Ride share driver in car using the rideshare app in mobile phone. Image by Tero Vesalainen. AB 1340 represents roughly a decade or more of work by labor in the state. Ever since Uber launched in 2009, there’s been an ongoing, global debate on whether rideshare drivers are indeed independent contractors, as claimed by the apps, or bona fide employees, as claimed by workers and labor advocates.
A perfusionist operating a heart-lung machine in a surgical setting. (Photo: Dmitry Kalinovsky, via Shutterstock)OPINION: In an attempt to address some problematic side-effects of a recent California Supreme Court case focusing on the employment of independent contractors, lawmakers have crafted a proposal that would take away our ability to decide how and when we work.
Workers in Bakersfield on the job during the construction
of a two-story home. (Photo: Richard Thornton, via Shutterstock)OPINION: A rare burst of spontaneous political combustion occurred earlier this year in Olympia, Washington, when hairstylists, barbers, and cosmetologists mobilized against a legislative bill that would have banned booth rentals, the practice by independent contractors of renting a chair or a station at a salon to make their living. What’s going on here, in Washington state, and in every state in the nation has been a long and continuing battle to precisely define when an independent contractor really is independent and when he or she is in truth an employee.
A California freeway at rush hour, with traffic that includes commuters and rideshare drivers. (Photo: EGD, via Shutterstock)OPINION: My wife and I are union members working for a union employer in the Sacramento area. As full-time employees, we make a fair living, but not nearly enough for us to be able to live the life we want. In order to supplement our wages, we have chosen to work as independent contractors driving for app-based delivery and rideshare companies that service Sacramento.