\n<\/p>\n
Lyft agreed to pay the state of California $272.5m on Thursday to \u2060settle claims that it stole drivers\u2019 wages by mislabeling them as independent contractors rather than employees.<\/p>\n
Rob Bonta, California\u2019s attorney general, called the agreement a \u201clandmark win for workers\u201d and said it was the largest settlement involving wage theft claims in the state\u2019s history.<\/p>\n
\u201cRideshare companies like Lyft have enjoyed massive growth and profits on the backs of drivers over the past decade, many of whom are from immigrant communities and communities of color,\u201d Bonta said. \u201cLyft\u2019s success would not be possible without the drivers Lyft sought to unfairly short-change.\u201d<\/p>\n
The settlement, subject to court approval, covers alleged violations between April 2016 and \u200bDecember 2020. Once approved, more than $237m will be distributed to the thousands of Lyft drivers who were involved in the suit.<\/p>\n
Lyft said in a statement that drivers have always been properly classified under the law and \u201cwe\u2019re glad to put this case behind us\u201d.<\/p>\n
The debate over driver classification has raged in California for more than a decade. As independent contractors, Lyft and Uber drivers don\u2019t get benefits including social security, health insurance, paid sick days and overtime. Minimum wage laws and other labor protections under federal and state governments also do not apply to independent contractors.<\/p>\n
California\u2019s lawsuit against Lyft was first brought in 2020, and the cities of Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Diego subsequently joined on. Afterwards, the case was merged with other suits brought on behalf of thousands of Lyft drivers.<\/p>\n
As the litigation was under way, Lyft joined Uber and other gig companies in putting forward a state ballot measure, Proposition 22, to exempt ride-share drivers from California\u2019s law. In a win for the companies, that proposition passed in November 2020, leading to several appeals in the state\u2019s case against Lyft.<\/p>\n
The attorney general\u2019s office said it remained steadfast in its demands for getting drivers wages and protections, which ultimately led to Thursday\u2019s settlement agreement. A near-identical lawsuit against Uber is still continuing.<\/p>\n
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Sign up to TechScape<\/span><\/p>\n A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cThis settlement is about the workers who came forward and spoke up,\u201d said Lilia Garc\u00eda-Brower, California\u2019s labor commissioner. \u201cTheir voices made this outcome possible.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2023, both Uber and Lyft jointly agreed to pay $328m to settle similar claims by New York\u2019s attorney general.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lyft agreed to pay the state of California $272.5m on Thursday to \u2060settle claims that it stole drivers\u2019 wages by mislabeling them as independent contractors rather than employees. Rob Bonta, California\u2019s attorney general, called the agreement a \u201clandmark win for workers\u201d and said it was the largest settlement involving wage theft claims in the state\u2019s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[25360,2479,667,23028,7638,1040,2823,2515,13078],"class_list":{"0":"post-52375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-272-5m","9":"tag-agrees","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-largestever","12":"tag-lyft","13":"tag-pay","14":"tag-settlement","15":"tag-theft","16":"tag-wage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}