1. The massive lobbying effort to reduce the minimum wage for “gig” delivery workers who drive for companies like UberEats, Doordash, and Instacart appears to be over, after Council President Sara Nelson’s aggressive efforts backfired earlier this year. The Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm that spent more than $1 million over ten months lobbying on behalf of Doordash had stopped spending money in Seattle by the end of July and reportedly has no plans to renew efforts.
The reprieve (or defeat) is no huge surprise, given how unpopular the proposal was to begin with. Gig workers, unlike regular employees, are independent contractors and must pay for all their own expenses, including gas, both employer and employee taxes, and mandatory business insurance, among many other costs.
The app companies are required to partially reimburse gig workers for costs that they would have to pay if they were regular employers; Nelson’s bill would have slashed reimbursement almost in half and would have allowed companies to pay workers less than Seattle’s minimum wage as long as their hourly pay averaged out, across a two-week pay period, to the minimum. (The app companies’ bill would have also charged workers $5 if they wanted their money before their pay period was up—even though each driver is ostensibly running their own business.)
In all, Doordash alone spent well over $1 million lobbying the council to cut workers’ wages. Working Washington spent just over $200,000 in five months...
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