Dear John:
Even as I’m celebrating the massive turnout and resounding victory for Biden-Harris, I’m discouraged about one significant setback this election handed to working people.
In California, app companies like Uber and Lyft funded a $200 million campaign to pass Proposition 22, which rolled back hard-fought protections for gig workers. Last Tuesday, the gig corporations won -- and millions of workers lost.
These companies threaten to take their strategy nationwide to lock in a business model built on denying workers’ basic rights. But we have an opportunity to demand better and lead the country.
Two years ago, I sponsored the law establishing a minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers -- and it worked. Now, I’ve introduced a bill to extend NYC’s paid sick leave protections to gig workers, and I need your support to get it passed.
ADD YOUR NAME: Sign on as a Citizen Co-Sponsor of my bill to ensure that every gig worker in New York City can afford to take time off if they or a loved one are sick. We must stand with essential workers who continue to support us during the COVID-19 pandemic →
Six months into the pandemic, gig workers like app drivers and Instacart shoppers and nail-salon workers and day-laborers continue to put themselves in danger to make ends meet.
Because they are classified as contractors and not “employees,” our NYC paid sick days law doesn’t cover them.
Throughout the spring, every single night, New Yorkers across the city gathered on our stoops and leaned out our windows to cheer, howl, and bang pots and pans every evening in support of essential workers. Not just doctors and nurses, but also the delivery workers, Uber and Lyft drivers, and Instacart shoppers whose dangerous work during the pandemic made it possible for others to stay home and healthy.
Now, we have to back up those cheers with real, tangible workplace protections -- sign on and co-sponsor my bill to extend paid sick leave protections to gig workers!
Become a Citizen Co-Sponsor >>
When we won pay increases for Uber and Lyft drivers, we heard from corporate lobbyists that the sky would fall. Guess what -- the sky remained intact, and thousands of drivers got a significant raise. As The New York Times put it: “An Uber Wage Experiment Worked.”
Those same lobbyists, using the same rhetoric, passed Prop 22 in California, dealing a severe blow to workers' rights. And here in NYC, they have ground our Essential Workers Bill of Rights to a halt -- including my bill to give paid sick leave for gig workers.
Paid sick leave isn’t just about what we owe essential workers (which to be honest is quite a lot more), but it’s also critical public health policy. With a deadly, contagious virus spreading around us, we are all less safe when some in our community -- even the workers in the nail salons of our neighborhood -- cannot afford to stay home when they get sick.
-- Brad
