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March 2, 2020
Temp jobs, freelancing, gig work, the platform economy: Whatever words you want to use, mobile apps with contract labor as a central feature have transformed the job market in just a few years. Uber and Lyft both went public last year — in the process discovering that shareholders don't have quite the same tolerance for burning cash as VCs, at least not any more — and DoorDash filed for its IPO on Thursday.
This month's dive into tech job listings (read last month's edition here) hints at the great reckoning in this industry as it confronts new levels of investor and government scrutiny. At both corporate headquarters and out in the real world, where millions of contractors keep all kinds of on-demand companies running, the range of open positions is vast. We found six of the most revealing examples, from San Francisco to Georgia to Jakarta.
Uber: Data Science Manager - Driver Experience
San Francisco
Want to understand the psyche of an Uber driver without actually driving for Uber? The ride-hailing giant's driver data science team "analyzes and builds models of driver behavior," then works with the company's marketplace team to "provide real time signals" for fares and ride-matching. The driver data science manager job was posted in recent weeks, along with several other driver-adjacent technical roles, as Uber and peers like Lyft fight California's new Assembly Bill 5, which, by reclassifying drivers as employees, could force gig companies to drastically increase wages.
Requirements: Ph.D. or master's in computer science or related field; 5+ years of data science experience; "Everywhere you go, you can't help but mobilize people."
Lyft: Director, Driver Education & Success Operations
San Francisco
As part of the battle over AB 5, Lyft has recently ramped up political spending. The company is also expanding its "driver education & success" team to rethink how the company's corporate headquarters interacts with drivers and field teams in cities where it operates. In a bid to "create a culture of advocacy for our drivers by working to implement company vision," this person will manage pilots for new kinds of physical outposts for the digital company and test new resources for drivers. One perk? A 20% discount on all Lyft rides.
Requirements: 10+ years of operational experience; exceptional leadership skills; track record of "driving an agenda and building consensus."
Gojek: People Partner Analyst
Jakarta, Indonesia
There's an Uber of Indonesia, and it's called Gojek. The company launched in 2010 as a motorcycle taxi service and has raised more than $1.2 billion since ("Indonesia's first unicorn," the company's website says) from investors including Google. Now, amid an effort to expand from a ride app into food delivery, digital payments, on-demand massages and two dozen other services, Gojek is hiring a people partner analyst in Jakarta to better quantify its sprawling workforce. The role is tasked with "managing people data," developing standardized people metrics and reporting the findings.
Requirements: 3+ years of experience in data analytics; strong quantitative and spreadsheet skills; "Highly flexible attitude."
Boxbot: Delivery Driver
Oakland
Shortly after driverless package delivery startup Boxbot launched in 2016, the company founded by ex-Tesla and Uber engineers and backed by Toyota's artificial intelligence fund was hailed as part of "the autonomous vehicle revolution." Maybe someday. For now, the company is offering $16 an hour to deliver orders to specified addresses within required time frames — much like Amazon Prime, Pizza Hut and dozens of other delivery startups hiring for similar roles in the Bay Area.
Requirements: Valid California driver's license; clean driving record; ability to lift up to 70 pounds.
Rappi: Special Projects
Mexico City
It's been a roller coaster year for Colombian delivery startup Rappi, which raised nearly $1 billion from SoftBank last spring before laying off 6% of its workforce in January. As the company tries to avoid the fate of other SoftBank-backed startups like Brandless, it's staffing up again in Latin American cities including Cali, Colombia, and Mexico City. In the latter, Rappi — recognizable for its flock of motorcycle drivers sporting the company's mustache logo — is building up a five-person "special projects" team to focus on growth, guaranteeing instant delivery for everything from food to cash to a new set of AirPods. Meanwhile, Latin American competitors with similar logistics ambitions, like Shippify, are on a hiring binge in Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia and beyond.
Requirements: 1-2 years of experience; natural leader; "You work long hours and you like difficult challenges."
Deliv: Community Manager
Roswell, Georgia
The "community manager" is ubiquitous not just in the gig economy, but at many well-heeled tech companies. WeWork, Udemy, Amazon and many others are hiring for the jack-of-all-trades office manager 2.0 role, which is often on the front lines of bridging digital platforms with flashy marketing and the messy reality of daily operations, like overseeing low-wage contractors or office service workers. In the case of Silicon Valley last-mile delivery startup Deliv, which is backed by Google, General Motors and UPS, the company needs a new community manager in the Atlanta area to oversee contract drivers, manage their schedules and send them monthly newsletters and regular social media updates.
Requirements: 3+ years of experience in community management or marketing; social media savvy; proficiency in office software; track record of "owning KPIs."
Lauren Hepler
Lauren Hepler ( @lahepler) is a former reporter for Protocol covering how people live and work in Silicon Valley. She previously covered development, energy, and tech for The New York Times, The Guardian, the LA Times, the Silicon Valley Business Journal, and others. Lauren can be reached at lhepler@protocol.com (just ask for Signal), and you can share information with her anonymously via Protocol's SecureDrop. She grew up in Ohio and lives in Oakland.
Policy
Arizona bill would reform Google and Apple app stores
HB2005 would allow app developers to use third-party payment systems.
HB2005 could make it through the Arizona House of Representatives as soon as this week.
Photo: James Yarema/Unsplash
March 1, 2021
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
March 1, 2021
Arizona State Rep. Regina Cobb hadn't even formally introduced her app store legislation last month when Apple and Google started storming into the state to lobby against it.
Apple tapped its own lobbyist, Rod Diridon, to begin lobbying in Arizona. It hired Kirk Adams, the former chief of staff to Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey and speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, to negotiate with Cobb on its behalf. It quickly joined the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, which began lobbying against the bill. And lawyers for both Google and Apple went straight to the Arizona House's lawyers to argue that the bill is unconstitutional.
