Posts tagged gig workers
Give Gig Workers A Real Break
November 18, 2022 // Polling data also back the idea that most gig workers want to be gig workers. In “Independent Work,” Ilana Blumsack and Scott Lincicome cite a finding that about 90 percent of survey respondents “were happier in independent work than in traditional jobs.” Only 11 percent wanted to find full-time traditional employment.
Taking the ‘Free’ Out of ‘Freelance’
November 3, 2022 // ...the Biden administration’s recent broadside against independent work, in the form of a new Department of Labor proposed rule for determining when a worker is properly classified as a contractor or an “employee” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (and thus subject to minimum wage, overtime, and other labor regulations). The rule is complicated and still preliminary, but most experts agree on its objective and likely result: to make it more difficult for workers to be classified as independent and thus to force many of them to be reclassified as employees, whether they like it or not.
Is the Uber, Lyft and gig economy battle over workers nearing its end game?
October 17, 2022 // Proposed Department of Labor rules stop short of classifying Uber and Lyft drivers as employees. But the Biden administration’s pro-worker bias has analysts wondering what may come next in the battle over the gig economy and union momentum in the U.S. workforce. In a worst-case scenario, costs could rise as much as 30 percent for on-demand transportation companies just getting to break even, analyst says, and that means fares may rise as well.
Commercial Producers Ink Neutrality Agreement With IATSE Over Unionizing Workers
October 17, 2022 // The grassroots group Stand With Production, which has collaborated with IATSE on the organizing campaign, announced the deal to its supporters in an email on Friday, and IATSE confirmed the news. A neutrality agreement essentially means that the employer (in this case, the AICP) agrees not to resist a union drive being spearheaded by Stand With Production and IATSE. production assistants, assistant production supervisors, production supervisors, line producers, rest periods, safety training, higher minimum wage rates, union health and pension plans and diversity and mentorship initiatives.
Biden Proposal Could Lead to Employee Status for Gig Workers
October 11, 2022 // The proposal is intended as a so-called interpretive rule that doesn’t have the legal force of a regulation specifically authorized by Congress, and it applies only to laws that the department enforces, such as the federal minimum wage. States and other federal agencies, like the Internal Revenue Service, set their own criteria for employment status, and the rule would not directly affect what they decided about the status of gig workers. But many employers and regulators in other jurisdictions are likely to consider the department’s interpretation when making decisions about worker classification, and many judges are likely to use it as a guide. As a result, the proposal is a potential blow to gig companies and other service providers that argue their workers are contractors, though it would not immediately affect the status of those workers.
Rideshare, retailers brace for tough U.S. independent contractor rule
September 28, 2022 // The meetings at the White House were one-sided, with officials at OIRA letting groups speak and not participating or asking follow-up questions, several employer sources said. They are interpreting that as a sign the Biden administration's mind is made up. Some of the groups have been trying, and failing, to convince the White House that any broad rule would hurt workers who want to remain independent and have flexibility...More than one-third of U.S. workers, or nearly 60 million people, performed some sort of freelance work.
Op-ed: Bringing Workers’ Sensibility to Local Government
September 26, 2022 // Electing more union members would ensure that local officials instead invest their energies in productive ways, such as building robust, worker-centered economies. Some forward-thinking local officials have used their authority to pass worker protection laws, to establish agencies for enforcing those safeguards and to create workers councils to take testimony on job-related issues, noted the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a Washington, D.C.-based thinktank, in a recent report. At Seattle’s Office of Labor Standards, for example, a full-time equivalent staff of 34 enforces 18 worker-centered ordinances, including those requiring paid sick time, employment opportunity and protections for gig workers.
Sunday Reading: LA Strip Club Dancers Fight For a Union
July 11, 2022 // The story follows a group of dancers employed at the Star Garden, a strip club in North Hollywood, who staged a walkout and launched a campaign to unionize.
As PRO Act Stalls, US Labor Department Rethinks Status of Independent Contractors
July 7, 2022 // “Only a handful of people asked the department to change the rule, and most of them weren’t even independent contractors,” according to Fight For Freelancers cofounder, Jen Singer. “They were union organizers or union members who wouldn’t be affected by any rule change.” Lorena Ortiz-Schneider, founder of CoPTIC America, noted that of the 350-plus attendees of the employer’s panel, the 44 participants who spoke up were mostly small business owners. virtual public forums, American Translators Association, AB 2257, Bill Rivers, Federal Register
Fraud had ‘significant’ role in $163 billion leak from pandemic-era unemployment system
May 30, 2022 // More than $163 billion in benefits likely leaked from the unemployment system during the pandemic, with a “significant portion” attributable to fraud, according to a U.S. Department of Labor report.