A Massachusetts court ruled Tuesday that a proposed ballot measure regarding gig drivers’ job status violated state law and was ineligible to be presented to voters this fall.
The move, backed by companies like Uber and Lyft, would have classified gig drivers as independent contractors rather than employees, a long-standing goal of the companies. The ruling effectively ended a $17.8 million campaign by the gig companies to support the initiative.
The ballot contained two “substantially different policy decisions, one of which is buried in obscure language” that violate the state constitution, which requires all parts of a ballot measure to be related, the Massachusetts Supreme Court wrote in its ruling.
The court disagreed with a provision of the measure that the drivers were “not employees or agents” of a gig company, because it appeared to be an attempt to protect Uber and Lyft from liability in the event of an accident or a crime. . That provision was separate from the rest of the proposal, which dealt with the benefits drivers would or would not receive as independent contractors, the panel of seven judges said. The measure would have given drivers a limited number of benefits, but would have exempted companies from the need to pay them for full health, time off or other employee benefits.
“Petitions burying individual policy decisions in obscure language raise concerns that voters will be confused, misled and denied a meaningful choice,” the court wrote.
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For years, handymen and labor rights organizations have argued over the classification of drivers: should they be employees, with full employment protection and benefits? Or should they be independent contractors, responsible for their own costs and, as companies claim, offer greater freedom and flexibility to work the hours they want?
Since it seems unlikely that the federal government will resolve the issue, Uber and Lyft have embarked on a state-wide march to record the employment status of their drivers.
The gig companies’ campaign to record the employment status of their drivers in Massachusetts was similar to an effort in California two years ago. In 2020, the companies persuaded California voters to approve Proposition 22, a ballot measure that entrenched drivers’ independent contractor status; a judge destroyed it. The following year they tried to negotiate an employment contract in New York, and this year they struck a similar deal with lawmakers in Washington state that prevented drivers from qualifying as employees.
But the corporate defeat in Massachusetts, a staunchly pro-workers and union state, shows the limits of the strategy, said Terri Gerstein, a labor rights attorney at Harvard Law School’s Labor and Worklife Program.
“Policymakers should pay attention to the reality that the march of gig companies towards a future with deteriorated worker protections is not inevitable,” said Ms Gerstein.
Opponents of the ballot measure in Massachusetts welcomed the court’s ruling.
“Millions of Massachusetts drivers, passengers and taxpayers can rest easy knowing that this unconstitutional bid by Big Tech CEOs to manipulate Massachusetts law has been rejected by the Supreme Court,” wrote Wes McEnany, who leads Massachusetts Is Not for Sale, in a statement. e-mail. “The vote question was not only written as an attempt to reduce drivers’ rights, but would also have endangered the rights of passengers and the public.”
Uber and Lyft declined to comment, but the organization that implemented the measure expressed disappointment, arguing it would have had widespread support by the fall.
“A clear majority of Massachusetts voters and car-sharing drivers and delivery drivers supported both and would have turned this ballot issue into law,” Conor Yuunits, who leads the Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, said in a statement.
The group hoped the state legislature would take action on drivers’ job status before the end of the summer. “We hope that the legislator will support the 80 percent of drivers who want flexibility and remain independent contractors while having access to new benefits,” wrote Mr Yuunits.
In a survey of about 400 Massachusetts drivers paid for by the gig companies this year, 81 percent said they supported the ballot measure. But critics have argued that drivers were given the wrong choice between flexibility and benefits while being classified as employees.
“The companies have already spent millions fooling drivers and voters into accepting this deceptive proposal,” Steve Tolman, the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, said in a statement.
The Massachusetts labor battle began in 2020 when state attorney general Maura Healey sued Uber and Lyft, arguing that they misclassified their employees by treating them as independent contractors rather than employees. That lawsuit is pending in court.
Uber, Lyft, DoorDash and Instacart responded with the ballot measure, which stood a good chance of passing if it reached voters, if the California initiative was any indication.
But their plans began to unravel when a group of labor activists filed a complaint in January, arguing that the ballot measure was not allowed to go through due to the gig company liability clause.
Tuesday’s ruling made it clear that Uber and Lyft had gone too far in trying to pass an ambitious and sweeping law.
“Gig companies wrote an overly lengthy voting initiative designed to confuse people in an effort to avoid responsibility for everything from employer obligations to taking care of passengers in the event of an accident,” Ms Gerstein said.
