Uber and subsidiary pay $100M in driver misclassification case

Uber Technologies Inc. and its subsidiary Rasier LLC have submitted a $100 million payment to the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development’s Unemployment Trust Fund after an audit found the ride-share companies improperly classified hundreds of thousands of drivers as independent contractors, the department announced Tuesday.

The companies deprived drivers of “crucial safety-net benefits such as unemployment, temporary disability and family leave insurance, and failed to make required contributions toward unemployment, temporary disability and workforce development,” the department said in a statement.

The San Francisco-based app-based company and Rasier also deprived drivers of minimum wage, overtime pay, workers compensation coverage, earned sick leave, family leave and other benefits, according to the statement.

The payment follows labor department audits that assessed Uber and Rasier a combined $78 million in past-due contributions, plus penalties and interest of $22 million. It is the largest such payment ever received in New Jersey and covers 297,866 drivers, according to the statement.