At the end of April, the Biden administration established a task force to look into if the government can reclassify gig workers into full-time employees. Now gig economy brands like DoorDash, Uber, Lyft, etc., are looking for ways to work with the administration to preserve flexibility for gig workers.
Flexible Gig Work
President Biden wants to help more workers unionize. Gig economy brands do not like this.
The middle ground seems to be around flexible work. Adam Kovacevich, CEO of Chamber of Progress, was quoted in Politico saying:
“I hope that the task force can encourage more experimentation around sectoral bargaining, portable benefits, works councils, that can help achieve many of [the goals of unionization] and take into account how people want to work,” said Adam Kovacevich, CEO of Chamber of Progress.
Many major gig economy brands like Uber, DoorDash, etc., are members of the Chamber of Progress.
PRO Act
The Biden Administration is still waiting on the Senate to pass the PRO Acts, which would help gig workers unionize. The PRO Acts already passed in the House.
If the law passes, guidelines for workers under the National Labor Relations Acts (NLRA) of 1935 will expand. It would make it harder for platforms to classify their gig workers as independent contractors. It sets criteria that brands have to meet to do so. How?
The PRO Act would use the ABC test. And gig economy companies must pass it to classify their workers or drivers as independent contractors.
The criteria of the ABC test are:
“(A) the individual is free from control and direction in connection with the performance of the service, both under the contract for the performance of service and in fact;
“(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.”
Gig economy brands are highly against this passing into law.
California had a law called AB 5, which used the ABC test. And that resulted in Proposition 22 being lobbied by the gig economy in the last election.
The relationship between the gig economy brands and the Biden administration is a national scale version of California. If the outcome is the same as it was in the November 2020 election, and gig brands get what they want, we will have Props 22 – like labor laws all over the country.
Uber’s already pushing for such a plan in Europe.
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