Posts tagged Lyft
Business costs are increasing, and unions are not helping. Here’s what employers need to know.
October 13, 2026 // Business expenses are rising, and while unions have historically improved wages and working conditions, increased unionization has added further challenges to controlling business costs. Union membership hit a 16-year high in 2025, driven largely by growing interest among younger and minority workers, and continued growth could increase the costs of goods and services we frequently use. Businesses offering a safe and productive working environment, along with competitive pay structures, will reduce the need for organized labor and its associated costs.
Illinois’ new rideshare union law could hurt drivers, passengers
September 23, 2026 // The law could lead to job losses for rideshare drivers if they become more expensive to the companies than emerging self-driving technologies. Companies such as Waymo are already replacing human drivers with autonomous vehicles. In February, Waymo started the process of mapping out the city of Chicago for its fleet of driverless vehicles and announced that “we look forward to serving the city in the future.” While autonomous vehicles haven’t rolled out in Illinois yet, Waymo will be ready if lawmakers approve legislation to allow them to operate.
New Jersey Revives the Fight To Reclassify Gig Workers as Employees
August 18, 2026 // All of these laws are designed to apply employee-style rules to gig workers, even if broad reclassification had failed to take off legislatively across the country. Yet recent rule making from the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development shows that stringent ABC tests are unfortunately far from dead.
Unions Are Coming for Your Uber Driver
August 4, 2026 // The sectoral-bargaining approach made headway in 2022, when California signed the Fast Food Accountability and Standards Act, or FAST, into law. The act was replaced by a compromise agreement before going into full effect. But under the original provisions, it would have established a 10-member Fast Food Council appointed by the governor and state Legislature to set labor rules for the Golden State’s fast-food industry. The FAST Act marked a pivot toward sectoral-bargaining strategies in America, importing the tactic from Europe and Australia. For decades before the FAST Act, the United Auto Workers used tactics like “pattern bargaining” in negotiations with the Big Three automakers.
D.C. Wants To Charge Robotaxis $6 Million. Unions Still Say No.
July 17, 2026 // A proposed bill would legalize commercial autonomous vehicles in D.C. under one of the country’s most expensive regulatory frameworks, but unions still want the brakes applied.
Your Uber Driver May Soon Be Unionized. At What Cost?
June 15, 2026 // In fact, this result has already been seen in locales that have pushed aggressive minimum wage laws for gig workers—another one-size-fits-all progressive labor policy that left-leaning cities have begun importing to gig work in recent years. For instance, the waitlist to become an UberEats driver in New York City grew to 27,000 after the Big Apple passed a minimum wage ordinance for app-based food delivery in 2023; the minimum wage rules forced Uber to limit drivers in an effort to control spiking labor costs. Unfortunately, draconian sector-wide labor rules will also raise labor costs for these platforms, with the costs inevitably being passed along to riders in the form of more expensive Uber rides. (Such a passed-along price increase has also already been seen with the minimum wage mandates for food delivery.) The gig worker unionization drive that is spreading acr
Economically Devastating Rent-Seeking in America’s Labor Markets
June 9, 2026 // Nowhere is rent-seeking more pervasive—or more costly—than in America’s labor markets. From compulsory unionism to occupational licensing, prevailing-wage laws, gig-worker reclassification rules, and strategic minimum-wage campaigns, concentrated interest groups (often unions and incumbent professionals) routinely use state power to extract “rents” from workers, employers, taxpayers, and consumers. These are not abstract economic theories. Rent-seeking is an everyday mechanism that distorts wages, limits opportunities, and transfers trillions of dollars every year, creating harmful economic inefficiencies penalizing employees, employers, taxpayers, and consumers. Compulsory Unionism: The Textbook Case of Labor-Market Rent-Seeking Compulsory unionism
Illinois lawmakers pass bill allowing rideshare drivers to unionize
June 2, 2026 // Critics have raised concerns about potential cost increases and how the changes could impact service availability. The legislation could affect rideshare drivers throughout Northern Illinois, including in Rockford and surrounding communities, where gig work remains a supplemental income source for many residents.
Mass. rideshare drivers win first union certification
May 25, 2026 // Massachusetts rideshare drivers have secured the first union certification from the Commonwealth’s Department of Labor after a years-long effort. The Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations on Friday, marking the largest private sector bargaining victory since the 1940s and first union of gig workers in the country.
Unions, businesses urge legislators in opposite directions on independent contractor rules
May 13, 2026 // “New Jersey’s labor department says it may consider some factors in one case but not in another case, so who knows what matters?” said Kim Kavin, a freelance writer long opposed to ABC regulations. “The department says it may consider factors that aren’t listed anywhere.”