When Uber and Lyft threatened to leave Minnesota, Gov. Tim Walz used a rare veto, Ultimately, he raised driver pay while keeping the companies in the state.
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Minnesota Gov. and Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz is putting his pro-union views front and center as he introduces himself on the national stage.
"We know that unions built the middle class," Walz said during a speech to United Auto Workers members on Thursday. "The rest of America has to."
And unions have so far embraced Walz as the VP pick, with organizations like the UAW and the AFL-CIO, the country's largest federation of unions, endorsing the Democratic ticket.
A former teacher, Walz has joined striking workers on a picket line and expanded paid medical leave in Minnesota.
But when faced with a revolt from Uber and Lyft over pro-worker legislation, Walz showed a much more pragmatic streak.
Here's how Walz handled the tense situation in his state, managing to keep Uber and Lyft from leaving Minnesota while also granting concessions to the companies' contract drivers.
In 2023, Uber and Lyft were threatening to pull operations out of Minnesota over a proposed statewide bill that would mandated minimum wages for drivers, MinnPost reported.
Despite pressure from his progressive allies and the Minnesota Uber/Lyft Driver Association (MULDA) to approve the legislation, Walz surprisingly vetoed the bill.
It was his first — and so far, only — veto as governor.
In his veto message at the time, Walz wrote that the bill "could make Minnesota one of the most expensive states in the country for rideshare." And, he added, "increased rideshare rates will limit, and potentially eliminate, needed transportation options for vulnerable communities."
That decision disappointed MULDA, which quickly started attacking Walz on X, arguing that he had caved to "corrupt corporates" and failed his "brown, Black, and minority" constituents with the veto.
But a year later, Walz and Democrats in the state legislature put forward a new bill that gave the drivers some of what they wanted while also keeping Uber and Lyft from jumping ship.
In March 2024, Uber and Lyft announced they were making good on their threat and stopping service in Minneapolis after the city council passed an ordinance to increase drivers' pay, The Verge reported at the time.
But just a few months later, Walz signed a statewide bill into law that overrode the city council's ordinance. The law Walz approved provided more modest pay increases than the city council's ordinance but still gave drivers a 20% jump in pay.
And this time, the rideshare companies agreed to continue operating in the region.
MULDA praised the new law as a "victory" on its X account, thanking the Minneapolis city council for re-introducing the issue and state lawmakers for getting it past the finish line.
With Walz's passing of the bill, Minnesota became just the second state — after Washington and just before New York — to pass legislation that regulates rideshare drivers' pay, The Verge reported.
But the law still didn't provide everything drivers wanted, like options for drivers to be considered employees rather than just contractors, which Uber and Lyft have heavily pushed back on.
Though the regulations took a circuitous path to the finish line, Walz's ability to satisfy both big business and grassroots organizers shows Walz's wide appeal among Democrats could bolster the Harris-Walz ticket in the 2024 presidential race.
