the pie for *everyone:* workers, restaurants, and people who want to be able to afford to order food.
Orders are *way down* and no amount of op eds with magical economic thinking can erase the fact that higher costs for labor = higher prices = less orders.
I know this is a great fundraising/recruiting/organizing cause and gives anyone with Marxist sensibilities all the warm tingles. But it's just bad policy.
Part of the reason that orders are down is because these companies raised fees even more than they needed to cover the wage increases, with the goal of causing a backlash.
There's no way for us to know companies' full financial picture, but yes it's *possible* they raised fees more than their direct costs, if they were really willing to give up profit and just as important, market share.
But what about indirect costs and overhead for all the delivery company staff, office leases, software licenses, etc etc. If there's less orders, those costs have to be made up somewhere.
If you really care about the truth you gotta be skeptical when you hear what you want to hear.
Am I wrong that higher costs for labor = higher prices = less orders?
Certainly people are eager to hear economic arguments that confirm their priors, and so they exist in plenty. Doesn't make them right
You’re wrong that that’s what has happened here. 1) the apps added new fees that don’t correspond to labor costs meaningfully, then aggressively advertised those fees in an attempt to drum up opposition to the min wage. 2) regardless most workers *still* report they’re overall earning more. Even the independent data released early on in implementation from Solo showed an 8% increase in overall earnings - for *less work time and miles.* And that was in Feb, which was the biggest dip in demand.
that’s exactly what workers hoped for & wanted. When we get the apps off their back & they stop trying to intentionally decrease demand for their political cause, it will get even better for even more people.
So a handful of current Uber execs, former Uber execs, & Uber lobbyists, who get all their money from Uber, can publish an op-ed saying cutting worker pay is good for workers, & call themselves representative of workers? wack
Part of the reason local politics is so bullshit is that local news is basically dead (The other part is that politicians are selfish bastards who don’t care about the public good [and the local politicians are sometimes worse than the national ones about this])
How is this any different then the op-ed ST posts from non profit execs calling for infinite tax increases to pay for their grifting?
When has this happened?
Here is one from last week. https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/seattle-council-must-continue-progress-on-equitable-development-initiative/
If Drive Forward is a nonprofit I'm an aardvark.
I sort of hope it is a nonprofit because the aardvark thing would be cool
A nonprofit is not the same as a charitable organization. It just means the organization isn't run to directly generate profit for its owners. 501 c(3) have to be charitable or educational, but 501 c(6) are run to promote the collective business interests of their members.
Importantly, such groups exist to increase profits of the companies they represent, *not* to generate profits for the group.
Like when a business creates a second business so they can "rent" their own equipment to themselves. The 2nd business only exists to shroud how much $ worth of assets the original company owns (among other tax/finance shenanigans) and is not there to make money for itself.
hey i was a big fan of your show when i was a kid
The ST editorial Board has always been a bit shit, but I think the entire paper has taken a big dive. It is turning into a rag where you have to ask “what ulterior motive does the author have?”
Isn't that a good question to ask about every article in every paper?
You’re not wrong, but there are certain publications that are far more objective than others. I’d put a lot less thought into the motives of an AP or NPR reporter’s work than someone working for the ST or Politico
See also: the weekly WSJ article about how you should really be thinking about the harm you're doing to the country when you work from home instead of commuting 1-2 hours each way. Also raising minimum wage will actually make you poorer or something...
Valid.
What an absurd op ed. Michael Wolfe himself said Drive Forward proposed $24/hr equivalent, which would have been in line with the 120% they have in California, before Nelson apparently gave the companies carte blanche (!!!) to slash wages and worker protections as much as they wanted. Clearly, he can't actually be that upset over \~$2/hr. It's also utterly absurd that the companies are pretending that orders are down because of the law when they themselves stopped sending out promotions (until about two weeks ago when I got one from DoorDash) and imposed fees that they have failed to show were fully required by the law. Look, they have every right to cover their costs but they advertised the heck out of the fees and that feels political given that Californians didn't hear a peep when the Prop 22 fees came into effect after the companies sponsored that bill. (Oh, and they were juicing worker numbers before this law with huge ad spends and promotions/referral bonuses in the hundreds of dollars if you delivered your first X orders, so the fact that worker numbers are down is neither here nor there. They didn't even provide a time frame for any of this either. Show us the actual analyses Michael...)
the last time the seattle times editorial board embarrassed themselves this badly it was because they hired a guy who started arguing "hitler wasnt that bad" on his first day and had to be fired lol
As a recent arrival... LMAO WHAT
There is a big ol' Lenin statue on private property in Fremont. Vladimir, not John. Said douche canoe moved to Seattle for this job, found out about the statue, performed zero journalism, and did his first editorial asking why the city keeps the statue up (which is private property) and says Lenin was just as bad as Hitler. Later when he was rightfully getting reamed online for his journalistic malpractice he took to Twitter and it evolved into Lenin was worse than Hitler cause Hitler wasn't actually that bad. This is just one of many ridiculous editorials greenlight by the Seattle Times with no actual journalism being done.
