The Department of Labor has released new rules for determining which workers are employees of a company and entitled to the wage and overtime protections that come with that status.
Or, more specifically, it’s reinstating the old rules after the previous administration made it easier to classify workers as independent contractors.
Labor rights proponents are happy with this reversal. Business leaders, especially in parts of the tech sector, are not.
Ride-hailing and delivery apps have changed the conversation around who counts as an independent contractor and whether companies are exploiting that distinction, said Veena Dubal, a law professor at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law.
“The primary business innovation of these on-demand companies has been to say, ‘We are connecting consumers with workers. And we’re just intermediaries,’” she said.
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