Dive Brief:
- The city of Seattle is considering extending collective-bargaining rights to independent contractors, who currently do not get protection under the country's major labor laws.
- According to a report at the International Business Times, Seattle's local law is aimed at “for-hire drivers” who work for a specific hour total, and it would apply to drivers at both traditional cab companies and those behind the wheel for Sidecar, Uber and Lyft.
- Basically, the law would gather up all the names of independent contractor drivers and if those drivers want to organize, they could. Eventually, the companies would have to sit down and negotiate contracts or face the music.
Dive Insight:
“Amid this controversy of ‘who is an employee, who is an independent contractor,’ this is saying, ‘Let’s get away from the labels and start protecting workers,’” Miriam Cherry, a professor at the Saint Louis University School of Law who has written about labor in the sharing economy, told the IBT. “I think that’s moving in the right direction.”
Critics, however, say the law violates Federal anti-trust laws along with other potential legal hurdles. For now, the law is not in effect, but proponents believe the law is necessary today.
Rebecca Smith, deputy director of the National Employment Law Project, told the IBT that whether someone’s working part-time or full-time is “irrelevant to what their rights ought to be as a worker.” The NELP has a recent report saying independent contractors should be protected by labor laws. “This idea that the business model is so different, this complaint is one that we’ve heard over and over again,” Smith said.
