Public Safety & Human Services Committee Special Meeting 71723

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Councilmember Nelson, present.

Councilmember Peterson, present.

Vice Chair Lewis, present.

Chair Herbold, here.

Five, present.

Thank you so much.

So on today's we will hear discussion and possible vote on Council Bill 120580 on deactivation protections on app-based workers.

We will continue considering amendments with the goal of moving the bill out of committee today.

I really thank my council colleagues for being here on a special committee day, as well as the stakeholders who are gathered here with us and watching online.

We'll now approve our agenda for our committee meeting.

If there is no objection, today's agenda will be adopted.

Hearing no objection, today's agenda is adopted.

At this time, we will transition into public comment.

I will moderate the public comment period in the following manner.

Each speaker will be given two minutes to speak.

I will alternate between virtual and in-person commenters.

I will call on each speaker by name and in the order in which they registered on the council's website and the sign-in form.

If you have not yet registered to speak but would like to, you can sign up before the end of the public comment session.

Once I call a speaker's name, if you are using the virtual option, you will hear a prompt, and once you've heard that prompt, you will need to press star six to unmute yourself.

Please begin speaking by stating your name and the item which you are addressing.

Speakers will hear a chime when 10 seconds are left of the allotted time.

Once the speaker hears that chime, we ask that you please wrap up your public comments.

If you do not end your public comments at the end of the allotted time provided, the speaker's mic will be muted after 10 seconds so that we can hear from the next speaker.

Once you've completed your public comment, please disconnect from the line, and we encourage you to continue following the meeting, but please do so via the Seattle Channel or the listening options on the agenda.

Right now, we've got nine folks signed up for public comment, five people who are signed up virtually, and four in person.

We will take them in a moment.

alternating back and forth.

We will start with Carmen Figueroa, followed by Humberta Souza.

Carmen?

Hello, my name is Carmen.

I'm a gig worker in Seattle.

I started doing gig work about four years ago after a back injury left me partially disabled.

I'm one of the thousands of gig workers with a hidden disability that relies solely on gig work to make ends meet.

For four years I had worked for Grubhub.

full-time, in good standing, maintaining a rating in the high 90s, and I was deactivated on August 8th of last year.

Attempting to appeal the deactivation was a life lesson in patience and perseverance.

In the end, I received an email that stated I had been deactivated due to adverse behavior and activity that negatively impacts the delivery experience across the platform, which means nothing.

The threat of deactivation is always lurking when working as a gig worker.

I had missed a few days of pay, which sent my precarious financial situation into a downward spiral that I am still attempting to climb out of.

Gig workers do not live paycheck to paycheck or week to week.

We survive order to order.

When there are no orders, there is no way to survive.

Gig companies, executives like to call gig workers and delivery drivers independent contractors.

The term absolves them of any responsibility an employer would have for an employee.

allowing the gig companies to treat delivery drivers as exploitable and disposable.

Independent contractors have little independence.

Our immediate supervisor or manager is an AR system that cannot be reasoned with.

The system has limitations and the system is not a substitute for a human's ability to apply reason and common sense to a problem.

It is the responsibility of the gig company to create a functional process with human review and meaningful appeal procedure before deactivating the driver.

With more and more companies converting employees into independent contractors, the gig economy needs regulations and policies to ensure gig workers' stability.

The council needs to pass the pay-up campaign deactivation policy as is, as agreed upon during the stakeholder process without deceitful backdoor amendments.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is Humberto Souza, and Humberto will be followed by, we're going to go in here to hear some online commenters, will be followed by Courtney Gillespie.

Humberto?

Good morning.

My name is Humberto Souza, and I'm addressing the activation We need stronger deactivation protections for all gig workers to pay up as a means to preserve our rights as workers.

These nonsense practices from the companies cause unnecessary struggle for good workers.

Deactivation protections and standard review procedures to address these situations when they happen are necessary.

So people like me don't lose the work we rely on to survive.

None of the companies have set that up in order to protect their assets.

There are reasons why they are successful now as gig workers.

As we discuss all of this, remember why this was brought to your attention in the first place.

Workers are receiving notice of deactivation for nonsensical reasons.

Workers have to choose whether they can take an offer and if it's financially viable.

If workers don't have a certain acceptance rating, they can be deactivated or be given a violation.

Even though a roadie claims you have the option to choose and accept or even decline an offer, they will have accepted a job without repercussion.

Roadie uses the excuse that you decline offers to deactivate you.

The way that companies manage their partners needs to be changed.

Situations happen when it's out of our control.

Without your help, it is impossible to have something fixed up.

These amendments that we added are ridiculous and insult our intelligence.

I'm a worker that needs protection too.

Thank you.

Our next speaker is online.

It's Courtney Gillespie, and Courtney will be followed by Keri Takra.

Hi, my name is Courtney Gillespie, and I'm the Director of Government Affairs and Social Impact at TaskRabbit.

I'm here today to share our perspective on the deactivations ordinance.

TaskRabbit connects people for a variety of services, which predominantly take place inside of homes for an average of two hours.

We rarely deactivate users from our platform, and every incident leading to a deactivation is investigated by our trusted support team.

We don't automatically deactivate users, and every case involves human review.

So, we agree with the values and the intent of the ordinance and appreciate recent amendments to the egregious misconduct definition, to the investigation timeline, and to records requirements substantiating a deactivation.

There are several amendments proposed today, in particular 8B and 11, which would address some of our additional concerns.

Thanks to the committee members for the stakeholder engagement on this bill and for the opportunity to provide comment today.

Thank you.

Thank you so not much.

Our next speaker is Kairi Tekra followed by Joelle Kraft.

Hey, how's it going?

My name is Kairi Tekra.

