In recent years, the number of gig economy workers has increased considerably as a result of shifting attitudes towards traditional work and a lessening of demand for full-time employees. Companies like Uber have incorporated such freelance work into their business models to effectively bring together customers and drivers while providing flexibility and competitive opportunity for their workers. Despite this, a number of legal issues have arisen for Uber and its workers concerning their classification as independent contractors versus full-time employees, since many of its workers fall in a legal gray area where they’re not really independent contractors or employees. This week, Lenny, with her presentation, did a great job delving into various legal rulings and issues pertaining to the classification of these gig workers and offered a practical alternative for class discussion.

After briefly describing the features of the gig economy, Lenny summarized a ruling made by the London Employment Tribunal concerning Uber workers. The tribunal ruled that Uber drivers should be classified as employees instead of independent contractors since the tribunal felt that Uber has used the self-employment label as sort of a cover to bypass employment legislation and cheat workers of benefits. Consequently, this ruling entitles Uber drivers to get paid vacations by law and earn at least the national minimum wage. Another ruling that Lenny covered was Uber v. Berwick. In this case, the court ruled that the Uber driver should have been considered an employee and ordered Uber to reimburse her $4,000 of car expenses. Though this decision only applied to Berwick, the ruling does raise questions to the future operations of Uber in the United States. With both decisions, I largely agree because, according to Lenny, a majority of Uber drivers have Uber as their full-time job, while investing a lot of their own money. Therefore, as full-time workers, they should enjoy the same legal benefits as other laborers, whether in the U.S. and the U.K.

Furthermore, Lenny eloquently touched on the distinctions between contractors and employees. Firstly, she brought up a Cornell study that found that approximately 10% of workers in New York were miscategorized as independent contractors. Also, she pointed out the statistic that hiring employees is about 20-30% more expensive than hiring independent contractors. This statistic really shines a light on the potential benefits a company like Uber has in labeling their workers as contractors instead of employees. Also, Lenny offered several arguments for Uber drivers being labeled as employees. The most compelling argument to me pointed to how Uber treats drivers like employees instead of contractors. By setting the price that drivers can charge, monitoring their performance from passenger feedback, and firing them if their ratings are too low, Uber practically treats its drivers like other companies treat their employees. Hence, the argument of Uber being a platform that connects customers with independent drivers falls flat to me, because they’re too standardized be considered “independent” like a freelance artist who can set their price and terms.

To wrap up the presentation, Lenny described several issues with classifying Uber’s drivers as employees. Despite the status giving workers more legal benefits, it would give drivers less flexibility in terms of the hours they work and shrink the workforce due to the increase costs. I don’t think this is fully a bad thing because what the drivers lose in sales they can potentially make back in more leisure time, job security, and benefits. Here is where Lenny presented the potential solution of creating a 3rd legal category of workers for dependent contractors like in Germany, Canada, and France. This category would allow dependent contractors, like Uber drivers, to share some of the rights and benefits of a full-time employee, while still retaining some of the flexibility and options of an independent contractor. Personally, I saw this a great path forward and so did much of the class. Also, I found Chris’s mention of the automation of jobs as a key reason for this new category to be extremely compelling. With machines completing more of the work and replacing jobs, establishing a system with dependent contractors would allow employers to refrain from hiring full-time workers that they don’t need, while still providing basic benefits to workers. Overall, I agree with Chris that this could lead to a better work/life balance that could be used for activities such as the arts and the sciences.