Don’t Let Uber and Lyft Shortchange Their Workers
Drivers are clearly employees and deserve a living wage and protection.
An employee by any definition.
Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Too many U.S. companies are building empires on the backs of low-wage workers. It’s a mistake to let it continue.
California, for one, is fighting back. It sued Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. in state court on Tuesday, contending that the ride-hailing companies violated a new state law by improperly designating drivers as independent contractors rather than employees to save on labor costs. The law in question is Assembly Bill 5, which requires companies to classify workers as employees unless they can establish that the work is outside the company’s usual course of business and that workers are free from the company’s control, among other factors.