VANCOUVER—As B.C. prepares to join much of Canada in introducing ride-sharing, the province’s biggest labour group says it still has an opportunity the rest of the country has missed: to guarantee drivers minimum wage, breaks, overtime pay and vacation like traditional employees.

The B.C. Federation of Labour, a group of unions collectively representing 500,000 workers, is asking the province’s ride-sharing regulator to only grant licences to companies that promise to treat drivers as employees, rather than the “independent contractors” giants like Uber and Lyft have long argued they are.

“B.C. has one chance to establish a fair system,” the federation wrote in a letter to the board sent last week. “That means minimum employment standards should not be optional.”

The California Assembly passed a landmark bill this month that would provide paid vacation and sick days to gig-economy workers for ride-hailing companies — a move that prompted worker advocates in British Columbia to suggest this province follow suit.

Ride-sharing companies and others that facilitate one-off services like bike food delivery have long argued they don’t need to ensure those minimum standards are met because the people using their platforms to earn money work on their own terms as independent contractors — not as employees protected under the law. That perspective has prompted several court challenges in which drivers have attempted to argue that they are, in fact, employees.

When the California legislation passed, companies such as Lyft and Uber pushed back, arguing that making their workers “employees” would limit workers’ abilities to work flexible hours and inflate operating expenses.

“In California recently (they recognized that) it’s such a problematic situation for workers that they have now passed legislation to ensure that they’re employees,” Laird Cronk, president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, said in an interview Monday. “We’re still in a position in B.C. where we can get it right the first time.”

Have your say

Sylvia Fuller, a professor of labour and social policy at the University of British Columbia, said in a previous interview that B.C. has an opportunity to take the lead in Canada to strengthen labour laws for gig workers.

“These companies have created a business model that (provides) very poor quality work, and workers are bearing the brunt of the risk — often not even making minimum wage, working in sometimes unsafe conditions, and they really are employees if we think about it,” Fuller said. “We need to think about ways to provide better protections so they’re not left out in the cold.”

Garland Chow, emeritus associate professor of supply chain management at the University of British Columbia, said it may still be too early in the province’s attempt to bring in ride-sharing to tell whether drivers will even want to be considered employees. He said such attempts in other jurisdictions were usually driven by hardship — such as drivers making less than minimum wage after expenses when Uber and Lyft set low prices.

“In California there was so much noise from the contractors themselves that the state acted,” he said. “We’re not there yet. It’s going to take a little time for the dust to settle and to see: Can drivers make money here?”

Cronk believes ride-share drivers already fall under the broad provincial definition of “employee.”

“What I don’t want is for the ride-hailing companies to consider them independent contractors and for them to have to fight that fight,” Cronk said. “We want them to be considered employees from the very beginning.”

As of Monday, the federation’s letter had been forwarded to at least one of the ride-sharing companies that has applied to operate in B.C.

“Uber has just received the submissions sent to the Passenger Transportation Board ... and is currently preparing its response,” Uber Canada spokesperson Matt McInnis wrote in an email to Star Vancouver.

McInnis said the response was not ready Monday.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

A spokesperson for Lyft Canada sent an email statement saying over 90 per cent of Lyft drivers drive fewer than 20 hours per week.

“They drive for Lyft because of the flexibility being classified as an independent contractor provides them to earn when, where and for how long they want,” the statement reads.

The Passenger Transportation Board chair was not available Monday to comment.

With files from Jenny Peng

Read more about: