Tag Archives: Drivers

03.26.23
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You Get What You Need: Prop 22 Upheld, and It’s a Model Other States Should Follow

The Rolling Stones’ song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” features the London Bach Choir and addresses the predominant themes of the 1960s — love, protest, and drugs. There’s some controversy as to whether Mr. Jimmy refers to vagrant Minnesotan Jimmy Hutmaker, who supposedly uttered the famous lyric-to-be during a chance 1964 encounter with Jagger at Bacon’s Drugstore, or Jimmy Miller, a record producer who also played drums on this track instead of Charlie Watts.

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is also a suitable theme for the main problem that dominates every aspect of independent contractor misclassification. The problems is that the laws are binary. A worker is either an employee who receives all of the protections of employment laws, or an independent contractor, who receives none. The exceptions creating a middle ground have been sparse.

But if you try sometimes.

California voters tried and succeeded in creating a middle ground in 2022, when they passed Prop 22. Prop 22 guarantees independent contractor status for rideshare and delivery drivers if a series of conditions are met, and then the app companies are required to provide a range of protections for drivers, including minimum rates of pay, a health insurance stipend, accident insurance, sexual harassment prevention, safety training, and rest requirements.

Prop 22 was and is a model for the middle ground that has been missing.

But Prop 22 has also been under attack. In a case called Castellenos, the SIEU and other worker advocates have argued that Prop 22 violates the California constitution and had to be invalidated. Without Prop 22, rideshare and delivery drivers could be subjected to California’s ABC Test for determining drivers’ status.

As you may have read, a California Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month that Prop 22 did not violate the California Constitution and could take effect, except for one small part of the law governing future amendments. The dispute will likely be heard by the California Supreme Court, so the fight isn’t over.

The point I want to make, though, is that Prop 22 carves out a middle ground that should be a model for other states to follow. It guarantees workers certain protections while allowing them to operate their own businesses as independent contractors.

The unions and worker advocates calling for the protection of worker rights routinely ignore the surveys showing that a vast majority of drivers prefer independent contractor status. Much of the noise on this issue is coming from a vocal minority.

The Prop 22 model is a middle ground that provides workers with protections they otherwise lack, while allowing workers to retain their preferred independent contractor status and flexibility.

We’ll continue to watch whether the California Supreme Court decides to hear this dispute but, either way, Prop 22 should be held up as a model for other states to follow, carving out a middle ground that balances the concerns of all sides. Worker status does not have to be binary. Binary laws that mandate employee or independent contractor status, with no middle ground, do not reflect the realities of the modern gig economy.

It’s time for reform.

You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, you get what you need.

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© 2023 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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03.26.23
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You Get What You Need: Prop 22 Upheld, and It’s a Model Other States Should Follow

The Rolling Stones’ song, “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” features the London Bach Choir and addresses the predominant themes of the 1960s — love, protest, and drugs. There’s some controversy as to whether Mr. Jimmy refers to vagrant Minnesotan Jimmy Hutmaker, who supposedly uttered the famous lyric-to-be during a chance 1964 encounter with Jagger at Bacon’s Drugstore, or Jimmy Miller, a record producer who also played drums on this track instead of Charlie Watts.

“You Can’t Always Get What You Want” is also a suitable theme for the main problem that dominates every aspect of independent contractor misclassification. The problems is that the laws are binary. A worker is either an employee who receives all of the protections of employment laws, or an independent contractor, who receives none. The exceptions creating a middle ground have been sparse.

But if you try sometimes.

California voters tried and succeeded in creating a middle ground in 2022, when they passed Prop 22. Prop 22 guarantees independent contractor status for rideshare and delivery drivers if a series of conditions are met, and then the app companies are required to provide a range of protections for drivers, including minimum rates of pay, a health insurance stipend, accident insurance, sexual harassment prevention, safety training, and rest requirements.

Prop 22 was and is a model for the middle ground that has been missing.

But Prop 22 has also been under attack. In a case called Castellenos, the SIEU and other worker advocates have argued that Prop 22 violates the California constitution and had to be invalidated. Without Prop 22, rideshare and delivery drivers could be subjected to California’s ABC Test for determining drivers’ status.

