VANCOUVER—Three quarters of Metro Vancouverites want B.C. to follow California’s footsteps and require ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft to pay drivers’ overtime pay and minimum wage.

A new poll released Wednesday by Vancouver-based Research Co. found 75 per cent of Metro Vancouver residents believe B.C. either “definitely should” or “probably should” implement rules requiring ride-hailing companies to acknowledge employment rights for drivers once the service enters B.C.’s market later this year.

Employees — defined broadly in B.C. as someone doing work for another person or company — have rights to things like minimum wage, parental leave, and vacation pay under the province’s employment standards laws, while “independent contractors,” considered to work for themselves, do not.

Ride-hailing giants like Uber and Lyft have long argued drivers aren’t employees, but self-employed independent contractors using their platforms to connect to clients who need rides.

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That perspective has prompted several court challenges in which drivers have attempted to argue that they are, in fact, employees. Earlier this month, California passed legislation that would provide paid vacation and sick days to gig-economy workers for ride-hailing companies, partly in response to pushback from drivers.

Wednesday’s poll included 700 adults in Metro Vancouver and was conducted from September 20 to 23, with a margin of error — which measures sample variability — of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

“There are a lot of California residents who are doing this as their number one job and we think they should have the same protections here in B.C.,” said Mario Canseco, president of Research Co., explaining the polling results. “(It’s) one of the beauties to being one of the last jurisdictions to bring in ride-hailing ... I think there’s a sense from residents that they want this to work, but they want it to work with caveats.”

The issue of whether ride-hailing drivers will be considered employees or independent contractors in B.C. heated up this week after the province’s largest labour group asked the Passenger Transportation Board — the regulator of the service — to license only those companies that promise to treat drivers as employees.

Catherine Read, chair of the board, told Star Vancouver Tuesday that a letter sent by the B.C. Federation of Labour arguing for drivers to be considered employees had been forwarded on to the companies that have applied for licences to operate ride-hailing in this province.

The companies have been asked to provide a response to the letter, and both letter and response will be considered by the Passenger Transportation Board as it decides whether to grant the company a licence, Read said.

Letters were also submitted from other organizations on the topic of the ride-hailing companies, but Read did not recall how many or where the submissions were from.

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