Skip to main content

New York State Labor Review Board Finds Some Uber Driver Are Actually Employees


Recently, the New York State Labor Review Board made a ruling and determined that three former Uber drivers were actually employees, rather than independent contractors, for unemployment insurance purposes.  (Perhaps most importantly, this ruling applies to those three drivers and "similarly situated" drivers). For those that have been following the ongoing fight in the "gig economy" in regard to whether these workers are actually employees or independent contractors (as they have mainly been classified), this ruling could mark a major turning point in this struggle.

The question now turns to what Uber (and other related gig economy companies) will do.  Uber's official statement so far is that it disagrees with the ruling and is reviewing its options to determine how to proceed.  If Uber chooses to contest the New York State Labor Review Board's ruling, it will have to do so in court.

Should this ruling remain in place and Uber decide to abide by it, the potential ramifications could be massive.  For instance, Uber's workforce in New York City is believed to be more than 65,000.  If Uber drivers were classified as employees, rather than independent contractors, Uber would become the largest for profit private employer in the city.  Consequently, Uber would be required to begin making unemployment insurance contributions for its drivers.  The long term costs to Uber could be exponential, not even considering whether they would have to begin doing so elsewhere in the country.

Something tells me this is just the tip of the iceberg as other workers in the gig economy will point to this ruling as "precedent" for their related employee vs. independent contractor disputes.  In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, Uber chooses to do to contest the decision.


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

Happening Tomorrow: Connecticut’s Minimum Wage Increases

For those employers and employees alike in Connecticut, mark your calendars as tomorrow, the minimum wage rate increases in the state from $13/hour to $14/hour. This wage hike comes after Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont had signed Public Act 19-4 into law in 2019 which progressively raised the state’s hourly minimum wage rate every year for five years.  In fact, next year, the hourly wage rate will top out at $15/hour.  Beginning in January of 2024, the hourly wage rate will be indexed to the employment cost index. For additional information:   https://portal.ct.gov/Office-of-the-Governor/News/Press-Releases/2022/06-2022/Governor-Lamont-Reminds-Residents-That-Minimum-Wage-Is-Scheduled-To-Increase-on-Friday
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more