As you may have read, a California Court of Appeals ruled earlier this month that Prop 22 did not violate the California Constitution and could take effect, except for one small part of the law governing future amendments. The dispute will likely be heard by the California Supreme Court, so the fight isn’t over.

The point I want to make, though, is that Prop 22 carves out a middle ground that should be a model for other states to follow. It guarantees workers certain protections while allowing them to operate their own businesses as independent contractors.

The unions and worker advocates calling for the protection of worker rights routinely ignore the surveys showing that a vast majority of drivers prefer independent contractor status. Much of the noise on this issue is coming from a vocal minority.

The Prop 22 model is a middle ground that provides workers with protections they otherwise lack, while allowing workers to retain their preferred independent contractor status and flexibility.

We’ll continue to watch whether the California Supreme Court decides to hear this dispute but, either way, Prop 22 should be held up as a model for other states to follow, carving out a middle ground that balances the concerns of all sides. Worker status does not have to be binary. Binary laws that mandate employee or independent contractor status, with no middle ground, do not reflect the realities of the modern gig economy.

It’s time for reform.

You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, you get what you need.

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© 2023 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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01.23.23
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DOL Gets Aggressive with $5.6 Million Consent Judgment on Independent Contractor Misclassification

There’s an island in Quebec that’s larger in area than the lake in which it sits. René-Levasseur Island was supposedly formed by the impact of a meteorite 214 million years ago, although eyewitness accounts differ. The land mass became an island in 1970, when the Manicougan reservoir was flooded, merging two crescent shaped lakes that surrounded the area.

I like fun geography facts, and an island larger than the lake in which it sits is a fun fact. But feels a bit aggressive for the Canadians to merge two crescent shaped lakes to turn this land mass into an island. I’m sure they had their reasons. If nothing else, it looks good on a map.

The Department of Labor is also being aggressive, but they’re not flooding any reservoirs. Instead, they’re channeling their aggression toward independent contractor misclassification.

In a news release this month, the DOL announced that it had obtained a consent judgment for $5.6 million against a national auto parts distributor and an Arizona logistics firm for allegedly misclassifying 1,398 drivers as independent contractors. The award included back wages and liquidated damages.

The DOL had alleged that, by misclassifying the drivers, the companies failed to meet minimum wage requirements, failed to pay overtime rates, and failed to keep required timekeeping records. These failures each were violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The award covered an eight-year period between April 2012 and March 2020.

I see three takeaways here:

First, the DOL is being aggressive in filing lawsuits when it thinks independent contractors have been misclassified. This consent judgment shows how expensive these claims can be for companies that improperly classify workers. Companies using independent contractors needs to be proactive in evaluating their risks and taking steps to minimize those risks. There are lots of ways to reduce risk if you plan ahead, before you’ve been sued or investigated.

Second, this case is a reminder that companies who classify delivery drivers as independent contractors are at heightened risk. Federal and state agencies and the plaintiffs’ bar seem to be filing a disproportionate number of claims involving delivery drivers. If your business uses delivery drivers who are classified as independent contractors, you may be at an increased risk of an audit or lawsuit.

Third, remember the DOL’s proposed new rule for independent contractor classification under the FLSA? (Read more here, here, and here.) The DOL wants to change the current test for who is an employee under the FLSA, replacing a regulation adopted by the Trump Administration in 2020. But cases like this one show that the current regulation is not impairing the DOL’s ability to enforce what it perceives as misclassification. The DOL’s many recent successes — as posted in DOL news releases — show that the DOL is doing just fine under the current rule when it comes to misclassification enforcement. The new rule is a solution without a problem.

Large judgments like this one seem shocking, but they are a reminder of the substantial dangers of misclassification.

Learn more by joining me at the 10th Annual 2023 BakerHostetler Labor Relations and Employment Law Master Class, all virtual, one hour every Tuesday starting February 7, 2023. My program on Contingent Workforce issues will be on March 7, 2023. Registration is free.

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© 2023 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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07.05.22
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Hear This: Ballot Measure to Limit Mass. ABC Test is Blocked

Have you heard? There’s a baby goat in Pakistan who may have set the world record for Longest Ears by a Goat. The ears are each 1.6 feet long. Which also means there’s category for Longest Ears by a Goat.

