How will the U.S. election affect America's gig workers?

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• Millions of Americans make money from app-based gig platforms
• Trump and Harris have outlined different labour priorities that will affect freelancers
• Gig platforms have pushed back on Biden administration regulations 

LOS ANGELES – The rights of millions of independent workers in the United States may hinge on the presidential election, with supporters of the candidates pushing widely divergent views of how federal policy should regulate the gig economy.

In the United States, workers who find jobs via apps are mostly treated as independent contractors and have far fewer legal protections than traditional employees.

Estimates of how many people earn money this way vary widely. The U.S. government has said it could be between 5 million and 30 million workers.

Industry group Flex said that 4.3% of American workers make money from an on-demand app. A study by the University of Chicago showed the number of people who collected income from one of these platforms tripled between 2017 and 2021.

The Democratic and Republican parties have staked out different positions on how this work should be regulated, although presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have not made it clear how they would approach the sector.

"Republicans are aligned on this issue completely: They're 100% great with no rights for gig workers. Democrats are actually mixed on this," explained Laura Padin, a lawyer with the National Employment Law Project (NELP), a pro-labour group.

NELP and other groups have argued that by classifying app-based freelance workers as independent contractors, no matter how many hours or how regularly they work for a specific app, the companies are denying workers a raft of benefits, from unemployment support, insurance for injuries on the job, paid leave and minimum-wage protections.

Project 2025, a policy document for a prospective Trump administration drawn up by a think tank close to the former president, lauded the independent contractor model and the ride-hailing app Uber in particular. The Trump campaign has recently distanced itself from Project 2025.

"The value of flexibility extends beyond ride-sharing," reads the chapter on the Department of Labor, which argues that companies should be given wide leeway to treat workers as contractors.

For her part, Harris backed a California law that would have extended employee rights to many freelance workers. But her campaign has brought in at least several gig industry insiders as advisors. Her brother-in-law Tony West has taken temporary leave from a top legal position at Uber to work as a volunteer on Harris' campaign.

The Trump campaign did not provide details about its plans for the gig economy, but Republican National Committee spokesperson Anna Kelly said that Trump is "the most pro-worker president in history."

The Harris campaign did not respond to a request for details about its plans. Flex, which represents a wide variety of gig firms, did not respond to requests for an interview.

Some Republican senators and trade groups have proposed creating a "portable benefits" system that would allow some gig workers to access safety-net programs. Labour groups have generally opposed such proposals as insufficient.

Uber and Lyft change the game

Though independent contracting has long been a fixture of the U.S. economy, the advent of Uber and mobility app Lyft a little over a decade ago popularised a new labour relationship: workers who make their own schedule, but who are tightly controlled and managed by an app.

This labour model has spread beyond ride-hailing to logistics, hospitality and even healthcare, explained Veena Dubal, a professor at University of California Irvine law school who studies the sector.

"It's a David vs. Goliath situation," she said. "On the one side, you have corporations with extraordinary wealth, and on the other side, you have some of the (most) precarious and vulnerable workers in the country."

In recent years, gig platforms have taken advantage of advances in artificial intelligence to more fully automate the management of workers, set prices and streamline tasks like hiring and firing drivers, a development that workers’ rights groups say is a cause for concern.

Under President Joe Biden, the Federal Trade Commission launched a 2022 initiative to crack down on labour abuse in the gig economy, levying small fines against three companies for deceptive business practices.

Earlier this year, the Department of Labor rolled out new rules for classifying workers as independent contractors, essentially making it harder for companies to claim a gig worker does not have employee rights.

Stop the bleeding

Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Labor Federation, said the organised labour movement is trying to "stop the bleeding" when it comes to the freelance economy.

"We don’t want to go to a society without any social safety net for workers," she said.

Gonzalez is a former member of the California assembly who authored a bill in California which would have extended employee rights to independent workers.

On-demand platforms spent more than $200 million to promote a voter initiative that ended up rolling back the law, saving major companies nearly $400 million in payroll taxes and workers' compensation costs alone, according to a Reuters tally.

"We will continue advocating for models that combine that independence and flexibility with benefits and protections, such as what we've seen in states like California, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington," an Uber spokesperson said.

The spokesperson cited surveys that showed drivers and couriers want “the independence and flexibility that enables them to decide when, where, and how they work."

Despite several attempts, labour groups have struggled to organise freelance workers into traditional unions, although a number of workers groups and associations have emerged.

One group, the Minnesota Uber/Lyft Drivers Association, worked with Minnesota Governor Tim Walz - Harris’ running mate - to pass a minimum wage law in that state.

"We are working really hard to build a union—and that would be really hard to do if Trump wins," said Nicole Moore, a rideshare driver in Los Angeles and an organiser with Rideshare Drivers United.

Some experts and union officials expect Harris to continue with the policies of the Biden administration.

"Harris is a staunch supporter of unions," Gonzalez said. "And we have no indication she will go backwards."

Trump tried to reduce the National Labor Relations Board’s budget and appointed officials who were associated with business interests. His running mate, J.D. Vance, has voiced support for "sectoral bargaining," where labour deals are struck by entire industries.

Sean Higgins, a research fellow at the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute, said he expected Trump would likely return to a regulatory scheme to make it easier to characterise gig workers as independent contractors.

"We’re seeing new work arrangements emerge in the current economy through things like ridesharing and that type of stuff – and we need to be encouraging of that," he said.