The fight to secure gig workers more employment rights and protections has been one of Albany’s more intractable policy issues for several years now. Powerful and deep-pocketed gig companies like Uber and DoorDash have long resisted efforts to reclassify gig workers from independent contractors to employees – securing for them all the rights that employees everywhere are entitled to – as legislators tried to do in California. Meanwhile, labor advocates have shut down attempted compromise bills that would grant gig workers some new rights but withhold others, calling them giveaways to companies.
The New York City Council has had more success in advancing new protections for some gig workers, thanks in large part to advocacy from the workers themselves. Organizing by Los Deliveristas Unidos, a grassroots group of largely immigrant food delivery workers, led to those workers securing protections at the city level, including access to bathrooms and minimum pay levels.
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