I'm here because I was deactivated by Grubhub on May 16th without much explanation.

despite being a reliable gig worker on the app since 2018. At the time of deactivation, I replied to the deactivation notice email they sent several times.

The only explanation I could get was, quote, due to my material breach of obligations, end quote, without specifying what these obligations were.

According to Grubhub's own policy, as a Grubhub driver, you are allowed up to three contract violations, which expire after one or two months.

At the time of my deactivation, other than one contract violation, I had only one single late delivery, which was due to the restaurant being late in preparing the food.

This was notified in the app immediately.

One day before I received the deactivation notice, I received an email from GrubHub saying, because my acceptance rate was below 50%, my ability to schedule blocks will be restricted going forward.

Was this a coincidence?

Nowhere in the contract does it say you have to maintain a certain acceptance rate to remain a partner.

And we cannot accept lowball offers and expect to make a livable wage.

Grubhub has been a main source of income since 2018. It is not only a job, but something I enjoy doing.

And doing it through the pandemic helped me to make, helped to make me realize the value of what it is to be an essential worker.

With this being said, drivers deserve better.

And I hope my story can help influence change in a way that companies like GrubHub can be held more accountable so that drivers are better taken care of.

I hope to be heard and to become a driver again.

With the help of Working Washington and the Pay Up campaign, Seattle continues to set the bar for the rest of the country for the big worker industry.

Going forward, I would like to leave with the following question for the Seattle City Council.

Can we continue to count on your support?

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Joelle Kraft.

And after Joelle, we'll move back to in-person public comment, Kay Ness.

Joelle.

Good morning, council members, and thank you so much for taking this time to listen to all of us.

My name is Joelle Kraft, and I'm a gig worker in Seattle, and I'm testifying in regards to the deactivation of gig workers.

As we've seen since the beginning of these types of companies have continued to do the least amount of protections and the most destructive towards their workers.

We saw several not even follow the laws that the city made at the beginning of the pandemic and they did this to make more money on the backs of their workers.

I worked for Rover and still I have zero protections from this city because we were left behind again.

Why are we only protecting some gig workers?

To me, it seems that these very wealthy companies get to do whatever they want, including deactivation, which is the hardest thing for a worker.

This amounts to getting fired with no repercussions towards the company if it was wrongfully done.

People lie about others, and because certain workers have protections, they are not able to address these types of situations.

With the way these companies are doing things now, the customer is always right, and it doesn't matter that the worker did nothing wrong.

We are past the time to protect workers, and at this point, it's become obvious that these companies have more of an ear to the council than your constituents who actually vote you in.

This was apparent, and it's still apparent, when after we had done all the stakeholder meetings and come to all these agreements, then last minute, there's a ton of amendments on stuff that we had already discussed in the stakeholder meetings.

We keep getting blindsided.

These companies aren't doing a good service to our city if they're constantly dropping some of our best workers, or even just their workers, because they would rather take away someone else's money just so that they can get more.

This is how we live, and honestly, deactivation without strong protection policies is a fast track to houselessness.

Because if we don't get paid, we can't pay our rent, and then, well, as you know, the trickle down effect of that.

please pass these protections and add market-based workers to all the other protections as well.

Thank you so much for your time, and I appreciate all of you.

Thanks so much.

Our next speaker is Kay Ness, and Kay will be followed by Maria Hernandez with interpreter Hannah Sabio-Temp.

Hello, thank you.

My name is Kay Neff.

I lead the government affairs team at Rover, a company headquartered here in Seattle's District 7. My comment today regards CB 120580. Specifically, I ask for the committee's support for amendments 8B and 11. These amendments resolve cross-references that would otherwise conflict with existing legislation previously passed by the council and address other considerations.

Both amendments are important and align with the values of this bill.

Thank you for this committee's consideration, as well as the work and engagement of central staff and council staff, which is much recognized and appreciated.

Thanks so much.

Next speaker is Maria Hernandez with interpreter Hannah Savio Hemp.

Ow, sorry.

Buenos dias.

My name is Maria Trinidad Hernandez.

I work for DoorDash and I support the PYAP policy.

I started working at DoorDash in July 2019. My husband was fired and it was very difficult for us to find work due to the pandemic.

So we both started working from home.

La flexibilidad es importante para mí porque tenemos dos niñas que tenemos que recoger y llevar a la casa, a la escuela, y yo también estaba tomando clases en el colegio comunitario, por lo que necesitaba tiempo libre los martes y jueves.

Si tuviéramos trabajo de lunes a viernes, no nos daría el tiempo ni la flexibilidad que necesitamos para cuidar a nuestra familia.

Pero la paga es imposible de vivir.

DoorDash dice que estamos ganando 27 por hora, pero esto es mentira.

Mis ganancias para el mes de marzo fueron un poco menos de $1,230, y con mis costos totales de gasolina, estacionamiento, y si pasa, seguranza de auto, fueron de $516.

Y falta el pago del automóvil, dentista, medicamento, renta, teléfono, etc. ¿Cuánto llevaré a casa?

Tenemos que trabajar muchas horas bajo un gran estrés y correr el riesgo de tener accidentes.

Tuve un accidente haciendo una entrega y tuve que comprar un auto nuevo porque era más caro arreglar el auto que comprar uno nuevo.

Obtuve un préstamo el año pasado para comprar el auto.

El préstamo era de $14,000 y ahora todavía debo $12,000.

El auto en diciembre de 2021 tenía 21,000 millas.

Hoy, 16 meses después, mi auto tiene más de 50,000 millas.

Me diagnosticaron cáncer de mama el año pasado y tuve que dejar de trabajar porque estaba en quimioterapia.

Me afectó financieramente tremendo.

no no tuve no pude ayudar con las facturas que compartimos y estaba preocupada por los pagos mensuales de mi automóvil, tarjeta de crédito, medicamentos, etcétera.

