Gig Companies Push Mass. Ballot Initiative

Massachusetts may perhaps develop into the upcoming battleground around the staff classification of gig personnel soon after a coalition of app-centered providers submitted papers to qualify a ballot evaluate that would define their personnel as unbiased contractors.

The Massachusetts Coalition for Impartial Operate, which includes Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart, modeled its proposal on Proposition 22, which California voters passed in November 2020 soon after the most high priced ballot initiative marketing campaign in the state’s background.

The evaluate would exempt gig personnel from being labeled as workforce but present them some confined added benefits, together with bare minimum spend of $eighteen for every hour and health and fitness care stipends for motorists who get the job done at minimum 15 hours for every week.

“This is the best of both of those worlds,” Pam Bennett, a DoorDash courier, said in a assertion offered by the coalition. “This evaluate will enable each individual driver by preserving our skill to get the job done any time and even so we want and also give us accessibility to manufacturer-new added benefits that will seriously enable.”

If the evaluate is authorized by the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, backers could start off gathering the signatures needed to get the problem on the November 2022 ballot. “If positioned on the ballot upcoming calendar year, the proposal could make Massachusetts the epicenter for an high priced fight around the legal rights of gig personnel,” Reuters said.

Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi expressed his assist for the evaluate on Wednesday.

“In the point out of Massachusetts, we believe the right remedy is our IC+ design, which is unbiased contractor with added benefits,” he said all through an earnings connect with. “Our motorists adore it. Prop 22 has confirmed to be amazingly well known with California motorists.”

But critics said the initiative, like Prop 22, is a ploy by the providers to avoid having to pay taxes and workers’ compensation and has loopholes that would produce a subminimum wage for workforce.

“The added benefits promised less than Prop 22 had been a sham that have not materialized. As a network of around 10,000 gig personnel in the point out of California, we have not viewed Uber motorists capable to accessibility any significant added benefits given that the implementation of Prop 22,” Shona Clarkson, an organizer for Gig Staff Rising, informed TechCrunch.

ballot initiative, Dara Khosrowshahi, staff classification, gig overall economy, unbiased contractors, Massachusetts, Prop 22, Uber