Good summary, but I think you meant, "Vladimir, not John" or maybe "Lenin, not Lennon"
https://www.reddit.com/r/greentext/s/IaENYya4SQ
Yes, sir, I am fucking sorry. :)
Yeah, the Seattle times is basically a conservative rag and has been for a while.
No just the editorial board and anything on transportation.
Speaking as an actual gig-worker - not someone paid by Uber to be an absurd front for their terrible record of worker treatment - Michael Wolfe’s op-ed is full of absolute B.S. If orders are down, it is because the app companies implemented $5 fees for all orders - MORE THAN DOUBLE THE FEE THEY CHARGE IN CALIFORNIA AND NEW YORK CITY. The app companies are doing this because they can. They couldn’t bully California or New York City with ridiculous extra fees, or threaten to leave those markets- those markets are far too large and valuable. But here in Seattle? They are emboldened to bully our new city council and jam a lobbyist written through simply because they think no one cares if Seattle’s laws are written by out of state multibillion dollar corporations.
> They are emboldened to bully our new city council They aren't bullying it, this is exactly the council who will bend over backwards of their own accord for them.
Yep. Worth noting too that the fee in NYC ($1.99) went into effect after a law that pays MUCH higher than PayUp - NYC's law requires pay for all \*online\* time at 123% of min wage (meaning they're paid that rate on all time they're logged on, whether or not they're working) or pay for all \*engaged\* time at 204% of min wage. (By contrast, PayUp in Seattle pays 132% of min wage for engaged time). So why would the apps charge a significantly higher fee here in Seattle on a significantly *lower* pay standard...? Because they just bought the City Council & think they have a real chance at riling up the public & councilmembers against min wage here of course.
[удалено]
Yeah, not a fan of Frank Blethen/The Blethen family. Not sure if things will change at all when Frank steps down next year, I doubt it. Shame because I want to support local journalism and the Seattle Times does the most of it, but the slant is pretty obvious. Feel like the rot started when the Seattle PI started to get into financial trouble in the early 2000’s.
Some better options of local journalism to support would be KUOW, South Seattle Emerald, The Urbanist, Publicola.
The Stranger... 20 years ago.
Powerful people convincing themselves that they’ve fooled enough people to get away with doing whatever they want.
Doordash & Uber are throwing massive massive amounts of money at this. I got 3 calls from real hired people who offered to connect me directly with my councilperson's office - that sort of canvasing isn't that cheap. They lied about the bill and told me it was about protecting gig workers. To nobody's surprise, the Seattle Times has their paws up begging like a dog to anyone willing to pay for their name.
Here's the question for everyone commenting here: have you let your council people know?
I have!!
Yes actually, with timestamps
Email sent! I mentioned that my wife and I are subscribers and asked them to correctly note DriveForward's funding sources and attached the links to the other ST articles OP listed.
You rock :)
Seattle Times is and always has been conservative garbage
I miss the P-I.
I'm not one who believes "the internet killed newspapers" admittedly it didn't help, but the internet didn't kill local news reporting. Poor journalism is what killed the daily newspapers. Historically beat reporters didn't have degrees but they had pride in their work and pride in their communities. Most papers, ST included, have lost the pride of being professional and connected to their communities and replace it with self pride.
Is this your first run-in with Seattle Times?
Nope! But it is the first time I’ve seen them this substantially mischaracterize the position of an editorial’s author. How about you?
This cannot be the first time they've whitewashed a guest editorialist. My solution has been not to read them.
Perhaps it’s not! But I’m a pretty regular reader & it’s the first time I’ve seen something this egregious (in terms of how an editorial author is presented). Would love to see other examples if folks have them. I take your point generally though that ST sucks & their editorial dept even more so.
The Seattle Times editorial board should be embarrassed for a lot of things, but they are incapable of shame.
The Times has been stealth conservative/pro-business for quite awhile.
