Union Testifies Against Uber, Lyft’s Attempts to Legalize Corrupt Business Model

(BOSTON) – Today, Teamsters testified at a hearing before the Massachusetts Senate Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions against potential 2024 ballot referendums that would dramatically expand misclassification of workers throughout the Commonwealth. The committee is considering six separate initiative petitions concerning the employment classification of drivers for Uber, Lyft, and other “gig” companies.

“These petitions are not good faith efforts to improve public policy. They constitute an attack on workers’ rights that would further erode direct employment standards and deprive working people of the fair and legal wages and benefits they are due by their employer,” said Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien. “Our elected officials should not be in the business of changing our laws to reward the corporate misconduct of ‘gig economy’ companies like Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and DoorDash. We should be punishing such companies for building business models that rely on worker misclassification and wage theft to succeed. We should be enacting and enforcing new legislation to dismantle the charade of ‘gig’ employment and to better protect working families.”

The proposed initiative petitions incentivize worker misclassification and could empower bad actors by giving “gig” companies an unfair market advantage. The six petitions also likely run afoul of a state law concerning standards for determining independent contractor status called the ABC Test, as well as the Economic Realities Test recently implemented by the U.S. Dept. of Labor.

“The ballot initiatives before the committee are brazen attempts by corrupt employers to sidestep our laws and buy the ability to continue to rip off workers and taxpayers,” said Tom Mari, President of Teamsters Local 25. “Misclassification isn’t some kind of innovation. It’s a racket that cheats everyone except the companies that exploit it. It’s wage theft — and wage theft via app is still wage theft.”

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.3 million hardworking people in the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico. Visit Teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and “like” us on Facebook at Facebook.com/teamsters. 

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