Tag Archives: Lyft

Why Lincoln and Omaha probably won’t be following NYC in a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers

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New York City recently implemented a $17 per hour minimum wage for drivers for riding hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. I wouldn’t expect similar measures exapnding wage and hour and/or workers’ compensation to gig economy workers in Omaha or Lincoln for two main reasons.

Local governments in Nebraska have their powers limited by the state

The first hurdle to a city minimum wage or city workers’ comepnsation laws in Lincoln or Omaha is the state constitution. Nebraska courts have held that only the state can regulate the employee-employer relationship unless the legislature authorizes a city or county to do so. The state has authorized cities and counties to draft civil rights ordinances.  Omaha and Lincoln have human rights commissions similar to the Nebraska Equal Opportunity Commission.

But the Legislature has not authorized local governments to implement their own minimum wage or workers’ compensation laws. No such legislation was introduced to that effect this year in Nebraska. In neighboring Missouri, the Missouri legislature reversed an attempt by the City of St. Louis to increase the minimum wage in that city above the state minimum wage. In short, I believe it would be unlikely that Nebraska would authorize local governments to implement their own workers’ compensation and wage laws in the near future.

Even if cities in Nebraska could enact wage and hour and workers’ compensation ordinances, it seems unlikely that cities would do so to cover gig economy workers.

There doesn’t appear to much political will among cities in Nebraska – even in Democratic-controlled Lincoln – to expand employee protections to ride hailing drivers. In fact, the Lincoln City council voted in 2017 to exempt Uber and Lyft drivers from the same licensing requirements as taxi drivers.

In fairness, Lincoln had a long history of being poorly served by a taxi cab monopoly. Complaints about regulatory fairness from former monopolists fell on deaf ears. But Lincoln’s taxi monopoly was broken in 2012 before the rise of ride hailing apps. Lincoln and Omaha lack an organized voice for drivers like they have in New York City. Without such a voice, worker classification issues among urban professional drivers will likely continue to be unheard at a state and local level in Nebraska.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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Can Ride-Hailing Be Done Right in Rural America?

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Lincoln-based startup Liberty has announced that it has partnered with Panhandle Trails in rural western Nebraska for a ride-hailing app similar to Uber or Lyft to supplement public transportation options. This could be a positive development for injured workers in rural areas, as long as Liberty protects the rights of its potential drivers.

It is fairly well known that disability rates are higher in the rural United States than in urban areas. This is often attributed to physical nature of rural jobs and the older rural population. However, transportation costs are another factor in these higher rates of disability. The cost of transportation from a relatively isolated rural area can be too high to justify taking a job. This concern is frequently an issue in workers’ compensation litigation in Nebraska. If Liberty can make it easier for injured rural residents to find employment, I wish for its success.

But the problem with ride-hailing apps is that companies want to deem their drivers to be independent contractors rather than employees. Driving jobs are relatively dangerous, and the costs of those work injuries will be shifted onto taxpayers and the drivers rather than workers’ compensation. However, innovation need not mean that workers go without the protections of workers’ compensation. Debbie Berkowitz with the National Employment Law Project points to the example of the Black Car Fund where Uber drivers in New York have created a workers’ compensation plan.

Liberty states that they want to comply with their legal obligations, which is encouraging. But when Uber CEO, Travis Kalanick, calls Uber drivers the “other dude in the car” and wants to have driverless cars so he can get rid of Uber drivers altogether, workers and their lawyers have good reason to be skeptical of the sharing economy. That’s part of the reason that advocates for employees are fighting legislative efforts to broadly exempt sharing-economy employees from workers’ compensation and fair-employment laws. Other advantages of having drivers classified as employees means that states will not miss out on tax revenue. Holding the status of an independent contractor also increases paperwork and the risks of not complying with tax laws for a driver.

Aside from the issues related to workplace law, I would hope that expanding ride-hailing apps to rural America won’t be used as an excuse to stop funding rural public transportation. But overall, ride-hailing will be a net positive for rural areas, as long as it is done in a way that protects the rights of drivers.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Misclassification, Sharing Economy and tagged , , , , , .