Seattle allows some gig workers to have guaranteed rights that were generally only available to traditional workers. This week, the City Council passed legislation requiring app-based delivery companies like DoorDash, Uber Eats and Instacart to provide paid sick leave to employees.
Food delivery workers in Seattle have enjoyed this protection for some time — the City Council passed the Gig Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance in July 2020. However, that law was temporary and was due to expire at the end of April (some parts of it had already expired in November 2022 when Seattle And Washington as a whole ended their covid emergency). The new lawcalled the App-Based Worker Paid Sick and Safe Time Ordinance, however, should remain.
Gig employees covered by the law will get one day of paid sick leave for “every 30 days with at least one work-related stop in Seattle,” and up to nine days of accrued paid sick leave can be carried over to the next calendar year. How much they get paid for that “day” depends on how much they’ve earned on an average day over the past 12 months – a formula was used to figure it out.
Employees are also given paid “safe time” to take if companies suspend services for health or safety reasons, if a family member’s school or shelter closes, or if they receive services for domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
Local laws protecting gig workers can be complicated, patchy, and not necessarily universal
The law will begin on May 1 in relation to food delivery workers and will be extended to other gig work companies on January 13, 2024. as a local NPR affiliate KOW notes, not all apps and services are covered, with dog sitting app Rover being an example. a note from the council explains that some apps are exempt because they provide a “marketplace” and have “less control over the employee or the performance of services.” (TaskRabbit, for example, tells you what tasks to do, but not necessarily how to do them, where Uber Eats gives you specific instructions for each step en route.)
According to cross section And GeekWire, Seattle is the first US city to make these rights permanent for gig workers. This is because legislators and regulators across the country are trying to figure out what employment rights gig workers should have. Perhaps the most controversial battle is California’s Proposition 22, a law passed in 2020 that allows Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and others to classify employees as independent contractors rather than employees. Unions and drivers have challenged the law’s constitutionality in court and plan to appeal a decision that kept the law in effect.
The U.S. Department of Labor is also in the process of determining whether gig workers should be classified as employees, which could have huge implications for the rights and benefits they receive under the law.
Unless or until that happens, cities and states will likely continue to take piecemeal approaches to regulating how gig workers are treated. Last year, Washington passed similar legislation offering sick leave especially for drivers who ride along work for companies like Uber and Lyft, and the Seattle City Council has passed a bill to ensure that some gig workers are paid the city’s minimum wage and that gig workers are reimbursed for any mileage it takes them to operate a job done. At the time, Councilor Andrew Lewis said: “This legislation will certainly not be the last word on this.” according to The Seattle Times. It seems that the municipality is keeping that promise.
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