Massachusetts' organized labor is gearing up for a fight next year against major tech corporations like Uber and DoorDash. Labor says its aim is to win better benefits for gig workers — although, as the campaign unfolds, expect to hear from gig workers who favor the status quo.
A group of labor unions, civil rights and workers' advocacy groups calling themselves the Coalition to Protect Workers' Rights plans to oppose the ballot question sponsored by app-based gig economy companies. It would exempt their labor practices from state laws requiring wage minimums, liability protections and full benefit status.
"They're overcharging consumers and paying their workers less and less," said Beth Griffith, a ride hail driver and director of the Boston Independent Drivers Guild, one of the groups that joined with some of the state's biggest unions, like the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Building Trades Council and the Greater Boston Labor Council, to stop the tech company's ballot campaign.
One of local labor's biggest allies, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, will throw her considerable political weight into the fight Wednesday to endorse the coalition. Warren plans to call on the tech companies' CEOs to withdraw the ballot measure before it comes before voters, according to the coalition.
Companies like DoorDash, Lyft and Uber are mounting the ballot question effort to change state law to allow them to classify their drivers, delivery people and other workers as independent contractors instead of as employees who would be entitled to full benefits, wages and protections. The ballot question, approved as constitutional by Attorney General Maura Healey last week, would grant gig workers some limited benefits like paid time off but would permanently separate them from the protections and benefits most workers are offered by their employers under Massachusetts law.
Griffith said the compromise package of benefits, which resemble what was passed in California last year, isn't enough to replace the rights workers should already have access to under Massachusetts law.
"It doesn't do enough to protect workers. It doesn't do enough to protect consumers," Griffith said.
The campaign behind the tech company's ballot question has no shortage of support from Uber and Lyft drivers, and other gig workers, who want to see the companies succeed in carving out exemptions that would let them remain as independent contractors instead of employees.
"It has empowered us to feel like we have our lives in control," Naiomi Birabwa, a Lyft driver from Framingham affiliated with the ballot campaign, told GBH News.
"Just having the independence of being your own boss is such an empowering feeling because many of us don't have that opportunity," Birabwa said, adding that drivers like her want to be able to take on as much or as little gig work as they want without regulatory restrictions that could come with being considered an employee.
Griffith, speaking for the union-friendly independent drivers group, said gig workers who support the measure don't understand that they don't have to give up workers' rights to maintain work flexibility.
"Uber and Lyft and all these other big tech companies have unfortunately been able to brainwash them to think that, and that's not true," Griffith said. "If they're saying they're for this ballot measure, they're voting against their own interests."
At the heart of the ballot fight is the ongoing legal action against the same companies now looking for exemptions from the law. Last year, Healey took Uber and Lyft to court for allegedly circumventing the state's wage and labor laws by treating over 200,000 drivers as independent contractors instead of as employees, denying them benefits like minimum wage, paid time off and unemployment insurance.
Mike Firestone, who is heading up the unions' effort to stop the ballot campaign, said voters in Massachusetts want big tech companies to pay taxes, treat workers fairly and take responsibility when customers get hurt.
"This ballot question is an effort funded by these massive tech companies to exempt themselves from the obligations of any other employer in our state ... in an attempt to avoid paying taxes, avoid paying their workers fairly and to escape liability to customers," Firestone said.
Though legislation aimed at solving the independent contractor impasse has gone nowhere on Beacon Hill, lawmakers could still play a role by passing a law that addresses the situation once and for all. A new law would bring an end to the ballot fight between the app companies and unions and could help settle Healey's suit against the tech giants.
Moderate and progressive Democrats in the Legislature, averse to alienating drivers or their allies in labor, may however choose to let the process play out and have the public decide the matter next November.
