Uber Bill Splits Labor, Drivers, Big Tech

A state bill to help Uber and Lyft drivers organize unions has made for strange bedfellows: The drivers are lined up with their employers, and against the state AFL-CIO.

The proposed legislation in question is Raised Senate Bill 1000: An Act Concerning Transportation Network Company Drivers.

The bill, currently before the state legislature, would promote driver unions and sectoral bargaining while leaving drivers classified as independent contractors.

Although the drivers’ and their employers’ reasons for rejecting the bill couldn’t be more different, their respective recommendations to state lawmakers remain the same: Drop this law.

The state legislature’s Joint Committee on Labor and Public Employees held a public hearing on the matter earlier this month. The bill is still in committee, where it awaits lawmakers’ further deliberations and a vote before potentially advancing to the full legislature for more debate.

On Wednesday, roughly two dozen New Haven-area Uber and Lyft drivers affiliated with the worker-led organization Connecticut Drivers United rallied at Union Station to urge their colleagues to oppose the bill.

They did so not because of any criticism of what is in the bill — which, as currently drafted, would allow Uber, Lyft, and other rideshare workers to join unions and collectively bargain with these gig economy tech goliaths.

Rather, they criticized what is left out.

Each driver interviewed said that their top workplace priority is getting Uber and Lyft and other rideshare companies to abide by minimum standards around driver pay and benefits. That means setting up a formal appeal structure for drivers who are disciplined, and having the companies cover benefits like worker’s compensation, sick and vacation time, overtime, retirement, and auto insurance and maintenance support.

Because rideshare drivers are currently classified as ​“independent contractors,” they are not covered by minimum wage laws or many other state and federal workplace protections.

“Drivers want protections and basic benefits,” said Rosana Olan, one of CDU’s lead organizers. ​“This bill, it really doesn’t mention anything to protect the driver.”

She and fellow CDU lead organizer Carlos Gomez said that the bill is conspicuously silent about such minimum workplace standards, even though it would codify rideshare workers’ rights to join unions and collectively bargain around those very same issues.

The bill would also allow Connecticut rideshare drivers to bargain on an industry-wide — or ​“sectoral” — basis with these companies once at least 18,000 workers have joined various unions.

Sectoral bargaining, a common practice in Western Europe, allows for union representatives to negotiate workplace terms and conditions for all workers in a particular industry, regardless of which particular company they work for.

Gomez argued this bill doesn’t go far enough.

“This bill is confused,” he said. ​“It’s a bill that no one understands. We’re here to stand up for drivers. We’re here to stand up for the rights of drivers.”

Olan and Gomez said that CDU has roughly 600 members in Connecticut. The CDU plans on holding weekly demonstrations at transit hubs across the state to demonstrate their opposition to this bill. They’ve also started an online petition.

Drivers: ​“Treat Us Like Human Beings”

Some of the CDU drivers who turned up at Union Station Wednesday, wearing matching blue shirts and black caps and standing before a billowing CDU banner, said they hadn’t read the proposed bill and weren’t familiar with its specific provisions.

What they did have, however, was a wealth of firsthand experience and frustrations about how companies like Uber and Lyft currently treat their drivers. Any bill that claims to represent the best interests of drivers without addressing those concerns, they said, would not win their support.

“We pay for gas. We use our cars,” said New Havener Manuel Perez-Rodriguez, who has been a rideshare driver since 2016.

Speaking in Spanish translated into English by Olan, he said drivers get paid only 65 cents per mile. They have to cover all expenses related to their own vehicles. He got sick with Covid earlier in the pandemic, and missed a few weeks of work.

“It’s not worth it to support a bill that doesn’t provide benefits and standards,” he said.

Guillermo Estrella (pictured) said he was ​“cancelled” by Uber in May 2020 after a rider in Boston attacked him. He fought back, and the rider submitted a complaint.

Estrella said he’s been out of ridesharing work for nearly a year now because of this discipline, which he said he was not able to appeal.

