BOSTON (SHNS) – Engaged in a political battle pitting employees’ independence in opposition to assured wages and advantages, some drivers for corporations like Uber and Lyft mentioned Tuesday that the loss of flexibility that might come from dropping their impartial contractor standing can be “devastating” to their lives.
The employment standing of drivers for fashionable app-based trip sharing and supply providers has taken heart stage in Massachusetts the place Uber, Lyft, Instacart and DoorDash are spending hundreds of thousands to make sure that they will proceed to categorise their employees as impartial contractors moderately than staff.
Lyft, alone, gave $14 million final yr to the committee pushing a 2022 poll initiative in Massachusetts.
The poll query championed by the businesses would enable them to proceed to categorise drivers as impartial contractors, whereas additionally setting a wage flooring for the time drivers are actively engaged with a buyer and giving them entry to advantages like paid household and medical depart and accrued sick time.
“It removes the chain. It give me my 40 acres. I said it. I said it,” mentioned Tony Branch, who has pushed with Lyft out of Brockton since 2016, referencing the Civil War-era promise made to freed slaves of “forty acres and a mule.”
Branch was one of 4 drivers of colour assembled by the Flexibility and Benefits for Massachusetts Drivers committee to share their causes for supporting the poll questions and opposing efforts by Attorney General Maura Healey to pressure Uber and Lyft to deal with their drivers as staff.
“Did they ask Black and brown folks what they wanted before she filed that lawsuit?” Branch requested, saying it will be “devastating” to him if he misplaced the flexibleness he presently enjoys.
Healey sued Uber and Lyft in 2020, alleging that the businesses had been denying drivers a assured minimal wage, paid sick depart, employees’ compensation and conventional unemployment insurance coverage that they’d achieve in the event that they had been deemed to be staff.
While drivers like Branch mentioned they worth their independence, not everybody who works for the tech corporations agrees that they’ve to decide on between flexibility and employment protections.
The Massachusetts Independent Drivers Guild launched an advert marketing campaign this week in assist of laws (S 1224/H 1953) that may enable hundreds of drivers for app-based rideshare corporations to collectively cut price over working circumstances and advantages.
With the backing of unions just like the AFL-CIO of Massachusetts, the group can be combating the poll marketing campaign that may deny them the prospect to change into full-time staff and entry the advantages that include that standing.
“Uber and Lyft have spent hundreds of millions of dollars across the country to stop rideshare drivers like me from having a voice in our pay and working conditions. The impact this has had on rideshare drivers has been devastating. Tens of thousands of drivers are living in poverty across our state right now. To the Massachusetts legislature: our future is in your hands. Please, don’t leave us behind,” mentioned Cletus Awah, a ridershare driver primarily based out of Lynn, in a video recorded for the advert marketing campaign.
Uber, Lyft and different expertise corporations say that the flexibleness their platforms supply drivers to decide on their very own schedules and what number of hours to work is in danger if the poll query fails and so they lose the lawsuit introduced by Healey.
Eilakeisha Spencer, a Dorchester resident who has labored for Lyft and Uber over the previous 5 years, mentioned the liberty that got here with with the ability to select when to drive allowed her to take care of her daughter and put herself by grad faculty.
“It’s become very convenient for me,” mentioned Spencer, who mentioned she now drives to complement her earnings from her full-time job as a clinician, by which she accesses medical insurance.
Charles Clemons mentioned he lives in Grove Hall and has pushed for each Uber and Lyft for six years.
“In light of Black history month, we are not slaves,” Clemons mentioned. “It’s very important to be able to pick and choose when you’re able to work, when your able to provide means for your family and when you’re able to serve your community.”
While the drivers acknowledged that they’d respect extra employment advantages, they questioned the knowledge of altering one thing that’s working for them of their lives, and famous that the poll query would supply some extra perks and wage ensures.
“Yes, it would be nice, but it’s not our job to tell them what to do,” mentioned Apryl Scott, a driver for DoorDash from South Attleboro.
“I’m not even sure why we can’t have the best of both worlds,” Scott added.
Supporters say there isn’t any trade mannequin for employees to be handled as full-time staff and likewise benefit from the flexibility that comes with being an impartial contractor. The drivers say they fear the businesses might exert affect over the occasions they work in the event that they lose their contractor standing.
Branch mentioned each driver for Uber and Lyft made the selection to obtain the app and work for these corporations as impartial contractors as a result of it provided them a flexible technique to earn an earnings.
“This has given us the empowerment to be small business, and we appreciate you not touching that,” Branch mentioned.