Uber and Lyft got what they most wanted – no admission that their drivers are employees. The attorney general’s office got what they felt they needed – the rideshare companies’ commitment to withdraw a ballot question that would have codified drivers’ status as independent contractors. But the settlement left the larger issue of the role of misclassification in the gig economy unresolved.
Mark Erlich
Posted inOpinion
Is this labor’s comeback moment?
The striking contrast between the strong level of public support for unions today (67 percent) and the small share of US workers they represent (10 percent) frames the enormous opportunity – and challenge – facing the American labor movement.
Posted inOpinion
Russell ‘Stringer’ Bell could move vaccines
GOV. CHARLIE BAKER has taken a lot of heat for the woeful performance of the state’s coronavirus vaccine distribution program. Given his claim to fame as an effective manager with […]
Posted inOpinion
COVID-19 outbreak shows importance of unions
IF CRISES EXPOSE the underlying dynamics of a society, the coronavirus pandemic has starkly demonstrated the different options available to workers in unions and those who are not. Unionized nurses, […]
Posted inEconomy
1099 Nation spreads its tentacles
JULIO BELDI SPENT more than 10 years working in the seamy underside of the non-union construction industry. Paid $17-$22 an hour for his work as a carpenter across New England, Beldi […]
Posted inEconomy, Health Care
The Haiti-Boston connection
jim ansara looks out over the sprawling 180,000-square-foot National Teaching Hospital under construction in Mirebalais, a town in the central plateau of Haiti. Audacious in conception, innovative in execution, the […]