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Category:Gig Economy

Gig News — December 2, 2015

Dec 2, 2015 Jon Weinberg

This post is part of an ongoing series on labor and the gig economy. O’Connor v. Uber, the major federal class action against Uber over its classification of drivers as independent contractors, continues to move forward. Bloomberg reports that a hearing last week was held over whether drivers can seek mileage reimbursement of 57.5 cents […]

Gig News — November 18, 2015

Nov 18, 2015 Jon Weinberg

This post is part of an ongoing series on labor and the gig economy. Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California has set a trial date of June 20, 2016 for O’Connor v. Uber, the major federal suit challenging Uber’s classification of drivers as independent contractors. The Wall Street Journal reports that five […]

Gig News: Firms and Labor Leaders Form Coalition, Propose Worker Safety Net

Nov 10, 2015 Jon Weinberg

A newly formed coalition of Gig economy executives, labor leaders, venture capitalists, business-people, academics and policy professionals announced in a letter published today that they support the creation of a social safety net for workers in the Gig economy. The formation of the coalition was first reported by The New York Times. The coalition includes […]

Gig News — November 3, 2015

Nov 3, 2015 Jon Weinberg

This post is part of an ongoing series on labor and the gig economy. The gig economy might not be as transformative as news coverage suggests. A new report from the Pew Research Center found that the share of Americans who identify as self-employed has actually been in decline since the mid-1990s. The Wall Street […]

Uber: A Platform for Discrimination?

Oct 22, 2015 Benjamin Sachs

As Uber tells it, Uber is not an employer but a technological platform connecting drivers and passengers. This categorization – highly contested – has a number of well-known advantages for Uber: it allows the firm to avoid responsibility for minimum wage and overtime pay, for workers comp and unemployment insurance, and for providing healthy and safe working […]

Is Uber Legal?

Oct 22, 2015 Jon Weinberg

This coming Wednesday at noon, the Harvard Law Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review will host a panel at Harvard Law School on the legality of Uber. The discussion will feature Professor Sachs and Shannon Liss-Riordan, the attorney representing Uber and Lyft drivers in major California class action lawsuits, as well as other gig economy workers in […]

Gig News — October 20, 2015

Oct 20, 2015 Jon Weinberg

This post is part of an ongoing series on labor and the gig economy. Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries released an advisory opinion concluding that Uber drivers should be classified as employees and not independent contractors. Portland Business Journal reports that the opinion was issued despite the fact that no complaints were filed in […]

Amazon's new "Independent Contractors"

Sep 29, 2015 Benjamin Sachs

As Jon wrote in the News and Commentary this morning, Amazon has started a new delivery service called “Amazon Flex.” The service, as the WSJ reports, will allow people to “sign up for shifts through an app that prompts them to fetch packages from mini-warehouses and take them to customers’ homes in as little as one hour.” The […]

1099 as Antitrust?

Sep 29, 2015 Benjamin Sachs

There’s an interesting post up on interfluidity arguing that independent contractor status should be awarded selectively, in a manner designed to incentivize competition in the gig economy. The basic idea is that there is a substantial risk that gig economy firms like Uber will become monopolists because of a particular kind of cycle, or “network effect.” The […]

New NLRB Decision on Independent Contractors

Sep 28, 2015 Benjamin Sachs

Last week, I argued that the “flexibility” of gig-economy jobs can comfortably coexist with a legal determination that those jobs are held by “employees” rather than by independent contractors. I emphasized that “workers can choose when and how much to work, and can even work without immediate supervision, and still be employees within the meaning of the […]

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OnLabor

Law. Workers. Organizing.

OnLabor is a blog devoted to workers, unions, and their politics. We interpret our subject broadly to include the current crisis in the traditional union movement (why union decline is happening and what it means for our society); the new and contested forms of worker organization that are filling the labor union gap; how work ought to be structured and managed; how workers ought to be represented and compensated; and the appropriate role of government — all three branches — in each of these issues.

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Gig News — December 2, 2015

Gig News — November 18, 2015

Gig News: Firms and Labor Leaders Form Coalition, Propose Worker Safety Net

Gig News — November 3, 2015

Uber: A Platform for Discrimination?

Is Uber Legal?

Gig News — October 20, 2015

Amazon's new "Independent Contractors"

1099 as Antitrust?

New NLRB Decision on Independent Contractors