The New York Times today reported that the New York State Department of Labor has found two Uber drivers as eligible for unemployment benefits after having rejected the company’s argument that the drivers are independent contractors. Uber has so far avoided any judicial determinations that its drivers are employees and…

The past month’s judicial and administrative activity in the area of IC misclassification reflects the wide range of industries facing these types of claims: communications; cleaning services; transportation and delivery services; adult entertainment; hospitality; construction; and television production of professional sporting events. Almost all of these are industries that I…

On September 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit issued a stinging decision against commercial cleaning franchisor Jani-King, certifying a class action in an independent contractor (IC) misclassification case arising in the franchising context. Williams v. Jani-King of Philadelphia Inc., No. 15-2049 (3d Cir. Sept.…

This month’s news update includes four initiatives by the U.S. Department of Labor to combat IC misclassification. The first was the issuance of a new page on the DOL website called “Misclassification Mythbusters.” We critiqued the new DOL page in a blog post, pointing out that the DOL had…

On August 26, 2016, the National Labor Relations Board made public an Advice Memorandum from the NLRB’s Office of General Counsel regarding an unfair labor practice case arising in the context of independent contractor misclassification. The Advice Memo has already been reported in the trade as ruling that the misclassification…

The U.S. Department of Labor has just released a dozen Q&A’s on the issue of IC misclassification in an online publication it calls “Misclassification Mythbusters.”  The 12 IC misclassification “myths” that it seeks to debunk are intended to educate workers about their status as ICs and to foster …

Earlier today, Uber and its drivers were denied in their efforts to settle the IC misclassification lawsuits brought by Uber drivers in California and Massachusetts. As readers of this legal blog will recall from my post of April 22, 2016, Uber entered into a proposed settlement with counsel for the…

Four of the five independent contractor (IC) misclassification cases reported below from July 2016 illustrate how companies continue to fail to structure, document, and implement a business’s IC relationships in a manner that minimizes the likelihood of being targeted by class action lawyers and regulators. These four cases involve two…