The “Worker Flexibility and Choice Act,” or HR 8442, would change the Fair Labor Standards Act so that “employee” does not include a person who has entered into a worker-flexibility agreement, such as workers for gig companies like Uber Technologies Inc., DoorDash Inc., Lyft Inc., and others. The bill would amend Internal Revenue Code to say that an individual who enters into any such agreement would not be treated as an employee, and the company for which that person performs a service would not be treated as an employer.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, and co-sponsored by Reps. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Michelle Steel, R-Calif., calls for workers subject to worker-flexibility agreements to have some rights guaranteed to employees, such as those related to privacy, nondiscrimination, nonharassment, nonretaliation and safety, plus time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. It does not call for wage and hour protections to which employees are entitled — including rules on minimum wage and overtime — and would supersede all federal, state and local laws on wages for workers in a worker-flexibility agreement.

Oh joy, it offers minor protections while cutting off the possibility of proper labor classification. Any resistance to this will have the same tired response of, 'Telephone servants should have a nondiscriminatory environment! Why do you hate the working class?!'