California’s Contractor Law Stirs Confusion Beyond the Gig Economy

Kate Conger & Noam Schieber, The New York Times, Wednesday 11th September, 2019, 14 September 2019
A landmark bill passed by legislators in California could force companies like Uber and Lyft to reclassify hundreds of thousands of independent contractors as employees, paying overtime and giving access to other benefits. The new law has not gone down well with the companies in question. Companies like Uber and Lyft are concerned as their drivers who are currently classified as contractors are not covered by minimum-wage, overtime laws, and they do not receive any insurance schemes. Uber also declared the law would not apply to its drivers. Uber’s Chief Legal Officer, Tony West, stated: “Several previous rulings have found that drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber’s business, which is serving as a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces”. He added that the company was “no stranger to legal battles”.

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