DAILY TRIFECTA: It's Way Better To Receive In The Gig Economy
They deliver the bread instead of bringing it home
TITLE: US trade groups sue over Biden rule on 'gig' work, contracting
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-trade-groups-sue-over-biden-rule-gig-work-contracting-2024-03-05/
EXCERPT: Major U.S. business groups on Tuesday filed the latest lawsuit challenging a Biden administration rule that would make it more difficult for companies to treat some workers as independent contractors rather than employees.
The groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country's largest business lobby, said in a complaint filed in federal court in Beaumont, Texas, that the U.S. Department of Labor rule violated federal wage law by adopting too broad a definition of who counts as a company's employee.
Employees are entitled to the minimum wage, overtime pay and other legal protections not afforded to contractors, and studies suggest that they can cost companies up to 30% more than contract workers.
The rule, which takes effect March 11, is expected to have a broad impact on an array of industries including app-based services that rely heavily on "gig" workers to contain costs. At least four other challenges to the rule are pending, including lawsuits by freelance writers, trade groups and a trucking company that treats driver as independent contractors.
The new lawsuit also claims that the Labor Department violated a federal law governing rulemaking by agencies by failing to justify its reversal of a Trump administration rule favored by trade groups.
TITLE: Gig platforms are limiting workers’ hours and making it more difficult to tip them as New York City rolls out new rules to ensure they make at least $18 an hour
https://fortune.com/2024/03/06/gig-platforms-limiting-worker-hours-making-more-difficult-tip-new-york-city-rolls-out-new-rules-ensure-at-least-18-an-hour/
EXCERPT: New Yorkers place over 100 million food delivery orders each year via a very simple process: press a few buttons on an app and it’s in their hands in about 30 minutes.
For the delivery workers, the process is anything but simple. And it has only become more complex since the city instituted a new wage formula designed to guarantee they make at least $18 an hour. Some of the biggest app platforms, who opposed the change, responded by limiting workers’ hours, making it more difficult for customers to tip, and changing how pay is calculated from week to week.
That’s left workers like Greiber Pineda scrambling to navigate opaque changes.
Pineda initially earned so much from Uber Eats under the new wage system that when a snowstorm hit New York City in January, he was motivated to work 11 1/2 hours straight, shuttling 37 meals on his moped “through the cold, the snow, everything.” A few days later, the app changed its pay system — sending him around $200 instead of the $300 he expected.
“When we got paid we were up in the air, like ‘What happened here?’” Pineda, of Brooklyn, said in Spanish.
Frustrated, Pineda now spends more time on side hustles. On a recent weekday morning, he sold coffee and arepas to fellow delivery workers from Venezuela and Colombia outside a Chick-fil-A across the road from Brooklyn’s Barclays Center arena. Nearby, two workers from Guinea changed the oil on a scooter while others from Latin America, China and Turkmenistan picked up orders for apps like Uber Eats, Grubhub and DoorDash. The city estimates that, like Pineda, 39% of delivery workers speak English “less than well.”
A few months ago, none of these workers were earning an hourly wage. Like most food delivery drivers across the U.S., they instead logged into the apps when they wanted and earned money by accepting individual delivery jobs. Some jobs made financial sense. Others might not even cover the cost of gas, but many workers said “yes” as often as possible to earn priority access to premium orders or other perks on the gamified apps.
That’s no longer the case in New York, which became the first major city to institute a wage floor for app-based food delivery workers on Dec. 4. Seattle followed in January with a similar law that extends to nearly all app-mediated work.
Before the change, New York City surveyed its estimated 122,000 delivery workers, finding they earned $14 an hour on average. Half of that came from tips and around $2 went to equipment and maintenance, mostly for e-bikes and mopeds.
Exposed to deadly traffic and violent attacks, they were working a dangerous job, but weren’t even making the city’s minimum wage, which rose from $15 to $16 this year.
“This is one of the ways, one of the few ways that an immigrant can get by, at least in this city, which is pricey,” said Pineda.
While some workers say they’re earning less under the new rules, labor organizers and the app companies say average earnings have increased. But the apps are still cutting costs and have the advantage of seeing their workers’ data as they figure out how to do that.
“Delivery companies are still undermining or trying to undermine the minimum pay victory by being less transparent,” said Ligia Gullalpa, executive director of the Workers Justice Project.
None of the major app companies operating in New York City responded to a request for detailed pay statistics. They defended reducing worker hours as key to reducing downtime, in line with the law’s incentives.
