On June 7, Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta announced the withdrawal of two Administrator Interpretations (“AIs”) issued under the Obama administration regarding joint employment and independent contractors. We previously discussed the AI on independent contractors here, and the
Recently, Uber announced that it agreed to pay drivers in California and Massachusetts $100 million in an effort to ensure that the drivers are considered independent contractors, not employees. In just six years, Uber has expanded from its base in San Francisco to over 300 cities across the world. With more than 450,000 drivers using the company’s app each month in the U.S. alone, a determination that its drivers were misclassified as independent contractors rather than employees could be extremely costly for the ride-sharing company, currently valued at $62.5 billion.
The debate concerning the correct classification for these freelancing drivers has grown in recent months, with drivers in states including Georgia, Pennsylvania, Texas, Florida, and Oregon claiming that they are employees of Uber entitled to the protection of federal and state employment and labor laws. In response to these claims, Uber argues that it simply connects independent drivers with passengers and has no other form of control over drivers who use its service. Continue Reading Uber Willing to Pay $100 Million to Keep Its Drivers Classified as Independent Contractors
Thanks to all of our clients and friends for such a great turnout at today’s webinar on the new DOL overtime exemption rules and the Administrator’s Interpretation on independent contractors. In case you missed the webinar, or if you just want to go back and review the materials and recording, you can find both
The DOL continues to deliver on the promise of its busy summer. This morning, Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) Administrator Dr. David Weil announced a new, 15-page Administrator’s Interpretation in a DOL blog post that stressed the FLSA’s expansive definition of employment and reinforced the WHD’s position that most workers qualify as
The DOL’s Wage and Hour Division expanded its already busy agenda, announcing upcoming guidance on the Fair Labor Standards Act’s definition of “independent contractor.” WHD Administrator David Weil, speaking at New York University School of Law’s 68th Annual Conference on Labor, disclosed during his keynote address that his office would soon issue an
A CNN op-ed piece caught my eye recently as it discussed some of the difficulties the so-called millennial generation is having in Silicon Valley and elsewhere when it comes to finding gainful employment. It paints a very grim picture about “sharing economy” jobs like Uber, Lyft, or Instacart. The writer opines that “[t]he sharing-economy jobs
Last week, Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division (WHD) Administrator Dr. David Weil, who we have profiled in the past, announced on the DOL’s blog that WHD recovered more than $240 million dollars from employers on behalf of workers during fiscal year 2014, which ended last September. This total was down about 4%
Over the past year or so, we have discussed the Fair Labor Standards Act’s application to both paid interns and unpaid interns, as well as independent contractors. One area we have covered briefly in the past, but not explored in depth, is the issue of volunteers. If you have been reading along
I promise that this post isn’t a bad setup to a joke about The Sopranos, the mafia, or being in “waste management.” Late last month, I spoke at a regional meeting of the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, and many of the WISPs in attendance were surprised to learn that not only were they
Despite the focus in recent years on the misclassification of employees as contractors, unfortunately, we continue to see numerous companies ranging from the Fortune 500 to startups make mistakes, albeit mostly unintentional, with their use of “contractors.” Generally, these mistakes are because of misunderstandings (“We agreed to do it this way.”), myths (“She works two