These two staffing firms place staff in a variety of hospitality positions, together with as servers, bartenders, line and prep cooks and, sure, dishwashers. The citations assert that the businesses misclassified the employees as impartial contractors and in doing so, violated the town’s minimal wage ordinance and state legislation on paid sick depart.
Colorado’s labor legislation defines an worker as any one who performs labor or providers for the advantage of an employer. Components that go into making that willpower embrace the diploma of management an employer workout routines over the individual, and the diploma to which the individual’s work is the first work of the employer. In contrast, an impartial contractor is taken into account somebody who works primarily freed from management and course and is “typically engaged” in an impartial commerce or enterprise associated to the service carried out.
The Denver circumstances could at first look look like small potatoes. However they’re truly a really large deal. The circumstances reveal the unfold of the exploitative gig enterprise mannequin far past Uber drivers and DoorDash meals deliverers, to embody a rising variety of jobs which have lengthy been carried out by staff with authorized protections. And the circumstances illustrate the pressing want for presidency intervention to safeguard core office rights.
As a result of office legal guidelines shield staff and never impartial contractors, gig firms like Uber and Lyft save a bucket of cash on each wages and taxes by avoiding the obligations that each different employer should observe: wage-related legal guidelines in addition to unemployment, Social Safety and Medicare taxes. Because of this, gig staff can discover themselves paid sub-minimum wages, for instance, or left with out staff’ compensation when injured or killed on the job. One other consequence is that law-abiding employers face unfair competitors with companies that don’t observe the principles, and demanding safety-net packages like unemployment insurance coverage lose badly wanted funds.
The Denver circumstances make it clear that the gig enterprise mannequin isn’t nearly drivers and meals supply staff anymore. Instawork, for instance, additionally locations warehouse, housekeeping, janitorial and retail staff, and Gigpro locations staff at inns. San Francisco’s metropolis lawyer, David Chiu, sued Qwick, a hospitality staffing firm, final yr, succinctly summing up the gig enterprise mannequin: “Qwick is inequality disguised as innovation, a staffing firm with an app that’s in flagrant violation of labor and employment legal guidelines.”
