Photo: Tero Vesalainen / iStock / Getty Images
BOSTON (State House News Service) - Personal care attendants did not legally have the ability to unionize in Massachusetts until 2006, when Gov. Mitt Romney signed into law a measure overhauling the industry. The same is true for family child care providers, who similarly gained the right to organize from a 2012 state law.
And if workers backed by powerful labor groups gets their way, Uber and Lyft drivers could be next.
Some drivers and their union allies are pushing a proposal that would create a pathway to unionization on the massively popular apps, arguing not only that it would transform the quality of life for tens of thousands of workers but that it also represents a logical next step for the Bay State.
"Massachusetts took that step forward," Roxana Rivera, the state head of 32BJ SEIU, said about the personal care attendant and family care provider unionization laws. "It improved our state, improved the lives of thousands of families here, and we think that can be the same with Uber and Lyft."
"Uber and Lyft is a new industry, but the standards for these workers have been dragged down. There's no other way these standards are going to improve," she added.
Last cycle, drivers who did not favor their current working conditions found themselves playing defense, trying to convince voters not to support a company-backed ballot question that wound up derailed on a technicality.
This time around, their ranks have grown. 32BJ SEIU signed onto the effort in January, joining the International Association of Machinists, who worked unsuccessfully last session on a reform proposal smaller in scope.
Workers who want a change are now more on the offensive, pressing their own measure that would allow drivers to unionize.
The campaign is unfolding on two fronts. Supporters are rallying behind legislation (H 1099 / S 666) that would create a path to unionization for drivers while providing them benefits such as a minimum pay rate, paid sick leave and unemployment insurance. They are also working to advance a narrower ballot question focused mostly on establishing the ability to collectively bargain.
"It's building momentum," said Michael Vartabedian, assistant directing business representative of District 15 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. "The drivers are getting more engaged, they're getting more excited about the chances of having a solution to their big problem. So it's building momentum. I can feel the energy building. There's more and more people joining the coalition every single day."
Organizers say the ballot question could trigger one of the largest unionization drives in the state's history.
Roughly 30,000 Bay Staters who drive for Uber, Lyft or both would become eligible to join a union under the proposal, according to Vartabedian.
A year after Romney signed the 2006 personal care attendant law, about 22,000 workers were eligible to join a union, 6,500 of whom cast ballots to organize with SEIU Local 1199, according to the Associated Press. Even more people are covered today: a contract approved last month boosted wages for roughly 58,000 home care workers.
Thousands of family child care care providers similarly gained the right to organize under a 2012 state law.
"We've established a similar model here with child care workers and home care workers -- the same kind of struggles in regards to who are they actually employed by, how their funding works," Rivera said. "We were able, through the state Legislature, to establish for them a pathway to a union, and that has improved tremendously the standards for child care workers and home care workers."
"We Need A Voice"
Betania Gonell, a veteran Uber driver, recalled that when she first started with the platform about seven years ago, the company took about 20 percent of every fare as its cut. As the years went on, that rose to 35 percent, then 45 percent, and now to between 50 and 60 percent.
These days, Gonell said in an interview, she needs to work 60 hours per week to make ends meet.
"As a single mother, I've got to support my family. It doesn't matter how many hours I work," Gonell said. "I usually work six days a week. Sometimes I have to work seven to complete even a few hours, and this is why we're here. This is why we need the union: because we need a voice."
The coalition behind the unionization push argues that the conditions Gonell faces are widespread. Last week, the group published a report based on third-party app data concluding the median Massachusetts ride-for-hire driver earns $12.82 per hour -- less than minimum wage -- after accounting for expenses and unpaid work time.
Uber and Lyft drivers in the Boston metropolitan area spend more than half of their "work time" driving without a passenger, waiting for the app to assign them a trip -- time for which they are not paid, according to the union-backed report.
Conor Yunits, a spokesperson for the industry group, pushed back on the report the unions released, arguing that its sampling methodology "set this study up to fail."
"This data is taken from a small, self-selecting group of drivers who are using one third party app. It is far from representative of drivers as a whole and represents a fraction of a fraction of total drivers on the platforms," Yunits said. "Also, collecting the data in this way guarantees an over-sample of full-time workers. Without re-weighting for this, response bias structurally leads to over-estimating everything from full-time drivers to median hours on the platforms. And once you are in this inaccurate world, earnings will be artificially lower; even before accounting for the incorrect assumptions around expenses. Additionally, the idea that nearly half of earnings go to expenses defies any reasonable logic."
Another point drivers argue is the ability for a union to bring together workers who otherwise face isolation.
"Our office is our car. We don't meet each other anywhere because everybody -- I can have a driver next to me, but I don't know who is that driver," Gonell said. "We need a voice because we, as drivers, one by one, we can't do anything. If Uber deactivates me, what am I going to do? Nothing. I don't have power to fight."
Into the Political Thicket
Rivera and Vartabedian said they would prefer for lawmakers to take up the issue and avoid any ballot question campaign. But the groups are taking the steps necessary to keep an initiative petition in the mix for 2024, a common political strategy that ramps up pressure on the Legislature to get involved or risk leaving important policy decisions and details for the voters to decide.
Meanwhile, Uber, Lyft and other gig economy power players continue their years-long fight to change state labor laws in the face of an impending trial about their existing worker classification.
The industry-backed Flexibility and Benefits for Massachusetts Drivers committee is pushing legislation and a potential ballot question that would provide drivers with some new benefits while enshrining in state law that they are independent contractors -- how the companies currently treat workers -- and not employees as the attorney general argues they should be.
A quirk of the already-labyrinthine political fight is that opposition does not run in both directions. While the unions are against the independent contractor measure, the companies' proxy is effectively neutral on the unionization question and instead is focused on debate over how drivers are classified.
"In Washington state, Democratic legislators convened all parties to work toward a solution for rideshare drivers. They brought drivers and companies together with local Teamsters and other labor leaders to find a solution that protected flexibility while creating new benefits," Yunits, who represents the industry-backed campaign, said. "This can happen here in Massachusetts too."
The 2020 lawsuit filed by then-Attorney General Maura Healey appears headed to trial next year, which could further complicate the outlook for either or both app-based driver proposals.
If the court agrees with the attorney general that Uber and Lyft violated state law by treating their drivers as independent contractors, voters and lawmakers might not be inclined to back the companies' question. At the same time, a ruling that drivers are full-blown employees might raise questions about whether a change to state law is even necessary to allow them to unionize, or if the workers would be already covered by federal labor laws.
Union leaders say they are not concerned. Rivera described the ongoing court battle over worker classification as "a whole separate thing."
"Just if they're deemed Massachusetts employees doesn't mean they have the right to unionize under the National Labor Relations Act, so they still need something [at the state level] to unionize," Vartabedian added. "We believe this bill would still do that."
Written By Chris Lisinski/SHNS
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