Uber, Lyft and DoorDash Workers May Gain Employee Benefits Under New Labor Rule – truthout

“The new rule could ease the precarity of gig workers’ labor conditions, but companies have vowed to oppose it…(T)he most critical phase still lies ahead: The Labor Department has announced the rule, but it remains to be seen the extent to which they will enforce it…

“For obvious reasons, business owners have been known to go to considerable lengths to avoid granting workers full-employee status. Such misclassification of workers as ‘independent contractors’ has a significant, and often overlooked, impact on the working class. In 2022, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released a report on the practice, analyzing 11 often-misclassified jobs. Per the report, if classified incorrectly, ‘a typical construction worker, as an independent contractor, would lose out on as much as $16,729 per year in income and job benefits compared with what they would have earned as an employee.’ Similarly, the Institute found, ‘a typical home health aide, as an independent contractor, would lose out on as much as $9,529 per year in income and job benefits.'”

---