"ANALYSIS: Gig-Worker Classification Battles Spread to New Fronts", 16 November 2020.

Gig worker classification battles have continued through Covid-19 and are spreading to new fronts. Beyond private class action lawsuits, the central question of whether gig workers are employees or independent contractors is giving rise to state litigation against companies, new labor regulations, and an epic state ballot initiative campaign. These trends will play out over the next few years, but Covid has already intensified the fight by raising the stakes for worker classification...

New Court Battles

The lengthy struggle between gig drivers who try to keep their claims in the courts and companies that try to divert those cases into arbitration is heading into a new phase, as federal appeals courts take up the issue. Conflicting decisions could prompt one or both sides to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve any circuit split.

The overall number of new federal class action filings in 2020 are lower than those at the same point in 2019. This might be due, at least in part, to the pandemic. But it might also be true that drivers are starting to rely on states to bring classification suits against companies...

This enforcement action poses a potent threat to rideshare companies in two ways that private class actions do not. First, the companies cannot delay and divert enforcement actions away from the courts and into arbitration, as they do when workers bring class actions, which are bound by arbitration agreements. Second, when a state files suit, small confidential settlements are impossible...

All In on Proposition 22

Uber has hinted that the worker classification fight represents an existential threat to its business, so it’s not surprising that it and other gig companies went all in on a California ballot measure that sidesteps A.B. 5 and avoids those court battles.

Proposition 22, which was successfully passed by California voters Nov. 3, turned out to be the most expensive ballot initiative in the state’s history...

DOL Weighs In

While gig companies have been waging war in California, the U.S. Labor Department has been working on its own worker classification regulation...