The goat, named Simba, reportedly trips on its ears, which are so long that they drag on the ground. That’s a problem, I hear.

I’m also hearing of a problem in Massachusetts, but it’s of a different sort entirely.

Efforts to add exceptions to Massachusetts’ ABC Test for independent contractor misclassification have been scuttled by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. A ballot measure modeled after California’s Prop 22* would have created exemptions to support independent contractor status for app-based rideshare and delivery drivers. The Court, however, ruled that the proposed ballot measure covered too many subjects and could not lawfully be placed on the ballot.

What does all this mean?

As many of you know, Massachusetts has the toughest test in the nation when it comes to classifying independent contractors. Under Massachusetts wage and hour law, a worker is deemed an employee unless —

A) the individual is free from control and direction in connection with the performance of the service, both under his contract for the performance of service and in fact; and

B) the service is performed outside the usual course of the business of the employer; and,

C) the individual is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, profession or business of the same nature as that involved in the service performed.

That’s a strict ABC Test, like California’s. But California’s ABC Test has a slew of exceptions, memorialized in AB 2257, formerly AB 5. The Massachusetts Independent Contractor Law has no exceptions, which makes Massachusetts a favorite venue for plaintiffs’ lawyers who like to bring misclassification cases.

With the ballot measure struck down, voters will not have an opportunity to pass a Prop 22-like bill in Massachusetts that would have allowed app-based rideshare and delivery drivers to maintain independent contractor status, so long as certain requirements were met.

States with ABC Tests continue to pose significant compliance risks for businesses that rely on independent contractors. It’s easy to trip and fall, regardless of the size of one’s goat ears.

*California’s Prop 22 is in limbo too. As explained here, a state court ruled the ballot measure unconstitutional. The issue is now on appeal.

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© 2022 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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10.26.20
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Signs of Trouble: California Ruling Raises Stakes for Ride Share

Please, no.

When governments try to help people, they don’t always get it right. The British Conservative party just wants to help. Or does it? This would be a rather sinister way to get rid of the homeless problem, don’t you think?

Same problem with the battle over whether ride share drivers are employees or independent contactors. Good intentions have unintended consequences. The California Attorney General claims to be helping drivers with his lawsuit against the ride share companies. But the state’s effort fails to recognize the massive unintended consequences.

In August, a California court issued a preliminary injunction requiring the major ride share companies to reclassify all California drivers as employees. The ruling was based on the California law (AB 5) and its ABC Test, which presumes that anyone performing services is an employee, unless three strict factors are met.

The August ruling was temporarily placed on hold while an appeals court reviewed it.

But on Thursday, the appeals court reviewed it and agreed that the ruling was proper. The stakes have been raised, and the future of ride share in California may now hinge on what happens with Prop 22, which is on the ballot right now in California.

Despite what the judges and the California Attorney General may think, ride share companies can’t just flip a switch and make all drivers employees. The logistics and expenses associated with making that change call into question whether the effort would even be worth it. When the initial court decision requiring reclassification came out in August, there were rumblings that ride share in California might shut down entirely, at least temporarily, while the companies re-evaluate and decide whether to re-tool.

The one saving grace would be Proposition 22.

As explained here, a Yes vote on Prop 22 would allow ride share companies to continue to classify drivers as independent contractors so long as they provide a suite of benefits and guarantees described in the proposed law. These would include:

  • Earnings Minimum. The measure would require app-based companies to pay at least 120 percent of the minimum wage for each hour a driver spends driving—but not time spent waiting for requests.
  • Health Insurance Stipend. The measure would require rideshare and delivery companies to provide a health insurance stipend of about $400 per month to drivers who regularly work more than 25 hours per week (not including waiting time). Drivers who average 15 driving hours per week but less than 25 driving hours would receive half as much.
  • Medical Expenses and Disability Insurance. The measure would require that companies buy insurance to cover driver medical expenses and provide disability pay when a driver is injured while driving.
  • Rest Policy. The measure would prohibit drivers from working more than 12 hours in a 24 hour period for a single rideshare or delivery company.
  • Other. The measure would require that rideshare and delivery companies have sexual harassment prevention policies and conduct criminal background checks and safety training for all drivers. It also would prohibit discrimination in hiring and firing.

