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What I've Been Reading This Week


This was one of those weeks where I found several great articles on employee or independent contractor misclassification issues that I wanted to highlight.  Something tells me these disputes have no intention of dying down anytime soon.

As always, below are a few articles that caught my eye this week.


Class Action to Proceed Against Uber

Earlier this year, a lawsuit was brought by three Uber drivers against the company and demanded they be reclassified as employees rather than independent contractors.  In early September, a District Judge in San Francisco held that these employees can proceed with a class action against the company.  As a result, this class action will now cover around 160,000 Uber drivers in California.  Should these plaintiffs win, they seek expenses and the full amount of tips received on the job.  It goes without saying that the outcome of this case could have a huge impact on Uber and other similar companies such as Lyft, Grubhub, etc.


Grubhub, DoorDash, and Caviar Face Worker Misclassification Suits

Complaints have been recently filed against Grubhub, DoorDash, and Caviar on the grounds that workers for these companies have been misclassified as independent contractors instead of employees.  As the Los Angeles Times article pointed out, the complaints against Grub Hub and DoorDash are both class actions while the Caviar complaint is only a demand for arbitration at this time.  These complaints have alleged many of the arguments that have already been raised:  workers for these companies were treated as employees but were not provided any of the benefits (ie reimbursement for gas, parking, phone data, etc.).  These cases are still in the early stages of litigation but well worth keeping an eye on.


The Wave of Misclassification Suits Continues

Fortune has a good article on the increasing number of employee/independent contractor misclassification suits that has started to arise.  Kia Kokalitcheva writes that companies such as Uber, Lyft, Doordash, and Grubhub, among others, have been hit with misclassification suits recently.  Since these companies employ a large workforce (and identify them as independent contractors), it should not be too surprising that this is a hot spot for litigation.  While some of these companies are fighting the misclassification claims, the article noted that companies such as Luxe Valet and Shyp recently chose to convert their contract workers to employees rather than litigate the issue.  Time will tell whether this decision to not fight the claims works...but for now, it certainly gets them out of the cross hairs of these suits and away from the public resentment.


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