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Category:Gig News

Prop 22 Passes in California

Nov 4, 2020 Minnie Che

With official results for the Presidential race still pending, California has passed Proposition 22, an exemption from California employment law that will allow Lyft and Uber to continue classifying workers as independent contractors. It was a closely scrutinized and costly battle. Lyft, Uber, joined by DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates, put in over $204 million towards a campaign in support of the ballot […]

August 13, 2020
News & Commentary

Minnie Che

Amidst the pandemic and its widespread economic consequences, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is looking to implement budget cuts, either through savings from the city’s unions or potentially laying off 22,000 out of 300,000 city workers. According to Politico, de Blasio’s budget team have been in contact with high-ranking city officials regarding their individual budgets. The […]

Implications for Corporate Governance Reform of the (Almost) First Food Delivery App Union

May 18, 2020 Tara Boghosian

It was supposed to be the first union for food delivery app couriers in North America. In February 2020, the labor relations board for the Canadian province of Ontario found that couriers working for Foodora, a food delivery app, were eligible to unionize. Yet, before the union votes could even be counted, Foodora announced in […]

Covid-19 Shows Urgent Need to Hold Gig-Companies Accountable for Misclassification

Apr 15, 2020 Jason Salgado

So-called “gig-economy” workers are on the frontlines of the Covid-19 pandemic. Instacart and Shipt workers have handled a massive increase in demand for grocery deliveries. DoorDash and Postmates couriers have delivered countless take-out orders as restaurants close in-person services. Uber and Lyft drivers have transported passengers with Covid-19 symptoms to receive care. Yet, even as […]

Law and the Future of Gig Work in California: Problems and Potentials (Part 2)

Sep 10, 2019 Veena Dubal and Sanjukta Paul

This is the second part of a two-part post on AB5. A concern that has been articulated about extending generally applicable labor regulation to the platform economy is that such regulation would benefit the big players while making it more difficult for smaller firms to compete. This argument is speculative at best. Instead, appropriate antitrust […]

Will California Legislate Fairness for Gig Workers?

Sep 9, 2019 Benjamin Sachs and Sharon Block

The battle for the gig economy’s future is underway in California. The fight is over a proposed bill – AB5 – that would classify many gig workers, including Uber and Lyft drivers, as employees for purposes of California employment law. Should AB5 be enacted, gig workers would win important protections like minimum wage, overtime pay, […]

Law and the Future of Gig Work in California: Problems and Potentials (Part 1)

Sep 9, 2019 Veena Dubal and Sanjukta Paul

Last week, a coalition of 75 professors from across the country sent a letter to California lawmakers in support of AB5. AB5, which will soon be voted on in the California Senate, codifies the legal standard articulated in Dynamex v. Superior Court (2018) and extends it to all California employment laws. In Dynamex, the Court created a presumption of employee status and set forth a simplified legal standard (“ABC” test) for an entity attempting to classify workers as independent contractors.

Uber’s $100b IPO

Apr 12, 2019 Benjamin Sachs

David Streitfeld has a great story in the NYT this morning about life as an Uber driver and the vast distance between what drivers earn and what investors will reap from the firm’s public offering. Drivers: $40,000 in a good year of full time work. Investors: numbers that end in “million” and “billion.” Travis Kalanick himself made […]

Post-Dynamex, California Legislature Takes Up the Worker Classification Question

Mar 1, 2019 Marissa Marandola

Last spring, the California Supreme Court sent shockwaves through the gig economy with its ruling in Dynamex Operations West, Inc., in which it held that the so-called ABC test is the appropriate one for determining whether a worker is an independent contractor or an employee under California wage and hour law. Over the summer, the […]

Weekend News & Commentary — July 14–15, 2018

Jul 15, 2018 Jenny Braun

The Fifth Circuit recently ruled that the fast-food chain In-N-Out Burger violated the National Labor Relations Act when it prohibited employees from wearing “fight for 15” buttons at work. Amanda Healey wore a quarter-sized button in April of 2015, and a couple of co-workers caught on, and hoped, too, to show support for the movement […]

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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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