Necesitamos urgentemente que nos paguen 73 centavos por milla porque el costo que pagamos por el kilometraje es de 58 centavos y manejamos millas adicionales entre pedidos.

El precio de la gasolina sube todos los días y tengo que llenar el tanque para seguir trabajando.

Me gustaría invitar a los cabilderos y portavoces que se oponen a PAYAP, a que se unan a mí en mi turno diario, para que puedan ver lo que hacemos.

Las personas sentadas en sus oficinas, en sus sofás, no tienen idea de lo que tenemos que pasar en el trabajo.

Somos nosotros los que compramos comida para mascotas, supermercados, licorerias, esperando en los restaurantes el pedido de una cena para llevársela a los clientes.

Somos nosotros los que compramos y entregamos y damos dos o tres vueltas a la manzana para encontrar estacionamiento.

Dedicamos tiempo y kilometrajes que las compañías no nos pagan.

Please wrap up.

Thank you so much.

Please go ahead.

You can send the interpretation and writing.

Please.

Okay.

Oh.

Okay, I work for DoorDash and I support the pay up policy.

I started working on DoorDash in July, 2019. My husband had been laid off and we had a hard time finding work because of the pandemic.

So we both started doing gig work.

The flexibility is important to me because we have two girls we need to pick up and take home from school.

And I was also taking classes in community college.

So I needed time off on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

My mother needs support for her doctor's appointments and my husband translates for her.

If we had Monday through Friday jobs, they wouldn't give us the type of flexibility we need to take care of our families.

But the pay is impossible to live on.

DoorDash says we're earning $27 an hour, but this is a lie.

My earnings for the month of March were just under $1,230.

And with my total costs of $671, I brought home less than $600.

We have to work many hours under heavy stress and face the risk of getting into accidents.

I got into an accident doing a delivery and had to buy a new car because it was more expensive to fix the car than buy a new one.

I got a loan last year to get the car and the loan was $13,000 and now I'm down to 12,000.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer last year and had to stop working because I was doing chemotherapy.

It affected me financially tremendously.

I was not able to help with the bills we share and I was worried about monthly payments for my car.

I'd like to invite the lobbyists and spokespeople opposing payup to join me on my daily shift so they can see everything we do.

The people sitting in their offices, on their couches, they have no idea what we have to go through at work.

We are the ones shopping for dog food, waiting at restaurants for a dinner order to take it to customers.

We're the ones shopping and delivering, circling the block two or three times to find parking, putting in time and mileage that DoorDash is not paying for, that has to come out of our pockets.

We are not earning what the apps say.

Uber and Lyft drivers want a pay policy.

We are workers too, and we need a pay floor too.

This is a job, no matter how many hours we work it.

We need pay up now.

We cannot wait.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker joining us virtually is Mary Lucezzi and the interpreter for Mary Lucezzi.

And.

Checking to see.

If Maria, you're the interpreter for Mary Luchese, we do need you to hit star 6 to unmute yourself.

Hello, this is the interpreter.

Just one moment.

Thank you.

Hello, this is I am Mary Luchese, and I work for Instacart, and I worked for Instacart for six years.

Deactivation became an issue when I had left the app for work.

The deactivation reasoning was Very simple.

Many workers are expected to do a job well done regardless of any kind of barrier.

You have to consider store availability on items and also traffic.

Some customers, even if I asked if they wanted a replacement item, of a different kind or a refund, and if everything was found in the store and brought to a customer, some customers would report that the items were bad or missing, but that was untrue.

And that way, the customer would get a refund from Instacart, and the company would lose some money.

But that was some reasoning behind it.

Deactivation.

One reason for deactivation from Instacart was high mileage and low pay.

If that would happen often you would receive a deactivation.

I'm asking the council to pass protections to protect shoppers.

Thank you for listening.

I appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

That was our last online public speaker.

We still have two in-person public speakers.

We'll have Kimberly Wolf followed by Danielle Alvarado.

Kimberly Wolf, gig worker.

First of all, let me just tell you, you should be voting no on every one of these amendments.

None of them are in alignment with the intent of the original bill.

This is last minute trying to go around the stakeholder meeting and shove it down our throats, and it's disgusting.

You're the Public Safety Committee, and you're looking at the safety of the public.

But you know what?

Gig workers are part of the public.

And frankly, we are way more likely to be unsafe than our customers in all these interactions.

And I really, Don't like being treated like guilty before proven innocent in a lot of these amendments that we've been doing.

Trying to keep every tiny little thing that could go wrong to the public at the expense of gig workers.

And our livelihood is being taken away at just snap of the fingers, not even real fingers, just an algorithm, because they don't look at it.

And you'll hear these apps say, oh, we take the safety so, you know, it's so important.

Well, what have they done in the last couple of years for our safety?

I don't think they take that into account, really.

It's just about the money.

We know it's just about the money.

So I'm looking at these, you know, right of action.

Okay, what you want to gut that because gig workers sometimes need help from third parties to be able to take this stuff to court.

You know, we're not big corporations with a lot of money.

things like, I just, you know what?

They're all bad.

They're all bad.

They got it.

And just vote no.

Just put something, a semblance of a decent bill forward to the council.

And do not give marketplace apps a pass on this.

It may have, there may have been something in terms of the pay and stuff and whatnot,

so much.

Danielle Alvarado.

Good morning, Councilmembers.

Danielle Alvarado, Executive Director of Working Washington, and on behalf of our entire organization, I want to express our appreciation for the diligent work that has gone into this policy over the past several months.

Thank you to our bill sponsors who have remained committed to this policy and to the workers who have been at the forefront of this effort for the last three years.

Thank you to the workers who have shown up time and time again to bravely share their stories and the impact of deactivation on their lives.

