These two staffing companies place employees in a variety of hospitality positions, including servers, bartenders, line cooks and prep cooks, and dishwashers. The citation alleges that the companies misclassified employees as independent contractors and in doing so violated the city’s minimum wage ordinance and state law regarding paid sick leave.
Colorado labor law defines an employee as someone who performs work or services for the benefit of the employer. Factors that drive that determination include the degree of control the employer exercises over the person and the degree to which the person’s job is the employer’s primary job. In contrast, an independent contractor is considered a person who works primarily without control or direction and is “customarily engaged” in an independent trade or business related to the services performed.
At first glance, the Denver incident may seem like small potatoes. But they are actually very big problems. These lawsuits show that the exploitative gig business model extends far beyond Uber drivers and DoorDash food delivery workers, and a growing number of jobs that employees have held for years have legal protections. It is shown that. And these cases demonstrate the urgent need for government intervention to protect core workplace rights.
Because workplace laws protect employees, not independent contractors, gig companies like Uber and Lyft avoid obligations to which all other employers are subject (wage laws, unemployment, Social Security, Medicare). This results in significant savings in both wages and taxes. tax. As a result, gig workers could be paid less than minimum wage or left without workers’ compensation benefits if they are injured or killed on the job, for example. Another consequence is that law-abiding employers face unfair competition from companies that don’t follow the rules, and critical safety-net programs such as unemployment insurance lose much-needed funding.
The Denver incident makes it clear that the gig business model is no longer just a problem for drivers and food delivery workers. For example, Instawork also has warehouse, janitorial, janitorial, and retail employees, while Gigpro has employees in hotels. Last year, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu sued hospitality staffing company Quik, summarizing the gig business model succinctly: law. ”