<p> "We went through a very difficult weekend where Apple and Google hired probably almost every lobbyist in town," Cobb said.</p><p>There's a reason Apple and Google care so much: Cobb's bill would allow app developers to use third-party payment systems to circumvent the 15% to 30% cut that Apple and Google take from app sales. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>In the three weeks since Cobb introduced her bill, Arizona has become an unexpected hotspot in the country's antitrust debate, with the full force of the country's progressive anti-monopoly movement lining up behind a cadre of small- to medium-sized developers against an aggressive army of Apple and Google lobbyists. HB2005 could pass the House this week and potentially even make it through the Republican-majority Arizona Senate, making Arizona the first state to push through legislation to loosen Apple and Google's grip over their app ecosystems in the country. There's similar legislation being considered in Minnesota, Georgia, Hawaii and other states, mostly being pushed by Match Group, Epic Games and the broader <a href="https://9to5mac.com/2020/09/24/coalition-for-app-fairness/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Coalition for App Fairness</a>, which only formed last year and includes Spotify, Tile and others. </p><p>Cobb said she was first approached by Ryan O'Daniel, a local lobbyist who represents Match Group and the Coalition for App Fairness, in early February with the idea that would become HB2005, an amendment that would force smartphone app stores to allow third-party payment systems. </p><p>"I felt like it was a good idea right away," Cobb told Protocol. She'd worked with O'Daniel before, and she was compelled by his argument that the legislation could create new economic opportunities in Arizona. Cobb, the chairwoman of the Arizona House Appropriations Committee, decided to put her political muscle behind it and eventually had it assigned to her committee. Over the past two weeks, she said, members of her committee have faced a barrage of lobbying efforts from free market groups, the Arizona Chamber of Commerce, and of course, lobbyists retained by Apple and Google. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>Apple did not immediately respond to Protocol's request for comment. Kyle Andeer, Apple's chief compliance officer, said at a hearing last week that HB2005 amounts to a "government mandate that Apple give away the App Store." </p><p>"This bill tells Apple it cannot use its own checkout lane and collect a commission in the store we built," Andeer said. The app developers supporting the bill say it would prevent Apple and Google from taking a 30% cut from sales facilitated through their app stores, a fee that they have called "highway robbery." Apple has responded that most software developers don't pay a commission and those that do often pay around 15%, claiming the main beneficiaries of the Arizona legislation would be Epic Games, Spotify and Match.com, each multibillion-dollar companies. </p><p>Google did not respond to a request for comment.</p><p>Similar legislation <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/14/technology/north-dakota-tech-apps.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">failed in North Dakota</a> last month. The bills are so similar that a representative for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a right-wing organization focused on shaping state legislation, forwarded a statement expressing ALEC's opposition to the North Dakota bill to Arizona lawmakers on Feb. 15, according to an email obtained by Protocol.</p><p>"The legislation introduced in North Dakota is virtually the same as what has been proposed in the strike-everything amendment to HB 2005," the ALEC lobbyist wrote. "I am comfortable sharing the North Dakota version [of the ALEC opposition statement] with you, as the sentiments are likely to be the same."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>But the North Dakota legislation was broader — it would have forced major platforms to allow alternate app stores altogether, while the Arizona legislation only bars Apple and Google from forcing their payment-processing systems onto developers.</p><p>"I think it's just an easier bill," said David Heinemeier Hansson, the co-founder and CTO of Basecamp, who has been an outspoken antitrust advocate ever since he got into a <a href="https://www.protocol.com/hey-email-app-store-rejection" target="_self">public fight with Apple</a> over his email service's payment system last year. He's been involved with the Coalition for App Fairness and testified in support of the Arizona legislation last week. </p><p>He said he's blown away by how quickly the Arizona legislation is moving. It was introduced on Feb. 10 and quickly voted out of committee last week. "Maybe it doesn't pass, but it would be mind-blowing if it did — it would change the entire ecosystem of Big Tech," Hansson said. "This would be the first major piece of legislation anywhere in the world that's directly addressing this monopoly power and providing the relief, not just slapping them with a fine." </p><p>Overnight, Hansson said, Arizona could become "the most attractive place in the world to start a new business that sells software through the app stores."</p><p>But the legislation is facing serious opposition from a somewhat surprising faction: Arizona Democrats. HB2005 passed the Appropriations Committee last week 7-6, mostly along partisan lines. "It is not the obligation or the responsibility of the state legislature to get involved in the midst of litigation," said Rep. Cesar Chavez, a Democrat, repeating one of the major arguments from Apple: that the concern around app store control is being litigated in California's <a href="https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2021-02-26-valve-ordered-to-hand-over-sales-data-for-epic-vs-apple-case" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Epic Games v. Apple</a>. Other Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee said the federal government should take action on the issue rather than the state and raised concerns about how the bill would affect the iPhone ecosystem.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>The pushback is highlighting the complicated dynamics around antitrust playing out across the country: While the most radical antitrust proposals are coming from Democrats at the national level, Republicans are often leading the charge among the states.</p><p>A coalition of progressive groups, including the anti-monopoly group American Economic Liberties Project and the Arizona Working Families Party, wrote to Arizona lawmakers last week urging them to vote in favor of the legislation. "HB2005 would prevent Big Tech from imposing terms onto developers by opening up competition in payments systems, as well as protecting smaller companies that refrain from using Big Tech's payment systems from retaliation," they wrote. "Additionally, it would incentive developers to locate to Arizona, a huge boon for companies already looking to relocate to another state." </p><p>This week, Cobb said she is planning to have a meeting with Apple executives to potentially negotiate the contours of the bill. The meeting is being organized by Adams, who did not respond to a request for comment. </p><p>"It's time to make some concessions," Cobb said. She believes that Arizona will provide an early lesson for the companies and their critics. "I'm sure other states are going to be watching from the sidelines. On both sides, I think they're going to start navigating a little bit more precisely after they've been able to gain knowledge from this experience in Arizona." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>Cobb said that aggressive strategy has only made her more determined in her support for the legislation, which is likely to go to a vote in the House this week. "I felt like, if they could do this to me, they could do this to smaller companies also," she said. </p>
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Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Sponsored Content
The future of computing at the edge: an interview with Intel’s Tom Lantzsch
An interview with Tom Lantzsch, SVP and GM, Internet of Things Group at Intel
February 28, 2021
Saul Hudson has a deep knowledge of creating brand voice identity, especially in understanding and targeting messages in cutting-edge technologies. He enjoys commissioning, editing, writing, and business development, in helping companies to build passionate audiences and accelerate their growth. Hudson has reported from more than 30 countries, from war zones to boardrooms to presidential palaces. He has led multinational, multi-lingual teams and managed operations for hundreds of journalists. Hudson is a Managing Partner at Angle42, a strategic communications consultancy.