I want to give an acknowledgment to the thoughtful engagement in particular of TaskRabbit and Rover over the last few weeks who have really engaged in detail with us to understand worker priorities and to communicate some of their needs.

When we talk about policy and we come to spaces like this, sometimes these conversations can get abstract.

And what we've heard today, even as recently as a few weeks ago, workers are losing their livelihoods right now with no notice and no explanation.

This policy will put an end to what is an urgent crisis for workers and we will all be better off when it is in effect.

workers will be able to support themselves, customers will be able to rely on skilled service providers, and more money will be invested in our local economy.

We appreciate the progress that's been made to strengthen the bill and we believe it's ready.

We urge you to advance it as drafted full council as soon as possible so we can all start benefiting from it.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

That is our last person signed up to testify who is present.

That we will move close public comment and move into.

The meat of the meeting will clerk please read in agenda item 1.

Agenda Item 1 is Council Bill 120580, an ordinance relating to app-based worker labor standards, establishing labor standards on deactivation protections for app-based workers working in Seattle, amending Section 3.02.125 of the Seattle Municipal Code, and adding a new Chapter 8.40 to the Seattle Municipal Code.

Thanks so much.

As mentioned, we're going to consider the rest of today's amendments.

I think there's eight that we still have before us and At the termination, completion of voting on those amendments, vote on the bill.

For mutually exclusive amendments, I believe 10A and 10B are mutually exclusive.

Just confirm that, but we'll have central staff speak to that.

For that, I just want to clarify the process for mutually exclusive amendments.

Each amendment will be presented by central staff, described.

and the speaker can speak to each of the amendments, then I will request a motion and a second on the first version and we'll proceed with votes.

And with that, I think I'll just hand it over to Council Central staff for introductions and other opening comments to get us going.

Good morning, Council Members.

My name is Jasmine Marwaha on Council Central staff.

And I am Karina Bull on Council Central staff.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Any opening remarks to get us rolling or should we just jump in?

All right.

Very good.

Thank you so much.

Let's jump in.

The first amendment for the committee's consideration is Amendment 8B, sponsored by Council Member Nelson.

I'm sorry, Karina.

I do need to get the bill in front of us.

Thank you so much.

My apologies.

I didn't mean to interrupt or add confusion to the process.

So I will move to put Council Bill 120580 before the committee.

May I have a second?

Second.

Thank you.

So Council Bill 120580 is before us.

And now let's move into the description of the First Amendment.

Thank you.

All right.

Thanks for that.

this is the first time I've heard about this and I'm excited about it.

thank you.

limiting the requirement to network companies covered by the app-based worker minimum payment ordinance, and it would remove coverage for this requirement by no longer covering companies that are regulated by the independent contractor protections ordinance.

As a result, marketplace network companies would not be required to establish this accessible system because they are not covered by the app-based worker minimum payment ordinance, and they are covered for certain types of offers by the independent contractor protections ordinance, but that ordinance would be removed.

They are required to comply with other access to records requirements and would be subject to a rebuttable presumption of violation if the Marketplace Network Company failed to disclose adequate records.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

Any clarifying questions before I ask for a motion?

No clarifying comments or questions?

All right, let's get this in front of us.

Is there a motion for Amendment 8B?

So moved.

Second.

Thank you.

It's been moved and seconded to adopt Amendment 8B.

Council Member Nelson, would you like to speak to Amendment 8B?

Thank you very much.

This is a request from Rover and TaskRabbit.

So, just a little bit more information.

Amendment 8B seeks to resolve cross-references that are either unnecessary or would create unintended conflicts between pieces of legislation.

For example, section 8.37 refers to the minimum payment legislation, which is not applicable to marketplace network companies.

This amendment clarifies that only companies subject to section 8.37 would be required to report this information.

And the removal of the reference to section 14.34.060, that relates to a bill that was passed in 2021 relating to independent contractor provisions.

And it's already in effect, so all companies subject to this law are already required to comply.

and creating a new obligation to provide this information via an accessible system is unnecessary and was not contemplated when the bill was passed.

And as I said, I think at our last meeting, I do not see this as in conflict with 8A.

I think that it is more of a, it's complementary.

Thank you so much.

Just want to, again, underscore this was an amendment that we discussed in our last meeting.

The amendment previously as drafted was legally untenable because it held companies to a standard that they legally aren't held to.

In our previous piece of pay-up legislation, the marketplace companies, unfortunately, are not covered by that law.

So we cannot retroactively make them covered in this law.

So we've resolved that conflict that was, I think, a legal problem while still upholding the underlying goal of making sure that there is the accessibility contemplated by this section.

So really appreciate the work that Councilmember Nelson has done on this amendment to get it to a place where we are still supporting the policy intentions of the bill and I will be voting yes.

Are there other comments or questions?

Looking online to see if there are any online comments or questions.

Seeing none.

Will the clerk please call the roll on adoption of Amendment 8B.

Council Member Mosqueda.

No.

Council Member Nelson.

Aye.

Council Member Peterson.

Yes.

Vice Chair Lewis.

Yes.

Chair Herbold.

Yes.

Four yes, one no.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

The amendment is adopted and we can move on to the next amendment and that's amendments 10A and 10B.

10A and 10B are mutually exclusive amendments to the requirement for network companies to affirmatively provide the Office of Labor Standards with records on a regular basis.

10A is sponsored by Councilmember Nelson, and it would revise this requirement as follows.

It would require affirmative transmittal of records to OLS on at least a yearly basis.

Right now, the ordinance would require it on at least a quarterly basis.

It would remove the requirement for network companies to provide documents as they are updated, and it would also remove the OLS director's authority to identify other records for automatic transmittal to the office.

Amendment 10b is sponsored by Councilmember Lewis and that amendment would have a different timeline for the transmittal of records.

