Many legislative issues have languished in Albany over the past year, pushed to the side to deal with the immediate concerns of the coronavirus pandemic, and the fate of gig workers is one of them. But while some labor groups hope to see workers such as Uber drivers and Postmates delivery cyclists finally granted employment benefits like overtime or guaranteed paid sick leave this session, there’s little agreement about the best way to do that. Now, the results of a heated and expensive fight over this same question in California last year could complicate the debate in New York.
In November, California voters passed Proposition 22, a ballot measure that exempted app-based workers for companies such as Uber, Lyft and Doordash from a new law – known as AB5 – that would have reclassified those workers as employees rather than independent contractors. The result was a stunning rebuke of labor’s efforts to force those companies to treat their workers as employees – made to pay for health care and other benefits – and a decisive victory for gig companies, powered by their more than $200 million investment campaigning in support of the measure.
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