“We don’t have holidays. They want us to accept every request” submitted by a rider looking for a driver to pick them up, said a driver who identified himself only as Joseph (pictured at left).

“We want them to treat us like human beings. Right now, they treat us like a slave.”

Joseph showed this reporter a recent receipt for a trip he made ferrying a passenger from the Amazon warehouse in North Haven to the rider’s home in West Haven.

The total cost of the Uber XL ride to the passenger was $96.92. Joseph said he was paid $54.38 for that trip.

That means he made only 56 percent of the total cost of the ride, he said. He said the company should take no more than 20 percent of the ride price.

“They don’t show us respect,” he said.

Bristol-based driver Greg Bing (pictured) said that his biggest concern about driving for Uber and Lyft is not having any time set aside for bathroom breaks and gas refills.

He transitioned to working as a full-time rideshare driver last year after he was laid off from his factory job when the pandemic hit.

He said he really enjoys the work, and it pays well, but, when he’s on the job, he could be docked work or pay if he doesn’t respond promptly to every trip request that comes in.

Even drivers have to use the bathroom sometimes, he said. They also have to frequently fill up their tank at a gas station. And they shouldn’t be punished for that.

Yale Law Students: Consider Classifying Drivers As Employees

Students Kshithij Shrinath, Daniel Ocampo, and Sam Hull are members of Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic. The clinic has been advising CDU.

The law students confirmed during a Wednesday midday phone interview that CDU’s drivers have decided that SB 1000 as currently written does not serve their best interests.

“It sets up a system of collective bargaining without any real floors,” Shrinath said about the proposed bill.

With no explicit minimum standards around pay, unemployment compensation, or other basic benefits, these prospective rideshare driver unions would have to start negotiations from a much weaker standpoint than other unions in other areas of the economy.

“This wholehearted focus on collective bargaining in the absence of minimum floors obscures issues,” Shrinath said.

The law student group pointed to another bill currently being considered by the state legislature on a related matter.

That’s House Bill No. 6343: An Act Concerning A Study Of Gig Workers.

The latest version of the bill, recently drafted by the state legislature’s labor committee, would order the state labor commissioner to work with Yale Law School’s Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic to conduct a study of gig workers in the state and make recommendations for legislation to ​“prevent companies from improperly classifying such workers as independent contractors instead of employees.”

The three Yale law students said they and CDU haven’t taken a position on this study bill because, as Ocampo said, ​“it doesn’t immediately address the drivers’ needs.”

But they did stress that one way around SB 1000’s lack of specificity around a ​“floor” of workplace standards is to pass a new bill that classifies rideshare drivers as employees rather than independent contractors. An earlier version of HB 6343 did just that.

“We’re all trying to figure out what to do in the aftermath of California,” Shrinath said, referring to how the California state legislature passed a bill classifying rideshare drivers as employees, only to have that bill essentially overturned by a statewide referendum backed by $200 million of Uber, Lyft and DoorDash lobbying.

While collective bargaining is important, they said, it’s not necessarily the most important route for improving workplace conditions for these drivers.

Ocampo stressed that the law student clinic is not urging the drivers to support or oppose any particular bill, but is instead advising them on what proposed legislation would or wouldn’t accomplish. ​“We are reflecting what we’ve heard from CDU drivers,” he said, ​“which is that SB 1000 doesn’t do enough for them in its current form.”

Uber & Lyft: Law Would Hurt Gig Economy Flexibility

Uber and Lyft and DoorDash have also called on state lawmakers to scrap the bills, for different reasons from the drivers’.

In written testimony submitted to the state legislature’s labor committee, tech company representatives warned that the bill if passed would create a complicated process that could impede the workplace flexibility that draws rideshare drivers to these gigs in the first place.

They also warned of sectoral bargaining leading to potential antitrust violations.

“The legislation attempts to allow a group of independent contractors to work together to determine prices,” Uber Technologies, Inc. Public Policy Manager Hayley Prim wrote in her testimony. ​“This may present concerns around federal antitrust laws and should be thoroughly examined.”

