As Nicole Moore listened attentively as a part-time Lyft driver in 2020, presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden Jr. said that the ride-hailing company’s refusal to treat drivers as employees “rejects these labors.” It deprives people of their legally mandated benefits.” and protection. “
Labor activists like Mr. Moore, who runs an advocacy group called Rideshare Drivers United in California, say Mr. Biden, as president, will impose classification on companies in the gig economy such as Uber, Lyft and DoorDash. wanted to lead a series of activities aimed at Drivers as employees, not independent contractors. Such changes mean paying drivers a minimum wage, providing benefits and making them eligible to join unions.
Instead, a year and a half into Mr. Biden’s presidency, little has been done at the federal level to deal with independent contractors. Enforcement of existing labor laws has not been particularly strengthened. And the presidential candidate to head the Labor Department’s executive branch was defeated in the Senate, which included several Democrats.
The administration’s plans to rewrite the regulations have not materialized, in part due to court rulings, while Democrats’ efforts to change the law in Congress have stalled.
“There is a strong sense that promises that could have been made have not been fulfilled,” said Beena Duvall, a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings School of Law, who argued that drivers deserve to be treated as employees. “Not surprising, but very disappointing,” she said.
Administration officials say Biden has a strong stance on labor issues and unions, and recently extended Trump-era rules that make it easier for companies like Uber to argue that employees should be classified as independent. It argues that it is being dragged down by the court’s decision. Contractors under Federal Law.
The White House and Labor Department emphasized the importance of addressing worker misclassification in statements, but did not identify gig companies like Uber.
“The president has taken a proactive and comprehensive approach to addressing worker misclassification,” said White House spokeswoman Alexandra Ramana, a former Lyft senior communications officer. . She added, “This administration’s policy is to empower workers, and solutions to worker misclassification are an important part of its agenda.”
The Labor Department said it had recovered more than $9.5 million in unpaid wages for more than 10,000 misclassified workers in fiscal 2022 through research conducted by the Wages and Hours Division.
“The Department of Labor will continue to do everything in its power to ensure that workers are protected,” said Wages and Hours Department official Jessica Luhmann. Misclassification, she noted, “isn’t just about workers assigned jobs through apps or digital platforms.”
But to those who hoped the new government would push quickly to improve driver salaries and benefits, this explanation offers little comfort.
Aside from procedural obstacles such as court rulings, policy experts on both sides of the issue have identified broader reasons for federal inertia. Regardless of whether current systems exploit them.
Uber and other gig companies argue that drivers prefer independent contractors who cover their own expenses because they have the flexibility to work as often as they want. These companies, often citing research commissioned by the companies themselves, say the majority of drivers prefer to maintain flexible schedules.
“App-based workers clearly want to remain independent,” said Christine Sharpe, chief executive of Flex, a trade group that lobbies on behalf of gig companies.
DoorDash’s global public policy officer, Max Rettig, said DoorDash is “working with policymakers, including governments, to balance flexibility with the interests of drivers.” He said Biden’s team was open to listening to gig companies.
Their arguments have proven effective in Washington, especially between Republicans and more moderate Democrats in the Capitol, but how much it It is not very clear whether they resonated.
But by the time Biden took office, Uber and other companies believed they had laid the groundwork for years by pitching their hiring model, and the new administration has little appetite to target them. said the labor activist and two former Uber employees. Skilled in policy negotiations.
Labor activists say companies are presenting the wrong choice between flexibility and worker protection. As the administration tackles the classification of workers, many hope it will prioritize more obvious cases of exploitation, such as construction and cleaning sectors, which may be easier to prove in court.
In the early days of the Biden administration, there seems to have been momentum for greater protections for drivers. Last March, the House of Representatives passed the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. It included language that made it difficult for companies to classify drivers as independent.The following month, Labor Secretary Martin J. Walsh Proposed to Reuters “In many cases, gig workers should be classified as employees,” he said, sending gig companies’ stock prices plummeting.
Biden then named labor policy expert and university professor David Weil as manager of the Labor Department’s Wages and Hours Division. He held that position under President Barack Obama. Many people believed that they would check once, Mr Weil It would have investigated whether gig companies violated labor laws and sought retroactive minimum wages for drivers.
Weil said in a recent interview that gig platforms like Uber and Lyft are eroding labor protections.
“I was worried about this creeping idea that if you do it through the platform, somehow some kind of magical fairy dust gets to work and turns people from employees into independent contractors. ” he said.
But Mr. Weil was unable to put his thoughts into action. Amid opposition from Republicans and business groups, the Senate voted him 53 to 47 this year, along with his three Democrats, Joe Manchin II of West Virginia, Mark Kelly of Arizona and Kirsten Cinema. Rejected. Gig companies also opposed his nomination, and his App-Based Work Alliance, a now-defunct industry group, is lobbying against him.
In July, Mr. Biden named Mr. Luhmann, who was acting manager of the wages and hours division at the time, as his successor.
There were other setbacks. The Protecting Right to Organize Act has little chance of overcoming a Republican filibuster in the Senate, prompting the Biden administration to act unlawfully when a Texas federal court reversed the Trump administration’s business-friendly interpretation of fair labor in March. made a judgment that A standard law that stipulates workers’ rights, such as minimum wages, and determines their eligibility.
With Trump-era interpretations still in force, lawsuits filed by the Labor Department against gig companies are likely to face major roadblocks.
“My sense is that they could be waiting to get and enforce better and broader rules on the books. But obviously time may have run out.” and the National Employment Law Project, a labor advocacy group.
Gig lobbyists are also promoting their own proposals. In July, three congressmen introduced a worker flexibility and choice law. This allows companies to have their workers enter into “worker flexibility agreements”. These agreements codify workers’ status as independent contractors and exempt them from some of the protections of state and federal labor laws, while offering companies the option of providing several benefits. To do.
The bill is backed by the Coalition for Workforce Innovation, which advocates for labor law changes on behalf of member companies such as Uber and Lyft.
Labor activists are also concerned that the close ties between the Biden and Obama administrations and gig companies have made officials reluctant to make the gig issue a priority, although officials said that Tony West, Uber’s top attorney, is the brother-in-law of Vice President Kamala Harris. His Anthony Foxx, Lyft’s former chief policy officer and now a senior adviser to the company, served as Obama’s secretary of transportation. Obama’s senior adviser, Valerie Jarrett, is a member of Lyft’s board of directors. Biden’s chief strategy officer, Anita Dunn, also advised Lyft before returning to the White House in May.
Even longtime Biden ally labor union members admit that Mr. Biden’s track record on the gig issue isn’t perfect.
Bill Samuel, the AFL-CIO’s director of government affairs, said he still believes the administration is “determined” to reform labor laws, but that “people are frustrated and impatient.” I can understand what is going on, and so are we.”
In California, where Moore organizes drivers, gig companies supported a ballot measure that would allow drivers to be independent contractors. Businesses were also hit hard in Massachusetts. But with no threat of federal enforcement and a state-by-state approach, bills were passed this year in Washington, Georgia, and Alabama.
Moore said he was pessimistic that Biden would carry out his promises.
“It was certainly hope,” she said. “I’m old enough to learn that you can’t put all your hopes on one politician.”
Kate Conger contributed to the report.