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Last fall, California voters approved a ballot measure exempting workers for companies like Uber and Lyft from a state law requiring drivers to be classified as employees and thus guaranteeing them minimum pay and benefits.
Now, advocates think Massachusetts is about to become the next battleground.
“They’re going to try to do here what they did in California with Prop 22, which is buy themselves the law that they like,” attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan said during a press conference Tuesday organized by the labor-backed Coalition to Protect Workers’ Rights.
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The group is anticipating a $100 million 2022 ballot campaign (primarily backed by Uber and Lyft) to change Massachusetts law to allow ride-hailing drivers and potentially other workers to be classified as “independent contractors.”
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It s something rideshare driver Stephen Levine is counting on to make some money.
Levine took nine months off the road during the pandemic because he was afraid of being too close to strangers. And with most people at home anyway, there wasn t much to be made. The money was awful, said Levine, who says he contracted COVID-19 from a passenger at the very beginning of the pandemic. When there s no business, it s just not worth it.
Surge pricing coming to an end in Massachusetts during the state of emergency was a problem for drivers.
Could Boston s Uber shortage come to an end with surge pricing back? boston.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from boston.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
As jobless benefit ends, Massachusetts recipients worry about their next steps
By Nick Stoico Globe Correspondent,Updated December 26, 2020, 5:52 p.m.
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Since losing her job in March, the few hundred dollars Amber Duarte receives weekly through the federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program has been about the only income she can count on to support herself and her six children.
That was until Saturday, when the program hit its Dec. 26 endpoint with no law on the books to keep it running as President Trump refuses to sign Congressâs $900 billion pandemic relief bill.
The lapse in benefits affects millions of Americans, and hundreds of thousands in Massachusetts. More than 370,000 pandemic unemployment assistance