Latest news with #Prop.22
San Francisco Chronicle
21-04-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco sues delivery company, alleging it misclassifies its drivers as contractors
San Francisco's legal campaign against companies that classify on-call drivers, cooks and other workers as independent contractors rather than employees has a new target: GoShare, which delivers products to businesses and private customers. In a lawsuit being filed Monday in San Francisco Superior Court, City Attorney David Chiu's office says GoShare is violating California law and the rights of its drivers to be paid fairly for their work. 'Denying workers their benefits and wages is especially egregious when so many workers are struggling in this economy to make ends meet,' Chiu said in a statement announcing the suit. Declaring support from organized labor, Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, said that 'when companies seek a competitive advantage by misclassifying workers, everyone else loses: businesses that follow the law, and workers who are cheated out of what they've earned.' As a Democratic Assembly member from San Diego, Gonzalez wrote AB5, the 2019 state law that defined workers as employees if they performed the same basic work as the company that hired them. GoShare did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company, based in San Diego, delivers goods locally from nearby warehouses and stores in trucks and smaller vehicles owned by its drivers. Since its founding in 2015, more than 15,000 drivers have made 100,000 deliveries to customers in 15 states, Chiu's office said. GoShare says its drivers operate their own businesses and should be considered contractors. Unlike employees, independent contractors have no legal right to minimum wages, overtime, sick leave, union representation, or payment for work expenses, such as auto repairs and fuel costs. In 2020, a year after the labor-backed AB5 became law, California voters approved Proposition 22, which reclassified as contractors the 1.4 million app-based drivers in the state who carry passengers for Uber and Lyft or deliver food for companies such as Instacart and DoorDash. The state Supreme Court unanimously upheld Prop. 22 last July. Chiu's lawsuit contends the ballot measure does not apply to GoShare because it schedules its deliveries in advance, giving the company more control over its services, while companies like Uber and Lyft show up when a customer calls, said Jen Kwart, a spokesperson for the city attorney. She noted that Qwick, a company that sends food servers, cooks and other staff to restaurants and hotels and pays them after deducting a fee, agreed to reclassify its workers as employees and compensate them $1.85 million for lost wages in a settlement with San Francisco in February 2024. GoShare drivers are also app-based and can choose their customers, facts the company could cite in arguing that it is covered by Prop. 22. But Chiu's office said in the lawsuit that GoShare decides whether to approve each customer, tracks the deliveries, penalizes drivers who show up late and pays them no more than $500 per delivery, barring them from receiving additional payments from their customers. 'GoShare's business is to provide moving and delivery services to customers,' the suit said. 'GoShare's drivers perform this very work and they do so under GoShare's control.' The suit seeks a court order classifying the drivers as employees, compensation to the drivers for lost wages, and civil penalties payable to the city.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
California in settlement talks with Uber, Lyft over wage theft claims
In early 2020, thousands of drivers — led by Southern California advocacy group Rideshare Drivers United — filed claims with the state against Uber and Lyft. They alleged the companies had illegally treated them as independent contractors and owed them more than $1.3 billion in wages, expenses and damages. Now, the state is set to begin settlement negotiations with the ride-hailing giants. And drivers want the California attorney general and the labor commissioner to take their demands into account during the closed-door talks. People who actively drove for Uber and Lyft between 2016 and 2020 could be eligible for the potential settlement, which probably involves more than 250,000 drivers, according to Rideshare Drivers United. To press their demands, drivers plan to rally Wednesday morning outside Los Angeles City Hall, as well as in San Diego and San Francisco, asking that the state push for a settlement agreement that recoups all lost wages and damages, or establishes additional pay boosts and workplace protections for drivers. Read more: California Supreme Court upholds Prop. 22, ending legal saga over status of gig drivers "Our first priority is to get back the money that was stolen," said Nicole Moore, president of Rideshare Drivers United, referring to wage theft claims. "The only way they should trade away any of that money is to get fair standards." Moore said a settlement could help establish a rate card where drivers are paid a minimum of $1.75 per mile and 60 cents per minute — a model similar to that adopted in New York City. The planned protest comes ahead of a mediation session scheduled for Monday with Uber. A session with Lyft is scheduled for April 8. The companies did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The negotiations involve not only the California labor commissioner, with whom drivers had filed their wage claims, but also the state attorney general. Joined by the city attorneys of Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco, they sued Uber and Lyft to force the companies to immediately classify drivers as employees and accused the companies of dodging local and state payroll taxes. Drivers who were misclassified as independent contractors during the target period were denied overtime, meal and rest breaks and mileage reimbursement, the lawsuits said. These claims, as well as several other private lawsuits, were combined into a coordinated action in San Francisco Superior Court so that a single judge could decide all the issues in one place. Uber and Lyft accused California authorities of wasting time and resources on wage claims, contending that the majority of California drivers wanted to work as independent contractors rather than employees, and that the state's enforcement efforts would stifle the growth of the industry. The coordinated lawsuit was paused while Uber and Lyft launched an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to block the state from enforcing wage and hour laws, arguing that their arbitration agreements with individual drivers prevented the state from doing so. In November 2020, voters approved Proposition 22, the ballot initiative backed by Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and other gig economy companies. The measure exempted the companies from a provision in state labor law, allowing them to classify drivers for their ride-hailing and delivery services as independent contractors rather than as employees. The ballot initiative was upheld by the state Supreme Court last year. Uber and Lyft drivers say their work conditions and pay have declined in recent years. Lyft driver Yasha Timenovich, 48, who began driving in 2014, said he works 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and yet still struggles to make ends meet. The Hollywood resident said that while ride-hailing and delivery companies are raising prices for customers, drivers get an increasingly small share due to "nonsensical" and "inconsistent" fees. Earlier this week, for a ride where the passenger paid $54.99, Timenovich earned just $24.15, after the company deducted $29.34 for "commercial auto insurance & other expenses," $0.10 for "taxes & gov't fees," and $1.40 for Lyft's earnings, according to a screenshot of the app reviewed by The Times. "How do they justify this?" he said. "What's left for me?" Karen Vandenberg, 64, a San Diego-based Uber driver, said that previously she might have been able to make $250 in a day before subtracting gas and other expenses. But to make that much today, she might have to work for several days. Car problems forced her off the road for several months, when she had to replace her car's transmission twice in 2023, costing her a total of roughly $10,000. "It was a long time that my car was out," Vandenberg said. "I didn't have money to pay for another transmission, so it sat there. It just got frustrating — not only that, but the constant oil changes and brake changes and tire changes and gas." Sign up for our Wide Shot newsletter to get the latest entertainment business news, analysis and insights. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
