Senator Elizabeth Warren urges gig firms to reclassify workers amid COVID-19 outbreak

Senator Elizabeth Warren is pleading with gig firms to reclassify their workers amid the COVID-19 crisis. Yahoo! Finance's Melody Hahm joins The Final Round to discuss the latest.

Video Transcript

MYLES UDLAND: --bring in Yahoo Finance's Melody Hahm for more on what's happening, Melody, in the gig economy, which-- you know, it's funny. We talked about the gig economy for years and years, about what are they doing to protect workers, are they doing enough.

And then this crisis kind of comes and brings every element of the way this workforce has been left vulnerable and unprotected together at one time. What's kind of the state of play there as it relates to gig workers getting laid off and trying to find some kind of protection?

MELODY HAHM: And of course, the news peg today with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts penning a letter to the CEOs of Uber, Instacart, DoorDash, and Grubhub, essentially saying, this is a complete injustice to treat these quote unquote, "essential" workers during this time-- all of a sudden, we're heralding them as the most valuable people in our society, and yet you cannot give them basic protections like gloves for free or hand sanitizer, guaranteed that they don't need to pay for out of pocket, in addition to, of course, paid sick leave.

Something that really stuck with me, a guest on On The Move last week from Eurasia Group, Ian Bremmer, said the tech-lash, that we had all been so obsessed about talking about, has completely diminished, right. We don't talk so much about attacking Facebook and Amazon besides the price gouging. So more, it's a really good chance for there to be this PR from those kinds of companies.

But I think the attention has been drawn to a lot of these platforms that used to be nice-to-haves, that used to be the privileged elite being able to sit in their homes and do these sorts of things. But now even people who are on the lower end of the wage scale are depending on these services as health has become a concern. But unfortunately, the people who are actually delivering these goods and being on the front lines in many ways, they are the ones not being protected.

I want to read a quote from Warren's letter to those CEOs. She says, "The impact of your misclassification has on workers and the precarious circumstances it puts them in is only amplified by this pandemic." And, Myles, from where I am here in California, we know that 85, which is a bill that turned into law earlier this year-- they essentially are mandating these companies to classify these contractors as employees. But at the same time, we know that Uber, DoorDash, Postmates have all pushed back against that.

So for Warren to expect these CEOs to deliberately and proactively say, hey, we're going to protect our workers, that is a very lofty expectation. And I don't necessarily think we'll be seeing action from their end.

I think what is really unfortunate, though, is I've been speaking to some gig workers here, and they're saying that they're not actually eligible to file for unemployment benefits, because they're still in this limbo period, as many of them are making most of their income from these gig economy platforms.

So to your point, Myles, I think this desire or this narrative that we had seen for several years, saying, these are people who are choosing flexibility over those, quote unquote "stable jobs," I'm thinking we're seeing this upending of that structure. As Walmart, Costco are hiring temporary workers, perhaps these folks will not actually return to these gig jobs, because it is completely hazardous to their health and now, economically speaking.

DAN ROBERTS: Hey, Melody, it's Dan here. You know, something you said there that's so interesting to me, that I've been thinking about and watching, the idea that right now no one really has time for that tech-lash anymore.

And I think you're right. It's interesting, especially with Facebook. I think we've seen a lot of people returning to Facebook.

It's become-- you know, at the end of the day, Facebook is kind of the place where people go for serious, long posts. So I know someone who took to Facebook, someone our age, and said, I never post on Facebook. I haven't in years, but I have COVID-19. And here's my experience, and here's my warning to everyone.

You know, you sort of think about Facebook as, that's the place where you can post a long text thing that you want a lot of people to see, which is interesting. And there's certainly many other examples of apps that have had a resurgence.

Houseparty, one example that all my friends have re-downloaded from, you know, years ago. And it's actually owned by Epic Games, which owns Fortnite. I'm just curious, any other things you've seen reemerge in the tech world, apps that were once dead?

I know another example, HQ Trivia, apparently has gotten back up and running, because right now is the perfect time for them. But any other examples?

And by the way, when we all get through this, I mean, none of those things that made everyone so angry at the big tech companies-- those things haven't gone away or changed. So you would think that, you know, that would return. But maybe these tech companies hope people just forget about it.

MELODY HAHM: Of course not. And, Dan, of course both of us have history with HQ Trivia. We were sort of early adopters there. But even thinking of that video app, Marco Polo, we've of course spoken to the founders and CEO there.

But in general, I think it is this leisure time and this ability to connect with people that, to be honest, pre-pandemic, we didn't think of as an essential good, we didn't think of as a utility. But now it feels like those are necessary components to our livelihood in order to function as a society to make sure those social interactions are in tact.

So to your point, I think we are seeing a lot of those, mm, yeah, that's kind of a good idea but probably will disappear. Funnily enough, I think those are the ones that are seeing a huge uptick right now.

MYLES UDLAND: And, Melody, speaking of things that are maybe from the pre-corona period that are still in the air--