Enough D.C. Council members oppose a bill that would legalize passenger service in self-driving cars operated by Waymo and other companies to sink it, but the key architect of the measure is making significant concessions in order to win over skeptical labor unions.
Three council members on the key Transportation Committee — Zachary Parker, Elissa Silverman and Mayor-elect Janeese Lewis George — have said they would vote “no” on the bill if it were put to them this week. The lawmakers, citing labor displacement and safety concerns, are advocating to delay any votes until next session, when new council members and Lewis George’s appointees take office.
Before they can pump the brakes, committee chair and bill author Charles Allen has re-drafted the bill to address its detractors’ concerns in a last-minute Hail Mary. The new version he unveiled on Tuesday includes a total vehicle cap of 800 across D.C. for all companies, and — in a significant enticement to labor unions — would allow both rideshare drivers and those working at autonomous vehicle maintenance facilities to unionize.
Other provisions of the bill that Allen said make it “the most worker-friendly, the most safety-focused, the most progressive legislation” on AVs in the country: A vehicle miles-traveled tax that would dedicate revenue to displaced rideshare workers and manage congestion, a requirement that operators begin offering wheelchair-accessible rides, stringent data-sharing, and a lengthy driverless testing phase before commercial service can roll out.
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“If someone were to actually step back, read what’s in the bill, the very things they say that they want: safer streets, protections for workers, a robust regime that keeps an eye on a growing technology — they will see it in this bill. They will not see it in any other jurisdiction, and that’s what I’m going to ask my colleagues to evaluate,” Allen told reporters on Monday. “We’ll see where the chips fall.”
Allen had hoped to mark the bill up early this week and get it to a vote before the full council by the end of the year. But some council members began to have doubts, starting with Lewis George, who came out in opposition to the bill last month over rideshare and taxi job displacement raised by local labor unions including the Service Employees International Union.
“We understand this innovation is the future,” Lewis George said last Friday on WAMU’s “The Politics Hour.” “It isn’t about being for or against Waymo, it’s how quickly we need to get there. This is a decision I don’t believe needs to be rushed in this moment.”
Silverman told a Washington Sun reporter she sides with Lewis George’s go-it-slow approach. “I agree with council member Lewis George that we should move this when her [Department of Transportation] director, For-Hire Vehicle director, and [Department of Employment Services] director are in place,” Silverman said.
“I support authorizing autonomous vehicles in D.C.,” Parker wrote on X in response to The Sun’s reporting that he was opposed. “Before we vote, let’s take a few more months to work with the incoming mayor, who will implement the law, and address the concerns raised by firefighters, for-hire vehicle workers, and others. We’ll have a stronger bill for it.”
Allen hopes his new concessions, particularly the union piece, will be enough to get his bill to a full council vote.
“I don’t know anybody on this council that wants to vote against giving workers the right to organize. Period,” he said Monday.
A spokesperson for Uber told The Sun that the company is willing to work with the council on AVs, collective bargaining for drivers and rideshare regulation writ large, but like some council members, questioned the redrafted bill’s timing.
“With only a few weeks left in the legislative session, the Council should take the time to fully consider how these proposals work together and affect rider prices, driver protections and earnings, and service levels across the District,” LáVita Gardner, head of government affairs for Uber, said in a statement.
Allen pointed out that the council has held three hearings in the past two and a half years on AVs.
“One of the questions I’ve asked is, if people say, ‘Well, let’s just wait till next year,’ for what? Help me understand what you don’t see here,” he said. “And I have not gotten an answer to that.”
Waymo, the nation’s largest AV operator, has already begun to build out a footprint in D.C. in anticipation of the bill’s passing. It has three facilities across D.C. where company officials said its fleet would be charged and serviced and has promised to bring hundreds of jobs to the District. Already, the company Waymo contracts with for technical support to its fleet has posted an “Autonomous Vehicle Technician” role based in D.C. that pays up to $54 an hour.
“We applaud Councilmember Allen for championing AV authorization after nearly 15 years of D.C. studying this technology,” a Waymo spokesperson told The Sun in a statement. “Bringing autonomous vehicles to the District will create safer roads, high-quality jobs, and a more connected city. We will continue working with the Council to get this right so we can deliver those benefits to District residents.”
Perhaps sensing fissures within the council, last week Waymo dispatched a group of D.C. residents who have recently started jobs supporting their D.C. operations to the Wilson Building to lobby council members. But labor unions and their advocates, who fear autonomous vehicles will create job losses in an already troubled labor market, might prove more persuasive.
A spokesperson for SEIU 32BJ said last week that the midterm election results show there is a “widespread public distrust against corporate power and artificial intelligence” that should move D.C. lawmakers to reject AVs operating here at all.
“AI and robot taxis are not just an immediate threat to jobs, but they are [a] surefire way to drain local economies to feed the beast of corporate tech power that the public just voted to kill,” wrote Executive Vice President Jaime Contreras in a statement.
Lewis George, and the D.C. chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America have said the bill shouldn’t be “rush[ed]” through committee given those risks.
At-large council member and committee member Christina Henderson doesn’t share those concerns, and told The Sun she’d vote to support the bill. She views AVs as adding to the ridehailing services on offer in the District, and that Allen’s bill has allowed for “controlled growth that won’t change the status quo overnight for labor” with its vehicle cap.
“When Uber and Lyft came into the district, folks had these same arguments about job losses for taxi drivers and things like that,” Henderson said. “And while there were some shifts that took place in the marketplace in the ecosystem, I could still walk out on Pennsylvania Avenue and hail a taxi. Taxis are not gone, and I think that would be the similar way with AVs as well.”
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