What’s your side hustle? For lawyers this might mean picking up extra doc review work from home, walking dogs through an app, or renting a spare room on Airbnb (just remember to stay on the right side of the law!). Gig work raises a number of fascinating legal issues and policy considerations. What’s the latest from this sector of the economy?

Uber’s employee misclassification lawsuit finally settled. This 2013 lawsuit, which alleged that Uber was illegally misclassifying drivers as independent contractors, has finally settled, with Uber agreeing to pay out $20 million to the plaintiffs – but retaining the right to continue classifying them as contractors.

Uber and Lyft drivers are going on strike. For 25 hours on March 25, drivers across California stopped picking up fares, and a picket line forced Lyft to change venues for an event in its IPO tour. Another 12-hour strike is planned for May 8 across seven cities.

Gig workers are organizing around a $15 hourly wage. Uber drivers in NY recently picked up a $17.22 minimum wage, and cities all over the country are raising wages in response Fight for $15 advocacy. Now workers in the gig sector are looking for the same guarantees.

Speaking of wages, NYC is helping freelancers collect unpaid wages. Since 2017, the Freelance Isn’t Free Act has led to over 760 complaints through the Department of Consumer Affairs, and recovered almost $1 Million for freelance workers.

Illegal misclassifications are being called out on social media. An Epicurious editor posted a job opening on Twitter for a “full time freelance” position, which led to the ultimate ratio as Twitter users piled on, even tagging the New York State Department of Labor into the thread.

Arbitration clauses continue to come into play. In 2018, SCOTUS gave the nod to mandatory arbitration clauses in employment contracts, and the more recent Lamps Plus holding denied the plaintiffs the right to class-wide arbitration where the clause is ambiguous. Both cases affect a broader sector than just gig workers, but the side hustlers of the world are signing a lot more of these types of contracts than those of us with only one job, which means that they are disproportionately impacted by jurisprudence hostile to class-wide relief.

For more detail on these trends (including a fun case where the arbitration issue backfired on Chipotle), read the full length articles here and here, and be sure to check out Hot Topics in Employment Law Arbitration (2019) and Emerging Issues in Employment Law (2019).