Massachusetts created collective-bargaining rights for rideshare drivers. But when the same app moves drivers between passengers, food, and packages, the accounting and the representation need to match the actual work.
The App Drivers Union has an important issue sitting right in front of it as collective bargaining begins in Massachusetts: Uber needs to clearly define what kind of work a driver is performing, how much time was spent performing it, and which rules apply to that work.
Right now, the Uber Driver app can put several substantially different jobs in front of the same person.
There is rideshare.
There is food delivery.
And there is courier or package delivery.
Those three things should not disappear into one generic number called “Active Time.”
That becomes particularly important in Massachusetts because drivers now have both a statutory rideshare earnings floor and an exclusive bargaining representative. The Massachusetts Department of Labor Relations certified the App Drivers Union, SEIU 32BJ/IAM, in May 2026 to represent transportation-network drivers in industry-wide bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions. The state’s own FAQ makes another distinction very clear: the ADU represents rideshare work, while food-delivery work such as Uber Eats is outside that bargaining unit.
Once the law makes that distinction, the app needs to make that distinction too.
Uber Knows Which Job It Gave the Driver
This shouldn’t require drivers to sit down at the end of two weeks and scroll through every activity trying to remember what they did.
Was this one a passenger?
Was that one Uber Eats?
Was that 90-minute trip a package?
How much of my 25 hours of “Active Time” actually qualifies as Massachusetts rideshare time?
That is not an audit system. That is asking the worker to reverse-engineer the company’s records.
Uber already knows what generated every request.
Its own help materials tell drivers that Uber Eats delivery can be enabled through the same Driver app used for passenger trips. Uber says drivers can opt into deliveries through the Work Hub and control delivery requests through their trip preferences.
Uber also separately describes Courier as an opportunity to receive package-delivery requests through the app. Uber’s documentation actually says accepting a package request is similar to accepting a ride request.
So Uber’s own system knows whether it dispatched:
a passenger ride, a food delivery, or a courier package.
The driver’s earnings statement should know the difference too.
“Active Time” Is Not Enough in Massachusetts
Uber’s own Massachusetts documentation says the special Massachusetts benefits apply to Uber Rides trips beginning in Massachusetts and specifically says Uber Eats activity is not included.
That creates an accountability problem when the driver-facing earnings screen provides a combined Active Time figure.
Suppose a driver has 25 hours of active time during a week.
If 23½ hours were passenger rides and another 1½ hours were spent on a courier assignment, those are not necessarily 25 hours of the same legally qualifying activity.
At the current $34.48 Massachusetts rideshare earnings floor, an hour and a half represents $51.72.
That is enough money that the distinction cannot reasonably be hidden behind a generic number.
The driver should see something more like:
Rideshare engaged time — 23h 30m
Food-delivery active time — 0h 00m
Courier active time — 1h 30m
The earnings should be separated the same way.
And when an earnings-floor adjustment is issued, the statement should identify the exact rideshare hours and rideshare earnings used to calculate it.
The driver should be able to check the company’s math without opening 40 or 50 individual transactions.
Representation Has to Follow the Actual Work
This also creates an issue the App Drivers Union should address directly.
Massachusetts has defined a bargaining unit around transportation-network drivers. The Commonwealth explicitly says the ADU does not represent a driver’s Uber Eats food-delivery work.
Fine.
Then what exactly is Courier?
That’s a question worth putting on the bargaining table.
A driver may begin the day transporting passengers as a transportation-network driver. The same application can then offer that person a package and ask them to transport somebody else’s property from one location to another.
Uber calls Courier an additional earnings opportunity for drivers and says package requests arrive through the Driver app much like ride requests.
So Massachusetts, Uber, and the union need a clear answer:
When a Massachusetts rideshare driver accepts an Uber Courier job, what kind of worker are they for that trip?
It shouldn’t take a lawyer, a support ticket, and three different app screens to answer that question.
And it certainly shouldn’t be possible for the answer to change depending on which part of Uber’s accounting system somebody happens to be looking at.
Courier Is Not Just Food Without the Food
There is another reason this matters.
Courier work is operationally different from delivering somebody’s dinner.
A normal food-delivery transaction is relatively straightforward:
Restaurant → driver → customer.
The driver generally knows what business produced the product and what sort of transaction is taking place.
Courier transportation is different.
