Checklist · Labor and Employment

Driving, Delivering, or Contracting on a Platform: A Practical Checklist

29 U.S.C. § 203

Type
Checklist
Jurisdiction
National
Date
2025-09-25
Topic
Labor and Employment

This checklist covers platform work from before the first shift through deactivation, injury, and a wage claim, and it also covers a platform building a compliant program. It opens with four actions that take about ninety minutes and change both the economics and the legal position more than anything available later — computing net earnings per engaged hour, adding an insurance endorsement, mailing the arbitration opt-out within its window, and starting a contemporaneous mileage log. It provides the classification screen run statute by statute rather than in general, because a worker can be a contractor under one law and an employee under another in the same week. It gives an insurance sequence built around the period one gap that leaves most drivers uninsured for a meaningful share of their working hours without knowing it. It supplies a deactivation response with the appeal and consumer reporting steps, an injury sequence, a wage claim evaluation that begins with the transportation worker exemption, and a platform compliance build.

Driving, Delivering, or Contracting on a Platform: A Practical Checklist

Labor and Employment > Gig, Platform, and On-Demand Work | Published 25 September 2025 - Updated 22 February 2026 | UpLaw - uplaw.us

Which sequence do you need?

☐ Before your first shift — Part 1. ⚠️ Ninety minutes, and it changes everything downstream. ☐ Understanding your status — Part 2. ☐ Insurance — Part 3. ⚠️ Period 1 is a gap and most drivers do not know it exists. ☐ Pay and records — Part 4. ☐ You were deactivated — Part 5. ☐ You were injured — Part 6. ☐ Evaluating a wage claim — Part 7. ⚠️ Start with the arbitration exemption. ☐ Taxes — Part 8. ☐ Building a compliant platform — Part 9.

⚠️ The framing that matters most: classification is statute-specific. There is no single answer to "am I an employee?" There is an answer under the federal wage law, a different one under State unemployment law, and a different one for taxes — and all three can be right at once.

Part 1 — Four things to do before your first shift

☐ 1. ⚠️ COMPUTE NET EARNINGS PER ENGAGED HOUR. Gross platform pay is not a wage. Estimated gross per hour $______ − fuel $______ − depreciation $______ − insurance $______ − maintenance $______ − phone $______ − self-employment tax $______ = net $______ Compute per engaged hour, not per week. Almost nobody does this, and it is most of the argument. ☐ 2. ⚠️ ADD A RIDESHARE OR DELIVERY ENDORSEMENT to your personal auto policy, and tell the carrier what you do. This is the single highest-value action available and it costs very little. See Part 3. ☐ 3. ⚠️ FIND THE ARBITRATION OPT-OUT AND USE IT. Window ______ days · method ______ · deadline ______ Frequently thirty days and a mailed letter. It is free, and almost nobody does it. Enforceability of these clauses is settled — Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis — so the opt-out is the only easy exit. ☐ 4. ⚠️ START A CONTEMPORANEOUS MILEAGE LOG. The largest deduction available, and it cannot be reconstructed credibly later.

☐ Also: read the deactivation policy if one is published ☐ note whether offered pay and destination are shown before acceptance ☐ check whether your city or State has a minimum earnings standard, deactivation protections, or a portable benefits program ☐ run a camera if you are driving ☐

Part 2 — Classification screen

⚠️ Run this per statute. Do not ask the general question.

☐ Federal wage claim → economic reality test under 29 U.S.C. § 203 Factors: control ______ opportunity for profit or loss ______ your investment ______ skill and initiative ______ permanence ______ how integral the work is ______ ☐ State wage or unemployment claim → is there an ABC test? ☐ Yes ☐ No • (A) free from control in fact and under contract? ______ • ⚠️ (B) is the work OUTSIDE the usual course of the platform's business? ______ This prong decides platform cases. • (C) customarily engaged in an independent trade of the same nature? ______ ☐ Benefits or an undefined statute → common-law agency — Nationwide Mutual Insurance v. Darden, factors from Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid; control-focused analysis in Clackamas Gastroenterology Associates v. Wells ☐ Organizing or concerted activity → labor relations test — definition at 29 U.S.C. § 152; protection at 29 U.S.C. § 157; unfair labor practices at 29 U.S.C. § 158 ☐ ⚠️ Antitrust caution: if workers are genuinely contractors, agreements among them about pay are agreements among competitors under 15 U.S.C. § 1. The labor exemption's reach to contractors is contested. ☐ What turns on it: minimum wage 29 U.S.C. § 206 ☐ overtime 29 U.S.C. § 207, exemptions 29 C.F.R. Part 541, regular rate 29 C.F.R. Part 778 ☐ enforcement with liquidated damages and fees 29 U.S.C. § 216 ☐ anti-discrimination 42 U.S.C. § 2000e ☐ payroll tax incidence 26 U.S.C. § 3121 ☐ unemployment ☐ workers' compensation ☐ ☐ Note that interpretive rules at 29 C.F.R. Part 795 have been rewritten repeatedly, and receive no deference after Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.