February 27, 2021
An interview with Tom Lantzsch
Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Internet of Things Group (IoT) at Intel Corporation
Edge computing had been on the rise in the last 18 months – and accelerated amid the need for new applications to solve challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic. Tom Lantzsch, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Internet of Things Group (IoT) at Intel Corp., thinks there are more innovations to come – and wants technology leaders to think equally about data and the algorithms as critical differentiators.
In his role at Intel, Lantzsch leads the worldwide group of solutions architects across IoT market segments, including retail, banking, hospitality, education, industrial, transportation, smart cities and healthcare. And he's seen first-hand how artificial intelligence run at the edge can have a big impact on customers' success.
Protocol sat down with Lantzsch to talk about the challenges faced by companies seeking to move from the cloud to the edge; some of the surprising ways that Intel has found to help customers and the next big breakthrough in this space.
What are the biggest trends you are seeing with edge computing and IoT?
A few years ago, there was a notion that the edge was going to be a simplistic model, where we were going to have everything connected up into the cloud and all the compute was going to happen in the cloud. At Intel, we had a bit of a contrarian view. We thought much of the interesting compute was going to happen closer to where data was created. And we believed, at that time, that camera technology was going to be the driving force – that just the sheer amount of content that was created would be overwhelming to ship to the cloud – so we'd have to do compute at the edge. A few years later – that hypothesis is in action and we're seeing edge compute happen in a big way.
<p>The last 18 months have been a wild time to be in technology. We've seen edge compute come to life to help businesses adapt during the pandemic. At the same time, we are also seeing how 5G is going to drive up interest, especially from a networking perspective, rather than a use-case perspective. We also see lot of people that are focused on their data, but the <em>algorithms</em> that companies train with the data are going to be their critical assets. It doesn't matter what company or what industry; <em>this</em> will really become the differentiator for many companies.</p><p>And particularly amid the backdrop of the pandemic, we've seen how companies are using technology to either bring workers back in safely or <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibility/covid-19-response-sensormatic-article.html" target="_blank">serve their customers in new ways</a>, <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/customer-spotlight/stories/brentwood-academy-customer-spotlight.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">educate children in new ways</a> -- all things that have accelerated the digital transformation that had been underway. I recently read a <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-pushed-companies-over-the-technology-tipping-point-and-transformed-business-forever" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">McKinsey survey</a> that reported on the "speedup in creating digital or digitally enhanced offerings. Across regions, the results suggest a seven-year increase, on average, in the rate at which companies are developing these products and services."</p><p>And based on what we're seeing at Intel, those are lifesaving and industry saving investments happening today – completely re-designing the way that <a href="https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/corporate-responsibility/covid-19-response-mic-article.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">patients are treated</a>, and businesses operate.</p><h4>What are you particularly expecting to see this year?</h4><p>What I find most interesting is the work that combines IoT with networking capabilities – and I think this is going to be a year of expansive exploration and working with our customers to put these two things together to solve real business challenges.</p><p>When we first started the integration of networking technology and operational technology capabilities and layered that across the industry verticals, we could count the amount of interested customers and opportunities on one hand. Last year, it was five times that many and this year we see that number increasing significantly already. So, we're excited to see the industry continue to build excitement to scale those types of deployments.</p><h4>What role does AI play at the edge and in what way is Intel involved?</h4><p>An AI use case recently grabbed my attention: employees in a restaurant being screened by a device that checks temperature while the employees are washing their hands – and provides a determination on whether they'd done it adequately before they report to work. I have seen other applications using similar technology in the <a href="https://marketplace.intel.com/s/offering/a5b3b000000TiMSAA0/using-ai-to-make-construction-site-safer?language=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">construction industry</a>, where an AI algorithm scans to see if employees have their helmet, goggles, vest and other safety equipment on properly to determine if they are ready to work. And the best part is – that the employer can see aggregate data on these interactions to determine if more training on handwashing or helmet wearing is needed.</p><p>At Intel, in addition to providing the fundamental base technology to enable these applications, we work with a lot of third-party developers to create these applications. And we help the developers scale them across multiple industries with our salesforce. So, we may not make the scan technology that determines if you have the right gear on, but we orchestrate that coordination across our ecosystem with all of our partners to effectively put it into a <a href="https://marketplace.intel.com/s/?language=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">catalog</a> so that if customers are interested in that sort of application, we can provide them with different parties to make that happen.</p><h4>Is there a problem with fragmentation in the market and how can that be solved?</h4><p>It's very fragmented. I gave just two examples of totally different workers coming to work in different industries and I can give you five more that are different again. Although the base technology that Intel creates to enable this type of innovation is very horizontal in nature, the reality is that bringing those to life must be very "vertically-centered" and very "use-case centered" – and must take into account, geography. The two employee use cases I cited look very different if you are talking about employees in North America, India or Germany. So, all in all, this is a holistic ecosystem challenge – and an ecosystem solution.</p><p>At Intel, we're in a unique situation to orchestrate these solutions. </p><p><cite class="pull-quote">People tend to think of Intel as providing the technical footprint that enables edge computing – but we also have the developer reach – and we can use our ecosystem and scale to help our end customers get access to the best solutions.