“Seattle & New York City failed to think about the negative impacts of their actions,” Uber Eats spokesperson Josh Gold said in an email, adding that he believes there are better options to protect worker flexibility, such as a California law that recategorized gig workers as independent contractors.
TITLE: California Fast Food Law Poised for Changes After Panera Uproar
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/policymakers-still-deciding-on-california-fast-food-wage-law
EXCERPT: A new California law raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour on April 1 may undergo new changes as early as this month, as well as into the future as a result of wrangling by policymakers.
The state Assembly could send Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) legislation as soon as this week to exempt fast-food restaurants in airports, stadiums, and a long list of venues from the 2023 law.
Meanwhile, the governor has recently appointed a chair of a council created under the law with the power to raise the minimum wage yet again in 2025 and set separate rates for different parts of the sprawling state.
But there appears to be little appetite among state lawmakers to reexamine how an existing carve-out could benefit a Newsom campaign donor, who is also a major Panera Bread franchisee. The uproar has led the governor’s office to determine that the fast-casual chain will not be exempt from the measure after all.
The flurry of activity around implementing the new law (A.B. 1228) underscores how workers’ rights in California’s fast-food industry continue to evolve, even after passage of legislation last year that signaled a sort of truce between labor unions and restaurant owners. Indeed, the aftermath of the law has required cleanup to satisfy other unions and led to election campaigns by restaurant owners to defeat lawmakers who backed the law.
The state Senate voted Feb. 29 to pass legislation (A.B. 610) that would include a series of exemptions from the minimum wage law at the behest of UNITE-HERE, the labor union representing many fast-food workers in tourism-related industries, such as in airports and theme parks. The union says they are typically paid more than those at the large franchise operations like McDonald’s and Burger King that last year’s law, backed by California SEIU, aimed to protect.
The measure sailed through the Senate last week on a 31-4 vote, where state Sen. Monique Limón argued the provisions would help ensure the minimum wage law did not inadvertently create a wage ceiling rather than a floor in some workplaces.
“This bill is clarifying in nature and simply ensures that restaurants operated in conjunction with large facilities will not be subject to the provisions of” the 2023 law, she said.
Republicans moved unsuccessfully to kill the measure, however, citing reporting by Bloomberg News revealing how a separate, unexplained carve-out for restaurants that make and sell their own bread could benefit Panera Bread.
Bloomberg News found a major Panera Bread franchisee and Newsom campaign donor backed the exemption, though he said he never spoke directly with the governor about it.
Newsom said over the weekend that Panera Bread will not be exempt from the new, higher minimum wage and defended the law as one that other states should emulate.
TITLE: California Panera franchisee will raise minimum wage to $20 after political firestorm over minimum wage carveout
https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/business/panera-franchise-california-to-raise-minimum-wage/index.html
EXCERPT: A Panera Bread franchise owner in California said he will raise the minimum wage for his employees after accusations he benefited from ties to the state’s governor to avoid hiking pay.
A new state minimum wage law exempts certain businesses that make and sell bread – a carveout that critics contended benefited Greg Flynn, a billionaire Panera franchise owner who attended high school with Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and who has donated to the governor’s campaign in the past.
The law, which takes effect on April 1, raises the minimum wage from $16 per hour to $20 for all fast food workers — except those working in businesses that produce and sell bread as a standalone menu item.
It’s that exception that’s driving the political accusations.
Both men have denied Flynn’s influence over the new law. On Tuesday, Flynn told CNN that he has decided to raise the minimum pre-tip wage at all of his Panera Bread locations to $20 per hour, regardless of whether his fast-casual bakeries are exempt from the new minimum wage law or not.
“At Flynn Group, we are in the people business and believe our people are our most valuable assets,” Flynn said. “Our goal is to attract and retain the best team members to deliver the restaurant experience our guests know and love.”
According to California public records, Flynn, whose company, The Flynn Group, has 24 Panera locations in California, donated several times to Newsom’s 2022 re-election campaign and gave $100,000 in 2021 amid a conservative fight to recall the governor.
However, Flynn said he never personally met with Newsom about the minimum wage bill, though he did meet with Newsom’s staff and a group of other restaurant owners to discuss it.
“I suggested the bill’s language defining ‘fast food restaurant’ should be amended to exclude fast casual restaurants,” Flynn said in a statement last week.
However, Flynn told CNN he never asked for an exemption or special considerations and that he was “surprised” when the bakery exemption appeared in the final legislation.