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In September, the International’s Legislative and Political Action Department (LAPAD), in coordination with the UFCW Western States Council, arranged for a worker in the “gig economy” to testify before the House Committee on Education and Labor Subcommittee on Workforce Protections.

Maria Crawford, a gig worker from Altadena, Calif., spoke about her experience working for Instacart and other online work platforms as an independent contractor during a hearing on the “Misclassification of Employees: Examining the Costs to Workers, Businesses, and the Economy.” During her testimony, she called on members of Congress to support the Payroll Fraud Prevention Act, which makes it unlawful to discriminate against an employee or non-employee who has filed a complaint with respect to their employment classification, and wrongly classify an employee as a non-employee.

“I am a proud wife of 25 years, a mother of two adult daughters, and a grandmother to two beautiful grandchildren,” she said during her testimony. “I worked in the I.T. field for a utility company for over 15 years, but lost my job to outsourcing. At the age of 54, I have found it difficult to start a new career. This difficulty, as well as the promise of good wages and flexible scheduling, brought me to the field of online platform work, often referred to as ‘gig work.’”

“While I spend most of my ‘gig work’ time on the app Instacart, I also do work for Postmates, Door Dash, Caviar, and Uber Eats. All of these platforms classify me as an ‘independent contractor,’ but I believe I am a misclassified employee. That misclassification makes it hard for me to get the protections that would help make sure I have fair, steady pay….”

“Initially, I found the pay on these platforms to be good, but over time, I found it more and more difficult to earn a living wage, despite it being my primary job and income that my family relies on. I think that they are misclassifying me as an independent contractor which means I am losing out on protections that could help make sure I have fair pay and hours.”

You can learn more about the Payroll Fraud Prevention Act here. A full transcript of Crawford’s testimony is available here.

UFCW Local 400 member Claudia McCann recently won her job back at Kroger #532 in Virginia Beach, Va., and $34,485 in back pay.

It all started with a disagreement that McCann had with a co-worker behind closed doors, not on the floor of the Virginia Beach Kroger store, where they worked. It didn’t seem like a big deal until the co-worker reported the incident to management.

“She said I disrespected her,” McCann said. “I did no such thing.”

She went to the store manager, who took it to corporate and said she would be suspended pending an investigation. With more than 20 years under her belt at Kroger and a spotless record, McCann was taken aback by her suspension.

“I was like, ‘What is going on?’” she said. “For a company the magnitude of Kroger to leave an employee with so many years of employment hanging like that, it really shocked me.”

The suspension dragged on and on with no end in sight. “At one point, they told me they sent a letter of termination,” McCann said. “I never got it. And when I asked for a copy, they couldn’t find it. They were thinking I would back down, but I was not backing down—I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Fortunately, McCann’s representatives, Misty Wrenn and Robert Brown, filed a grievance, pursued her case aggressively, and eventually took it to arbitration. The arbitrator found that the punishment did not fit the “crime” and a verbal warning or even probation would have been more appropriate. Kroger was ordered to give McCann her job back and pay her in full for the entire year’s duration of her suspension.

“When they called me and told me I got my job back, I thanked them over and over and over again,” McCann said. “It really shows that our union really does fight for us and goes right to the core of what we need. Local 400 did it for me and I am grateful.”