</cite></p><h4>What sort of challenges do customers face when they're attempting to adopt edge computing?</h4><p>There are two common challenges. One is the technical question of 'Who can I work with?' A customer may have a chip focus but actually, it's a more complex question than a chip. We like that complexity, because we can be an adviser to them and <a href="https://marketplace.intel.com/s/partners-by-industry?language=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">bring to the table partners</a> that they can work with to solve that complexity leveraging our technical knowledge and ecosystem network. </p><p>The second thing that companies struggle with is the challenge of how to fund getting into this space – even if the business case warrants the investment. The world has changed. Companies don't want to write a big capital check for these types of investments – they want a pay-as-you-go model, like you see with the cloud. We've been working with customers to find a way to make that happen – and I think that is going to be a bigger part of the conversation moving forward.</p><p>You can see it across almost every aspect of technology now. We rent compute more than we buy compute. Evidenced by the success of AWS, companies can rent compute from Amazon instead of building their own data center – and there are many benefits to that approach. In the old world, even for this video conference that we're having today we would have installed capital to do this. Now it's just a service. And I think that edge as a service is right around the corner.</p><h4>Do you have an example of that?</h4><p>A customer in Mexico wanted to deploy outdoor WiFi and add security features into it. So, it was an edge-based computing issue that was part connectivity. But there was actually way more to it than just installing it. We not only helped to solved the technological challenge creatively and coordinated the <a href="https://marketplace.intel.com/s/partners-by-industry?language=en_US" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">ecosystem of providers</a> to solve this, but we also found a way so that the customer could get into this market with a service-based model without needing to outlay a lot of capital.</p><p>Other semiconductor companies would have a difficult time partnering on both sides of that challenge, but Intel can do it because we have the scale.</p><h4>How do businesses identify which functions they do want to perform at the edge versus in the cloud?</h4><p>It really comes down to a question of what you're trying to do and how you do it at the lowest cost, highest quality and standard in computability.</p><p>If you have an application and it can perform what you need it to do in the cloud, you'll probably run it there. The cloud is a great thing - there's infinite compute and lots of choice in a well-understood developer environment.</p><p>But there are many things you can't or shouldn't do in the cloud for certain reasons. Take the camera example from earlier. Say you have eight high-density cameras, and you want an action on them immediately. You may not be able to afford the latency that comes with going up into the cloud. Or it may be a financial challenge – that its actually more expensive to send that data to the cloud over and over again, and it makes sense to invest in compute at the edge. There are nuances in the decision-making. It really comes down to what you want the application to do, how quickly and how much it should cost.</p><h4>How does Intel help developers to learn, to build and then test their solutions at the edge?</h4><p>To enable what we know to be interesting and challenging use cases at the edge, required us to change our focus on who these developers are and what they care about. We learned that they <em>really</em> don't care about what hardware they're running on. The modern developers are fairly well extracted from the hardware – they just assume the compute is going to be available for them to do their work.</p><p>To make sure we can deliver on that, we typically target developers by specific capability. The most advanced case that we've been studying on the edge recently is focused video and specifically, video inferencing and AI inferencing. We created a tool called <a href="https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/openvino-toolkit.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenVINO</a>, which was developed in a way that developers didn't have to care about the hardware it runs on. It's a model optimization technology that enables them to easily scale out to different hardware platforms. That's proven to be an interesting value proposition to these developers.</p><p>Our goal with <a href="https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/openvino-toolkit.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenVINO</a> is democratize AI activity and inference at the edge. We want to make it simple -- to put these tools in the hands of non-data scientists and make it work. As a part of that process, we're also creating an environment where they can develop anyplace, anytime, anywhere they want to be. We're so proud of our <a href="https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/openvino-toolkit.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">OpenVINO</a> community and are constantly working to grow the community and release new features and capabilities to edge developers.</p><h4>What's the possible next breakthrough that you see for Intel in edge computing and the IoT space?</h4><p>I'm looking forward to the big breakthrough when we show integrated 5G, Virtual Private Network and the edge workloads all in one unit. More to come.</p>
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Saul Hudson has a deep knowledge of creating brand voice identity, especially in understanding and targeting messages in cutting-edge technologies. He enjoys commissioning, editing, writing, and business development, in helping companies to build passionate audiences and accelerate their growth. Hudson has reported from more than 30 countries, from war zones to boardrooms to presidential palaces. He has led multinational, multi-lingual teams and managed operations for hundreds of journalists. Hudson is a Managing Partner at Angle42, a strategic communications consultancy.
Policy
Gig economy firms have a new adversary: The FTC
The FTC's settlement with Amazon marks a new chapter for the agency.
The FTC alleged that Amazon failed to pay its Flex drivers the full amount of tips they were owed, amounting to a deceptive business practice.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
February 16, 2021
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
February 2, 2021
Gig economy companies know that President Joe Biden's Labor Department is going to be a problem for them. But the FTC's commissioners are signaling that they hope to take on the Ubers and Lyfts of the world, too, using any authority they have to defend workers being harmed by the notoriously opaque gig economy.
The FTC's settlement with Amazon over its Flex tipping practices on Tuesday marks a new chapter for the agency, which has not historically taken serious action against gig companies or in defense of workers. But in its complaint, the FTC alleged that Amazon failed to pay its Flex drivers the full amount of tips they were owed, amounting to a deceptive business practice.
