today on getting answers. the fate of app based drivers is in the hands of the california supreme court. is voter approved prop 22 constitutional. what happens to the prices you pay for rides if it's overturned this memorial day weekend, the department of veterans affairs

is expanding the first ever digital memorial to america's veterans. how you can honor your loved ones who served but first, a landmark settlement means a new era for college athletes. they could soon be paid directly from their universities for the services and revenue they generate. what you're watching getting answers. i'm kristen sze . thanks for joining us. a major development in the world of college sports that could change the very fabric of athletic competition at the college level, and an historic decision. the ncaa and power five conferences, which includes the acc that stanford and cal are now part of, agreed to allow schools to pay their athletes for the first time. but this is not a completely done deal yet. abc's andrew dymburt has more. >> the ncaa is taking a major step toward paying college athletes after long opposing the move. despite the billions in revenue the athletes helped generate. >> certainly a huge step in the sense that the ncaa, an institution that for a century

now has kind of been built on and advocated for amateurism among its student athletes, has now agreed to the terms of a settlement in which they and their schools could directly pay those student athletes a class action lawsuit against the ncaa claimed the organization broke federal law by prohibiting college athletes from profiting off their own name. >> the ncaa and its biggest conferences have now settled that lawsuit. the settlement includes $2.8 billion in damages to be distributed to current and former athletes. it also calls for a new revenue sharing model, which will pay athletes a cut of the money their schools generate from revenue streams, including ticket sales and broadcast deals. >> there's no stipulations on exactly how much will go to each athlete or each individual school, but there's certainly some questions that remain about whether title nine will factor into that. >> a judge still has to approve the deal, which could take months in 2022 alone, five of the top college sports programs generated more than $200. million athletes did not receive any compensation for most of the

ncaa history, but the organization faced an onslaught of legal challenges in recent years, and in 2021, the supreme court struck down limits on compensation for college athletes, allowing them to make money from endorsement deals. andrew dymburt, abc news, new york joining us live now to talk about the stunning settlement. >> steve berman, managing partner and co-founder of hagens berman law firm. steve, thanks for your time today. thank you. i should say congratulations, because your law firm spearheaded this seismic antitrust lawsuit and got to the settlement. explain to us what this means. what was your argument? what were the factors that led to this outcome? >> our argument was the agreement not to allow student athletes to get compensated for their name, image, likeness, or for their performance was a restraint in violation of the antitrust laws. >> and so now with this agreement, explain to us, because we understand that in recent years, nil named right image likeness, they've already

been able to make money off of endorsements, for example. right. because, you know, there are going to be in products and things like that, but this is direct payment, possibly from the universities. explain how that could work out. >> so this is very different because of our prior litigation. when the ncaa changed the rules after the supreme court ruling to allow third party nil payments. now under the settlement, there can be direct payments to student athletes and most importantly, we reached an agreement that these athletes will share in the big money, that is the media rights agreements, the tv broadcast agreements and ticket sales. >> explain to us how we got to $2.8 billion. >> well, the 2.8 billion is based on our experts analysis of the lost nil money that the student athletes, suffered during the time between when nil was allowed and the previous years when it was not allowed.

>> i mean, i think it's mind boggling that there is so much money in d1 sports. i think the public is not even aware of how much money these universities in the athletic programs are making. and before the athletes hadn't gotten a piece of it. so now that they will explain to us how what percentage of that money might go to them, and also how could the payment be in terms of in form of what, you know, is it cash? is it something else? >> no. so the agreement provides that schools will be free to take up to 22% of their revenue and distribute it to their student athletes. each school is going to decide how they want to compete. so some schools might want to emphasize paying football players. some may play tennis team players, whatever they decide to do, and it will be cash straight cash. so they could, but they don't have to. >> is that right? >> yeah. well, the idea is that absent these rules, there would be competition. and so now the rules are being removed. and if