A driver can be handed a sealed package and told to transport it a considerable distance. The driver didn’t package it. The driver didn’t inspect its contents. The driver may have no practical means of determining its true value.
Uber itself says Courier packages must be securely sealed, must not contain prohibited items, and under its published U.S. policy cannot contain a high-value item over $200.
But that produces an obvious accountability question:
How is the driver supposed to verify what the sender put inside a sealed package?
The answer should not be, “Open customers’ packages.”
The proper answer is documentation.
A Courier Should Receive a Shipment Record
Every Uber Courier assignment should automatically generate an electronic shipment record available to the driver.
It should identify the sender and recipient, pickup and destination, number of packages, the sender’s declared description of the contents, any declared value, a unique shipment number, and the pickup and delivery timestamps.
And the wording matters:
Contents declared by sender. Internal contents not verified by driver.
That protects the distinction between possession and knowledge.
If somebody later asks what the driver is carrying, the answer shouldn’t have to be:
“I don’t know. An app told me to take this box seventy miles.”
The driver should be capable of producing a legitimate electronic record showing that the property was accepted as part of a documented commercial transportation transaction.
Photograph It at Both Ends
Courier should also require basic condition documentation.
Photograph the package when it is received.
Photograph it again when it is delivered.
The purpose isn’t to turn drivers into evidence technicians. It is simply to establish the externally visible condition of the property when custody changed.
If somebody later says a package arrived crushed, opened, scratched, or otherwise damaged, there should be something better than everybody’s memory.
Likewise, a documented handoff can discourage fraudulent claims.
The record should establish:
This is the package I accepted.
This was its visible condition.
This is when I accepted it.
This is where I transported it.
This was its visible condition when I surrendered it.
That’s basic chain-of-custody accountability.
Uber Cannot Claim It Doesn’t Understand Freight Documentation
There is an almost absurd part of this discussion.
Uber already owns a business built around this very concept.
Uber Freight.
Uber Freight’s own materials explain bills of lading, shipment identification numbers, freight tracking, and proof of delivery. Uber Freight describes a bill of lading as documentation confirming shipment details between the shipper and carrier, and describes proof of delivery as documentation confirming receipt by the consignee.
In other words, Uber already understands the principle:
When somebody entrusts property to a carrier, document the shipment.
Nobody is suggesting that a Kia carrying a small package needs the complete regulatory infrastructure of a tractor-trailer hauling commercial freight.
But the underlying principle doesn’t suddenly cease to exist because the package fits on the back seat.
Uber already knows why a carrier needs to know what shipment they’re transporting, who gave it to them, where it’s going, and who accepted it.
The company shouldn’t forget those lessons when the person doing the transporting happens to be an Uber rideshare driver.
This Is Exactly What the App Drivers Union Should Be Bargaining About
The ADU shouldn’t have to wait until drivers begin discovering inconsistencies one earnings statement at a time.
This is the moment to establish definitions.
At minimum, bargaining should address one complete system of accountability:
- Rideshare, food delivery, and courier must be separately identified.
- Active or engaged time must be totaled separately for each category.
- Earnings must be totaled separately for each category.
- Massachusetts rideshare-floor calculations must show exactly which rideshare time and earnings were included.
- Previous floor adjustments must identify the earnings period they belong to rather than simply appearing among current earnings.
- Courier assignments should provide an electronic shipment record.
- The sender—not the driver—should certify the declared contents and compliance with Uber’s prohibited-item rules.
- Courier pickups and deliveries should include condition photographs and documented handoffs.
- Massachusetts drivers need a clear determination of where Uber Courier falls in relation to the rideshare bargaining unit and what protections accompany that work.
This isn’t merely an argument for making the Uber app prettier.
It is an argument about defining the job.
Massachusetts has now given rideshare drivers collective-bargaining rights. Uber simultaneously operates an application capable of asking those same people to perform several different forms of transportation work.
The App Drivers Union should make sure the definitions don’t get blurred whenever blurring them happens to benefit the platform.
If Uber wants someone to transport a passenger, call it rideshare and account for it as rideshare.
If Uber wants someone to deliver food, call it food delivery and account for it separately.
And if Uber wants that same driver to take possession of somebody else’s property and transport it from a shipper to a recipient, call that courier work, document it like courier work, and bargain over it like the distinct job that it is.
The driver should never have to guess what job they just performed—and they certainly shouldn’t have to guess which hours Uber counted when it calculated their pay.