Gig Economy Central to Labor Board Debate on Contractor Test (1)

The gig economy loomed large in the public comments on the National Labor Relations Board’s reconsideration of its Trump-era legal test for determining whether a worker is an employee protected by federal labor law or an independent contractor who is not.

Rideshare Drivers United, which represents 20,000 California-based drivers for Uber Technologies Inc., Lyft Inc., and other app-based drivers, asked the NLRB to adopt a standard that “unambiguously” recognizes that gig economy workers are employees. Those drivers lost the benefit of a 2019 change to the employment classification test under California law with the 2020 passage of a ...