ACS Puget Sound: Gig Workers and The New Racial Wage Code

Please join the ACS Puget Sound Lawyer Chapter as they welcome Professor Veena Dubal of the University of California, Hastings College of the Law for a discussion of her forthcoming article, The New Racial Wage Code, which charts the history of racial wage codes and situates California’s Proposition 22’s role as another form of legalized racial discrimination.

The United States' imposition of racial wage codes— that is, the explicit adoption by the federal government of unequal pay based on race during the 1930s, is one of the many ignominious parts of our country's history. These racial wage codes, and the facially neutral, but still exclusionary wage laws subsequently passed by Congress, perpetrated racial inequality and maintained unstable economic foundations for Black workers at the same time as they built the wealth of whites.  

Fast-forward to 2020, when California voters approved Proposition 22, an industry-sponsored referendum that created a new category of employment in state law depriving gig workers, who are predominantly immigrants and people of color, of the labor and wage protections enjoyed by others. Join us for a timely discussion of how present-day laws can replicate previous injustices.