Tuesday, March 19, 2024
Chair Friedman, Chair Peisch, and Members of the Special Joint Committee on Initiative Petitions:
My name is Jonathan Cohn, and I am the policy director at Progressive Massachusetts. We are a statewide, multi-issue, grassroots membership organization focused on fighting for policy that would make our Commonwealth more equitable, just, sustainable, and democratic.
We would like to submit testimony to go on record in opposition to
- Initiative Petition No. 23-25, H4256, An Act defining and regulating the relationship between network companies and app-based drivers for purposes of the General and Special Laws,
- Initiative Petition No. 23-29, H4257, An Act establishing that app-based drivers are not employees, and network companies are not employers, for certain purposes of the General Laws,
- Initiative Petition No. 23-30, H4258, An Act defining and regulating the relationship between network companies and app-based drivers for certain purposes of the General Laws,
- Initiative Petition No. 23-31, H4259, An Act establishing that app-based drivers are not employees, and network companies are not employers, for certain purposes of the General Laws,
- Initiative Petition No. 23-32, H4260 An Act Establishing that App-Based Drivers Are Not Employees, and Network Companies Are Not Employers, for Certain Purposes of the General Laws.
Massachusetts has very clear standards for determining independent contractor standards (the “ABC test”), and Big Tech companies like Uber and Lyft have been in flagrant violation of them.
As a reminder, those three parts are (1) that the work is done without the direction and control of the employer, (2) that the work is performed outside the usual course of the employer’s business, and (3) that the work is done by someone who has their own, independent business or trade doing that kind of work. None of these apply to gig economy work. For example, there would be no Uber and Lyft without their drivers; the claim that their companies are merely an app is a clear fallacy intended to evade the law.
Knowing that they are in violation of the law, these companies want to change it, rather than adhere to it. They are planning to spend possibly hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that the law does not apply to them and that they, themselves, can rewrite it in order to bolster their own profits and power over workers. Indeed, they have already spent $6.6 million, most of that on signature collection for the five different versions they are putting forth. They apparently have the money to go all-out for this question but not, as they would have you believe, enough to do right by their workers.
These measures would deny app-based gig workers a living wage, benefits, legal rights, and anti-discrimination protections. The impact of these laws extends beyond just the gig economy sector itself. The ability to define away terms like “employee” and “independent contractor” sets a dangerous precedent, enabling companies across sectors to gut labor rights. Will we see restaurants claiming that the “restaurant” is only the physical building and physical infrastructure, relegating all employees to independent contractor status? Or hospitals claiming that the “hospital” is just the brick-and-mortar building, rather than the doctors, nurses, aides, and other health care workers that make it run? The list goes on.
That is not the future we want to live in, and we hope it is not one you want to live in either.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Cohn
Policy Director
Progressive Massachusetts
