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While Democratic economic rhetoric tends to center around a “living wage” and Republican billionaires they dislike, the California Teamsters union is currently going to war over a much more pertinent issue: automation.

The union is suing multiple state agencies, challenging Governor Gavin Newsom and seeking to block the advent of self-driving trucks. The move represents a deepening of the rift between the state’s remaining working class and its influential tech sector, with the Newsom administration generally viewed as more favorable to the latter.

The lawsuit in particular objects to an April move by the state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV,) when the organization adopted new rules for autonomous trucks. Although self-driving car services such as Waymo have grown rapidly in recent years, California previously did not allow large self-driving vehicles to operate.

The California Teamsters union understandably objected to the notion that the move would not result in job loss, stating, “For example, the DMV has taken the indefensible, insupportable, and arbitrary position that not a single job will be eliminated and that not a single existing business will close…” The union also argued that self-driving trucks weighing over 10,000 pounds should require human supervision for safety reasons.

Advocates of self-driving cars tend to focus on safety arguments, arguing that as the technology continues to improve, we will see less fatalities and accidents due to human error. As with all new technology, a case could be made that the tradeoffs of job loss are worth it in the bigger picture. In actuality, though, many people in the San Francisco Bay Area, where Waymo and other autonomous car services are based, have made no secret that they simply prefer the rides because they dislike the inconvenience of having to interact with another human being. In addition, previous predictions of massively-displaced workers easily finding jobs in new fields have not exactly had a strong track record for accuracy.

It remains to be seen whether the California Teamsters union’s move, and similar worker backlashes, will have any meaningful effect, or merely serve as minor hiccups. It is entirely conceivable that in the future, we will be arguing over whether human driving in general is too dangerous of an activity to be allowed in the United States. The country will have to decide whether this is a great mark of technological progress, or another manifestation of the safety-at-all-costs mentality that has gripped Americans in the past decade.