Dive Brief:

• Last week, on-demand cleaning company Homejoy shut down, citing four pending employee misclassification lawsuits as the “deciding factor.” Presidential candidates, regulators, and labor movement leaders, also recently weighed in on the status of workers in the on-demand economy. 
• Shelby Clark, an entrepreneur and CEO of Peers, asked in Forbes: how do we preserve these income opportunities while protecting workers?
• He says it's time to modernize antiquated employment structures and policies for today’s independent workers.

Dive Insight:

Clark writes that current employee classification options -- independent contractor or full-time employee -- offer a false choice between stability and flexibility. He believes eliminating the choice between flexibility and stability could be accomplished by an independent benefits platform with three key components: independent access, innovative benefits, and multi-payer options.

For example, he cites a new form of “workers compensation” to replace income from multiple sources, instead of solely the income from the job where a worker was injured. Or, payment for benefits would be flexible, allowing contributions from multiple payers, including the worker and several employers, fairly distributing costs.

Ultimately, he writes that on-demand platforms will want to contribute to their worker’s benefits in order to improve employee recruiting, retention and productivity -- as well as because it’s the right thing to do. However, regulatory reform, overhauling an outdated employee classification system or even potentially introducing a new worker classification that some have deemed the "dependent contractor" will be required so companies have a safe harbor to make benefits contributions.