Uber and Lyft appropriate bought hit with one more lawsuit in California over claims the companies are skirting the explain’s gig worker law (UBER, LYFT)

• California’s labor commissioner launched Wednesday that her place of job is suing Uber and Lyft, claiming the companies are stealing wages from drivers by “willfully misclassifying” them as contractors in establish of staff.
• The swimsuit alleges that Uber and Lyft hold didn’t pay drivers minimum wage, sick pay, unemployment, and assorted advantages assured to staff below explain law.
• AB-5, California’s hotly debated gig economic system law, created stricter requirements for companies looking out for to designate staff as fair contractors.
• California’s agency that oversees walk-hailing companies ruled that drivers are staff below the law, however the companies hold refused to reclassify drivers, and the arena is now at the heart of extra than one complaints.
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The heated comely battle between California and walk-hail giants Uber and Lyft ratcheted up one more notch this week with the explain’s labor commissioner asserting that she plans to decide the companies to courtroom over their classification of drivers.

Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower’s place of job stated in a press release Wednesday that it plans to file a lawsuit in opposition to the companies, arguing that they’re “committing wage theft by willfully misclassifying drivers as fair contractors in establish of staff.”

In a letter to Uber and Lyft drivers alerting them to the lawsuit, Garcia-Brower’s place of job stated that it’s looking out for to force the companies to reclassify drivers as staff and reimburse them for wages and assorted advantages that they can be entitled to as staff below explain law.

That list entails a colossal sequence of funds that Uber and Lyft hold historically no longer paid to drivers, akin to minimum wages in step with time drivers spend the utilization of the app (no longer appropriate riding passengers), beyond odd time, sick pay, and industry expenses.

“The overwhelming majority of California drivers deserve to work independently, and we’ve already made major changes to our app to construct certain that stays the case below explain law,” an Uber spokesperson urged Industry Insider, in conjunction with that the firm hasn’t been served with the lawsuit but and as a result of this truth hasn’t been in a explain to test its particular claims.

A Lyft spokesperson urged Industry Insider: “The explain labor agency has botched hundreds of claims. They know they like no longer hold the capability to route of these claims, so that they despatched them steady into a fair abyss, where they know this would possibly per chance per chance per chance decide years to resolve them.”

California’s landmark gig work law, AB-5, which went into close this year, raised the bar companies must determined in give away to decide into myth staff as fair contractors, spurring a main battle between regulators and Uber and Lyft over whether drivers meet that bar.

California’s Public Utilities Charge, the agency guilty for overseeing walk-hail companies, dealt a extensive blow to the companies earlier this year when it ruled in June that drivers are idea about staff below AB-5. In May per chance presumably per chance furthermore, a neighborhood of attorneys odd from the explain — in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego — also sued Uber and Lyft over the arena.

Uber and Lyft hold beforehand argued that AB-5 would no longer prepare to them and hold aggressively defended their classification of drivers by claiming that drivers handle to work as contractors.

Not like their employee counterparts, contractors are no longer assured determined advantages love as healthcare and paid sick crawl away, and Uber and Lyft are no longer certain by determined labor guidelines around minimum wage funds or required pay payroll taxes for those staff, which feed into applications love unemployment insurance coverage.

Driver advocacy neighborhood Rideshare Drivers United, which has been rounding up driver wage theft accusations, claimed that Uber and Lyft owe bigger than $1.3 billion in funds to drivers in California.

The debate over what wages and advantages gig economic system companies needs to be on the hook for (versus staff or taxpayers) has intensified in most contemporary months as extra states and cities originate cracking down on companies love Uber and Lyft. Massachusetts filed a equal lawsuit final month, whereas NY metropolis imposed the nation’s first minimum wage for walk-hail drivers and Seattle has sought to shut the same.