a school wants to compete with another school, they'll use the 22% or they'll suffer the competitive consequences of not paying the players, like not getting. >> and then they wouldn't get the top players. so it's sort of like a marketplace, almost sort of like you know, companies bidding for a top talent to come over as an employee. is that right? >> that's that's the way the free market is supposed to work. that was the point of the case. >> critics worry about drawbacks to college athletes, though. >> being treated as employees. do you see any issues with that? >> well, they're not being treated as employees. they're just getting paid or compensated in that way. >> i'm sorry. in that financial model, do you see any issues with that? >> i don't let's let's take this year's uh- playoffs. okay. you had a quarterback from washington and a quarterback from michigan both being paid over $2 million. the game set the record for the highest attendance and the highest tv ratings. so the fans are are for this. >> so since the college does have say over how they

distribute that money right, could it lead to unevenness in the sense that, you know, some sports, maybe women's sports, you know, don't get as much. and how does title nine factor into this? >> well, the title nine question is an interesting one, but it's not my issue. i can't control how the schools are going to divvy up the money. obviously they're going to get advice on how they comply with title nine. we'll be watching that. >> all right. well, locally, you know, both cal and stanford are of course acc in the power five conference. and so this is going to affect athletes at cal and at stanford. can you talk about what benefits they may see as athletes, perhaps for the money generating sports like football, basketball and what it might mean for those programs? >> sure. so the players who have played in the past, over the last four previous years, they may see checks football players in the neighborhood of 100 to

$200,000 and going forward, you know, again, there's the revenue out there that's going to go to student athletes. is 2 billion a year to start with, and it's about 20 to 21 million a year for the pac 12 schools. so they could see some sizable money going forward. >> what about smaller sports like rowing and fencing? and is there any concern that such a structure may mean, you know, kids don't go into that sports when they're younger because they're looking at the money down the line. >> you know, maybe, maybe kids will be motivated to go into money sports, but that's not a reason not to compensate, athletes for what they're creating. >> is this life changing for a lot of athletes, in your view? how does this really benefit, the student athletes? >> oh, it has been since we started and got the rules, suspended in part. you've seen nil deals in the millions of

dollars for these student athletes. and obviously that's life changing money for them. >> and could this, i wonder, for the colleges or ncaa will they create new activities, new events if you will, that may generate revenue so that they could have more money to, you know, if they're going to be doing this kind of distribution to compete. >> it could be that there are new events that have already heard talk of new basketball tournaments being formed during the summer, if that happens, that's great. all of that revenue would eventually flow in part back to the student athletes. >> so what still needs to happen before this deal is completely done? and it's, you know, good to go. >> we have to submit it for preliminary approval. the judge wilkin, who sits in oakland by the way, and if she gives it preliminary approval, then we will send notice out to all the athletes who are part of these classes. and the notice will tell them what the deal is about and give them an opportunity to

object or opt out of the deal if they want to. >> all right. well, steve berman, i know there's going to be a lot more conversations on this topic in the weeks and months ahead. thank you so much for joining us. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> all right. coming up next, the fate of gig workers, specifically those ride share app drivers, that's going to be up for debate again as the state supreme court reviews prop 22. more on that in the potenti

just real quick. com checking out traffic around the bay area right now. you can see the red spots are where there are

slowdowns and significant delays. so you can see the 80 emeryville area heading from oakland into san francisco. so the red there showing about eight nine miles per hour in some stretches where it's a little bit slow. and anecdotally, we have some of our employees, coworkers who said it took them like 2.5 hours to get into the city from the deep east bay. and here's another picture for you. this is a huge delay, pretty big lines trying to cross the bay bridge toll plaza going west into san francisco. so slow down there as well. you'll definitely want to check with us all day as you head on out for your memorial day weekend. and of course, we'll have a full traffic report for you and a look at all the drive times on abc seven news at four coming up this week, the california supreme court heard oral arguments in a challenge to prop 22. voters approved it in 2020, which allowed gig tech companies like uber, lyft and doordash to continue designating their drivers as contractors and not as employees. should prop 22 be overturned? and what happens to

the company's drivers and customers if that happens? joining us live now is someone who has researched this issue extensively. ken jacobs, co-chair of the center for labor research and education at uc berkeley. ken, thanks for joining us. >> good afternoon. >> i know you're not a lawyer. that's not your main thing, but you know this issue. what is the main argument that prop 22nd may not be constitutional? >> the central argument was that the proposition denies drivers, workers compensation, insurance. and according to the california constitution, it's the legislature who has power over deciding on insurance. uh- workers compensation insurance. and then the law was written. so it's not severable. it's saying if one part of the law is of the part of the law is thrown out, that the whole part, the whole law would need to be thrown out and so that's what's at issue here is the ability of the legislature to govern on workers compensation.