<p>Amazon agreed to pay $61.7 million to refund the drivers, a small price tag for a company that just reported its <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/amazon-amzn-earnings-q4-2020.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">first $100 billion quarter</a>. But beyond the dollar amount, the settlement is a serious signal to the gig companies that the Biden administration will scrutinize their business practices from all angles, and the FTC may be their next opponent in the upcoming regulatory wars. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Acting FTC Chairwoman Rebecca Slaughter told reporters the case shows that under her leadership the FTC will bring "cases that tackle today's pressing problems."</p><p>"Here that means not only protecting consumers but also workers in the fast-growing area of the gig economy," she said, calling it an "an important step in ongoing work to ensure that companies who use gig workers treat them fairly and honestly." </p><p>And outgoing FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra ripped the agency for its historically "lax approach to worker abuse." "Despite broad pronouncements about a commitment to policing markets for anticompetitive conduct that harms workers, the FTC has done little," he said. "I hope that today's action turns the page on this era of inaction." </p><p>A litany of gig companies, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/nyregion/doordash-tip-policy.html" target="_blank">DoorDash</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/24/doordash-settles-with-dc-ag-over-claims-it-misled-users.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Postmates</a> and <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/490872-shipt-cuts-pay-for-canceled-grocery-delivery-orders-drawing-complaints" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Shipt</a>, have been accused of misleading their workers about how much they receive from tips and silently tweaking their algorithms in order to pay lower wages. It's an area that's ripe for regulatory intervention, experts said. </p><p>"There's been a lot of allegations of questionable practices in the gig economy space, and so I certainly expect the FTC to continue to try to be more aggressive," said Justin Brookman, the director of technology policy for advocacy group Consumer Reports. </p><p>Slaughter declined to say whether the FTC is investigating other companies. But she said that the agency is taking those concerns seriously. "Misrepresentations having to do with income and compensation, however they fall, whether they be tips or base wage or otherwise, could be within the scope of the FTC Act's ban on deceptive acts and practices," Slaughter said. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>It's not the first time the FTC has taken on a gig economy company, Republican FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips was quick to point out. Uber in 2017 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dr-gridlock/wp/2017/01/19/uber-agrees-to-20m-settlement-of-ftc-complaint-over-driver-pay-financing/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">agreed to pay $20 million</a> to settle accusations that the ride-hailing company misled drivers about the amount they could make. And those efforts are only set to accelerate over the next few years. </p><p>Similar battles have been playing out across the country. DoorDash <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/22/20828742/doordash-tipping-policy-change-drivers-earning-more-money" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">changed its tipping policy</a> following a public outcry over revelations that it was using customers' tips to subsidize payments to delivery workers. And Instacart similarly changed its tipping policy after facing pressure from a group <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/29/21274540/instacart-tip-baiting-deceptive-shoppers-ftc-investigation-congress" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">of senators</a> who urged the FTC to investigate "tip-baiting." </p><p>And the FTC could expand those inquiries into the secretive algorithms controlling delivery workers' pay. "The FTC could use its power to go after corporations that have considerable economic power and use it to suppress wages or increase," said Laura Padin, a senior staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project. </p><p>The FTC's commissioners are also using the opportunity to push Congress to expand its authority — specifically, they want to dole out bigger fines the first time a company is caught deceiving consumers or workers. There's some scuffling among the FTC commissioners about how that could play out; Chopra <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/public_statements/1587003/20200102_final_rchopra_statement_v2.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">said the FTC already has the authority</a> while Slaughter and Phillips argue Congress needs to intervene. With Democrats controlling both chambers and the White House, that intervention is likelier than ever.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Ultimately, the Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board will play a key role in determining the most consequential question at the center of gig work debates: whether workers should be classified as employees, with access to the full range of benefits under U.S. law, or contractors. </p><p>"The fundamental change here that needs to be made probably can't come from the FTC because it relates to the way these workers are classified and the rights and protections they have because of that classification," Padin said. </p><p>But the knowledge that a government agency is investigating their tipping and business practices could scare some gig companies into changing how they operate. "Before, it was very unregulated," said Lindsey Cameron, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. "They could do what they wanted to do. Now there's more eyes looking at them from all different directions."</p><p><em>Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated Rohit Chopra's title. This story was updated on Feb. 3, 2021.</em><br></p>
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Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
Transforming 2021
Blockchain, QR codes and your phone: the race to build vaccine passports
Digital verification systems could give people the freedom to work and travel. Here's how they could actually happen.
One day, you might not need to carry that physical passport around, either.
Photo: CommonPass
February 23, 2021
Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
February 23, 2021
There will come a time, hopefully in the near future, when you'll feel comfortable getting on a plane again. You might even stop at the lounge at the airport, head to the regional office when you land and maybe even see a concert that evening. This seemingly distant reality will depend upon vaccine rollouts continuing on schedule, an open-sourced digital verification system and, amazingly, the blockchain.
Several countries around the world have begun to prepare for what comes after vaccinations. Swaths of the population will be vaccinated before others, but that hasn't stopped industries decimated by the pandemic from pioneering ways to get some people back to work and play. One of the most promising efforts is the idea of a "vaccine passport," which would allow individuals to show proof that they've been vaccinated against COVID-19 in a way that could be verified by businesses to allow them to travel, work or relax in public without a great fear of spreading the virus.