The measure would also prevent cities and counties from passing further restrictions on driver classification.

The core problem with the Independent Contractor vs. Employee question is that, under U.S. law, the choice is binary. You’re one or the other. And even if ride share companies wanted to provide more benefits for drivers (and they have said they do), they are constrained by the current laws. The more companies do for the drivers, the more likely it is that the law will view those well-intentioned efforts as evidence that the drivers are really employees. This dilemma fits squarely within the box of “no good deed goes unpunished.”

Prop 22 offers a middle ground. Drivers would get more protection and benefits, and ride share companies would be protected from claims that providing those protections and benefits converts the drivers to employees. This type of law should serve as a model for how to deal with the Independent Contractor vs. Employee question–not just in California but nationwide. The choice should not be binary.

Thursday’s decision by the appeals court raises the stakes, and voters in California will decide the outcome in less than two weeks.

The homeless population in Britain thankfully has more time.

© 2020 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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10.05.20
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Shout It Like a Helium-Filled Gator: Don’t Limit Your Arbitration Agreements to Work-Related Disputes

Fig. 3. Atmosphere exchange during the experimental procedure without handling the subject

A team of researchers studying the vocalizations of Chinese alligators have won an Ig Nobel Prize for their method. They put the gators in helium-filled tanks and observed variations in their calls.

Sign me up.

I want to write papers with sentences like this one: “High-energy frequency bands in the bellows of the Chinese alligator were shifted towards higher frequencies when the animal vocalized in the heliox condition.”

My writing, for better or worse, is more focused on agreements. Here’s something to remember when writing arbitration agreements.

One of the main benefits of an arbitration agreement is the ability to prohibit class action lawsuits. When using arbitration agreements with employees or independent contractors, don’t forget to include the class action waiver. (There are pros and cons to mandatory arbitration, but we’ll leave that for another day.)

Too often, the scope of arbitration agreements is too narrow. Many agreements require arbitration of work-related or employment-related claims only.

Go broader. Expand your range, but without using helium.

In this case, a group of drivers alleged that a rideshare app company mishandled a data security breach. The drivers tried to bring a class action.

The court instead required them to seek relief one-by-one, in individual arbitration actions. That’s because their agreements required them to arbitrate disputes with the company and prohibited class litigation. The arbitration agreement here was broad enough to cover data breach claims.

Quick side note on what the legal dispute was really about: The drivers argued that the agreements were unenforceable. They pointed to the transportation worker exception in the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA). The FAA generally protects the enforcement of arbitration agreements, but it doesn’t apply to transportation workers in interstate commerce. The dispute was whether drivers who pick up passengers at airports for local rides are acting on interstate commerce because the passengers and their luggage flew in from other states. The district court said no, that these local drives are not interstate commerce, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.

For our purposes, the lesson here is to be thoughtful about the scope of claims subject to arbitration. Go broader than just work-related claims. A data breach can be an expensive class action to defend if thousands of people are affected. Any single individual arbitration, however, is probably not worth the effort for a plaintiff’s lawyer. The damages for an individual arbitration will be too small to make it worth pursuing.

(The “go broad” concept has limits, and there are some claims that should be carved out of arbitration agreements, so I don’t want to overstate the point.)

Anyway, be creative and thoughtful when drafting agreements. Be sure the scope of covered claims is sufficiently broad. Careful planning can avoid class actions — or just maybe it can win you an Ig Nobel Prize.

Bonus track: Here’s audio of a helium-induced alligator bellow.

© 2020 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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08.24.20
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Never Surrender: Appeals Court Grants Reprieve for Ride Share App Companies; Focus Turns to Prop 22.

Album cover: Boy in the Box.
Label: Aquarius in Canada, EMI America in the U.S.
Sleeves: Definitely rolled up if you could see them.

Thank you to Canadian singer Corey Hart for providing the theme to this week’s post. The Number 3 song this week in 1985 opens with, “Just a little more time is all we’re asking for.” The song, of course, is Never Surrender.

Last week we wrote about the preliminary injunction granted by a California Superior Court, preventing ride share app companies statewide from continuing to classify drivers as independent contractors. We called that ruling “Act I” because the matter was headed to appeal.

