Ride-Booking Unions Raise Specter of Same for Other Gig Workers

In recent months, ride-booking workers in Massachusetts and California — those that drive the likes of Uber or Lyft — have unionized for better pay and conditions, even though they are independent contractors who under federal law typically wouldn’t have the right to do so. 

As the gig economy expands, more people are embracing freelance work, forcing lawmakers and courts to address issues surrounding rights and protections. The unionizing efforts raise the specter that independent contractors across many industries — such as writers, graphic designers, and software engineers — might attempt the same. 

This unionizing trend won’t stay in ride-booking, said Phillip Wilson, CEO and general counsel for LRI Consulting Services Inc. in Broken Arrow, Okla. “Any business that runs on contractors should be paying attention, and that now includes a lot of writers, designers, and photographers. The appeal to the union is that it can represent a whole sector” of workers. 

Toolkit: Preparing for the Possibility of Union Organizing

Federal Law and Independent Contractors  

Freelancers are self‑employed professionals who work on a project‑by‑project or contract‑by‑contract basis without being tied to a single employer. They can be in virtually any field. In the U.S., they cannot typically unionize under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) because the NLRA’s definition of “employee” excludes them.

That may be changing at the state level. 

Massachusetts became the first state to recognize a ride-booking union, a milestone in the growing effort to organize gig-economy workers classified as independent contractors under federal labor law. Labor leaders described the unionization effort as the largest private-sector organizing win since Ford autoworkers unionized in 1941.

The union organizing became possible after the state’s voters approved a ballot measure creating a first-in-the-nation framework allowing ride-booking drivers to unionize and bargain collectively while remaining independent contractors — a model some business groups and legal scholars argue could face challenges under federal law. Organizers say the union will ultimately represent nearly 70,000 drivers statewide.

California followed shortly after. 

Then Illinois passed similar legislation, which Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law on Aug. 7. 

The unionizing effort taking place at various ride-booking companies is, like many union campaigns, being led by workers who are seeking hourly minimum pay rates, gas and automobile insurance reimbursements for drivers, caps on the amount the ride-booking companies can take from what the passenger pays, and a grievance process and just-cause standard for drivers whom the ride-booking companies want to remove from their ride-booking platforms.  

The unionizing efforts for drivers who provide services for ride-booking companies have been unique, said Tyler Roth, an attorney with Quarles & Brady in Milwaukee. “The unionization effort is important because it signals a willingness by unions to organize — notwithstanding the workers’ classification as independent contractors under federal law.” If the drivers are unionized, the ride-booking companies will likely have additional obligations under state law, including a requirement to meet and bargain with the union over a contract that covers drivers’ wages, benefits, and other working conditions.

Wilson called the effort in Massachusetts “a windfall for the union.”

The union holds an exclusive franchise over every ride-booking driver in the state, and the law orders companies to deduct dues and hand them over, he said. “Dues are technically voluntary. But we know how ‘voluntary’ runs in right-to-work states, where unions still lean on the holdouts anyway: public free-rider lists, name-and-shame, peer pressure, the works. Expect the same here.”

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The Threat of Automated Vehicles 

In addition to negotiating better pay, benefits, and conditions of employment, the drivers will likely try to negotiate some limits on the ride-booking companies’ use of automated vehicles to replace them. 

Automated driving — a vehicle driven without any licensed driver behind the wheel — is taking hold in a few states.

While autonomous vehicles are permitted in only a handful of states such as Arizona and California, the unions driving these organizing campaigns have said that they see autonomous driving as a nationwide trend that threatens the welfare of ride-booking drivers, and that unionization is a way for drivers to collectively respond.

The union organizing campaigns have therefore made automated driving a key concern for all drivers nationwide and have signaled that they see it as a bargaining subject for negotiations with ride-booking companies. 

Ride-booking drivers, and the unions seeking to organize the drivers, have said that rising gas prices and autonomous driving vehicles may result in ride-booking companies relying less and less on people to provide driving services, and that there will be fewer drivers needed as a result, Roth said. 

Yet Wilson said that organizing the drivers “does nothing to slow the thing they’re actually afraid of, and it may speed it up.” He added, “A union contract is not a hedge against automation. In a business already facing it, it is more of an accelerant.”

Dana Wilkie is a freelance writer based in Ormond Beach, Fla.