In late July, California’s top state court upheld Proposition 22, a voter-approved measure allowing app-based services such as Uber, Lyft, Grubhub and DoorDash to classify drivers in the most populous U.S. state as independent contractors rather than employees.
The California Supreme Court ruling was a major victory for the ride-hailing industry, which for cost and other reasons, has a vested interest in classifying gig workers as independents. While only applicable in California, labor law experts expect momentum to spread to other states where the issue hasn’t yet been tested.
“The companies and proponents of Prop 22, including some gig-based workers, are going to try to scale this to other states,” said Caroline Donelan, partner in the labor and employment group at Blank Rome. “And at the same time, there’s going to be more pushback from unions and opponents of Prop 22 to go straight to various state legislatures to seek more protections for workers.”
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Union leaders have made clear they want gig drivers to have more benefits than are available today. It’s possible they’ll try to force the unionization issue through ballot initiatives or by supporting legislation in more liberal states, which have historically been more amenable to union efforts.
“Just as companies are galvanized right now, unions are also galvanized right now,” Donelan said.
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"Uber, Lyft, and the Gig Economy Think They’ve Found a Way to Win the National Labor War," by Cheryl Winokur Munk was published in CNBC on August 6, 2024.
