Seattle becomes first in U.S. to protect gig workers from sudden 'deactivation'
Seattle becomes first in U.S. to protect gig workers from sudden 'deactivation'
On Tuesday, Seattle’s city council passed legisation that would protect gig workers from being suddenly kicked off apps like Instacart or DoorDash. It’s the first gig worker protection measure of its kind in the entire country.
The underlying issue is RAMPANT employee misclassification. Most of these people aren’t contractors, they are just illegally misclassified.
Right to work doesn't apply to contractors. You have a contract.
If you get deactivated without cause, sue.
edit: Right to work lets employees be fired without cause. Contracts can't be breached as easily so deactivation without cause isn't legal. Suing is easy. File a complaint with your state labor board or department of labor. The gig corp will want to settle so precedent doesn't get set in court and lead to a big class action.
I did this to Instacart when they violated state labor laws They asked to settle. Mediation is next week so no idea yet how much they will settle for. 40k is the average for these types of cases.
edit 2: I was mixing up right to work with at will employment. My point stands though. Contractors aren't employees and can't be terminated without cause. Deactivating a contractor when they haven't done anything to violate the terms of the contract is a breach of contract .
I have never done a gig job but I don’t think they really have a contract. That’s the whole problem is it’s smoke and mirrors.
I’m open to gig jobs but I think they need more regulation to make sure the workers are not abused.
Also suing is easier said than done. They have Billions. Uber would fight it in court since you couldn’t afford to take it there
It's actually easy. I sued Instacart for something similar.
Lodged a complaint with the state. Instacart asked to settle. Didn't cost me a dime.
They know they're in the wrong. It's cheaper for them to settle. Even if they have billions they don't want a big lawsuit. If they lose a lawsuit instead of settling out of court it sets precedent that could end their whole gig economy bullshit in a big class action.
'Right to work' has to do with not being required to be in a Union in order to get a job (ie, you have a right to work at a location whether you're in the union or not).
Right to work is bullshit and definitely helped in gutting the unions, but, I'm not sure how that has to do with anything to do with gig workers at all.
It doesn't; this guy is just unaware of what 'right to work' means (admittedly, it's a deliberately obtuse name), and seems to have no willingness to entertain the possibility that he might not know something.
Washington does not have "right to work" laws.
You are mistaken.
Okay.
My point was contractors cannot be fired at will, even in right to work states where regular employees can be.
So, deactivating gig workers without cause is a breach of contract. Which you can easily sue for. And these assholes know they're wrong, so they will want to settle out of court. You don't even need a lawyer.
Right to work refers specifically to laws that make mandatory union membership illegal. It has absolutely nothing to do with at-will employment, termination, or anything relevant here.
The idea of the "right to work" is bizarre to me. I am a USA citizen and it still confuses me. Isn't our right to freedom from oppression, life, liberty, and happiness? I'm not sure how the right to work gets mixed up in there. I should be able to live happily if I work or not. Call me a commie but a strong social program (including free healthcare, free standardized education, and transit) and universal income would solve many of the issues the USA faces today. That all costs money of course but it doesn't take an economist to see how much the USA spends on the military, and we are not even in an active war, so I think the budget could probably be finagled a little. Anyway I forgot what I was talking about, and all I'm saying is if the guy at the Wendy's drive thru is replaced with a tablet for ordering he should still get paid.
Nothing is free. It’s why it’s a hard sell in America. People keep calling it free. It’s as disservice.
I’m a conservative who wants strong social safety nets. The proper term to tax payer funded.
I’m willing to pay more in taxes for a single payer system. Just stop calling it free as we have to pay for it out of our taxes.
The military isn’t even our largest spending item and it’s only about 3% of our gdp. Thats slightly over the amount all nato members promised.
My DoorDasher picked up my order the other day and went to a mall parking lot and sat there for an hour until the order was cancelled since DD couldn’t get ahold of them. They presumably ate it. They should be deactivated. Bad workers shouldn’t get extra protections.