It’s a classic strange bedfellows story: Companies in the “on-demand economy” find common cause with labor unions, and left-leaning think tanks join up with free marketeers around a proposition that seems to make so much sense that nobody could talk it down.
That’s what seems to have happened this week around an issue that’s crucial to the growth of new businesses like Uber and Taskrabbit: How to provide benefits to workers who use those platforms to find clients. On Tuesday, a letter surfaced calling for a new social safety net regime that could allow people to move easily from gig to gig without losing the benefits and protections usually contained within the traditional employment relationship. Right now, companies say, it’s difficult for them to offer employment-like perks without running the risk of getting hit with lawsuits.
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