President Joe Biden’s Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Reuters on Thursday that he supports classifying gig workers as employees, which could signal a policy shift coming from the federal government.
“We are looking at it but in a lot of cases gig workers should be classified as employees,” Walsh told Reuters. “In some cases they are treated respectfully and in some cases they are not and I think it has to be consistent across the board.”
Walsh said that he wants to ensure that the “success” of companies that employ gig workers “trickles down to the worker.” He’s planning discussions between such companies and the Department of Labor to secure “all of the things that an average employee in America can access,” like health care and other benefits.
As head of the Labor Department, Walsh’s view could lead to significant changes to the gig economy. After the story was published, shares of Uber, Lyft and Doordash dropped significantly. Uber lost more than 6 percent, and Lyft and Doordash dropped more than 10 percent by midday.
Gig workers and the labor movement were dealt a blow last year when California passed Proposition 22, which allowed companies like Uber, Lyft, Instacart, DoorDash and Postmates — which together spent hundreds of millions lobbying for the legislation — to continue classifying their workers as gig workers instead of full employees. That means that these companies could continue not guaranteeing their employees a minimum wage and denying them benefits like paid sick leave and access to unemployment insurance.
Nonwhite and immigrant gig workers also don’t get the same protections from discrimination as employees in the U.S., which is particularly concerning because the vast majority of gig workers are people of color.
The nonemployee designation has led to dire conditions for some workers, especially during the pandemic. The Los Angeles Times reported last year that one Uber worker died after having contracted COVID-19 while driving for the company. His family’s request for worker compensation was then denied because he wasn’t an employee of the company.
Labor advocates decried the passage of Prop 22 when it passed in November. Robert R. Raymond wrote for Truthout that it was “one of the most significant setbacks to labor rights in recent history,” while also noting that gig workers were quietly being denied employee status in state legislatures across the country last year.
Gig workers make up a large portion of the workforce in the U.S. According to a 2017 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 55 million people, or 34 percent of the workforce, were gig workers, a figure that was expected to grow. Other sources like the Freelancers’ Union have found that the figure varies between 25 and 35 percent of the workforce.
Workers are hurt by harmful gig economy policies, but the government also misses out on revenue when so many workers are denied benefits; companies can skirt paying for Medicare, Social Security and unemployment insurance taxes when they keep their workers from being employees. In California alone, the state has estimated that it loses out on $7 billion in revenue annually due to the classification.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.