>> all right. and your i guess i'm going to ask you what is your personal thought with regard to whether prop 22 is indeed constitutional? do you hope it will stay, or do you hope it will go well? >> i'm not a constitutional scholar, so i'm going to hold on the whether or not you know how the court i'm going to change up the question should rule. i think there's a reasonable argument that it is unconstitutional. we'll see what the court actually does here. i think the main issue and the thing that that we've really looked at on our research is just how little drivers earn under proposition 22. we just did a big study looking at 52,000 trips and 1100 drivers in five cities and we found once you take the full cost of owning and operating a vehicle into into account, drivers are earning very low pay. >> did you were you able to do any modeling to see that if they did become full time employees, how much that would change? >> they would earn significantly more. i mean, one of the things

that that really stood out is that the vast majority earned less than the california minimum wage, just to give an example, the typical passenger driver in california made the equivalent equivalent of a little less than $6 an hour wage, and tacoma about $2 more in tips. delivery drivers made a little less than $5 an hour in wages. uh- tips bringing up to around 1150. so if drivers were uh- employees, they would be paid significantly. >> all right. just so our viewers have the background, rideshare drivers had never, ever been classified as employees, right? but right before prop 22 passed, there was legislation ab five that would have moved them in that direction. but prop 22 kind of carved them out as kind of something separate and kept them as contractors, which of course, is what uber, lyft, all those companies wanted. but, you know, one of the arguments that they put forth those companies is, hey, if we have to make them employees, one, it's bad for them because some a lot of them

actually just want to be contractors and work when they want to work. they don't want to be employees. they just want to have the flexibility. the other argument is, hey, us customers will then have to pay more because, you know, there'll be fewer drivers because we can't afford to have so many on. and then also, you know, they'll we'll have to charge more. so how do you address those? help us look at those. >> well, on the first issue, there's no reason that the companies couldn't pay significantly more. and still allow the drivers to have flexibility. there are plenty of models where they could be treated as employees, but still have flexibility in what shifts and when they work. we have models out of new york city and seattle where drivers are paid a minimum per mile per minute amount, which adds up to at least what they would earn under the minimum wage. so there's no reason that the companies can't do much better than they're doing. and the companies are making a lot of money. it's a choice whether or not they decide that they want to pass that on to consumers. >> all right. well what about the for customers. right. you

said it is a choice. they don't have to pass it on to consumers. but if they don't that means they they make less. and that's where the sustainability argument i guess comes in. would it truly be sustainable for those companies to go to such a model? because i think uber is finally profitable now. but lyft, i'm not sure. i think they're still breaking even or something like that. >> i think there is a model that can function where drivers earn a living wage, and i think that's really what's at question here that we have said as a society that works should earn at least a basic minimum, both in terms of pay, but then having rights around unemployment insurance should they lose their job, workers compensation insurance should they get injured on the job, paid sick leave so people don't work while they're sick and help spread disease to others, and also take care of themselves? and those are the kinds of things. those are the things that we're talking about here. >> did you see that dynamic play out, especially during the pandemic? >> oh, absolutely. during the

pandemic, we saw lots of drivers, lose their jobs and need unemployment. and what ended up happening because the companies had not been paying into the unemployment system, it was the tax driver that was the taxpayers who ended up making up the difference, look, could there be any potential legislative compromises you think that maybe can provide some benefits to drivers while still maintaining their contractor status or, what other alternative models, i guess, do you think might be feasible? >> well, in california it's difficult because as long as proposition 22 is in effect, it takes a 7/8 vote of the legislature to make any change, which is not likely to happen. but if prop 22 was to be struck down, i think there's lots of things the state could do to improve wages and benefits and still allow for flexibility. >> can you give us just a few quick examples before we go? >> sure. i mean, they could say workers are employees and at the same or, you know, have that they need to meet those basic standards, but also could have a