Part 3 — Insurance

⚠️ Most drivers are uninsured for a meaningful share of their working hours and do not know it.

☐ Know the four periods: • Period 0 — app off. Personal policy applies normally. • ⚠️ Period 1 — app ON, no request accepted, waiting. THIS IS THE GAP. • Period 2 — request accepted, driving to pick up. • Period 3 — passenger or order in the vehicle. ☐ ⚠️ Read your personal policy for a LIVERY or PUBLIC CONVEYANCE exclusion. The moment the app is on and you are available for hire, most personal policies exclude coverage entirely. ☐ Confirm in writing what the platform's policy provides in EACH period — liability limits ______ ☐ physical damage to your own vehicle? ______ ☐ deductible ______ ☐ ⚠️ BUY A RIDESHARE OR DELIVERY ENDORSEMENT. Carrier ______ Premium ______ Effective ______ ☐ ⚠️ TELL YOUR CARRIER WHAT YOU DO. Concealing platform use risks RESCISSION for material misrepresentation, which unwinds the policy — worse than a denial. ☐ If delivering by bicycle or scooter: ⚠️ frequently NO policy applies at all. Confirm what does ______ ☐ Occupational accident coverage offered by the platform — ⚠️ NOT workers' compensation. Benefit caps ______ Covers period 1? ______ Occupational disease? ______ Long-term disability? ______ ☐ Health coverage — confirm what applies to an on-the-job injury and whether it coordinates or excludes.

Part 4 — Pay and records

☐ ⚠️ Download earnings and trip records MONTHLY, stored outside the app. Access is a rolling window and disappears entirely on deactivation. ☐ Verify tip treatment — ⚠️ a tip belongs to you, on top of what the platform would otherwise pay. ☐ Check the itemized statement — time ☐ distance ☐ base pay ☐ promotions ☐ tips ☐ adjustments ☐ ☐ Note whether offered pay and destination are shown before acceptance. ☐ Check for a local minimum earnings standard — per trip ______ per hour ______ does period 1 count? ______ expense allowance ______ ☐ Screenshot any bonus or promotion terms you rely on, before they change. ☐ Keep a log of support tickets with numbers and dates. ☐ Recompute net earnings per engaged hour quarterly.

Part 5 — You were deactivated

☐ ⚠️ Request the stated reason IN WRITING, plus any evidence relied on. ☐ File the appeal within the window — deadline ______ ☐ attach your own records ☐ ☐ Check for a State or local deactivation statute — notice, published policy, human appeal, decision deadline, reinstatement and back pay, anti-retaliation. Applies here? ☐ Deadline ______ ☐ ⚠️ If a background report was involved: demand a copy ☐ was a pre-adverse-action notice with the report and rights summary provided? ☐ a real dispute window? ☐ a final notice? ☐ An independent claim with statutory damages and no classification predicate. ☐ Dispute inaccurate, sealed, expunged, or misattributed records with the reporting agency, in writing. ☐ ⚠️ PRESERVE EVERYTHING BEFORE ACCESS ENDS — trip records ☐ earnings ☐ messages ☐ ratings ☐ the notice ☐ ☐ Screen for discrimination or retaliation — a customer complaint that was itself discriminatory? ☐ following a pay or safety complaint? ☐ ☐ ⚠️ FILE FOR UNEMPLOYMENT ANYWAY. The agency applies its own test; it is fast and free, and an employment determination is persuasive and public. ☐ Consider rating bias — low ratings concentrated among a few customers? Tied to circumstances outside your control?

Part 6 — You were injured

☐ ⚠️ Establish WHICH PERIOD the app was in. Screenshot if possible ☐ ☐ Report to the platform immediately; incident number ______ ☐ Photograph everything; export dashcam footage the same day ☐ ☐ Identify witnesses, including the customer ☐ ☐ Pull the trip record for that engagement before access changes ☐ ☐ ⚠️ Do not assume occupational accident coverage is workers' compensation. ☐ Notify your personal carrier — expect a livery exclusion if you have no endorsement. ☐ Evaluate whether employee status is arguable — ⚠️ both workers' compensation eligibility AND exclusivity turn on it. ☐ If assaulted or harassed: report it ☐ ask what happened to the customer's account ☐ check whether your State extends harassment protection to contractors ☐ preserve messages ☐ ☐ Safety obligations run to employers — 29 U.S.C. § 654, framework 29 U.S.C. § 651, standards 29 C.F.R. Part 1910.

