Posts tagged Uber
The Next Wave Commentary: Kim Kavin
March 4, 2025 // In the wave of freelance busting that started with California’s Assembly Bill 5, the method of attack was the reclassification of independent contractors as employees. That method created massive backlash everywhere it was tried, so now, a new method is being tried. That new method is called sectoral organizing. This strategy of freelance busting in multiple states is usually a setup for a nationwide attack against us all. Independent contractors nationwide just learned this the hard way, with California’s Assembly Bill 5 ultimately leading to the introduction of the federal Protecting the Right to Organize Act. The freelance-busting brigade is, once again, doing a test run of its idea in the states, with bigger ambitions on the horizon.
Commentary: Washington, We Have a Problem
December 27, 2024 // The problem is that the figure 11.9 million is significantly lower than figures the government has previously stated about the number of independent contractors in the United States. Those figures, in turn, have been significantly lower than figures we’ve all seen released year after year by numerous other researchers. Several experts were quick to point out that with this new data, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics may have accurately counted what the government set out to count—by asking questions in its own wonky way—but the result is absolutely going to confuse a lot of people.
Op-Ed: The Case for Gig Worker Benefits
December 19, 2024 // Independent workers miss out on many fringe benefits associated with regular employment, such as disability insurance, life insurance, or health insurance. They are also ineligible for paid family or medical leave. In 2022, the proportion of self-employed adults lacking health insurance (18 percent) was substantially higher than that among all working-age adults (12 percent). These disparities result to some extent from tax policy. For the best part of a century, businesses have provided health insurance, pensions, and other fringe benefits to employees with pretax dollars—perks that self-employed workers did not enjoy.
A Fresh Look at the Independent Workforce with New BLS Data
November 27, 2024 // New BLS data reveal the size and growth of the independent workforce, preferences for independent work over W-2 employment, and key demographic and industry trends
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.
Bernie Moreno, former car dealer elected to Senate, says Fain is a hack not helping workers
November 12, 2024 // Moreno did try to save jobs back in 2018 when General Motors announced it would permanently close its Lordstown Assembly plant in northeast Ohio, which built the Chevrolet Cruze sedan. As the Free Press reported in 2019, Moreno met with GM leaders, proposing to buy 150,000 to 180,000 Cruze cars to start a global ride-hailing company similar to Uber. GM CEO Mary Barra rejected the idea. GM shuttered Lordstown that spring.
Mass. election results: Question 3, authorizing Uber and Lyft driver union, passes
November 7, 2024 // The campaign was backed by the Service Employees International Union, one of the nation’s largest labor organizations. The union contributed most of the roughly $6 million raised in support of the measure through mid-October, state records showed.
Massachusetts Ballot Measure Would Shove Rideshare Workers Into the Arms of Unions
October 12, 2024 // Even as independent contractors, however, unions still threaten drivers’ flexibility. Unions might negotiate standardized rates, mandatory breaks, or limits on working hours, which, while beneficial in some industries, could restrict a driver’s ability to capitalize on peak demand periods or adjust their work hours to fit personal schedule. The risk of such changes only magnifies when one considers that the Ballot Measure only requires a 25% vote from drivers to form a union that would represent them as a whole. This means that the 30% of drivers working full-time, who would benefit most from being treated like employees, might be able to dictate policy for all rideshare drivers.
Pa. bill would give Uber, other app drivers benefits, but critics say they would lose more
October 6, 2024 // For years, labor advocates like the NELP have challenged app-based companies’ assertion that their drivers are independent contractors, arguing instead that they meet the threshold of being full-fledged employees covered by state unemployment and workers’ compensation and potentially be eligible for employer-sponsored healthcare and other benefits. Companies like Uber have argued that drivers are contractors because they aren’t required to accept any specific fare, and many prefer the flexibility of working gig-to-gig.
Harris Pushes Gig Workers, Contractors into Corporate Jobs with New Rule
September 25, 2024 // America already has too few people working. If the employment rate were the same as it was before the COVID-19 pandemic, 2.9 million more people would be working today. The last thing Americans need is another regulation that makes it harder to make a living and to afford the rising cost of living. Although the Biden-Harris regulation has only been in effect since March, and it’s too early to fully study its effects, the employment-to-population ratio dropped by 0.3 percentage points between March and July. This decline represents a loss of 700,000 workers.