"We Don't Set Our Own Wages" 100,000 Illinois Drivers Move Closer to Bargaining With Uber and Lyft

Uber and Lyft drivers who spent months making trips to Springfield say the battle was never just about union recognition. It was about watching fuel receipts grow, repair bills stack up and accounts disappear from an app with little warning while the next rent payment kept getting closer.

House Bill 5090 cleared the Illinois General Assembly and now sits on Gov. JB Pritzker's desk. If signed, the measure would allow rideshare drivers across the state to band together and negotiate industrywide agreements with the companies controlling the platforms.

Nearly 100,000 people could fall under the proposal. Many spend their own money on insurance, tires, oil changes, brakes and vehicle depreciation while software systems determine fares and dispatch rides. Drivers argue that one bad week of repairs can erase days of earnings.

The legislation would establish a structure for selecting representatives and negotiating compensation, benefits and account deactivation appeals, as reported by Capitol News Illinois.

Independent contractor status has long separated rideshare drivers from many protections available to traditional employees. Organizers contend that state-level bargaining offers one of the few available routes for influencing pay rates and company policies without changing federal labor classifications.

State Sen. Ram Villivalam said the proposal grew from conversations with drivers throughout his district. "This goes back to a fundamental belief that when workers are able to organize and have a collective voice, that does lead to better wages, benefits and working conditions," Villivalam said.

Gas pumps and repair shops became recurring symbols during lobbying visits to the Capitol. Drivers frequently described spending hundreds of dollars each month simply to keep their vehicles on the road. Those expenses continue whether business is booming or slow.

Brett Currin, a longtime advocate for the measure, described what many drivers see as the industry's central imbalance. "Let's be honest, we don't operate independently at all. We don't set our own wages. We don't control the rules. We don't decide who is deactivated and how they're punished. The algorithm, the corporations do."

Another section of the bill would require transportation network companies to contribute four cents per trip to a fund administered through the secretary of state's office. Backers say the money would help support driver-related programs tied to the new system.

California and Massachusetts have already approved similar models. Illinois now finds itself at the center of a national argument over who holds power in an app-based economy where software often determines prices, assignments and access to work.

A signature from Pritzker would give thousands of drivers their first formal opportunity to negotiate with companies whose algorithms determine much of their daily work.