SEATTLE (CN) — On the eve before a Seattle ordinance intending to provide protections for app-based gig workers is set to take effect, a federal judge sided with the city over a pair of delivery app platforms, declining in a Tuesday order to block Seattle from enforcing the ordinance.
“The court finds that the ordinance’s requirements do little more than regulate conduct without any significant impact on speech or expression,” U.S. District Judge Marsha J. Pechman wrote in the 16-page order issued just hours after a Tuesday hearing for a temporary restraining order.
Rideshare and delivery platforms Uber and Instacart had asked for the temporary restraining order to block the city from enforcing its App-Based Worker Deactivation Rights Ordinance, which they say violates their free speech rights.
The ordinance will go into effect Wednesday and specifically focuses on deactivations — when a driver or courier’s account is permanently or temporarily taken offline, or, in other words, fired — and prohibits companies with 250 or more app-based employees worldwide from deactivating workers without having a clear policy and explanation behind the action.
Uber had argued that the ordinance restricted its free speech by forcing it to change its policy.
“The ordinance requires Uber to adopt and communicate a policy on safety and deactivation with which it disagrees,” Robert Maguire, an attorney with the Seattle-based Davis Wright Tremaine firm representing Uber said earlier Tuesday morning during the temporary restraining order hearing.
For instance, he said, it requires companies to explain why a worker has been deactivated and give a worker two weeks of notice before they are deactivated, which the company said can allow bad actors to take advantage.
But the judge found that the ordinance only “limits the grounds on which Uber may justify a termination” and requires them to be related to safety and efficiency without requiring the company to define what it believes is safe or efficient.
“Uber’s additional claims that the ordinance forces it to publicly endorse the city’s view on safety also ring hollow,” Pechman wrote.
Pechman also disagreed with the company’s argument that its expressive associative rights were violated.
“This claim fails for the simple reason that the ordinance does not implicate expressive conduct,” Pechman said, adding that the company’s relationship with its app workers is commercial and essentially that of an employer and employee, which is not expressive.
The company had also argued that the ordinance was unconstitutionally vague and therefore violated the due process clause of Fourteenth Amendment, which Pechman rejected.
“This is not a vagueness problem rather than a fundamental disagreement between Uber and the city as to what policies are reasonably related to the safe and efficient operation of delivery services,” Pechman wrote.
The city’s position was that Uber remains free to say what it wishes, including that it disagrees with the ordinance, as long as it implements the provisions of the ordinance. The ordinance is simple conduct regulation, the city argued at the hearing.
“Seattle’s interest here is protecting workers from unwarranted firing,” Jessica Goldman, an attorney with Seattle-based Summit Law Group representing the city, said. She argued that the company’s firing practices have disproportionately affected people of color.
Following the companies’ logic would mean Uber and Instacart could violate Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules if they deemed it part of their vision, Seattle said.
Uber claimed that it had tried to work directly with the city to clarify the terms of the ordinance throughout the year but was unsuccessful. Thus, it filed a complaint in federal court on Dec. 19 seeking intervention to block the ordinance from taking effect until its concerns could be addressed and its questions around enforcement could be answered. Instacart intervened to join the suit on Dec. 23.
“None of us really wanted to do this at the end of the year the way we did, but Uber does not take lightly the idea of suing the city, an important regulator, and wanted to give every opportunity to try and work through these issues with the city,” Maguire said at the hearing.
Pechman questioned the global ride-hailing and delivery platform as to why, if there remains so much uncertainty around certain terms of and the enforcement of the provision, Uber needs immediate intervention.
“What’s the rush?” Pechman asked. “I mean, how can you be harmed by tomorrow if there’s no enforcement?”
Uber had argued that because the ordinance — passed by the Seattle City Council in August 2023 with a 6-2 vote — contains a private right of action, it will be at risk unless it imposes each change required by the ordinance by Jan. 1.
At the end of the hearing, Pechman expressed doubt that Uber couldn’t have filed its complaint earlier and left more time for court proceedings before the ordinance was set to take effect.
“In this instance, what was hard for me to swallow was your own granting of yourselves a continuance to have your briefing due on Christmas Eve,” Pechman said. “By doing that, or agreeing that you could have more time, you essentially cut back the time that the court has to work on your case.”
Pechman said her court staff lost their time off to work on the case and asked the parties to consider the impact they have on the court in the future.