Posts tagged RIDESHARE
NJBIZ Exclusive: NJ voters support gig workers as independent contractors
March 12, 2026 // 75% of New Jersey voters back rideshare, delivery drivers keeping independent contractor status 72% support portable benefits, allowing workers to earn health, dental, vision, retirement benefits while staying independent Support spans Democrats (76%), Independents (71%), Republicans (69%); 84% of app-based workers in favor Poll shows broad understanding of gig economy; preference for flexible, hybrid work models
Commentary: Freelancers want to be free
February 26, 2026 // The latest evidence for this comes courtesy of a Politico poll on the subject. The survey found that 88 percent of app-based workers wanted to remain as independent contractors – that is, freelancers – rather than be treated as traditional employees. The workers themselves aren’t buying the argument that they’re being exploited. The general public feels largely the same, if not quite so strongly. The same poll found that 76 percent thought that app-based workers should continue to be treated as independent contractors “if their employers are required to provide them with access to portable benefits.”
Will this be the year Illinois rideshare workers are able to unionize?
January 28, 2026 // Drivers currently lack the right to unionize under federal labor law because they are classified as independent contractors. The proposal would not change that classification but would give rideshare drivers the right to unionize in Illinois despite their contractor status.
Commentary: Massachusetts Voters Support Unions for Uber Drivers
October 31, 2025 // The numbers needed to unionize the rideshare drivers are shockingly low. According to Axios, just 5% of all drivers need to sign on, and then 25% of so-called “active drivers” must support forming a bargaining unit, i.e., a group of employees who negotiate with management. After that threshold is met, the state recognizes a union that will represent all drivers—whether they supported it or not. In other words, if you’re an independent rideshare driver in Massachusetts, you don’t get a choice. The union chooses for you. Moreover, if 5% of workers want to form a union, every rideshare company must provide every driver’s contact information to union officials. Nationwide, the threshold for forming a bargaining unit is a majority vote. Massachusetts is now proposing to impose compulsory unionization with far less support—and with sectoral bargaining that extends far beyond one workplace and into the cars of rideshare drivers across the Bay State.
Commentary: To Harvard and Back with Julie Su
August 18, 2025 // This year, Julie Su, Joe Biden’s pick for secretary of labor, became a resident fellow with Harvard’s Kennedy School, Institute of Politics. The Century Foundation also brought Su on board as a full-time senior fellow. These prestigious institutions seem to have overlooked key events in Su’s long career. Harvard, where Su, a Stanford grad, earned her law degree, hails the Biden nominee as “a nationally recognized workers’ rights and civil rights expert.” As California’s labor commissioner, Su was “widely credited with a renaissance in enforcement and creative approaches to combating wage theft and protecting immigrant workers.” In reality, her experience was a bit more extensive.
California Tries Another Tack to Crush Ridesharing
August 4, 2025 // The latest legislative effort is Assembly Bill 1340, which passed the full Assembly in June and was approved by the Senate Transportation Committee in early July. It would allow drivers to unionize and “promote collective bargaining rights for transportation network drivers and state intent that the state action antitrust exemption apply to … drivers and their representatives.” Democrats couldn’t kill the industry quickly, so they’ll try to destroy it slowly via collective bargaining.
Editorial: Unionizing Uber and Lyft drivers may speed up their robotic replacement
July 2, 2025 // Here’s the issue for drivers. Labor talks are playing out as Uber and its competitors are investing heavily in driverless vehicles, just like Tesla. Uber isn’t hiding that future. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi even told The Wall Street Journal this year he expects AVs to gradually overtake human drivers.
Commentary: The 2025 Battle of Trenton; Video
June 25, 2025 // The opposition to independent contractors was frustratingly predictable. Most of it, as usual, came from unions—including the AFL-CIO, Teamsters and IBEW. Others who testified against us were a representative of the union-affiliated National Employment Law Project (you may recall us crushing them in Congress last month), a couple of union-side lawyers, and a guy from the Workplace Justice Lab at Rutgers University, whose stated mission includes building unions.
California: The Lost Report
April 1, 2025 // On December 3, 2020, almost a year after California’s freelance-busting law, Assembly Bill 5, went into effect, the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was created to study AB5’s civil rights implications. The committee’s officially designated term ended December 4, 2024. There were hours and hours of testimony, much of it recorded on video. But the committee never issued a report based on all this testimony its members heard. Members of the committee say they were told that if they issued individual statements in the absence of any committee report, they would be failing to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act and the rules of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Commentary: Plan B is Activated
November 19, 2024 // They are now turning to Plan B, which is sectoral organizing. And they notched a big win in the recent election with a ballot proposition in Massachusetts—a win that the mainstream media is heralding as a good thing. In fact, the same pro-union media bias that we saw with reclassification attempts such as Assembly Bill 5 and the PRO Act is simply resetting and restarting anew. Now, it’s being used to promote this other way of trying to limit self-employment.