创建一个公平的工作申诉专员来为演出工人提供保护
Summary
To increase protections for fair work, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) should create an Office of the Ombudsman for Fair Work. Gig workers are a category of non-employee contract workers who engage in on-demand work, often through online platforms. They have had historic vulnerabilities in the U.S. economy. A大部分of gig workers are people of color, and the nature of their temporary and largely unregulated work can leave them vulnerable to economic instability and workplace abuse. Currently, there is no federal mechanism to protect gig workers, and state-level initiatives have not offered thorough enough policy redress. Establishing an Office of the Ombudsman would provide the Department of Labor with a central entity to investigate worker complaints against gig employers, collect data and evidence about the current gig economy, and provide education to gig workers about their rights. There is strong precedent for this policy solution, since bureaus across the federal government have successfully implemented ombudsmen that are independent and support vulnerable constituents. To ensure its legal and long-lasting status, the Secretary of Labor should establish this Office in an act of internal agency reorganization.
Challenge and Opportunity
在过去的几十年中，美国劳动力从事演出工作的比例稳步上升10.1% in 2005 to 15.8% in 2015to roughly20% in 2018。自从Covid-19大流行开始以来，这种趋势仅加速了，创纪录的美国人现在已经加入了零工经济并依靠其收入。在2021年皮尤研究中over 16%of Americans reported having made money through online platform work alone, such as on apps like Uber and Doordash, which is merely a subset of gig work jobs. Gig workers in particular aremore likelyto be Black or Latino compared to the overall workforce.
Though millions of Americans rely on gig work, it does not providecritical employee benefits, such as minimum wage guarantees, parental leave, healthcare, overtime, unemployment insurance, or recourse for injuries incurred during work.According to an NPRsurvey, in 2018 more than half of contract workers received zero benefits through work. Further, the National Labor Relations Act, which protects employees’ rights to unionize and collectively bargain without retaliation, does not protect gig workers. Thislack of benefits, rights, and voiceleaves millions of workers more vulnerable than full-time employees to predatory employers,financial instability和健康危机，特别是在紧急情况下 -such as the COVID-19 pandemic。
此外，在2022年，通货膨胀达到了decades-long high, and though the price of necessities has spiked, wages have not increased correspondingly. Extreme inflation hurts lower-income workers without savings the most and is especially dangerous to gig workers, some of whom make less than the联邦最低小时工资and whose income and work are subject to constantflux。
State-level measures have as yet failed to create protections for all gig workers. In 2020, California passedAB5, legally reclassifying many gig workers as employees instead of independent contractors and thus entitling them to more benefits and protections. But further bills and命题22恢复了几组演出工人，包括Uber和Doordash司机等在线平台演出工人成为独立承包商。与提案22有关的正在进行的诉讼使加利福尼亚州的在线平台演出工人的未来状况不清楚。2022年，华盛顿州通过了ESHB 2076guaranteeing online platform workers—but not all gig workers—the benefits of full-time employees.
这个温泉rse patchwork of state-level measures, which only supports subgroups of gig workers, could trigger a “race to the bottom” in which employers of gig workers relocate to less strict states. Additionally, inconsistencies between state laws make it harder for gig workers to understand their rights and gain redress for grievances, harder for businesses to determine with certainty their duties and liabilities, and harder for states to enforce penalties when an employer is headquartered in one state and the gig worker lives in another. The status quo is also difficult for businesses that strive to be better employers because it creates downward pressure on the entire landscape of labor market competition. Ultimately, only federal policy action can fully address these inconsistencies and broadly increase protections and benefits for all gig workers.
该提案中概述的联邦申诉专员办公室可以作为演出工人了解其当前权利范围的资源，提供声音以扩大其申诉和危害，并收集数据和证据以告知政策建议。这是迈向可持续和全面的国家解决方案的第一步，扩大了演出工人的权利。
Specifically, clarifying what rights, benefits, and means of recourse gig workers do and do not have would help gig workers better plan for healthcare and other emergent needs. It would also allow better tracking of trends in the labor market and systemic detection of employee misclassification. Hearing gig workers’ complaints in a centralized office can help the Department of Labor more expeditiously address gig workers’ concerns in situations where they legally do have recourse and can otherwise help the Department of Labor better understand the needs of and harms experienced by all workers. Collecting broad-ranging data on gig workers in particular could help inform federal policy change on their rights and protections. Currently, most datasets are survey based and often抛弃人在进行调查时没有从事演出工作，但通常会这样做。更广泛地说，由于其非正式和动态性质，零工经济难以准确地计算和表征，并且专门负责协调和理解市场发展中这个不断增长的市场的实体是关键。
Lastly, employees who are not gig workers are sometimesmisclassified因此，他们在法律上有权获得的福利和保护。拥有专门从事演出工作的集中申诉专员办公室可以加快寻求纠正其分类状态的演出工人的支持，工资和小时部门通常已经处理了该状态，并帮助劳工部和其他机构收集数据以阐明范围问题。
行动计划
The Department of Labor should establish an Office of the Ombudsman for Fair Work. This office should be independent of Department of Labor agencies and officials, and it should report directly to the Secretary of Labor. The Office would operate on a federal level with authority over states.
The Secretary of Labor should establish the Office in an act of internal agency reorganization. By establishing the Office such that its powers do not contradict the Department of Labor’s statutory limitations, the Secretary can ensure the Office’s status as legal and long-lasting, due to the discretionary power of the Department tointerpret its statutes。
The role of the Office of the Ombudsman for Fair Work would be threefold: to serve as a centralized point of contact for hearing complaints from gig workers; to act as a central resource and conduct outreach to gig workers about their rights and protections; and to collect data such as demographic, wage, and benefit trends on the labor practices of the gig economy. Together, these responsibilities ensure that this Office consolidates and augments the actions of the Department of Labor as they pertain to workers in the gig economy, regardless of their classification status.
