Are Drivers (Uber, Lyft, et al) Allowed to Form Unions?

Over the last few years, we have written about how some states tried to tax workers that “filled the gap” and worked as what have been labeled as “Gig” workers and not as employees.

For such workers many courts and legislative positions have supported the view that these driver/ workers are not employees in the technical sense of statutory law that required employers to treat a worker as a taxable employee.  In such instances where the worker is deemed to be an employee, federal, state, and local taxes were often due on the salaries (compensation) that were paid to the worker.  (For more on this subject, see the link, below, to our Tips that addressed this Gap tax issue.)

Without repeating the tax rules relative to a worker that was classified as an employee as contrasted with an independent contractor status, the latter not subject in most instances to paying employment taxes and employers were not burdened with withholding, retirement benefits, vacation pay, etc., this Tip is focused on how drivers might be treated for non-tax issues . That is, ignoring the employment vs independent contractor concern, how is the Gig worker treated as to the right to form a union and gain benefits for workers, where the workers are independent drivers, such as with Lyft and Uber in the US? 

This query as to the right to form a union certainly overlaps with the general position as to whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. 

As to the element of this query that relates to workers and unions, recently California, Massachusetts, and other states have either passed legislation or are considering the same as to allowing gig workers—independent contractors—who are not deemed to be employees, to nevertheless be allowed to form unions to represent their positions.

With the recent accelerated development of Driverless Vehicles (DV) or other fully self-driven vehicles (FSD), it is possible, in large part, that this issue may be reduced in scope and concern, assuming there are more taxis that will not have a human operator handling the taxis (robotaxis).

There will be more developments on the above issues as drivers look for support of unions and states looking for more taxes to support their financial needs.  Again, maybe this issue as to forming a union for Gig workers may become moot if more taxis have no driver in the vehicle!

Dr. Mark Lee Levine, Professor, University of Denver