San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Gig workers seek priority for vaccine
As California struggles to get a limited supply of coronavirus vaccines injected into the arms of those who need it the most, gig workers and the app makers that provide their livelihood are trying to elbow their way toward the front of the line.
But the advocacy for ridehail drivers, meal couriers and gig workers has been complicated by the fact that their jobs don’t always fit into neat frameworks. Despite lobbying and public relations efforts by gig companies, government agencies setting the priorities for vaccine distribution haven’t provided clarity on when ondemand workers will get the shots.
The biggest tension seems to be around whether meal couriers and grocery shoppers will get the same priority as grocerystore and restaurant workers, who are in an earlier stage of vaccine eligibility than other workers.
“We are an essential service,” said
Chase Copridge, a Bay Area gig worker who delivers groceries through Instacart, food through DoorDash, and other items through Amazon Flex. “People out there who are too sick to leave the house, we are the only means that they have of getting the resources they need,” he added.
Contract workers will likely get access to vaccinations at the same time as regular employees in the same industry do, Veena Dubal, a professor at UC Hastings College of Law.
But the specifics may prove crucial. Asked about gig workers, including those whose work involves delivering food, the California Department of Public Health referred to them in an email as “transportation and logistics workers,” who fall in a subsequent stage.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has suggested including grocery workers in an upcoming round of vaccinations, but did not specify whether that included gig workers.
Vaccine rollouts in California vary by county. Counties move through the phases and tiers at different times. San Francisco, for example, is vaccinating people 65 and older, but it is not vaccinating food and agriculture workers or other essentialworker groups, even though they are in the same tier under the state system.
Some companies, recognizing the financial and health benefits a vaccinated workforce offer them, are creating incentives for workers to get the shots.
San Francisco grocery delivery service Instacart, which has a workforce of about 500,000 mostly gig workers, said Thursday it would pay workers $25 to get the vaccine. Uber and Lyft, the dominant ridehailing companies, and DoorDash, which delivers meals and groceries, have not yet followed suit.
Those companies have advocated at the state and local level for their workers to be given priority, as they transport food and passengers, raising their risk of exposure to the virus.
DoorDash sent a letter to the head of the CDC last month asking delivery workers be bumped up in the vaccine line.
Uber and Lyft have sent letters to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing mounting political pressure to speed vaccine delivery.
Neither company has announced sweeteners for drivers who get the vaccine, but both are working on making themselves central to the broader vaccination effort.
Last month Uber said it would offer 10 million free or discounted rides through its app to get people to vaccination sites.
Lyft said in December it would partner with JPMorgan Chase, health insurance provider Anthem, and others to take 60 million Americans with limited income or no insurance to vaccination sites.
Dubal, the law professor, said that Uber and Lyft were seeking to bolster public trust in their services by lobbying for vaccine priority, and hence benefit their bottom line. Demand for ridehailing has recovered somewhat after the pandemic’s rapid spread crushed demand for rides and forced Uber and Lyft to lay off hundreds of corporate workers and left thousands of drivers out of work.
Ensuring drivers get the vaccine “has a huge impact on the willingness of consumers to use these services,” Dubal said. DoorDash and Instacart have faced different issues. The companies have seen crushing demand for food deliveries since stayathome orders came into force. Vaccines could reassure potential workers and increase their supply of labor.
The issue is complicated by the vast number of essential workers — contractors and employees — who are equally deserving of a limited supply of vaccines, said John Swartzberg, infectious disease expert at UC Berkeley.
To distinguish which essential workers are more deserving than others “is frankly nearly impossible,” he said.
Another question that may arise is what will happen if gig workers are reluctant to get the vaccine.
The companies that provide appbased employment have long insisted that workers are not employees under their control. That highlights the precarious position California gig workers remain in after the passage last year of Proposition 22, which enshrined some gig workers’ independent contractor status into law.
Dubal said companies like Uber and Lyft could use workers’ contractor classification under Prop. 22 to refuse to send passengers to drivers who cannot prove they have been vaccinated, once it becomes more widely available.
Companies can generally require employees to get the vaccine, with exceptions for health risks and religious issues. Contractors have fewer protections.
“Doing something like that would likely cause some public outcry,” she said. “That will make it harder for them in litigation elsewhere to argue that they aren’t actually an employer.”