It would be on at least a quarterly basis until July 1 of 2026 and every six months thereafter and it also would remove the requirement for network companies to provide documents as they are updated.

Requiring records on at least a quarterly basis until July 1 of 2026 would temporarily provide OLS with more frequent information to inform their implementation report that is due to Council no later than September 1 of 2026. This implementation report is due about 10 months before OLS would transition from only enforcing the procedure requirements to enforcing all of the substantive requirements of the ordinance, so it is intended to help the council understand the impact of procedural informants and what is financially necessary for full implementation.

Thank you so much.

Since these are mutually exclusive amendments, I would like to give both of the sponsoring council members an opportunity to address them.

Council Member Nelson, would you please speak to Amendment 10A?

Sure, I think that we're basically splitting hairs here a little bit, getting down into the weeds, depending on if it's quarterly or yearly, quarterly until a certain point.

So I am not going to battle that issue.

I do think that requiring companies to turn over data day after day, week after week, with each change is burdensome.

But I am going to withdraw this for lack of sufficient support and go ahead and listen to the presentation on 10B.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Council Member Lewis.

Thank you, Councilmember Herbold.

I don't completely agree with the characterization that they're mutually exclusive amendments.

I think there's components in Councilmember Nelson's underlying amendment that would remain if 10B eventually hung, but I'm not going to debate that with central staff.

I do appreciate the sponsor of 10A withdrawing their amendment in favor of 10B.

I do think it's important to have the quarterly reporting requirement as was alluded to by the central staff presentation to inform the implementation report that's going to be due at the end of the 18-month period.

I do think that it is a reasonable request that we've heard from our stakeholder and with the platforms.

to pivot to a different ongoing reporting standard and a reporting standard that's more consistent in terms of the requirement to require true-ups and updates.

And a six-month standard, I think, is an eminently reasonable way to resolve this issue.

So for that reason, I've put 10B forward, asked for the support of my colleagues in adopting 10B into the underlying legislation.

Thank you so much for speaking to both of those amendments.

Council Member Lewis, would you like to make a motion?

I move 10B.

Thank you.

I second 10B.

Second.

Thank you so much.

So let's move to discussion of 10B.

Are there additional comments Council Member Lewis you would like to make about 10B?

No, thank you.

Okay, looking to see if there are others either online.

or in person, not seeing any online, just a few remarks for myself.

We understand that the goal is for OLS to be required to report to council 18 months after the effective date of the ordinance.

The concern is that a yearly reporting would not provide enough data and evidence for the report.

And annual reporting will substantially increase the administrative burden on the Office of Labor Standards, making it more difficult to ensure compliance.

So, I appreciate this other option.

I will be voting to support 10B.

I believe it is a reasonable compromise between OLS's needs for affirmative reporting, for enforcement.

and the platform's request for less arduous reporting schedules, and do see 10B as yet another compromise approach.

Retaining the director's determination of what materials are necessary for the enforcement of the ordinance is important, and I believe the schedule of affirmative production of records supports both workers and the platform companies.

Any closing remarks?

Seeing none.

Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll on Amendment 10B?

Council Member Mosqueda?

Aye.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Aye.

Vice Chair Lewis?

Yes.

Chair Herbold?

Yes.

Five yes.

Thanks so much.

Next up is Amendment 11. Central staff, can you please describe Amendment 11?

Yes.

Amendment 11 would exclude marketplace network companies from the requirement to establish an accessible system for app-based workers to understand their eligibility to challenge a deactivation.

Currently, the ordinance requires that a worker have this accessible system via an app or online portal to access information they would need to understand their coverage, like when they've reached that 10% threshold.

So in place of establishing an accessible system, this amendment would require that marketplace network companies provide such information upon request to the app-based worker via email.

Thanks so much.

Before I ask the sponsor for a motion of the amendment, do any council members have any clarifying questions for council central staff about the amendment?

Not seeing any, may I have a motion for amendment 11?

I move amendment 11. Thank you.

Second.

Thank you so much.

We have a motion and a second.

Council Member Nelson, would you like to speak to Amendment 11?

Sure.

This is another rover-and-task-rabbit request, and my office has worked with Council Member Herbold's office on this last week.

So, Amendment 11 seeks to resolve an additional cross-reference that would create unintentional conflicts between this legislation and the pay-up legislation, Section 8.37.

It also enables marketplace network companies to comply with the requirements to enable app-based workers to understand their eligibility to challenge a deactivation via email as opposed to an accessible system.

Marketplace network companies believe that email is the ideal method of communication in cases of deactivation because it enables workers to maintain records of their communication to the company without relying on the ability to log into a system.

and avoids the engineering challenges relevant to enabling access to the system by a worker who's been deactivated.

And the cross-reference to section 14.34 relates to independent contractor provisions that are unnecessary to include.

This law is already in effect, so all companies subject to this law are already required to comply, and creating a new obligation to provide this information via an accessible system is unnecessary and was not contemplated when the bill was passed.

Thank you, Councilmember Nelson.

Are there other comments on Amendment 11 from Councilmembers online or with us today?

Not seeing any virtual hands or in-person hands.

Say a few words about Amendment 11. Again, marketplace companies were not required by the minimum pay standards to make these type of records accessible before.

There's a cross-reference to a bill that marketplace companies are not held to.

So there is a legal issue with scooping in marketplace companies for a requirement in another piece of legislation that they're not covered.

And we simply can't have that language included in the bill.

I understand that marketplace companies have spoken about the challenges in creating an accessible system via smartphone app or web portal.

These are challenges that I am still hopeful that the marketplace companies can work to build, but nevertheless, even without these systems, It does, this particular compromise does not delay, hinder, or in any other way limit the deactivation procedures and rights for the app-based workers.