Part 7 — Evaluating a wage claim

☐ 1. ⚠️ THE TRANSPORTATION WORKER EXEMPTION FIRST — 9 U.S.C. § 1. It decides the forum, and after New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira the COURT decides it, even where the contract delegates arbitrability. • Narrow reading — Circuit City Stores v. Adams • Reaches contractor agreements — New Prime • Defined by what the worker actually does — Southwest Airlines Co. v. Saxon • No transportation-industry requirement — Bissonnette v. LePage Bakeries Park St., LLC • ⚠️ Intrastate routes with local passengers generally do NOT qualify. ☐ 2. Was the opt-out used? ☐ Yes ☐ No — if no, the class waiver applies under 9 U.S.C. § 2 per Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis ☐ 3. Which test governs the claim actually brought? (Part 2) ☐ Is a State ABC test available? ☐ ☐ 4. Is there a State or local statute — deactivation, minimum earnings, freelance protection — with a shorter deadline? ☐ ☐ 5. Send a preservation demand immediately for trip data, pay computations, algorithm version history, deactivation records ☐ ☐ 6. Compute damages per worker, per workweek: engaged hours × minimum ______ + overtime ______ + ⚠️ unreimbursed expenses ______ + liquidated damages ______ + fees ______ (the expense component frequently exceeds the wage component) ☐ 7. Consider mass arbitration where individual claims are uneconomic and the clause survives ☐ ☐ 8. See the wage and hour guide and the arbitration guide.

Part 8 — Taxes

☐ Expect an information return — 26 U.S.C. § 6041 or 26 U.S.C. § 6050W. ☐ ⚠️ Mileage log maintained contemporaneously. ☐ Other deductions — phone ☐ supplies ☐ tolls and parking ☐ portion of insurance ☐ platform fees ☐ ☐ Make estimated payments — ⚠️ routinely missed, producing penalties on top of the tax. ☐ Aggregate income across apps. ⚠️ Under-withholding compounds. ☐ Self-employment tax includes the employer share an employee never sees — 26 U.S.C. § 3121. ☐ Keep records for the full limitations period, not the platform's rolling window.

Part 9 — Building a compliant platform

☐ Deactivation — published policy with enumerated grounds ☐ written notice with a reason ☐ human appeal with a deadline ☐ reinstatement and back pay where wrong ☐ anti-retaliation ☐ ☐ Rating integrity — discount outliers ☐ exclude ratings tied to restaurant delays or traffic ☐ audit for correlation with protected characteristics ☐ retain the audit ☐ ☐ Background screening — pre-adverse-action notice with the report ☐ real dispute window ☐ individualized assessment where required ☐ vendor accountable ☐ ☐ ⚠️ Insurance disclosure in plain language — the periods, what is covered in each, what is not, and an instruction to obtain a personal endorsement. ☐ Earnings transparency — itemized statements ☐ historical access surviving deactivation ☐ tips on top, visibly, no offset ☐ ☐ Safety — in-app emergency contact ☐ incident reporting with a real response ☐ customer consequences for assault ☐ incident data retained ☐ ☐ Records reconstructable — trip data ☐ pay computations ☐ algorithm version history ☐ deactivation reasons and evidence ☐ appeal outcomes ☐ rating audits ☐ ☐ ⚠️ CLASSIFICATION HYGIENE — do operations match the contract? • Genuine freedom to decline without penalty ☐ • Freedom to work for competitors, unpenalized ☐ (exclusivity bonuses trade a classification defense for utilization) • No mandatory training beyond safety ☐ • No dictated methods ☐ • Discipline only for contract breach ☐ Most platform classification cases are lost on the gap between the contract's language and the app's actual behavior. ☐ Per-jurisdiction configuration for deactivation, earnings, and benefits statutes ☐ ☐ Antitrust caution on any coordination among workers — 15 U.S.C. § 1 ☐

Part 10 — Multi-apping

☐ Working for competitors is among the strongest facts supporting independence — and it cuts against control arguments. ☐ ⚠️ A platform that penalizes multi-apping trades a classification defense for utilization, usually without realizing the trade. ☐ Wage computation: if three apps are open in the same hour, whose hour is it? ⚠️ No existing framework allocates a shared waiting hour among competing engagers. ☐ Insurance: the period framework assumes one app. ⚠️ Whether the second platform's coverage responds to a crash during the first platform's trip is unresolved in most policy language. Ask both carriers, in writing. ☐ Taxes: aggregate across apps; expect a larger year-end liability than any single summary suggests. ☐ Deactivation: losing one app is a partial income loss, which reduces the practical urgency of appeal — and is one reason these protections went unlegislated for so long.