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</div></p><p>But building a system that everyone agrees with — and can access — is no small task. There are several companies working on competing projects to verify vaccinations. But beyond that, there are more than a few hurdles that could prevent vaccine passports from succeeding, from antiquated medical records systems to interoperability issues and privacy concerns. Here's how they could actually succeed. </p><h3>Competing projects, similar standards</h3><p>Pretty much since the first blockchain white paper, people have been looking for perfect examples of where a distributed, immutable ledger could be valuable. There's obviously the push to use it for currencies, and companies have tried to use it for things like tracking <a href="https://www.protocol.com/ibm-blockchain-supply-produce-coffee" target="_self">food production</a> and <a href="https://www.govtech.com/products/Blockchain-Voting-Debate-Heats-Up-After-Historic-Election.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">voting</a>, but there are few use cases that have truly taken off, at least so far. "We've been working on this since 2014; we never thought that health care would be the kind of the use case that we take this mainstream," Jamie Smith, the senior director of business development at Evernym, a company focused on using the blockchain as a basis for verifying identities, told Protocol. </p><p>Smith said Evernym had been discussing its concepts with automakers, retailers, telcos, governments, loyalty companies and banks prior to the pandemic. One of those companies was IAG, the airline group that owns British Airways, which had been interested in the idea of contactless travel based on a single identity credential that follows you from the airport check-in to your gate. With the pandemic, that morphed into thinking about ways to verify that passengers have had negative COVID tests, and eventually, that they've received a vaccine. "From our perspective, it was a really easy lift to see," Smith said. "We're doing contactless travel, and we just added verifiable credentials for test results."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>It's a similar genesis for IBM's Digital Health Pass initiative, which leader Eric Piscini said started about two years ago as a way to store people's entire health records in a safe, accessible platform. It also relies on the blockchain for its immutable record of proof, and both Evernym and IBM are part of an open-standards group called the Good Health Pass Collaborative, which aims to bring private credentialed vaccine records to business and people around the world. Companies are working on their own implementations of the standards, but Evernym's Smith said the data is meant to be portable from one passport to another. </p><p>Most of the companies working on passports say their systems are private by design, especially given that they're mainly working off the same open standards. In most cases, the health information only ever remains on a user's phone, but where it asks to verify that the user's information meets a system's standards — such as whether this person has had two COVID vaccines and should be allowed into an office — that information is recorded on a blockchain. "You can, using blockchain technologies, verify that someone has been tested recently, without having access to the underlying data," Piscini said. "I don't know any other technology where you can do that."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>Similarly, the nonprofit Commons Project's CommonPass, backed by the likes of Oracle, Microsoft and Salesforce, started out as a project to bring an analog to Apple Health for Android. JP Pollak, a senior researcher at Cornell and founder of the Commons Project, first launched CommonHealth to bring the sort of data and insights that Apple Health offers to iPhone owners to Android users. Last summer, the group started building an app that could take health data and privately share it with others — in that case, it was to help truckers stuck at the borders in <a href="https://www.newtimes.co.rw/opinions/digital-technology-re-opening-africa" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">East African countries</a> who couldn't easily prove they'd taken COVID tests. This morphed into vaccine credentialing, with the group now working to pull together the various data streams needed to get a project like this off the ground. </p><p>"Health care institutions, EMR vendors, retail pharmacies, state vaccine registries, all issuing people a digital verifiable credential of their vaccination record that they could then use in the app of their choice, to be able to get access to various kinds of services," Pollak said. CommonPass is also working with the Mayo Clinic, as well as Epic Systems and Cerner, two of the largest EMR vendors. </p><h3>Something for everyone </h3><p>With so many competing efforts to become the world's digital vaccine passport, it might seem that the country is heading for some sort of VHS versus Betamax format war for proving everyone has had COVID vaccines. But given that so many of the efforts are using the same standards, and in many cases, looking to embed their tech in someone else's app rather than their own, the race might be less about the best tech winning, and more about various approaches working in different situations. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>"The intent is not to be the only company; we don't want to be the proprietary platform that everybody has to use because they have no choice," IBM's Piscini said. "That's not who we are right now: That's the IBM from 30 years ago, not the IBM of today."</p><p>For IBM, though, the selling point is that the company already works with so many other massive companies. Why look elsewhere for a vaccine passport solution if your airline booking system is already powered by IBM? "We believe our network is going to be more valuable than any other because of our scale and our ability to integrate the platform with CRM systems, building systems or stadium systems — we can do that every day," Piscini said.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY2NTc3NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMTM1MjYyM30._ykxxCyx3_wDbZrYgCcmK0QT2Ue1tZFdP5pf60kOmPU/img.jpg?width=980" id="c81c9" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3967636652192acfdaad341861263bc8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">IATA's digital passport app.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Photo: IATA</small></p><p>For other companies, it's about securing new partnerships with major players in the hopes of finding that scale. Evernym, for example, is working with International Air Transport Association, the airline industry's trade association, on an air travel-specific app called Travel Pass. IATA is working with airlines and local governments to ensure it has the latest requirements to feed the app's rules engine. "It will say, 'Hey, you're flying JFK to Heathrow, you need a PCR test 48 hours in advance before you can land,'" Evernym's Smith said. "And of course, those policy changes are changing every day." Qatar, Emirates and Etihad Airways are all <a href="https://simpleflying.com/qatar-iata-travel-pass-launch/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">expected</a> to start trialing the app in the next few weeks.