So for that reason, I am going to be voting in favor of Amendment 11. Council Member Nelson, any closing comments?

Nope, thank you.

All right, with that, Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll?

Councilor Mosqueda.

No.

Councilor Nelson.

Aye.

Councilor Peterson.

Yes.

Vice Chair Lewis.

Yes.

Chair Herbold.

Yes.

Four in support, one no.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

The amendment is adopted.

We can move on to the next amendment.

Next up is amendment 12. Council Central staff, can you please describe amendment 12?

Amendment 12 is sponsored by Councilmember Nelson, and it would revise network company recordkeeping requirements by removing the requirement to retain a compliance file, which is an itemized list in the ordinance of particular documents that network companies must retain to document compliance.

And it also would remove the rebuttable presumption that failure to retain records constitutes a violation.

So in summary, if this amendment were to pass, network companies would still be required to retain records that document compliance for each deactivation of a worker and would be required to retain those records for a period of three years.

Thank you so much.

Do council members, any council members have a clarifying question or comment about this amendment before we get it in front of us?

Looking online for virtual hands, not seeing any, none in person.

Council Member Nelson, would you like to make a motion?

Well, before that, I would like to just say something.

This legislation is supposed to be about preventing unwarranted deactivations, and demonstration of compliance should be related to preventing unwarranted deactivations.

And so that's why I put this forward.

I wanted to avoid adding a lot of paper-pushing requirements around what around a compliance file, but I am going to withdraw this for lack of sufficient support.

Thank you for speaking to the basis for the amendment.

Appreciate understanding that you are intending to withdraw it.

And with that, we will move on to Amendment 13. Council Central Staff.

So Amendment 13 is sponsored by Councilmember Peterson and would revise the private right of action section to remove the ability of any person or class of persons to bring a civil action for violation of Chapter 840 and instead limit it to any app-based worker or class of app-based workers.

This amendment would prevent an entity from bringing an action if a member of that entity has suffered an injury or retaliation due to a violation of the chapter.

or from bringing an action on behalf of aggrieved workers.

Thank you so much.

Just checking to see if there are clarifying questions before I invite Council Member Peterson to make a motion.

Seeing none, Council Member Peterson, would you like to move the amendment?

Thank you, Chair Herbold.

Colleagues, I move to approve Amendment 13 to Council School 120580. Second.

to adopt amendment 13. Councilmember Peterson, would you like to speak to it?

Thank you.

I appreciate central staff walking through that.

And colleagues, as I understand it, this legislation provides the city's office of labor standards substantial enforcement powers for this brand-new law.

In fact, we reinforce those powers for that city government department with the substitute bill at our previous committee meeting.

So as currently written, I'm concerned this provision opening up a private right of action would be essentially contracting out enforcement job duties of our city government's Office of Labor Standards.

I presume that the private sector lawyers would love to give anyone the right to hire them and sue, but because we already have the Office of Labor Standards and because this legislation is already breaking new ground, I believe we should instead appropriately target or tailor this right of legal action to those most affected by and those most relevant to each case, rather than opening up the floodgates to potentially frivolous lawsuits.

This amendment narrows the class of persons who are able to pursue civil action for violation of Chapter 8.40 to an app-based worker or a collective group of app-based workers.

Stated another way, the intent of this amendment is to allow for collective action, but to narrow the aggrieved parties able to pursue civil action to those directly involved in the incident as an app-based worker.

This amendment would appropriately, yeah, so that summarizes what this is doing.

Thank you.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

Are there any additional comments?

Looking online, not seeing any virtual hands, not seeing any.

Oh, Council Member Nelson, yes.

So this makes sense to me, Council Member Peterson.

Is this basically making, what other, normally do we provide for this language person or class of person to engage upon a private right of action for other pieces of legislation that we've passed?

might be a question for central staff.

Sure.

If I understand the question, is this language is a, what is more common in our labor standards code?

The language, any person or class of persons is typically what is in our labor standards codes.

I look back to all our labor standards back to minimum wage and the private right of action section uses person or class of persons.

And is that the same with labor regulations at the state level?

I am not aware of that right now.

We could look into, but not at the moment.

I'm sorry.

I heard what Council Member Peterson said about frivolous lawsuits, so he had me there.

Thank you.

Thanks so much.

Are there any additional questions or comments?

Not seeing any.

Just on my part, just want to share that I do support the standardized language that we have in our other labor rights.

It's, I think, important to have some standardization, especially in this case that OLS may not be ready to enforce much of the bill until policies and resources are developed and made available and the private right of action option is available for people when those instances where the Office of Labor Standards is dealing with resource challenges, making it difficult to enforce the ordinance.

And again, this is the standard language that we have in our other labor rights here in Seattle.

So I will not be voting in favor of this amendment.

Councilmember Peterson, any additional comments?

Thank you, Chair Humboldt.

No, I don't have any additional comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Clerk, can you please call the roll on Amendment 13?

Councilmember Mosqueda?

No.

Councilmember Nelson?

Aye.

Councilmember Peterson?

Yes.

Vice Chair Lewis?

No.

Two yes, three no.

Mr. Chair?

The motion fails and the amendment is not adopted.

Thank you.

Moving on to Amendment 14. Council Central staff, can you please describe Amendment 14?

Yes, Amendment 14 sponsored by Councilmember Nelson would remove certain references to words throughout the legislation such as fair, reasonable, reasonably, and objective.

Thank you so much.

Let's see, do we have any clarifying comments or questions from Council Central staff before I invite Councilmember Nelson to speak to Amendment 14?

I'm sorry, Madam Chair, can you please have central staff repeat that sentence?

Council central staff?

Yes, this amendment would remove references to certain words throughout the legislation such as fair, reasonable, reasonably and objective.

Okay, thank you so much.

