In a letter to Trump, Uber CEO seeks updated labor laws to provide a “third way” of classifying workers, between contractors and employees
why can't he use that money to pay his workers? @leon @dubal @MikeIsaac @GigWorkersRise @AJRavenelleNYC @spvallas https://www.cnbc.com/... @davecraige : @MikeIsaac This is wild to witness. Dara is literally asking the president if he can continue to avoid paying sick leave & minimum wage to his workforce while a global pandemic happens. Truly astounding to see this crass level of crisis capitalism in play. Faisal Kelso / @fvck_faisal_ : @dkhos @Uber You say you want to provide workers with a safety net but you don't want to classify them as full time employees.. this article is vague in what it's asking. Also, last week you said you had enough cash reserves to weather the economic recession.. Lorena / @lorenasgonzalez : @dkhos @Uber We did that in CA and you have ignored the law. Lauren Feiner / @lauren_feiner : Uber has long fought efforts to reclassify its workers as employees. Now, its CEO is asking the government for relief from the coronavirus-induced crisis on their behalf. https://www.cnbc.com/... Rat King / @mikeisaac : this is interesting in a time where Airbnb is writing to POTUS asking for a bailout, this seems to be Uber's version — essentially asking for Fed Gov to include 1099 workers in any sort of stimulus package https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
Dara Khosrowshahi's letter to President Trump lands at the exact moment the contractor model is most exposed: with COVID spreading, Uber drivers have no employer sick leave or minimum wage floor, and critics in the coverage read the 'third way' pitch as a bid to keep it that way through federal action rather than reclassification.
The proposal was dead on arrival with labor — within weeks, about 50 labor groups urged congressional leaders to reject it — while Uber's own pandemic sick pay policy shifted several times, excluding some drivers who needed it most. The letter is best read as the opening move in a strategy Uber would pursue for years: lobbying for bespoke legal categories instead of accepting employee status.
First-order effects
- Uber's drivers stay classified as contractors through the pandemic, bearing their own sick-leave risk while Uber avoids the wage, benefits, and payroll costs of employment.
- Khosrowshahi puts worker classification on the federal agenda directly with Trump, attempting to set the terms of any legislative response before regulators or courts impose one.
Second-order effects
- Labor groups force the issue into Congress, urging rejection of the third-way framework and pushing lawmakers toward full-employee standards instead — turning classification from a court question into an explicit legislative fight.
- The lobbying playbook migrates to the states and abroad: Uber later defends California's Prop 22 carve-out in interviews and keeps opposing Spain's law treating drivers as employees, arguing such rules don't break its business model.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, gig platforms entrench a permanent, platform-specific legal category between contractor and employee — won jurisdiction by jurisdiction through ballots and lobbying rather than any single federal ruling, with each win (like the California pricing concessions Uber later said hurt its business) reshaping what drivers can control.
- The counter-pressure compounds too: driver-side grievances — churned sick-pay rules, account deactivations, NYC lockouts documented years later — keep supplying the evidence base for labor's push to close the category gap entirely.
The trend: Gig-economy worker classification is shifting from courtroom battles over existing law to a lobbying contest over newly written legal categories, with Uber seeking bespoke frameworks in Washington, Sacramento, and Madrid alike.