Ride hailing and delivery companies including Uber and Lyft will try this fall to extend their streak of victories over labor groups, with a state ballot measure that would let them treat drivers as contractors rather than employees. But convincing voters might be harder now than in previous years.
The app-based companies are turning to Massachusetts voters in November in the hopes of staving off a lawsuit from the state’s attorney general over the legal status of their drivers.
This fall’s fight over the ballot measure could show how much sway the tech giants have with the public. The app-driven services have long appealed to their customers to avoid the kind of restrictions many other businesses face, most recently in 2020 when California voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure pushed by the companies.
But the costs of ride-hailing services are climbing, and public attitudes towards their perennial foes, the labor unions, are at their highest point in half a century. The liberal leanings of Massachusetts, where Democrat Joe Biden got twice as many votes as Republican Donald Trump in 2020, could also make it harder for ride-hailing companies to sway voters, as Democrats are less sympathetic to the industry’s approach than Republicans.
The industry-backed initiative in Massachusetts would specify that the drivers are contractors, rather than employees. That would mean the drivers wouldn’t benefit from many workplace protections required by state law, including...
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