<br></p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>In other instances, the technology will live inside other companies' existing apps; why make someone download yet another app and add another hurdle to compliance? Instead, the experience will be rather like adding a loyalty account or TSA PreCheck number when booking a flight. Airlines and other venues restricting access will require uploading negative test results or vaccine records using one of these services. "You're going to be using the United or the Delta app, and they'll be using our solution or somebody else's, but you will do it via their app," IATA's Travel Pass lead, Alan Murray Hayden, told Protocol.</p><p>The World Health Organization is also working on its own offering, and recently convened the <a href="https://www.who.int/groups/smart-vaccination-certificate-working-group" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Smart Vaccination Certificate Working Group</a>. It's built upon the WHO's nearly century-old notion of the "yellow card" vaccination record, which first was used to document that travelers had been inoculated against diseases such as cholera and yellow fever. Evernym Chief Trust Officer Drummond Reed is part of the working group; he said there should be more to share in the coming months. </p><h3>What could go wrong?</h3><p>It's entirely possible that as more people start to get vaccinated, vaccine passports start to become the norm. You walk to work — still masked, of course — scan a QR code reader in the lobby, and are let in. You go out for lunch, and your loyalty card app has a discount for in-store shoppers verifying they're vaccinated. Your concert ticket is also tied to health pass information that you shared earlier in the day with Ticketmaster. But there are more than a few hurdles ahead of the companies rushing to turn these concepts into realities. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="6">
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</div></p><p>First off, there's the … reality … of the real world that any digital system has to contend with. For anyone without access to the internet, digital vaccine credentials will prove difficult to acquire, though all the companies Protocol spoke with said they would offer a paper-based QR code for people who don't have smartphones. But there's also the issue of having to corral so many different stakeholders into one system, especially when some health care providers are still reliant on antiquated database systems or <a href="https://www.protocol.com/manuals/health-care-revolution/electronic-health-records-after-coronavirus" target="_self">even paper records</a>. "The amount of inefficiency in the system is tremendous," IBM's Piscini said. </p><p>But in the U.S. at least, all vaccinators are required to report COVID-19 vaccines to their state. Piscini said that even for people who just received a paper copy of their vaccine records, systems like IBM's can likely link up to the state's immunization registry and allow people to import records to a vaccine passport.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY2NTc4My9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzg3MTM2M30.RZtqR7F_FuXK1S24V6jVaqUZ0xOSG-gCwj00xU3fxcM/img.png?width=980" id="b0bd3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="11d8002d92c0cd6ef39b12fc7b8dccf8" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">How CommonPass's app shows your records. </small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="Add Photo Credit...">Image: CommonPass</small></p><p>And states are willing to help out, Pollak said, adding that CommonPass has started working with Hawaii to roll out its offering for would-be tourists. "We're seeing a lot of state governments stepping up and doing a really good job with this," Pollak said. "It would be surprising if there wasn't a coordinated federal effort very soon." That being said, while <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/iceland-covid-passports-canada-1.5904828" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">many countries around</a> the world are committing to working on vaccine passports, getting a straight answer out of the U.S. government on what it's doing has proven difficult. The State Department, which maintains America's traditional, analogue passports, referred me to Homeland Security, which referred me to the White House. The acting director and chief of staff of the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy, Kei Koizumi, told Protocol that "OSTP can't discuss projects we are working on before they are publicly announced."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="7">
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</div></p><p>But even with systems in place at a federal level, there's still a fair amount of education that needs to happen before people will trust systems like these. "There's a substantial gap in understanding and knowledge of how these systems work, and people's views, in terms of who should get access to which data," Pollak said. </p><p>"We assume there's a Facebook Borg in the sky, monitoring every interaction," Smith said. "The emergence of verifiable credentials breaks down that mental model, where actually it becomes more like decentralized bits of paper that I can carry around, and no one's to know that I've been sharing this information."</p><p>"Our belief is that if you do the right thing, from a platform point of view, protecting your privacy, and giving you control and access to the platform to everybody who wants to use it," Piscini said. "I think those are very basic things that allow the core of the platform that we build to generate adoption by the individuals."</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="8">
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</div></p><p>Even with a system that works, there may still be holdouts to this potential new normal. "Some people are saying, 'I will never get vaccinated,'" Piscini said, "and I don't know if the airlines are going to say, 'Well, maybe you will never fly again.'"</p>
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Mike Murphy ( @mcwm) is the director of special projects at Protocol, focusing on the industries being rapidly upended by technology and the companies disrupting incumbents. Previously, Mike was the technology editor at Quartz, where he frequently wrote on robotics, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics.
Why gig companies should be scared of a Biden administration
A divided government wouldn't stop Biden from classifying gig workers as employees. Here's how it could happen.
Biden officials are likely to try to force companies like Uber and Lyft to pay their drivers federal minimum wage and empower gig workers to unionize.
Image: Dan Gold/Unsplash
November 20, 2020
Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
November 20, 2020
Forget regulating Big Tech: Gig economy companies could face the industry's most aggressive government regulation during a Biden administration.
Tech lobbyists and labor experts told Protocol that gig companies are gearing up for an expensive, existential battle with the Biden administration. They know that an antagonistic Biden Labor Department has the ability to override state efforts to limit gig workers' rights, and experts described to Protocol how that could play out.
