Question 3 asks voters to decide if ride-hailing drivers can form unions to collectively bargain with app companies like Uber and Lyft for wages, benefits and work conditions. If the measure is approved, Massachusetts would be the first U.S. state to allow ride-hailing drivers to unionize.
Today, Massachusetts ride-hailing drivers are not classified as employees. Companies like Uber and Lyft hire them as contract workers or independent contractors. That means the National Labor Relations Act, which grants employees the right to organize, does not apply to them.
In 2020, then-Attorney General Maura Healey sued Uber and Lyft, challenging how the transportation companies classify workers. That lawsuit was settled last June under terms negotiated by Attorney General Andrea Campbell that established a $32.50 minimum wage and other new driver benefits, like earned sick pay. However, the settlement did not change their employment classification.
It did, however, end attempts by the ride-hailing giants to bring before voters a separate ballot measure that sought to classify drivers as independent contractors.
With that effort in the rearview, here’s what you need to know about the only statewide ballot question tackling the rights of ride-hailing workers.
What exactly would Question 3 do?
If the state’s voters approve of the measure, ride-hailing drivers in Massachusetts will obtain the right to unionize. The law would also provide a framework for how the union would form. Uber and Lyft did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the ballot measure.
What your vote means, as written by the secretary of state’s office
“A ‘yes vote’ would provide transportation network drivers the option to form unions to collectively bargain with transportation network companies regarding wages, benefits, and terms and conditions of work.
A ‘no vote’ would make no change in the law relative to the ability of transportation network drivers to form unions.[/keyfigures]
If passed, drivers could participate in the union process as long as they’ve completed at least 100 trips in the last quarter.
A union, or “driver organization” as it’s referred to in the ballot language, could be formed if 5% of active drivers vote to authorize it.
If 25% or more of eligible drivers give their signatures to authorize a specific union, that union could then be designated as the exclusive bargaining representative for all drivers.
The ballot proposal calls for the state Employment Relations Board to determine when a driver organization has reached the required percentage of authorizations from active drivers. It also establishes procedures for the Massachusetts Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development to review and approve recommendations negotiated by an established union and ride-booking companies.
The proposed law would allow drivers that work for multiple companies to participate in the union, and drivers could also be members of other unions.
The measure does not require drivers to join the union or participate in union activities. However, it is possible that non-members could be charged an agency fee, a required sum that would go to the union, depending on regulations that would be determined after the measure passes, a spokesperson for the Local SEIU said. The union is backing the ballot initiative.
The measure does not include other app-based gig drivers like those working for InstaCart or other delivery-based apps like Amazon. But supporters of the measure say Question 3 could provide a model for food delivery drivers and other app-based workers seeking to form their own union.
Boston University law professor Maria O’Brien said the proposal asks voters to think about labor relations in Massachusetts “in a slightly different way.”
In a traditional union, an organization negotiates work conditions and benefits like health insurance or retirement contributions on behalf of employees, with their employer.
O’Brien said the proposal “to have an arrangement where you could, as an independent contractor, be in a union” blurs the distinction between contractors and employees.
While the ballot question provides a framework for how a union would form and what role state labor entities would play, O’Brien pointed out that it doesn’t detail other union practices and procedures.
However, comparing it to a cake, she said it’s “baked enough” to work as a ballot measure. She said state agencies would likely “step in” and fill in gaps around what the ballot language doesn’t lay out.
Supporters of Question 3 include several unions, many of which have been vocal about improving pay and work conditions for Uber and Lyft drivers. Local 32BJ, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union and the International Association of Machinists, is the main union in support of the ballot measure.
Roxana Rivera, assistant to the president of SEIU 32BJ, said many drivers rely on their work with the app companies as a primary source of income, often putting in “12 hours a day, six or seven days a week to make ends meet.”
Rivera said a union would help make drivers less vulnerable to sudden rules changes made by the app companies.
“But in order for them to have a union, we need to fight for the legal right for them to have the union, that’s what this ballot question would give them,” she said.
United for Justice, the committee behind Question 3, has spent over $1 million on the campaign this year, as of Sept. 1, according to the latest financial disclosures to the state’s Office of Campaign & Political Finance.
Who opposes Question 3?
Opponents worry there could be unintended consequences to allowing ride-hailing drivers to unionize via ballot measure.
Paul Craney, a spokesman for the nonprofit Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, said Question 3 presents several points of concern.
For one, he said, unionization could lower wages for drivers, as a portion of their pay would go toward union dues. He said his group argues that could mean higher trip costs for passengers who may be charged more to make up the difference.
Craney said the alliance also questions the necessity of drivers forming a union. He ticked off a list of driver protections and benefits the app-based workers now possess in the wake of the attorney general’s settlement. (The benefits from the settlement went into effect on Aug. 15.)
“They have forms of paid sick leave, they have forms of paid family and medical leave, they have health care stipends, they have on the job injury insurance,” he said. “They have anti-discrimination protections. They have domestic violence leave. Anti-retaliation protections.”
Craney said he wished drivers had been given more of a chance to “let the dust settle” with the AG’s settlement and experience their new benefits before weighing a unionization ballot measure.
When to vote
- Registration deadline: Oct. 26
- Apply to vote by mail: Oct. 29
- Early voting: Oct. 19-Nov. 1
- Election Day: Nov. 5
The alliance, Craney explained, also believes Question 3 breaks federal and state law because it would give a subset of independent contractors the ability to unionize that others would not have under the National Labor Relation Act.
“There is a possibility that if it passed, people would come forward and challenge it in federal court,” he said. “It would take years and years to get litigated.”
Kelly Cobb-Lemire, an organizer with the advocacy organization Massachusetts Drivers United, which opposes the measure, said Question 3 is “too limiting.” She’d like to see the right to unionize granted to delivery drivers, too.
She added that she’s concerned neither the AG’s settlement nor the ballot initiative go “far enough” to meaningfully change the lives of ride-hailing drivers. In her view, labor advocates should push for drivers to get employee status, so they could receive unemployment, family medical leave and other protections.
Another point of contention around Question 3 for Cobb-Lemire involves the structure it lays out around how to form a union.
The National Labor Relations Board calls for 30% of workers to sign cards to authorize the formation of a union. Under Question 3, however, drivers could form a “driver organization” with only 5% of drivers voting in favor of its authorization. And, any union that gets formed could end up representing all active app drivers if 25% of workers sign union cards.
Cobb-Lemire argues the lower threshold for representation “would minimize workers’ voices and ultimately the democratic practice,” she said.
While opposed to this year’s ballot question, Massachusetts Drivers United supports two bills before legislators (H1158 and S627) that would classify all app-based delivery and transportation drivers employees.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
