Take Action: Please Co-Sponsor Legislation Seeking to Ensure Compliance with Labor Laws in the Micro-Transit Industry (S-2931 / A-3315)
Please take a moment RIGHT NOW and CLICK HERE to ask your State Senator and two Assembly members to co-sponsor legislation seeking to end the exploitation of workers in this industry.
Micro-transit is an industry that is rapidly growing in New Jersey. Unscrupulous companies that contract with local governments to perform the services often misclassify their drivers as independent contractors, instead of employees. These companies are violating labor laws in New Jersey every day they operate and industry is in desperate need of reform.
When these workers are misclassified, they lose the ability to access all worker protection programs and benefits, including workers compensation, unemployment insurance, overtime, minimum wage, temporary disability insurance, paid sick leave, employer provided health insurance and pensions, paid family leave and are barred from joining or forming a union because they are not covered by the NLRA. Independent contractor’s get none of these benefits enjoyed by employees.
Micro-transit operators pick up residents using an app and drive them anywhere in the jurisdiction for between $2-$5 cost to the rider. The local government pays for the balance, which varies between $14 – $50 per ride. Once such operator – Via Transportation, was recently fined by the New Jersey Department of Labor for over $1.5 million for breaking wage and hour laws, yet they continue to get paid with your tax dollars and continue to exploit these workers.
Legislation (S-2931: Mukherji / Diegnan / McKnight / Singleton / Turner) / A-3315: Sampson / Quijano / Verrelli / Murphy / Danielson / Reynolds-Jackson / Miller) has been introduced that would simply require companies providing microtransit services to follow the law (classify their workers as employees) in order to receive these types of tax payer funded contracts in the future.
Please take a moment RIGHT NOW and CLICK HERE to send a pre-written e-mail to your legislators asking them to become a co-sponsor of these bills.
Please note, legislators that are already sponsors of this bill have been removed from this action.