Title
Resolve: That we, the Malden City Council, stand in solidarity with app-based workers and uphold their rights to fair wages and workplace protections, and formally urge the Massachusetts Legislature to oppose H.1234 and the proposed 2022 ballot initiative that would ask voters to grant ride-hail and food-delivery companies special exemptions from Massachusetts labor, civil rights, and consumer protection laws.
WHEREAS, In 2019, the California legislature passed AB5, a simple test for determining who is an employee and who is an independent contractor, which determined that Uber and Lyft ride-hail drivers, DoorDash, Instacart, and Postmates food-delivery workers are employees; and
WHEREAS, App-based companies such as Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash responded by spending $224 million on Proposition 22, a ballot initiative meant to exclude ride-hail and food-delivery app-based workers from employee rights under state law, including the right to a minimum wage, time-and-a-half for overtime, expenses reimbursement, and benefits such as unemployment compensation and state workers' compensation; and
WHEREAS, California Superior Court Judge Frank Roesch found that the ballot initiative infringed on the power explicitly granted to the California Legislature to regulate workers' compensation and was therefore unconstitutional and unenforceable; and
WHEREAS, In 2020, Uber's CEO stated that "Going forward, you'll see us more loudly advocating for laws like Prop 22," and other Big Tech CEOs have joined them in their promise to bring laws that depress wages, violate civil rights, and put consumers at risk to states across the country; and
WHEREAS, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is suing Uber and Lyft for failing to follow Massachusetts law by misclassifying employees as independent contractors; and
WHEREAS, In an attempt to ...
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