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BOSTON (State House News Service) - Among the parade of elected and organized labor leaders who spoke out against workers being classified as independent contractors Tuesday was one longtime State House presence testifying at a legislative hearing for the final time as head of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO.
Steven Tolman, the former state representative and senator, is retiring after leading the massive "union of unions" as its president since 2011. He is expected to be succeeded by Chrissy Lynch, the group's current secretary-treasurer, as members vote for a new president Wednesday when Mass. AFL-CIO kicks off its three-day Biennial Constitutional Convention at Encore Boston Harbor in Everett.
"It's fitting that I'm before the Labor and Workforce Development Committee, considering this will be my last public hearing," Tolman said, quickly adding, "as president of the AFL-CIO."
Tolman first got involved with the organized labor movement in the 1970s, when he worked for Amtrak and was elected local chairman of the Brotherhood of Railway and Airline Clerks five years into his career. His career included a stint as the New England division chairman of the Transportation Communication International Union, and he was long active in Democratic politics at the local and state levels.
He placed third in the Democratic primary for a House of Representatives seat in 1990, but was elected to the House in 1994 (he topped current House Majority Leader Michael Moran in the primary). Tolman was elected to the Senate in 1998, and he succeeded his brother, Warren, who had held the seat since 1991.
Tolman was a member of the Senate's liberal wing, and a close ally of Senate President Therese Murray, who climbed to the rank of assistant majority leader when the opportunity to lead the Mass. AFL-CIO presented itself in 2011.
Robert Haynes, who had led the AFL-CIO as president since 1998, stepped down after drawing public fire when it was revealed that he drew a salary in the tens of thousands of dollars as a board member for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts at a time when health insurance premiums were rising and a former CEO of the company received a multi-million severance package.
"This is a critical juncture for the labor movement in Massachusetts and in our nation. My whole life - when I started working the railroad at 18 years old and got elected president of my local - my whole life has been about the labor movement," Tolman told the News Service in 2011.
Under Tolman's leadership, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO pointed to successes "in electoral politics as well as advancing a policy agenda -- such as raising the minimum wage, passing the strongest state earned sick-time law in the country, and establishing a domestic workers bill of rights."
At his final committee hearing as president of the Mass. AFL-CIO, Tolman spoke in opposition to a bill (H 1848) backed by app-based driving companies such as Uber and Lyft that would extend new benefits to drivers while legally classifying them as independent contractors, not employees.
Tolman said the bill is "big tech's attempt to roll back wages, discrimination and other minimum standards for working conditions for an entire industry of workers."
"My entire working life is spent fighting for better jobs, not gigs. The systematic dismantling of our employment laws by gig companies is the most existential threat that we have faced. Big tech companies have filed a bill that would classify the workers as independent contractors. While they've tried to paint it as a good thing for the advancement of workers, in fact, it does the opposite," Tolman said.
The independent contractor law has been the subject of years of debate, and recently has been drawn into the discussion over the rights and benefits afforded to app-based drivers. The bill up for a hearing Tuesday, which was filed by Rep. Mark Cusack (D-Braintree), also resembles a possible 2024 ballot question.
Ruth Whittaker, a policy manager at the tech industry coalition Chamber of Progress, told the committee that Cusack's bill would provide "meaningful benefits and protections for app-based workers" and "provide a new type of support for app-based drivers that fits the way thousands of people work today."
"Gig work has become increasingly popular as many app-based workers prioritize the flexibility to choose when, where and how often to work. Thousands of Massachusetts residents rely on app-based driving as a significant source of income. There's also increasing support for models that provide gig drivers with both flexibility and benefits and wages. A recent survey found that 77 percent of app-based workers support maintaining their status as independent contractors. In short, the majority of drivers don't want to end gig work but want to make it better," Whittaker said. "This bill strikes the right balance by protecting drivers' independent status while extending important job protections and pay standards. At the same time, the bill preserves flexibility the workers value, protecting their right to set their own schedule and work around other jobs or on different platforms."
Attorney General Andrea Campbell joined Tolman in testifying against the Cusack bill. She said the bill "carves out" app-based drivers from the fundamental protections provided to employees in Massachusetts.
"As the chief law enforcement officer of the commonwealth, my office works hard every single day to hold companies accountable when their workers are denied access to sick time, fair wages or other benefits. If companies like Uber and Lyft were properly classifying their drivers as employees, they would not need the so-called benefits provided by this bill, which of course are minimal and far less than the current law provides and demands," Campbell said. "That is why I'm committed to the office's current litigation brought against Uber and Lyft for misclassifying drivers as independent contractors."
Now-Gov. Maura Healey sued Uber and Lyft in July 2020 alleging that the practice of classifying drivers as contractors instead of employees violates the state's wage and hour laws to boost profit.
The slow-moving case is expected to go to trial starting May 13, 2024, Cindy Mark, the chief of the attorney general's office's Public Protection and Advocacy Bureau, told the Labor and Workforce Development Committee on Tuesday.
Written By Colin A. Young/SHNS
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