Part 11 — Platform category screen

⚠️ The further the work is from "drive this person there," the more classification turns on ordinary factors — skill, investment, pricing control — and the less the technology framing does.

☐ Rideshare / delivery — the core case. Everything in Parts 1 through 8 applies directly. ☐ Home services (cleaning, handyman, assembly, moving) — stronger independence case where the worker sets pricing, brings tools, and performs skilled work. ⚠️ Models that set price, dictate scope, and control payment look exactly like transportation. ☐ Care work (childcare, elder care, pet care) — adds high-stakes screening, mandatory reporting, and ⚠️ the household-employer problem: a family hiring through a platform may itself be an employer for tax and wage purposes. ☐ Freelance marketplaces (design, writing, software, translation) — strongest independence case; ⚠️ check for a freelance protection statute requiring a written contract, a payment deadline, and anti-retaliation, which applies regardless of classification. ☐ Micro-task and data labeling — least protected; payment measured in cents; workers dispersed across jurisdictions. ☐ Healthcare staffing apps — ⚠️ a facility taking clinical direction of an app-supplied clinician has a joint employment problem regardless of the app's contract. See the staffing guide. ☐ Retail and warehouse shift apps — the host is plainly someone's employer; the question is whether it is a joint employer with the app.

Part 12 — Benefits and social insurance screen

☐ Portable benefits program in this jurisdiction? ☐ Yes — administrator ______ contribution rate ______ what it funds ______ ☐ No ☐ ⚠️ Check whether the statute says contributions do not bear on classification. That provision is the entire deal, and it is what critics object to. ☐ Statutory middle category in this jurisdiction? ☐ A third status with a benefits floor and a classification safe harbor. ☐ Unemployment insurance — generally unavailable to contractors, but ⚠️ file anyway where the work was substantial; the agency applies its own test. ☐ Workers' compensation — turns on the same classification question, and a finding of employment brings exclusivity, barring tort claims against the platform. ☐ Health coverage — what applies to an on-the-job injury, and does it exclude or coordinate? ☐ Retirement — nothing is withheld; self-directed only. ☐ Paid leave — check whether any State or local ordinance extends it to platform workers.

Part 13 — The four things that matter most

☐ 1. ⚠️ Add the insurance endorsement. Closes the period 1 gap for a few dollars a month. ☐ 2. ⚠️ Mail the arbitration opt-out inside the window. Free, and almost nobody does it. ☐ 3. ⚠️ Keep a contemporaneous mileage log and download records monthly. Neither can be reconstructed later. ☐ 4. ⚠️ Compute net earnings per engaged hour. Gross platform pay is not a wage, and the difference is most of the argument.

Part 14 — Common mistakes

Each of these is ordinary, and each is expensive.

☐ Answering "no" to the commercial-use question on an insurance application because the app calls it independent contracting. ⚠️ That is a misrepresentation problem on top of a coverage gap. ☐ Assuming the platform's insurance covers the waiting period. It generally provides limited contingent liability and nothing for your own vehicle. ☐ Treating occupational accident coverage as workers' compensation. ☐ Missing the arbitration opt-out because nobody reads a forty-page agreement accepted by tapping. ☐ Never tracking mileage, then discovering at tax time that the largest deduction is unprovable. ☐ Reporting gross platform income without deductions and overpaying substantially. ☐ Skipping estimated payments and taking penalties on top of the tax. ☐ Relying on in-app history that is a rolling window and vanishes at deactivation. ☐ Appealing a deactivation with no records of your own, against a party holding all the data. ☐ Not filing for unemployment because "contractors are not eligible" — when the agency applies its own test. ☐ Not asking whether a background report caused the deactivation, and missing an independent claim with statutory damages. ☐ Evaluating the opportunity on gross weekly earnings rather than net per engaged hour. ☐ For platforms: penalizing declined offers while withholding the information needed to decline intelligently. ☐ For platforms: keeping the contract's independence language while running an app that dictates methods. ⚠️ That gap is where these cases are lost.

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