As expected, the matter was immediately appealed. Now it’s time to queue up Canada’s Juno Award winner for 1985 “Single of the Year“:

Just a little more time is all we’re asking for.

‘Cause just a little more time could open closing doors.

In a more musical world, those would have been the opening lines to the Motion for Stay in the Court of Appeals. Regardless, the motion was granted, and the ride share app companies are not going to reclassify anyone quite yet.

If the stay was not granted, the ride share app companies had threatened to shut down in California.

Oral arguments are scheduled for mid-October, which means a decision is months away. As we expected in last week’s post, the real action is on Proposition 22, on the ballot this November.

If Proposition 22 passes, the new ABC Test in Assembly Bill 5 (which went into effect Jan. 1, 2020) would not apply to workers in the app-based rideshare and delivery business. Instead, those workers could stay classified as independent contractors, but the app-based companies must ensure that the drivers receive a predetermined level of compensation and benefits, including:

  • Earnings Minimum. The measure would require app-based companies to pay at least 120 percent of the minimum wage for each hour a driver spends driving—but not time spent waiting for requests.
  • Health Insurance Stipend. The measure would require rideshare and delivery companies to provide a health insurance stipend of about $400 per month to drivers who regularly work more than 25 hours per week (not including waiting time). Drivers who average 15 driving hours per week but less than 25 driving hours would receive half as much.
  • Medical Expenses and Disability Insurance. The measure would require that companies buy insurance to cover driver medical expenses and provide disability pay when a driver is injured while driving.
  • Rest Policy. The measure would prohibit drivers from working more than 12 hours in a 24 hour period for a single rideshare or delivery company.
  • Other. The measure would require that rideshare and delivery companies have sexual harassment prevention policies and conduct criminal background checks and safety training for all drivers. It also would prohibit discrimination in hiring and firing.

The measure would also prevent cities and counties from passing further restrictions on driver classification.

Here’s the webpage for Yes on 22. Keep a close eye on the results of the vote because it will probably determine the future of ride share in California.

And don’t forget to wear your sunglasses at night.

© 2020 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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08.17.20
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Something Is Rotten in the State of California? Ride Share Misclassification Ruling Is Merely Act I

CA flag pole

“To be or not to be” are the opening words of a soliloquy by Prince Hamlet. With that, I have exhausted what I remember about Shakespearean plays without consulting Wikipedia. Having consulted Wikipedia, I can confirm that this soliloquy occurs in Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1.

A lot happens in Act III and beyond, and if you stopped reading Hamlet after Act I, you’d miss most of the action, including assorted plotting, scheming and mayhem.

Last week in California, a different kind of mayhem began in a major case involving alleged independent contractor misclassification. In California v. Uber, a state superior court judge granted a preliminary injunction, requiring ride-sharing app companies to reclassify California drivers as employees. But this order might not be the poisoned blade it seems to be. Either the ruling is a substantial blow, or it’s much ado about nothing. For now, it’s too early to tell. We’re still in Act I. Like in Hamlet, the real action will be in the later acts.

Read the rest of the post here, on BakerHostetler’s Employment Law Spotlight Blog.

© 2020 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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07.20.20
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Do Not Break Glass: Arbitration Clauses May Shatter in Agreements with Independent Contractor Delivery Drivers

largest-glass-blown-sculpture

Photo: CGTN/CFP

When your kids were little, did they ever run around in places they shouldn’t, causing you to fear what would happen if they broke something? Well you’re not alone. The world’s largest glass-blown sculpture sits in a museum in Shanghai. At least it did until recently. On May 30, two children accidentally broke it while running through the museum playing. There was a protective belt to try to prevent this sort of thing, but the kids ran right through it.

The moral of the story is that protective belts are not always good enough. The same is true when it comes to independent contractor agreements. One of the most useful protective belts we can install to protect against misclassification claims is a well-drafted arbitration clause with a class action waiver. That forces any independent contractor who claims to be an employee to fight that battle on an individual basis in front of an arbitrator. No court, no class action.

But this protective belt doesn’t always work, especially in the transportation industry.

Arbitration agreements with class action waivers work well in most industries. Under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), these agreements are generally enforceable, and they’ve saved many a large company from having to face gigantic misclassification class actions.

