In today’s news and commentary, SEIU seeks union rights for rideshare drivers in California, New Jersey proposes applying the ABC Test, and Board officials push back on calls for layoffs.
In California, Politico reports that an SEIU-backed bill that would allow rideshare drivers to join unions has passed out of committee, “clear[ing] its first hurdle.” The bill’s current text is available here; it appears to propose a similar model to a ballot initiative that passed in Massachusetts last fall. The new proposal is the latest battle over gig-workers’ employment law status in California. To recap, California’s Assembly Bill 5 and the state Supreme Court’s Dynamex (2018) decision applied the “ABC Test” (which says a worker is an employee unless the employer can prove (a) that the worker was not under its control, (b) that the worker’s activity was not in the company’s usual course of business, and (c) that the worker was engaged in a customarily independent trade) to determine whether workers were employees or independent contractors. In response, ride share and delivery companies backed a successful effort to pass Proposition 22, which said the workers were independent contractors. SEIU brought a lawsuit challenging Proposition 22, but lost at the state Supreme Court this summer; Justice Goodwin Liu wrote in the ruling that the legislature could still enact workers’ compensation legislation of its own. The current proposal appears to focus on union rights instead of workers...
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