The functions of the ombudsman should be as follows:
- Establish a clear and centralized mechanism for hearing, collating, and investigating complaints from workers in the gig economy, such as through a helpline or mobile app.
- Establish and administer an independent, neutral, and confidential process to receive, investigate, resolve, and provide redress for cases in which employers misrepresent to individuals that they are engaged as independent contractors when they’re actually engaged as employees.
- Commence court proceedings to enforce fair work practices and entitlements, as they pertain to workers in the gig economy, in conjunction with other offices in the DOL.
- 代表或可能会因不公平的合同行为而成为法庭诉讼的雇员或承包商，包括但不限于错误分类为独立承包商。该办公室将事务向劳工部和其他从事这些程序的其他组织内的机构间合作伙伴提及，从而在可能的情况下增加了现有工作。
- 向雇员，雇主和组织提供教育，援助和建议，包括最佳实践指南，以工作场所关系或工作场所实践以及有关零工经济中工人的权利和保护的信息。
- Conduct outreach in multiple languages to gig economy workers informing them of their rights and protections and of the Office’s role to hear and address their complaints and entitlements.
- Serve as the central data collection and publication office for all gig-work-related data. The Office will publish a yearly report detailing demographic, wage, and benefit trends faced by gig workers. Data could be collected through outreach to gig workers or their employers, or through a new data-sharing agreement with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). This data report would also summarize anonymized trends based on the complaints collected (as per function 1), including aggregate statistics on wage theft, reports of harassment or discrimination, and misclassification. These trends would also be broken down by demographic group to proactively identify salient inequities. The office may also provide separate data on platform workers, which may be easier to collect and collate, since platform workers are a particular subject of focus in current state legislation and litigation.
Establishing an Office of the Ombudsman for Fair Work within the Department of Labor will require costs of compensation for the ombudsman and staff, other operational costs, and litigation expenses. To reflect the need for a reaction to the rapid ongoing changes in gig economy platforms, a small portion of the Office’s budget should be set aside to support the appointment of a chief innovation officer, aimed at examining how technology can strengthen its operations. Some examples of tasks for this role include investigating and strengthening complaint sorting infrastructure, utilizing artificial intelligence to evaluate contracts for misclassification, and streamlining request for proposal processes.
由于零工经济的持续增长，以及在经济衰退开始时，工作人员的不稳定地位，该办公室应在最近的可能的窗口中建立。建立，任命和启动该办公室最多需要一年的时间，并且需要在DOL内进行预算。
联邦办公室中有许多申诉专员的先例，包括Office of the Ombudsman for the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program within the Department of Labor。Additionally, the IRS established theOffice of the Taxpayer Advocate, and the Department of Homeland Security has both a公民和移民服务监察员and anImmigration Detention Ombudsman。These offices have helped educate constituents about their rights, resolved issues that an individual might have with that federal agency, and served as independent oversight bodies. The Australian Government has aFair Work Ombudsmanthat provides resources to differentiate between an independent contractor and employee and investigates employers who may be engaging in sham contracting or other illegal practices. Following these examples, the Office of the Ombudsman for Fair Work should work within the Department of Labor to educate, assist, and provide redress for workers engaged in the gig economy.
结论
How to protect gig workers is a long-standing open question for labor policy and is likely to require more attention as post-pandemic conditions affect labor trends. The federal government needs a solution to the issues of vulnerability and instability experienced by gig workers, and this solution needs to operate independently of legislation that may take longer to gain consensus on. Establishing an office of an ombudsman is the first step to increase federal oversight for gig work. The ombudsman will use data, reporting, and individual worker cases to build a clearer picture for how to create redress for laborers that have been harmed by gig work, which will provide greater visibility into the status and concerns of gig workers. It will additionally serve as a single point of entry for gig workers and businesses to learn about their rights and for gig workers to lodge complaints. If made a reality, this office will be an influential first step in changing the entire policy ecosystem regarding gig work.
有一个电流definitional debate演出是否工人和工人们的平台employees or contractors. Until this issue of misclassification can be resolved, there will likely not be a comprehensive state or federal policy governing gig work. However, the office of an ombudsman would be able to serve as the central point within the Department of Labor to handle gig worker issues, and it would be the entity tasked with collecting and publishing data about this class of laborers. This would help elevate the problems gig workers face as well as paint a picture of the extent of the issue for future legislation.
每个监察员将被任命为六年，以确保党派政治的绝缘。
States often do not have adequate solutions to handle the discrepancies between employees and contractors. There is also the “race to the bottom” issue, where if protections are increased in one state, gig employers will simply relocate to states where the policies are less stringent. Further, there is the issue of gig companies being headquartered in one state while employees work in another. It makes sense for the Department of Labor to house a central, federal mechanism to handle gig work.
The key challenge right now is for the federal government to collect data and solve issues regarding protections for gig work. The office of the ombudsman’s broadly defined mandate is actually an advantage in this still-developing conversation about gig work.
Establishing a new Department of Labor office is no small feat. It requires a clear definition of the goal and allowed activities of the ombudsman. This would require buy-in from key DOL bureaucrats. The office would also have to hire, recruit, and train staff. These tasks may be speed bottlenecks for this proposal to get off the ground. Since DOL plans its budget several years in advance, this proposal would likely be targeted for the 2026 cycle.
A large portion of gig workers are people of color, and the nature of their temporary and largely unregulated work can leave them vulnerable to economic instability and workplace abuse. To increase protections for fair work, the Department of Labor should create an Office of the Ombudsman for Fair Work.
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