But the FAA has an exception. It doesn’t apply to transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce. There’s been lots of litigation over what that means and how broad the exception is.

A pair of decisions last week tried to address this question with respect to last-mile delivery drivers.

Both cases assumed the last-mile drivers were transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce, even though they generally did not cross state lines.  (We don’t know how the US Supreme Court would rule on that question). Since the FAA did not apply, the question then became whether the arbitration clauses and class action waivers were enforceable under state law.

Two courts, two cases, and two states resulted in two very different outcomes.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that arbitration agreements with delivery drivers are enforceable under New Jersey Arbitration Act, even if not under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA).

But a federal appeals court took the opposite view of the same issue under Massachusetts law, ruling that a class action waiver in an arbitration clause is void because it is contrary to Massachusetts public policy.

So what does this mean for companies who use independent contractors in the transportation industry?

Depending on the facts and the court, the FAA might or might not apply. If the FAA does not apply, the question of whether the arbitration clause and class action waiver can be enforced will depend on state law.

That means companies need to be very careful in drafting their choice of law provisions and their severability clauses. If parts of the arbitration clause are unenforceable because of the class action waiver, will the whole clause be cut or just the class action waiver? If a court severs only the class action waiver, could you end up in class arbitration? The contract should also anticipate that possibility, and the arbitration clause should contain language prohibiting the arbitrator from hearing a class action. The effect of that clause would be to force the class action back to federal court. Most companies, if faced with a class action, would prefer to defend class claims in court rather than in arbitration.

These two cases highlight the importance of considering these issues when drafting independent contractor agreements in the transportation industry. While different state laws may lead to different outcomes, your contract should plan for the worst and be written to protect against the least desired outcome.

And if you are put in charge of security at a museum, try a better protective belt.

© 2020 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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06.01.20
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New Rules for Drivers? California’s ABC Test Could Change Again in 2021

Worst parking.jpg

Rebellious? Indifferent? Clueless? I’m still trying to understand how this car thought it was ok to take up FOUR parking spaces in the parking lot at a Walgreens near my house.

Any one of the spaces seems suitable for a car of ordinary proportions. I have parked in most of these four spots before, and my experiences were uniformly positive. I’d give four stars to each spot. Reliable, met expectations. Near enough to the store entrance. Picking just one of the four would be an excellent way to start your shopping experience.

When people don’t like the rules they’re expected to follow, one approach is to try to change the rules. That’s what ride share and delivery app companies are doing in California.

Late last month, these companies achieved an important milestone, reaching the 625,000 signature threshold for a November ballot initiative that, if passed, would change the test in California for determining Employee vs. Independent Contractor. The measure will now appear on California ballots, giving voters the chance to override A.B. 5 for ride share and delivery app companies.

If the initiative passes, the new ABC Test would not apply to workers in the app-based rideshare and delivery business. Instead, those workers could stay classified as independent contractors, but the app-based companies must ensure that the drivers receive a predetermined level of compensation and benefits, including:

  • Earnings Minimum. The measure would require app-based companies to pay at least 120 percent of the minimum wage for each hour a driver spends driving—but not time spent waiting for requests.
  • Health Insurance Stipend. The measure would require rideshare and delivery companies to provide a health insurance stipend of about $400 per month to drivers who regularly work more than 25 hours per week (not including waiting time). Drivers who average 15 driving hours per week but less than 25 driving hours would receive half as much.
  • Medical Expenses and Disability Insurance. The measure would require that companies buy insurance to cover driver medical expenses and provide disability pay when a driver is injured while driving.
  • Rest Policy. The measure would prohibit drivers from working more than 12 hours in a 24 hour period for a single rideshare or delivery company.
  • Other. The measure would require that rideshare and delivery companies have sexual harassment prevention policies and conduct criminal background checks and safety training for all drivers. It also would prohibit discrimination in hiring and firing.

The measure would also prevent cities and counties from passing further restrictions on driver classification.

I wrote more about this bill here, leading the post with a harrowing flight selection option offered on my United app.

So if you‘re reading this post from the Left Coast, get out and vote in November. You can make a meaningful change in the way that California approaches the question of Who Is My Employee? In the meantime, drive safe, wear your mask, and park within the lines.

© 2020 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.

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