The one-time IPO darlings of yesteryear are about to take another beating. We already knew that the COVID-19 pandemic would deliver a huge blow to the so-called ‘sharing economy’, at least in the short term,as Airbnb to permanently delay plans for an IPO and pledge hundreds of millions of dollars to offset the costs of cancellations […]
Tag Archives: IC v Employee
Postmates couriers are employees, New York appeals court finds
An appeals court in New York has concluded that Postmates couriers are employees entitled to unemployment insurance (In re Vega, No. 13 (State of New York Court of Appeals, March 20, 2020)). Postmates, according the court, is a delivery business that uses a website and smartphone application to dispatch couriers to pick up goods from local restaurants and stores […]
New York Court Rules That Postmates Couriers Are Employees — and Eligible for Unemployment
The New York Court of Appeals has ruled that Postmates couriers are employees and therefore eligible for unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. The ruling is actually a reinstatement of a 2015 decision, which found that former Postmates courier Luis A. Vega was eligible for unemployment benefits after he was terminated from the service. Postmates had appealed the […]
Food Delivery Services DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates Might Merge
One way to figure out how long someone’s lived in San Francisco is to bring up app-based food delivery. To folks who arrived here after their popularity (say, in the early 2010s), it’s a service that’s always been here and is too ubiquitous to fail. But folks who have lived here longer than that have […]
TASCHINGER: Waitr’s app is better than its business model
The smartphone app that allows you to order food from a smorgasbord of restaurants and get it delivered to your door is brilliant. It’s easy, fast and efficient. (It may cause you to spend too much on meals you could prepare for yourself instead, but that’s another column.) Yet this killer app, and countless others […]
INSTACART WILL LIKELY HAVE TO RECLASSIFY WORKERS AS EMPLOYEES AMID OTHER AB 5 LAWSUITS
On demand, human cloud platform Instacart will likely have to classify its full-time shoppers in California as employees rather than independent contractors, Bloomberg Law reported. The tentative ruling came Friday in a lawsuit brought against Instacart by the San Diego City Attorney’s Office. The move comes under the more-strict ABC test for independent contractor misclassification that […]
Bite Squad parent drops drivers in switch to gig-worker model
The parent company of Bite Squad plans to lay off the food-delivery service’s employee drivers within the next six weeks, intending to convert them into independent contractors. Based in Minneapolis, Bite Squad was purchased in 2019 for $321 million by Waitr Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: WTRH) of Lafayette, La. The company previously announced plans to lay off about […]
Waitr to lay off all 2,300 Louisiana drivers in these 5 markets; some to become contractors
Waitr will lay off 2,300 Louisiana employees in April as the restaurant delivery company transitions drivers from hourly employees to independent contractors. The Louisiana Workforce Commission released details on Monday from a legally required notice filed by Waitr earlier this month. Waitr will be instituting a layoff for all of its drivers in every market across […]
Waitr to lay off 219 in Beaumont, move to contract pay model
Food delivery service Waitr will lay off all 219 drivers in the Beaumont area as it moves to a nationwide contract-only model for workers in April. The Texas Workforce Commission on Thursday released details of a legally required notice from the company that it would terminate the employment of its drivers in Jefferson County and […]
Column: DoorDash thought it was smart to force workers to arbitrate but now faces millions in fees
It’s not surprising why employers often require their workers to take wage and workplace complaints to arbitration instead of court: The big companies almost always win. Here’s a case involving the gig economy company DoorDash that turns that custom on its head. The company, facing a torrent of more than 5,800 arbitration claims filed by […]