After successful huge in California, gig corporations take their employee classification struggle to Massachusetts

The coalition that represents these gig companies, the Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, said it asked a question on Wednesday about the 2022 state voting that would “provide historic new benefits” and allow workers “to use their flexibility as a to preserve independent contractors “. says most drivers want.

“Without the vote or a legislative solution, the future of app-based ridesharing and delivery could be in jeopardy,” the coalition said in a language that is a reminder of how serious the issue was for the Californians.

But with the benefit of seeing how things turned out in California, the opposition this time around is against the playbook they believe was used last time around. The Coalition to Protect Workers ‘Rights, an alliance made up of union officials and community groups, argued this week that the Massachusetts move would “permanently create’ second-class” status “for workers, noting the majority of them Blacks, Browns, and Immigrants.

The classification of on-demand workers as workers has long been seen as a potential existential threat to the business model popularized by Uber and Lyft. Companies have scaled their businesses with huge fleets of workers treated as independent contractors to shirk the responsibility of providing employees with costly benefits such as minimum wages, overtime, paid sick leave, and unemployment insurance.

Companies have also shown that they are making great efforts to get a more favorable law for themselves. In light of a new California labor law, Assembly Bill 5, that made it much harder for companies to classify workers as independent contractors in the state, Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and Instacart put together $ 225 million on an election measure known as Proposition of 22 or Prop 22 to get around it effectively. They ran an aggressive campaign of television commercials, in-app messages, and confusing mailers to bombard the Californians with their messages. Prop 22 allows companies to classify workers as independent contractors while giving some drivers certain perks, but not the full level of protection they would likely have received had they failed the measure and been classified as workers. Next up is Massachusetts, which has similarly strict labor laws. The Massachusetts Attorney General is currently challenging Uber and Lyft on how to classify workers, an effort the companies have said they want to fight. Similar to Prop 22, the proposed Massachusetts election initiative offers a minimum income guarantee of “120 percent of the minimum wage” based on “time engaged,” which means that only time is counted when a driver fulfills a ride or delivery request, but not Time you spend waiting for an appearance. (An analysis by the UC Berkeley Labor Center had estimated the Prop 22 wage guarantee for Uber and Lyft drivers was $ 5.64 an hour instead of $ 15.60 or 120% of a minimum wage of $ 13 in the face of such loopholes.)

Workers would also receive a reimbursement of $ 0.26 per mile taken to cover vehicle maintenance and gasoline. (The UC Berkeley Labor Center previously indicated that the $ 0.30 reimbursement of Prop 22 is lower than the IRS’s estimate of $ 0.58 per mile for owning and operating a vehicle.)

While the proposal calls for a health contribution from a company for certain skilled workers, it is also based on “committed time” and according to the Coalition to Protect Workers’ Rights, only a small proportion of workers would likely be eligible for minimum time requirements. (Using “dedicated time” as a metric enables job flexibility, according to the Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, which claims that “the majority of drivers receive medical care from other sources, often through a full-time job.”)

Some workers may also receive paid sick leave, paid family and sick leave, and sickness and disability benefits for accidents at work in lieu of workers’ compensation. Workers would have the opportunity to appeal if their accounts were disabled and would receive training on public safety issues.

It would also allow gig firms to avoid unemployment or social security contributions and deny app-based workers more robust legal protection against discrimination, including when it comes to compensation. (The Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work said the initiative prohibits companies from discriminating against workers based on traits protected by the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, but this is not specifically stated in the language of the initiative.)

“Things don’t get better with these gig companies, they get worse [measure] will make more and more motorists even more dependent on social programs that we taxpayers pay, less money flows into the unemployment fund, the social security. We’re just fed up with this exploitation, “said Beth Griffith, an Uber driver and chairman of the Boston Independent Drivers Guild, in a press conference organized by the Coalition to Protect Workers’ Rights on Tuesday’s lower class workers. That’s ridiculous.”

Shannon Liss-Riordan, a Boston-based attorney who has contested Uber and Lyft in various lawsuits over employee grading for more than seven years, and who also attended the press conference, warned: “They will try to enforce this voting action by calling the Trying to make the public believe that this is somehow to the benefit of the workers, but why would Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Instacart, and all these companies put $ 100 million or more into it, unless it was about these companies and their pockets ? ? ”

(Given the amount the companies spent getting Prop 22 passed in California and the importance of Massachusetts lawmakers, a coalition spokesman for the workers’ rights said the coalition that represents the tech companies said more than US $ 100 million -Dollars for their efforts in When asked how much money has been put into the measure so far, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work said “Contribution reports will not be required for some time.”

Similarly, on the call, Veena Dubal, a professor of labor law at the University of California, Hastings and a vocal advocate of labor rights, said the effort will likely be based on confusion.

“You will continue to say that we are bringing all of these great new perks and benefits to these workers.” In fact, they are taking away rights from workers who really need them, ”said Dubal, noting that while companies made promises – including how it would maintain flexibility for drivers – before California law was passed, they did some of them have since broken.

For example, flexibility was touted as a core need for Prop 22, with Uber introducing the ability for drivers in the state to set their own prices. But months after Prop 22 became law, Uber stopped allowing drivers to do so.