What is the point of laws like this? They are way too specific. Instead the Minneapolis City Council should come out with legislation prohibiting the re-definition of what a contractor is. Uber and Lyft claim that their drivers are contractors, but then also don't allow their drivers to set rates themselves. It's an absolute tragedy that governments just let companies get away with "disruption" when its really just f…
They set their own hours; overtime pay would odd, but perhaps too many hours should be banned on safety grounds. They bring their own equipment. They owe no particular allegiance to an “employer” like Uber or Lyft (and can work for more than one of them at once!). Even family leave would be somewhat odd, at least in the way that family leave works in the US.
But, in the US, this results is a problem: they are low-paid contractors, and contractors don’t get certain critical employment benefits (automatically tax-deductible health care at group rates is the big one), and the result is extremely problematic.
Perhaps a much better solution would be to let drivers be contractors but to fix the benefit situation. Insurance should not be tied to employment! I, as as independent contractor, should be able (or required) to purchase (or have provided to me by the state) insurance under identical terms to those that employees benefit from. In fact, changing jobs or taking a break from work should have no effect on my insurance plan or the taxation thereof! Contractors should be eligible for Medicare and Social Security just like employees. And perhaps family leave should even be a state benefit: after all, the presence of children benefits society and the state (future labor and tax revenue, not to mention that children are nice to have around), and this benefit does not depend on whether the parents are employees, college students, low-paid contractors or high-paid contractors.
With all of that fixed, allowing people to put miles on their car to provide a useful service for not-amazing contractor pay doesn’t actually seem so bad to me.