Gig workers garner strong support from immigrant rights, workers rights, and other community based organizations for effort to win citywide policies to raise pay, protect flexibility, and provide transparency

Five workers from two locations of Dick’s Drive-In have filed formal health & safety complaints with the Department of Labor & Industries, documenting a range of severe workplace issues including lack of hot water, frequent burns, poor sanitation practices, and failure to comply with COVID safety guidelines. The extent of issues underscores the crisis of labor standards enforcement in our state

TODAY, lawyers suing the Employment Security Department to compel the agency to promptly pay unemployment benefits filed a “Motion for accelerated review and immediate relief” calling for immediate intervention by the courts. With tens of thousands of unemployed workers still awaiting resolution of their claims, the new filing argues that "the procedural nightmare at ESD is an affront to dignity". Further, the motion argues, "delays in providing… workers the unemployment benefits they are owed and on which they depend for daily existence have reached crisis levels."

TODAY, Seattle City Council voted by unanimously by a 9 - 0 vote to pass the nation’s first hazard pay law for gig workers. When signed by the mayor, CB 119979 will require large food and grocery delivery companies to pay workers an additional $2.50/delivery to reflect the added risk and expense they are taking on as essential workers during a global pandemic.

Gig delivery workers have been officially “essential” since the COVID crisis began, but the multi-billion-dollar companies they work for aren’t providing them the essential protections they need to stay safe, stay healthy, and have basic economic security. That could begin to change with a Seattle City Council vote set for 2:00pm today on an emergency ordinance (CB 119799) that would require food delivery companies to provide gig workers hazard pay for each essential delivery they complete during this crisis.

A landmark new ordinance introduced by Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda would for the first time ensure gig delivery workers and TNC drivers receive paid sick days, regardless of whether they are classified as employees or contractors.

Postmates workers get paid as little as $2 to spend half an hour delivering a burrito bowl. Two dollars is about what Chipotle charges for a scoop of guacamole. That’s why Postmates workers are calling for a #GuacOff — they’re rejecting Chipotle jobs from 4/29 to 5/1 to demand 14 days paid sick leave, $5/delivery hazard pay, and safety protections like PPE, no-contact delivery, and the right to cancel unsafe jobs.

TODAY we are releasing a new website — ThisIsACrisis.com — where Washington workers are sharing powerful stores about how the coronavirus crisis is affecting their incomes, their health, their lives, and their sense of basic economic security.

If gig work is now officially essential, workers need essential protections: we’re calling on gig companies to take four immediate steps to protect public health & provide workers some basic economic security during this crisis. And we’re calling on the government leaders who deem this work essential to require that workers get these essential protections from companies that continue operating during shelter-in-place orders.