She also wrote that the bill seeks to establish a representation and bargaining process ​“that is substantially different than existing structures, is ripe for abuse and that raises serious concerns by concentrating power in an extremely small percentage of network drivers.”

She conceded that improvements can be made in the gig economy.

“All workers, regardless of employment classification, deserve important protections and benefits. But we should not be looking toward decades old processes to solve the problems of a new way of working.” She pointed to an August 2020 New York Times op-ed by Uber’s CEO offering a ​“third way” that could require companies like theirs to provide certain protections, like occupational accident insurance, and to contribute to individualized or portable benefit funds.

Lyft Senior Public Policy Manager Rich Power, offered similar objections in his written testimony.

“Applying a labor practice intended for the industrial economy to a sharing economy model is problematic and could create a system that reduces the flexibility and control that drivers currently enjoy,” he wrote. ​“Furthermore, unintended consequences of SB. 1000 could lead to less reliable transportation access for the riding public.”

He instead encouraged Connecticut to follow Massachusetts in setting up a ​“Future of Work Commission” tasked with ​“studying and making recommendations on how to maintain the many economic and transportation benefits that the 21st Century workplace has facilitated while at the same time recognizing and addressing existing worker benefit gaps.”

DoorDash Head of Government Relations (U.S. East) David London also pointed to flexibility and antitrust concerns when explaining his company’s opposition to SB 1000.

“Senate Bill 1000 does not take into consideration the significant differences between an employee and a DNC [Delivery Network Company] driver. Narrowly defining an active network worker as those with 120 deliveries in 90 days, results in a very small percentage of DNC drivers making decisions that will impact all drivers in the sectors.”

“The bill raises concerns relative to antitrust as independent contractors are considered separate businesses and are not allowed to collectively bargain,” he continued. ​“Generally, antitrust law forbids businesses from banding together and collectively fixing prices and other conditions.”

State Labor Leader: ​“Stakes Could Not Be Higher”

While CDU and the big tech companies have all come out against the proposed bill, SB 1000 has earned the support of the Connecticut AFL-CIO.

Connecticut AFL-CIO President Sal Luciano submitted written testimony to the committee in which he urged state lawmakers to pass SB 1000.

“Employers in an increasing number of industries misclassify their employees as independent contractors, denying them basic worker protections,” he wrote. ​“If undetected, employees miss out on fair pay, health and safety, access to workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance, and the right to collectively bargain for better jobs. …

“Employee misclassification is a persistent problem in many growth industries and in the rapidly growing app-based ​‘on-demand’ economy. Ridesharing services like Uber and Lyft are among the most egregious employers who intentionally misclassify their employees.”

He wrote that SB 1000 represents a potential solution for such problems.

“It prohibits network companies from interfering with workers who seek to form a union and spells out that organizing process for this industry,” he wrote. ​“Section 3 also permits sectorial bargaining when 18,000 workers have joined various unions. Sectorial bargaining allows workers in a
particular industry to negotiate collective terms and conditions of employment together, setting minimum industry standards.

“As we look forward to the future of work, the stakes could not be higher for working people and our economy. The way digital platform companies treat their workers will set an example for other companies, especially in new and emerging sectors. If we allow these companies to mistreat and misclassify their employees, others will follow their lead. We urge the Committee to support this bill.”

Lead organizers with the Independent Drivers Guild, a New York City-based rideshare driver organization, also wrote in in support of the bill.

“Drivers do not get paid what they deserve to be paid for their work, after all their expenses drivers take home far less than the minimum wage in the State of CT,” wrote East Hartford-based IDG Senior Organizer Sohail Rana.

“Drivers do not have a due process, companies can fire them any time without any good reason and worst, drivers do not have the chance to answer the accusations the company fires the driver for. Most of the time to get a refund riders make a complaint and the driver gets fired without any due process, without any investigation of the rider’s complaint by the companies.”

He wrote that drivers have been ​“complaining, hurting, suffering, rallying, protesting” for too long, with too little results.

The best path forward is giving drivers the ​“right to bargain,” he wrote. And SB 1000 would do just that.