mechanism where the basic standard is a per mile and per minute pay rate that would bring drivers up to that level. there are ways that this can be done. we've seen it be done in other jurisdictions. it's a question of the will to do it. and of course, what the court rules here. >> all right. well, we'll wait on that. ken jacobs, co-chair of the center for labor research and education at uc berkeley, thank you so much for coming on and sharing the results of your research. >> thank you. >> up next, looking ahead to memorial day, the online database that's expanding to honor more american veterans and how loved ones can use it as a resource. stay w

it's added nearly 5 million veterans and service members to the veterans legacy memorial. that's the nation's first digital platform dedicated to the memory of the fallen. it's a great resource for family and friends to remember their loved

ones. joining us live now to talk more about this is jennifer lynch, public affairs officer for the va national cemetery administration. jennifer thanks for joining us. good to see you. >> thanks for having me. >> yeah. no, this is perfect for memorial day. some folks haven't heard of the veterans legacy memorial. it's been out for a little while. tell us about it. what is it? yeah, it's been out since 2019. >> yeah, we have now close to 10 million, veterans, that have blm pages. so it's really easy to use. all you do is search for the veterans name if you have information such of where they're buried, you know, which cemetery and the date, then you can look them up and leave a message or, and or photos or, articles or tributes on their page. >> wow. so this is truly an online memorial and it's there for anyone to find, where did you gather all the data? is that

all from government databases or there's also an element of needing input from family members themselves, are there people who are forgotten? are you asking for help? >> well, actually, the information comes from our databases and it includes, all va national cemeteries, it has a dod cemeteries, va cemeteries and then some private cemeteries where the veterans have used a, have ordered a government furnished headstone or marker. wow >> okay. so how did you manage to add these 5 million and are there more to go? >> well, there i'm sure that we're incrementally doing, adding and enhancing the services. one of the new services this year is actually when you're on a veterans page, and you want to share it with family and friends and colleagues, you can actually scan a create a qr code and send

that to your family member, as well as sharing it on facebook or x, and that's just another way, you know, to do this, because the main thing is we wanted to make it easy so that families, friends and colleagues can, you know, share information. >> is there a way for people to add a veteran or service member? they know if they're not already in there? >> if you, i would recommend, sending us a message if you go to our website, va.gov, and click on burial and memorials, send us a message and we can see what we can do. okay >> and does this only apply to veterans buried at the department of defense cemeteries, or can they be private cemeteries as well? >> it's actually includes va national cemeteries and which is 155 cemeteries. and then it includes state grant veterans cemeteries and dod cemeteries. and then again, if they have a private, if someone is buried in

a private cemetery and they have a government furnished marker, then they can also, get a included in that. the veterans legacy memorial. so we gather the information from the records that we use to order the headstones. so that's how we populate this database. i see why is this memorial so important? well, it's a way to remember those who are no longer with us. and it's just really powerful to share their stories and leave messages for people. >> yeah. there are several upcoming bay area memorial day ceremonies, and i know you know a lot about them, or maybe are involved in a few as well. can you tell us about some of those? >> yes, we have two in san francisco, one at golden gate national cemetery and the other is at san francisco national cemetery, and that's at the presidio, both start, there on monday, may 27th. they start at

1030 a uh- the live music is at 10:30 a.m. in the ceremonies at 11. and so we hope that people can come out there. another, thing i would recommend is, if you do come to a cemetery, a cemetery, a cemetery this weekend, walk the stones and see a veteran and then go look them up on blm and leave a tribute. that's another way to continue to honor those who have you know, served our country. >> yes. memorial day is about more than just barbecues and sales. and we have to remember why we're able to enjoy those things. so thank you so much, jennifer lynch. really appreciate you coming to on talk about this digital memorial for veterans. >> thanks for having me. we really appreciate getting the word out. >> all right. thank you. remember abc7 news is streaming 24 seven. get the abc7 bay area app and join us whene

was a huge backup there, as the memorial day getaway is in full swing. a full report on your weekend traffic coming up at 4:00. meantime, world n tonight, severe storms slowing record holiday travel. oy two u.s. missionaries shot and killed in haiti. the seismic shift in college sports. the ncaa agrees to pay student athletes. first, the severe weather heading into memorial day weekend. large hail from texas to illinois. the flood threat from washington, d.c. to