All right, if there are no clarifying comments or questions.

Council Member Nelson, would you like to make a motion?

I move Amendment 14.

Okay, was there a second?

Second.

Thank you, Council Member Peterson.

The amendment has been moved and seconded.

Council Member Nelson, would you like to speak to Amendment 14?

Sure, this is my amendment.

So words like fair, unfair, abhorrent, wrong, egregious are commonly used as a persuasive device to elicit emotion in campaigns, and this is a campaign.

But they have no place in statute because they're imprecise, open to interpretation, and purely subjective.

So for example, fair to whom?

The worker, the network company, the The customer, the puppy, et cetera.

So the very fact that we spent so much time defining how bad conduct has to be to be deemed egregious makes my point.

So I would have gone after that word itself, but it was too embedded in this legislation.

And I left a few instances of reasonable intact in there when it approximated its use as a legal term of art.

But for the rest, I ask that we get rid of the words that negate the ideals of neutrality and impartiality and universal applicability inherent in the letter of the law and open it up to interpretation and contestation.

So that is what I'm trying to get at here.

Thank you, Council Member Nelson.

Are there any comments about Amendment 14 from council members?

I'll take a comment Madam Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Mosqueda.

I just want to make sure that we're not having an opportunity to rewrite history or have amnesia on how labor standards are created from the national to the state to the local level.

We often talk about fair labor standards and fair for workers because we're trying to level the playing field.

I absolutely will be voting no on this.

I don't need to argue the points about why, but I do want to make sure that I state for the record that there's clear examples of where fair is often included, including the other words that are trying to be struck today in this amendment.

So clearly, I'll be voting no on this, but I did want to set the record straight that this is a standard practice for how we set fair labor standards.

Repeatedly, local, state, and national policy uses these often, so I want to make sure that that's abundantly understood.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair.

Other comments from council members online or in person?

Just a few words.

You know, words like fair and reasonable may not have a specific legal definition, but they do have legal implications.

I'm just concerned that these changes would have a series of unintended consequences, both from the perspective of app-based workers and the platforms.

For instance, an amendment that changes a requirement for network companies to reasonably believe that information could compromise the customer's safety in order to anonymize or summarize information related to a deactivation to simply believing so is a change that has an actual implication.

Similarly, a reasonable time period will have a very different interpretation in the courts from simply a time period.

And again, these words fair and reasonable have significant legal implications and given Again, the fact that this is language that is throughout our labor standards here in the city of Seattle, the removal of words with legal implications like this in our legal standards will not serve, I do not believe they will serve anybody.

So for that reason, I do not intend to vote in favor of this amendment.

Council Member Nelson, I see your hand is up.

Yeah, so I am just trying to find, I mean, in some, so for example, in the section under the definitions, zero to zero, under the, I am trying to also strengthen what's in there, so the word unfair is not listed in the effect statement, but I am getting rid of an unfair in this definition, so for example, threatening, retaliating, engaging in unfair immigration-related practices.

Well, what's a fair immigration-related practice?

So that is why I took out unfair and put in retaliatory.

So it's not just that I'm trying to get rid of these words, I'm also trying to be more precise.

Appreciate that, Council Member Nelson.

Are there any additional comments or questions?

Seeing none, can the clerk please call the roll on Amendment 14?

Council Member Mosqueda?

No.

Council Member Nelson?

Aye.

Council Member Peterson?

Abstain.

Vice Chair Lewis?

No.

Chair Herbold?

No.

One yes, three no, one abstention.

Thank you.

The motion carries.

The amendment, I'm sorry, the motion is defeated and the amendment is not adopted.

And as far as the last amendment on the agenda, Amendment 15, just for the viewing public and council members, we had prepared Amendment 15 today.

Councilmember Lewis and I are withdrawing it for the time being.

It was intended as a technical amendment clarifying OLS's role in enforcement.

It is an amendment that is very important to OLS, so we do need to have continued conversations about it.

It's a necessary clarification requested by the Office of Labor Standards.

So we will be continuing the discussion around this amendment.

And though I know it's not the preferred practice of the council, I have reached out already to Council President Moritz's office to let her know that we will be bringing a technical amendment forward at the request of OLS after engaging more with the stakeholders around the need for this amendment.

Waiting to see if there are any...

Council Member Nelson, is that a new hand?

No.

Okay.

Well, with that, we have gotten through all of the amendments before us today.

Really appreciate everybody's time.

And we can now return to the main motion.

Are there any further comments on Council Bill 120580 as amended?

Council Member Peterson.

Thank you, is this.

So you'd like us to speak to the fully amended bill because we're going to now vote on the fully amended bill, just to clarify.

That is correct.

Yes.

Okay, thank you.

Well, I've got some, yeah, some overall remarks if you don't mind.

The floor is yours.

All right, thank you, Chair Herbold.

So, colleagues, to add protections for workers in the quickly evolving gig economy, I voted yes for the pay up legislation and voted yes for the paid sick and safe time legislation.

Now we have another piece of well-intentioned legislation requested by advocacy groups led by a group called Working Washington.

And this bill before us aims to protect gig workers against unreasonable deactivations by the technology applications the workers use to connect with customers.

And because the Seattle City Council is once again plunging into uncharted territory with new and untested regulations of our local economy and several local employers, I wish the committee would have passed many more of these amendments.

The big picture is that by the end of this month, the city of Seattle will pass some form of this new regulation.

Therefore, I believe it's important to reinforce the fact that we are going from nothing to something new.

So the claims that we hear that amendments are watering down anything is misleading because we currently don't have any of these regulations today.

But we will have new regulations.

And so I believe it's our responsibility to be careful and how we craft and launch new wide reaching regulations.

Ideally, this third piece of legislation would be consistent.

We talked about standardization earlier.

