Gov. Cuomo has turned to a legislative loophole to buy himself more time to make a tough decision on a labor issue that has been vexing him for more than three years.
By waiting until the last days of the year to ask for the “Fair Play Act” — a bill that passed the legislature last summer by a wide margin — Cuomo extended for 30 days, until Feb. 13, the deadline for deciding whether he will legitimize FedEx Ground’s categorization of its drivers as independent contractors and not employees.
If Cuomo hadn’t requested the bill by Dec. 31, it would have died. If he does not sign it by the new deadline, it will be considered dead via a pocket veto — something that has not happened since the early days of the Pataki administration, Albany insiders tell The Post.
The Fair Play Act was first introduced to force all delivery firms who have drivers who work only for them, dress in company uniforms and take direction from the package company to be classified as employees.
But FedEx got itself exempted from the bill, while rivals will have to adopt the more expensive employee model.
FedEx saves an estimated $ 35,000 a year per employee by classifying them as independent contractors and not employees because they don’t have to pay Social Security taxes, vehicle repairs, unemployment taxes and overtime.
That comes out to $ 122 million a year, just in New York. In the year ended May 31, FedEx earned $ 1.6 billion.
As state attorney general in 2010, Cuomo sued FedEx to force it to classify its 3,500 state drivers as employees. FedEx, soon after the suit was filed, switched to its current model of paying an independent company to hire drivers.
The Cuomo suit was tossed after a federal court ruled the contractor model valid. A subsequent different court ruling put the issue back in question, and a Kansas court is weighing a decision.
So Cuomo finds himself in a spot.
Organized labor is pushing him to sign the bill because it could gain union members as other delivery companies adopt an employee model. UPS, which classifies its drivers as employees, has lined up against the Fair Play Act, as it will institutionalize the FedEx financial advantage.
Yahoo Local News – New York Post
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=20007
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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