Drive to Precarity

A Political History of Work, Regulation, & Labor Advocacy in San Francisco’s Taxi and Uber Economies

A lecture with Veena Dubal

This lecture will examine both the creation of secure work and its demise through a critical case study: over a century of ride-hailing work in San Francisco, California. Since their entrée on the streets in 1909, chauffeur corporations—from the Taxicab Company to Uber—underwent formative re-organizations to shift the liabilities and responsibilities of business onto workers. Counterintuitively, these changes in corporate form were met with decreased regulation and a contracted business-labor bargain. Dubal’s research shows how the transformation of the corporate form, the shrinking bargain, and the rejoinders of the state triangulated to produce worker risk and weaken the relationship between work and security.

Veena Dubal is an associate professor of law at UC Hastings College of Law.  Her research focuses on the intersection of law, technology, and precarious work. Dubal has been cited by the California Supreme Court, and her scholarship has been published in top-tier law review and peer-reviewed journals.

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