Let's make it consistent with the pay up legislation and the paid sick and save time legislation by exempting the different business model of marketplace network companies where workers have the flexibility to set their own rates and conditions.

But that reasonable amendment to exempt marketplace network companies narrowly failed at a previous committee.

I'm thankful my colleagues voted for Amendment 2C, which amended the definition of egregious misconduct to include animals and adding acts of animal cruelty as an example of egregious misconduct.

However, as I stated at the June 27th Committee, passing Amendment 5B, which would have exempted pet care services as a unique business operation, was vital for me in order to consider supporting a larger experiment of this overall legislation, because that exemption would have provided the strongest pet protections and addressed legitimate privacy concerns we have heard from several pet owners around the city.

The committee also rejected Amendment 7B.

That was, I believe, a reasonable amendment.

It would have retained the 14-day notice rule, but enabled companies to, if they had The committee also rejected amendment 13, which would have appropriately, in my opinion, tailored the legal action available that supplements the work of our office of labor standards.

to a percentage lower than the 50%, which is now what's in the bill, which seems high to me, or excuse me, which retains it at 10%, which the amendment was to put it at 50%, which I think would have been more reasonable.

So again, I voted for the pay up compensation legislation, the paid sick and save time legislation.

I would like to get to a yes on this, but because we did not exempt marketplace network companies, because we, kept that threshold at the low 10%.

This is untested legislation on deactivation.

I cannot support the bill today in its present form, so I'll be voting no today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilmember Peterson.

Other comments on the bill?

Thank you very much.

I'll be abstaining today because I just don't want to box myself in, not having the final amendment 15. When we approved the substitute, the substitute included language that would have gone from OLS won't enforce to shall enforce.

So that's a big change.

So I really do want to see what's in the fine print.

And I also had conversation with the mayor's office last week about some thought about changing the threshold of the percent time worked within Seattle threshold, marketplace network companies, et cetera.

They did express their, the executive's support of excluding those companies from this legislation.

So I am going to wait until the final vote before stating my position.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councilmember Nelson.

Any other comments?

Councilmember Lewis?

Thank you so much, Chair Herbold.

I really appreciate the work of the committee and colleagues in presenting a lot of ideas to strengthen and clarify this legislation.

We have done a considerable amount of work in the last couple of weeks throughout July, sifting through lots of different amendments and refining some of those amendments to reach consensus, not only among ourselves, but among stakeholders to create a stronger bill.

So I do want to express my appreciation for that.

There are a couple of outstanding issues that I do want to continue working on in advance of a final vote on this legislation.

So I very much respect my colleagues who are choosing to abstain at this point in time to see how those conversations continue to develop.

I will, of course, be voting for this legislation today.

I appreciate the modifications that we have made to really seek to create a bill that is broadly respected among not just the advocates we are working for, working foreign partnership to extend protections that currently don't exist, but also the platforms who are providing these services through technologies hitherto unknown to deliver these kinds of services, who have reasonable requests for accommodations in places that might not have been immediately apparent to us as policy makers.

So I think that process has been very fruitful, and I really respect the good intentions of everybody who's been involved in this.

And we'll be voting to pass this out of committee, but that doesn't end the conversation.

Thank you so much, Councilmember Lewis.

Looking to see if there are other comments or hands raised online.

Not seeing any.

I think I'll close this out with a few comments of my own.

As...

We all know this bill has been a long time coming.

The pay-up protections have always been considered to be a suite of protections, and I know there are some others that are still out there that we're not going to be able to get to this year, but really have appreciated the work of the workers who have consistently shown up and been a strong, strong voice for the need of this legislation.

We started working on these bills in April of 2021, it's been two years.

And as workers have stated, these are very necessary protections.

And this industry is the fastest growing sector of the workforce, folks who are not otherwise protected by our labor laws.

Councilmember Peterson, you're right, this legislation is the first of its kind, and it's really exciting that we are setting a national standard that says that Seattle cares about its workers.

We're here to protect all workers in the city, and we're here to make sure that we are building a safer, more affordable city for all.

Really appreciate the work of council members getting through all the amendments.

Thank you, Vice Chair Lewis, for co-sponsoring this bill as well as the minimum compensation bill.

last year with me.

This has been a long journey.

Thank you as well to Council Central staff, Jasmine Marwaha, Karina Bull, and my own staff person, Sunny Nguyen.

Really appreciate that you have all been so available, picking up our calls, answering our emails at all hours of the night for this meaningful engagement and development of legislation.

I also want to thank the engagement of the apps in developing this legislation.

In particular, I want to thank TaskRabbit and Rover for their engagement and really hope they agree that we've gotten to a place where with this bill, with the additional amendments that we've worked on with them and done so in a way that allows them to protect their clients, their customers' interests and safety.

We've really considered the thoughts that you have pulled together during our discussions.

and again, appreciate the flexibility and engagement as we have modified these varied amendments.

With that, we are almost at the finish line.

In closing, just again, my gratitude to workers who have called and emailed to share your difficult stories, and look forward to bringing this forward in full council.

Will the clerk please call the roll on committee recommendation that council bill 120580 pass as amended.

Council Member Mosqueda.

Aye.

Council Member Nelson.

Abstain.

Council Member Peterson.

No.

Vice Chair Lewis.

Yes.

Chair Herbold.

Yes.

Three yes, one no, one abstention.

Thank you so much.

The motion carries.

The committee recommendation that the bill pass as amended.

We'll move on to the full council meeting on Tuesday, August 1st.

The next regularly scheduled public safety and human services committee is scheduled for Tuesday, July 25th.

If council members, committee members anticipate being absent for that meeting, please do let me know.

Before we adjourn, are there any other comments from my colleagues?

Seeing none, the time is 10.45 a.m., and we are adjourned.

Thank you.