BC FORUM News - from the BC Federation of Labour

November, 2018

Ride-hailing legislation ignores the needs
of transportation workers, says BCFED

The BC Federation of Labour says it is disappointed that ride-hailing legislation introduced today in Victoria offers little to promote good-paying, stable jobs and fails to establish protections for workers from large multi-national companies like Uber that have bad labour relations records.

“We appreciate the goal of the bill is to expand transportation options and focus on passenger safety,” says BCFED President, Irene Lanzinger.

“But proposed legislation should have included measures to modernize outdated employment laws that give employers too much power and employees too few rights,” she says. “The needs of workers have been left completely out of the equation.

“Ride-hailing enterprises like Uber helped invent the gig economy, where jobs are designed to be precarious, unstable, and mostly low-paying. Workers need a level playing field and more clout to deal with rich and powerful companies.”

Lanzinger says the Federation will continue to call for a number of reforms, like ensuring that ride-hailing companies can’t classify their employees as independent contractors, to give workers a fair shake and create good-paying, stable jobs.