STOP SARA NELSON FROM CUTTING GIG WORKER PAY

THIS IS URGENT:

Nelson’s Gig Worker Sub-Minimum Wage Proposal Slashes Pay, Rolls Back Rights, and Fails to Lower Fees

Proposed Seattle gig worker ordinance would eliminate minimum wage for delivery workers and hope the benefits trickle down:

Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson has written legislation which would completely gut the Seattle PayUp App-Based Worker Minimum Wage Ordinance, cutting gig worker pay, ending transparency and flexibility protections, and denying workers access to courts to enforce the law in one sweep.

It also would do literally nothing to control the outrageous fees — in fact, it would do LESS than nothing, by removing the current rules requiring transparent disclosure of fees to customers.

If that sounds like it was written by the gig companies for the gig companies, that’s because it was — Nelson’s policy was entirely drafted by a group consisting of the big gig companies, lobbyists for the big gig companies, and an organization the gig companies fund.

The “amendment” was drafted with only corporate stakeholders and Uber’s front group, Drive Forward. Through a rushed, closed-door process that has taken place less than two months after the implementation of the #PayUp gig worker minimum wage law, Council President Nelson has allowed the app corporations to present ‘solutions’ to a problem they created by imposing massive new fees on customers.

The council will be moving as quickly as possible, with intentions of a full vote in May.

BACKGROUND:

Ever since the groundbreaking minimum pay ordinance for gig workers went into effect in Seattle on January 13th, 2024, the app companies have been retaliating in any way they can.

They’re choosing to charge customers huge fees so they can keep raking in millions in record profit, just like they did last year and the year before. These price-gouging fees are often more than twice what the worker is being paid.

They are using all the big business political tactics (like imposing outrageous new fees) and spreading deliberate misinformation (like claiming workers now make $26.40) to argue that raising wages is bad for our economy, all while complaining loudly and publicly that they can't afford to pay minimum wage.

Simply put: they don’t want to have to pay minimum wage.

It’s time to fight back! Repealing minimum wage for gig workers who have always been exploited by this industry after barely four months of the right to minimum wage would be irresponsible policymaking informed by nothing but unverified claims from the app corporations.

Seattle is better than this.