Two more startups sued as part of ongoing employee vs. contractor debate
The attorney, Shannon Liss-Riordan, filed the two cases in state court in San Francisco on Wednesday, on behalf of former workers of GrubHub and DoorDash, both food delivery startups.
Liss-Riordan is also the attorney who brought a class-action lawsuit against Uber, currently in federal court in San Francisco. And she has sued on behalf of a Massachusetts woman who worked for Handy, an on-demand home cleaning service.
GrubHub and DoorDash are the latest in a group of tech companies that are now facing lawsuits where their current or former workers argue that they should in fact be treated as employees (where social security, unemployment and other benefits would be paid by the company) rather than independent laborers. One, HomeJoy, even folded not long after being sued over similar issues.
"Thank you for reaching out, but we don't discuss pending litigation," she e-mailed. "Sorry we can't be of more help."
Both state and federal labor law have dealt with this issue for a long time, even outside app-driven startups.
"Exotic dancers have won a number of ‘misclassification’ lawsuits, where they have been paid as independent contractors and not as employees," he said. "Strip clubs in these lawsuits typically charge dancers a fee to rent a dressing room, another fee for stage time, a required ‘house tipping’ charge, and penalties for appearance faults, such as not wearing their hair down. Courts have ruled that the dancers are due minimum wages and overtime. Typically, these lawsuits allege federal and state violations. States are more specific about matters such as when to pay (basically, within a short time), and provide for prohibitions against deductions from wages.""State wage laws say that pay is to be based on accrued time on the job, and is not dependent on an employee’s satisfactory performance of a task," Michael LeRoy, a law professor at the University of Illinois, e-mailed Ars.
Indeed, in July 2015, the United States Department of Labor released a guidance document showing that it is watching the situation carefully.
That document states:
- arstechnica.com -
Two more startups sued as part of ongoing employee vs. contractor debate
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