By Daniel Ocampo & James Bhandary-Alexander
For the fifth year running, Connecticut’s app-based ridehail and delivery drivers are in Hartford posing a simple question: Why don’t they deserve basic workplace protections, like the state’s minimum wage?
It’s a question legislators have struggled to answer. Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash have dodged compliance with labor and employment law by calling their drivers “independent contractors,” despite controlling almost every aspect of drivers’ working conditions. Without the protection of a wage floor, research shows drivers regularly earn well below Connecticut’s $16.35 minimum wage, and a study of driver earnings in California found that, after expenses, they earned even less than the rock-bottom federal minimum wage of $7.25.
Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash have dodged compliance with labor and employment law by calling their drivers ‘independent contractors,’ despite controlling almost every aspect of drivers’ working conditions.
But low pay for drivers isn’t fundamental to the business of taxi and food delivery work. In cities and states where policymakers have taken action to establish a wage floor, app-based workers earn much more, and the companies continue to operate profitably. In New York City, where ridehail drivers first won a pay floor in 2019, and delivery workers followed in 2023, both businesses are thriving. The same is true in Seattle, Minnesota, and Massachusetts. As it turns out, these companies do not need to pay their workers less than $10 an hour to earn a profit.
In fact, it wasn’t always this way, even in Connecticut. When Uber first entered the market, they promised drivers they would take home 90 percent of every passenger fare. Then that number fell to 80 percent, then 75 percent. Now, there’s no guarantee at all, and drivers regularly take home well under half of what the passenger pays. While Uber might charge a passenger $60 for a ride from New Haven to Hartford, the driver might only see $20 of that. From Silicon Valley’s perspective, the economics are straightforward. Shareholders want the companies to squeeze every dollar out of workers and consumers, on whom their business depends, by using hidden algorithms to increase consumer prices while keeping wages below the state minimum. It’s a recipe that has led Uber and Lyft to turn record profits in recent years and saw Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi take home a $136 million paycheck last year.
Without the protection of a wage floor, research shows drivers regularly earn well below Connecticut’s $16.35 minimum wage.
Against the backdrop of this extractive business model, workers across the country are demanding that their labor rights be respected. Here in Connecticut, drivers are calling for the passage of labor bill SB 1487. Championed by the leadership of the Connecticut legislature’s labor committee, the bill would represent a small, but meaningful first step for Connecticut app-based workers. All the legislation would do is fund a study committee tasked with researching pay and working conditions for drivers—based on data disclosed by the companies—and putting together recommendations for a wage floor.
Connecticut’s ridehail and delivery drivers are an essential part of the state’s economy and transportation infrastructure. Like other underpaid workers across the state, they need a pay floor. This year, as drivers organizing with Connecticut Drivers United make their case for the fifth year in a row, the legislature must take action, and pass SB 1487.
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Daniel Ocampo is an attorney at the National Employment Law Project. James Bhandary-Alexander is counsel to Connecticut Drivers United and teaches at Yale Law School.
This commentary was originally published by the Hartford Courant.
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