When Doug Allen arrived at the Aspen Heights Apartments Wednesday morning, he saw four Syracuse University students staring at their phones. He wasn’t sure which one was his rider. Eventually, a student waved him down.

Allen works as an independent contractor for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft. He drives every morning from 6:30 a.m. to noon. He receives no health benefits, no unemployment insurance and no minimum wage protection. He loves it.

Independent contractors like Allen are part of the “gig economy,” in which workers are employed in short-term jobs or “gigs.” Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced a proposal in January that would redefine gig workers in the state as employees, not independent contractors.

The change would allow gig workers to unionize, which is forbidden under current price-fixing laws. It would also require tech companies to provide health care, overtime and other benefits to employees.

Allen opposes the proposal. The flexibility of working as an independent contractor — like being able to work for Uber while he waits for his wife to get a haircut — is what makes the gig economy so great for him, he said. He fears that being defined as an employee will limit that flexibility.

Mario Cilento, president of New York State AFL-CIO, said in an email that Cuomo’s proposal will not affect the flexibility of independent contractors.

“Nowhere in any of the proposals to treat these workers fairly does it prevent app companies from continuing to provide flexible work schedules,” Cilento said.

The bill will have good social impacts, but bad economic ones, said Steven Sawyer, a professor at SU’s School of Information Studies who researches labor. At its core, the debate is about the future of work and how we define an employee, Sawyer said.

“More than a century of labor policy is being challenged by this new form of work,” he said.

Uber and Postmates filed a lawsuit in December challenging a California law that defined most workers in the gig economy as employees. The law has encountered resistance and noncompliance from tech companies.

The same companies are now fighting the proposal in New York state. Flexible Work for New York — a coalition that includes Grubhub, Postmates, Lyft and Uber — is opposing Cuomo’s initiative. The coalition did not respond to a request for comment.

Published on February 2, 2020 at 9:20 pm

Contact Patrick: pjlineha@syr.edu