It is partly an effort to reclassify gig workers as legitimate employees rather than independent contractors. The change would come at a cost to both drivers and riders.
Part of the motive is to recast gig workers as bona fide employees rather than independent contractors. The shift would come with costs for both drivers and riders.
Gig worker unionization could be coming to an Uber ride near you. On June 1, the Illinois legislature approved a measure enabling rideshare drivers in the Land of Lincoln to organize. The bill would affect roughly 100,000 Uber and Lyft drivers in the state and marks the third state to enact such a law within just the last three years.
Illinois isn’t alone. The push for gig-work unions is spreading, and observers expect it to impose burdens on both drivers and riders in the years ahead.
The arc of rideshare unionization begins in Massachusetts, which became the first state to allow rideshare drivers to unionize in 2024. Massachusetts is notable for a relatively easy path to organizing: a union that gains backing from 5 percent of drivers can request a list of all potential rideshare workers in the state to bolster its membership. If that union later signs up just 25 percent of eligible drivers, it becomes the certified bargaining representative for all drivers statewide.
That approach is known as sectoral bargaining, where bargaining occurs across an entire sector rather than at the level of individual firms. Sectoral bargaining has gained prominence in Europe and Australia and is preferred by unions as a cost-effective way to avoid the heavy lifting of organizing on a company-by-company basis.
The stakes could be enormous. In Massachusetts, the newly recognized App Drivers Union recently surpassed the 25 percent threshold and officially became the bargaining representative for 70,000 drivers statewide. That milestone stands as the largest private-sector union organizing win since United Auto Workers’ Ford victory in 1941.
The other two states that passed gig-unionization laws—California and now Illinois—have crafted their statutes in a similar fashion, again leaning on a sectoral bargaining framework.
The Illinois measure now rests on the desk of Democratic Governor J.B. Pritzker, who is expected to sign it; California, which approved gig unionization in 2025, could see as many as 800,000 gig workers in the state potentially unionized. Minnesota has also weighed similar legislation that could cover its 10,000 rideshare drivers.
While national union membership rates have barely moved in recent years—and linger near historic lows—this trend could reverse if hundreds of thousands of gig workers join unions in the coming decade.
These gig-union laws also enable binding interest arbitration: if the relevant companies and unions cannot reach a contract within a defined window—typically after several months—a government-backed arbitration panel may be appointed to impose contract terms on the parties.
Binding interest arbitration has long been a priority for organized labor, offering a mechanism to force terms on private businesses resistant to union demands. The approach is once again enjoying bipartisan appeal among policymakers.
In Congress, the Faster Labor Contracts Act (FLCA), backed by a small group of pro-union Republicans alongside clear Democratic support, recently passed the House and likewise relies on binding arbitration to resolve contract impasses. As with the FLCA, the Illinois rideshare bill drew some Republican support, underscoring a rising pro-labor current within the GOP at both state and federal levels.
Yet the push for rideshare unionization is at least partly a backdoor attempt to classify gig workers as full employees rather than independent contractors. The fight over how to classify gig workers peaked during California’s A.B. 5 debate in 2019, a move aimed at turning contractors into employees—a plan partially checked by voters in a subsequent ballot measure.
Even though direct reclassification efforts for gig workers have not secured the momentum progressives hoped for, gig unionization still nudges gig workers closer to traditional employee status. By its nature, negotiating sector-wide rules for rideshare drivers across an entire state imposes uniform standards on workers and platforms alike.
As a result, more platforms may lean toward scheduled employment models that cap how many workers can be active on a platform at once. This runs counter to what gig workers typically want—flexibility and the ability to log in at any time for gigs.
Indeed, this pattern has already appeared in places that have pushed aggressive minimum-wage rules for gig workers—another one-size-fits-all progressive labor policy that left-leaning cities have begun exporting to gig work in recent years. For example, after New York City enacted a minimum-wage regulation for app-based food delivery in 2023, the waitlist to become an UberEats driver swelled to 27,000 as Uber scaled back driver availability to curb mounting labor costs.
Regrettably, draconian sector-wide labor rules will also drive up the costs of operating these platforms, with the added expenses inevitably passed on to riders as higher Uber fares. (A similar price uptick has already been observed with the imposition of minimum-wage mandates for food delivery.)
The gig-worker unionization drive sweeping across the country could be a sleeping giant. It might swell union membership, expand sectoral bargaining nationwide, and spur the adoption of binding-arbitration procedures that could upend America’s long-standing tradition of voluntary labor negotiations.
The consequences of continuing down this path are clear for both riders and drivers.
