SEATTLE – The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has again sued Seattle over its first-in-the-nation law that would give Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers the ability to form a union.
The Seattle Times reported that the Chamber sued last year, but a federal judge tossed that lawsuit in August, ruling that the law had not been implemented so the Chamber had not been harmed and thus it could not yet sue.
Seattle’s law gives drivers the right to vote on whether they’d like to form a union and then to collectively bargain with their employers over things like working conditions and pay. The lawsuit, refiled Thursday in federal court, argues that since Uber, Lyft and taxi drivers are contractors, not employees, they do not have the right to unionize.
The city council unanimously passed its law in late 2015, and it went into effect a month later, without the signature of Mayor Ed Murray, who worried about defending the ordinance in court.
