Posted by Mary Bonatakis.
With a number of lawsuits against Uber and other applications that beckon workers at the touch of an app, Miss Shannon Liss-Riordan has become one of the most important figures in Silicon Valley. Ms.Liss-Riordan is the Boston lawyer who is putting Uber on trial. The Uber case will come down to whether Uber can convince a jury that its classification of drivers as independent contractors and not employees of Uber, is suitable.
Ms.Liss-Riordan is representing drivers who say the car service company has illegally classified their field of work. Uber is claiming employees are considered “freelancers” and not actual Uber employees. A freelancer is someone who is self-employed. Since Uber is not declaring them as employees, they are not required to reimburse drivers for their expenses such as gas, or car damages. Ms.Liss-Riordan is also suing Lyft, Postmates and other applications like Uber. This huge lawsuit is putting Ms.Liss-Riordan in the middle of the debate over the standing of on-demand workers in the United States.
This case has been closely watched and will be continued in trial as early as next year. “A final verdict against Uber in this case could change how the firm does business with its drivers and send shocks through the on-demand economy” (Weber, Silverman). Uber’s lawyers have made it clear that they have no plans of settling and are willing to fight this case all the way to the Supreme Court. The lawyers are arguing that their app is used to connect car owners to people seeking rides and is not in charge of the fleet of drivers.
Ms.Liss-Riordan opposes by saying there is no reason Uber can’t provide its drivers the basic labor protections. “She has logged victories in the field of wage and hour law, bringing employers including Starbucks Corp. and her alma mater, Harvard University, into compliance with state and federal laws governing workers’ pay and employment status. Strategically using each ruling to build the next, her cases have targeted FedEx Corp., cleaning firms, and a strip club called King Arthur’s Lounge over the classification of their workers” (Weber, Silverman). Ms.Liss-Riordan is using all of her resources to prove Uber wrong in their classification of workers. Ms.Liss-Riordan’s goal is to shape the definition of employment with all of our advancements in technology.
Ms.Liss-Riordan doesn’t believe this case will take out Uber completely but just reclassify drivers to get the benefits and reimbursements that they deserve. “The Uber case will be a key test of Ms. Liss-Riordan’s belief that New Deal-era labor laws are adequate to respond to the emergence of an on-demand economy” (Weber, Silverman). Although this case is only going to affect California Uber drivers Ms.Liss-Riordan hopes that this case will expand to the rest of the country.
Mary is an accounting and information technology major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2018.