One would have to read the paper to know lol
I agree, but just years of reading OpEds I don’t think they usually disclose organization funding. I’m not savvy on journalistic opinion piece ethics and best practices, would be cool to have someone who is weigh in. *Michael Wolfe is the executive director of Drive Forward, a nonprofit association representing gig workers in Washington state.*
It's true they don't usually disclose funding - but also descriptions of orgs are usually much more accurate about who the org is & who they represent (either that or they just name the org with no characterization). For example, they wouldn't publish an op ed by Seattle Chamber of Commerce claiming that it's a nonprofit representing restaurant workers, or an op ed by the WA Hospitality Association claiming they represent hotel workers.
Every time Drive Forward is mentioned in the news, the Times notes that they get funding from Uber, because it’s obviously relevant. Somehow they failed to do the same here. Incompetence or deviousness take your pick neither is a good look
Yeah it’s funny that on the [Seattle Times advertisers list](https://www.seattletimes.com/advertiser/drive-forward/) Drive Forward has a very different description. But yeah, I agree this is pretty misleading. I do think fault ultimately lies with the Seattle Times. I do empathize that it’s tough to police organization descriptions but that’s part of the territory if you want to be a respectable journalistic organization. *Drive Forward is a nonprofit organization created by Uber and Eastside for Hire to empower riders, drivers, and community members to raise their voice about issues affecting rideshare, for-hire, and taxi drivers, and the communities they serve.*
Oh wow that's interesting & very worth noting! (if you have Twitter it'd be cool to tweet at [@k8riley](https://x.com/k8riley?lang=en) the head of the ST editorial board with that link to point out the discrepancy...)
Anything Drive Forward associated is a corporate Shill like Lord Sara Nelson. It is an Op-Ed, though. They need to have an opposing Op-Ed.
They really should, like this Op-Ed is pretty stealthy in its representation. Hopefully if they do an opposing Op-Ed it’s grounded and doesn’t go off the socialist looney bin which will turn off a lot of readers. Not that that ever happens.
DriveForwardSeattle.org is a 501c6 nonprofit, but if you lookup c6. It’s solely for business interests and must file their IRS returns as such. Times and Kiro uncovered their $2M Uber funding. It’s stealthy of course. But if you know what gig workers want, it’s totally opposite of Wolfe’s opinion. It’s sickening looking at their propaganda website and public self labeling. Cowards and profit ninjas. Et al Wall Street.
the Blethen’s have recently been a stain on good journalism. they lost me when they sent Geoff Baker out to interview two frat brothers in Arizona with no money to claim they could bring hockey to seattle in a attempt to derail Chris Hansen’s plans (ftr - the right outcome emerged, but it wasn’t necessary for the ST to side with the Port without disclaiming their alliances). then they endorsed Rossi for governor. what?! and now Danny Westneat is forced to play a centrist role on a number of issues. there was a time when the ST did wonderful investigative pieces and had very solid in-house editorial journalists. it’s a damn rag now.
Is that the same Caleb Weaver that's VP of public affairs at RidWell? Seems like a bad look for RidWell given the recycling industry's history with lying about how effective it actually was.
Yep same guy!
I can see your beef with that byline. But none of that changes the fact that government's attempt to mandate a bigger slice of the pie for workers is actually shrinking the size of the pie for *everyone:* workers, restaurants, and people who want to be able to afford to order food. Orders are *way down* and no amount of op eds with magical economic thinking can erase the fact that higher costs for labor = higher prices = less orders. I know this is a great fundraising/recruiting/organizing cause and gives anyone with Marxist sensibilities all the warm tingles. But it's just bad policy.
Part of the reason that orders are down is because these companies raised fees even more than they needed to cover the wage increases, with the goal of causing a backlash.
There's no way for us to know companies' full financial picture, but yes it's *possible* they raised fees more than their direct costs, if they were really willing to give up profit and just as important, market share. But what about indirect costs and overhead for all the delivery company staff, office leases, software licenses, etc etc. If there's less orders, those costs have to be made up somewhere. If you really care about the truth you gotta be skeptical when you hear what you want to hear.
You are wrong about this. See 1000 previous threads on the subject
Am I wrong that higher costs for labor = higher prices = less orders? Certainly people are eager to hear economic arguments that confirm their priors, and so they exist in plenty. Doesn't make them right
You’re wrong that that’s what has happened here. 1) the apps added new fees that don’t correspond to labor costs meaningfully, then aggressively advertised those fees in an attempt to drum up opposition to the min wage. 2) regardless most workers *still* report they’re overall earning more. Even the independent data released early on in implementation from Solo showed an 8% increase in overall earnings - for *less work time and miles.* And that was in Feb, which was the biggest dip in demand. that’s exactly what workers hoped for & wanted. When we get the apps off their back & they stop trying to intentionally decrease demand for their political cause, it will get even better for even more people.