<p>With a potentially divided Congress, it could be an uphill battle to pass any legislation on tech issues such as antitrust, privacy or Section 230, all of which have deep partisan fissures. So, if Republicans keep the Senate, "you're going to have a Biden administration looking to do as much as they can through agency actions" where Democrats can push regulations unilaterally, said Brian Chen, a staff attorney with the National Employment Law Project. That could make the already-powerful Department of Labor and National Labor Relations Board more important than ever. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="1">
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</div></p><p>Biden officials are likely to flex their muscles at those agencies to classify gig workers as employees, both forcing companies like Uber and Lyft to pay their drivers federal minimum wage and empowering gig workers to unionize. The companies already spent <a href="https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/uber-lyft-win-prop-22-fight-in-california" target="_self">hundreds of millions of dollars</a> to keep workers classified as independent contractors in California through Proposition 22 — but a Biden administration could make it difficult for them to expand that campaign across the country. </p><p>"Prop 22 was a tactical win but not necessarily a strategic solution," said one tech policy executive. "This is a huge issue for labor, and you have a presidential ticket that ran as closely aligned with labor as you had in a long time, so this is an area that's going to get a lot of focus."</p><p>Biden hasn't yet announced his picks for the DOL and NLRB, but it's widely expected that he will appoint labor-friendly candidates with deep ties to unions. An aide with the Committee on Education and Labor said "there's a lot the DOL can do by itself to help crack down on this misclassification of workers, not just in the gig economy but across the economy." </p><p>There's been some question as to whether Biden intends to follow through on his campaign promises to firm up rights for gig workers, as critics pointed out that he tapped Uber and Lyft officials to <a href="https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/bidens-transition-is-stacked-with-tech-players" target="_self">join his transition team</a>. But two sources who have advised Biden on tech issues said those personnel choices are unlikely to sway his administration's resolve to crack down on employee misclassification. </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="2">
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</div></p><p>A Biden spokesperson pointed Protocol to Biden's <a href="https://joebiden.com/empowerworkers/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">plan for workers</a>. "Employer misclassification of 'gig economy' workers as independent contractors deprives these workers of legally mandated benefits and protections," it reads. </p><p>Uber did not respond to a request for comment. Spokespeople for Lyft and Instacart each said they are looking forward to working with the incoming Biden administration. "We are eager to work with lawmakers in Washington, DC and around the country on new policies that prioritize Dasher voices by protecting their flexibility and extending portable and proportional benefits," a Doordash spokesperson said. "Prop 22's success is proof that voters from across the political spectrum support finding new solutions that better support Dashers and independent workers like them."</p><p>Some companies said they are still holding out hope that there could be some compromise with the Biden administration and incoming Congress, separate from the DOL and NLRB's efforts. Vikrum Aiyer, vice president of global public policy with Postmates, said he predicts there is room for a "meaningful debate" in Congress and a Biden White House about how to provide expanded benefits to workers without exclusively focusing on the politics of classification. </p><p>He pointed out that even a divided Congress could work on a bipartisan basis to figure out a compromise solution on the controversial issue – especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw the government offer unprecedented benefits to self-employed workers.</p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="3">
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</div></p><p>"Biden is a legislator and an innovator whose pandemic-recovery plan acknowledges that our economic resilience demands policies that are both pro-worker and pro-innovation," Aiyer said. "Pitting 'workers' and 'capital' against each other does little to identify durable frameworks to elevate protections for essential workers, while growing the essential technologies providing access to that work. </p><p><strong>Agency action</strong><br></p><p>The new administration's first priority will likely be to reverse the multiple steps the Trump administration took to roll back protections for gig workers, experts and congressional aides said. It's widely expected that a Biden administration will revoke an <a href="https://www.wiley.law/alert-DOL-Announces-Proposed-Rule-on-Classifying-Employees-and-Independent-Contractors" target="_blank">incoming Trump Labor Department rule</a> that would make it easier for companies to avoid classifying workers as employees and roll back a <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/443601-federal-labor-boards-top-lawyer-says-uber-drivers-are-contractors" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2019 NLRB analysis</a> that claimed Uber drivers are independent contractors. </p><p>A Biden Labor Department official could then issue an opinion, called an "administrator's interpretation," to clarify that the DOL believes gig workers are employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets federal minimum wage and fair labor overtime pay for all employees in the U.S., regardless of what's happening at the state level. That was the DOL's stance during the Obama administration. To affirm that opinion, the DOL could sue Uber, Lyft or another gig work company, setting up a prolonged legal battle to establish whether they have violated the law by misclassifying their workers. The companies would likely fight such a case all the way up to the Supreme Court. </p><p>Meanwhile, the NLRB, which handles the question of who has a right to unionize, could issue a rule about whether gig workers are employees under the National Labor Relations Act or adjudicate an unfair labor practice charge from a group of gig workers trying to unionize. "That's two routes [at the NLRB] to the same outcome, which is 'drivers are employees,'" said Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School. "Once that determination was made, every Uber and Lyft driver everywhere in the country would have the right to form a union." </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="4">
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</div></p><p>But the NLRB process will likely be stalled as Democrats wait for the tenure of NLRB general counsel Peter Robb — who has sided with gig companies on the question of worker classification — to expire in November 2021. "There really won't be anything that happens until the next general counsel comes in," one congressional aide said. </p><p>Heidi Shierholz, a former chief economist at the Labor Department and senior economist with the Economic Policy Institute, said it could take over a year for the agencies to finalize rules and regulations around gig work. And the lawsuits against gig companies could take even longer, especially if they go to the Supreme Court.</p><p>In the interim, Aiyer with Postmates said it's possible the Biden White House could try to hash out a deal among technology companies, workers and other stakeholders, such as racial justice organizations. "If Biden can wield the convening power of the White House to raise the level of debate in this country about what a new American safety net looks like for all workers regardless of who their employer is, that could go far beyond any singular proposed rulemaking," Aiyer from Postmates said. "Instead we can ask ourselves, how can we strengthen 20th century labor laws to broaden the tent of worker protections and close the delta between one class of workers with benefits and another without?" </p><p><div class="ad-tag"><div class="ad-place-holder" data-pos="5">
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</div></p><p>For now, gig companies including Uber and Lyft are aggressively lobbying to export the Prop 22 model across the country. A group called <a href="https://twitter.com/independent_IL" target="_blank">Illinoisans for Independent Work</a>, backed by <a href="https://www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisclosure/ItemizedDebts.aspx?FiledDocID=eUDnXycc0bZji1aAIn595w%3d%3d" target="_blank">$1.2 million from Lyft</a>, recently <a href="https://twitter.com/independent_IL/status/1321519238213996545?s=20" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">launched an ad campaign</a> lauding the "flexibility" of independent work, echoing the rhetoric of the <a href="https://yeson22.com/get-the-facts/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Yes on Prop 22</a> campaign. </p><p>"The companies have already made it clear they're going to bring Prop 22 or something like it to other states," Chen said. "I fully expect them to do so in 2021." </p><p>But if all goes according to plan for a Biden administration, it won't be far behind.</p>
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Emily Birnbaum ( @birnbaum_e) is a tech policy reporter with Protocol. Her coverage focuses on the U.S. government's attempts to regulate one of the most powerful industries in the world, with a focus on antitrust, privacy and politics. Previously, she worked as a tech policy reporter with The Hill after spending several months as a breaking news reporter. She is a Bethesda, Maryland native and proud Kenyon College alumna.
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Bulletins
March 01, 2021 16:30 EST
March 01, 2021 14:39 EST
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