Gig platforms must reveal how they set pay and monitor workers.
S. 2488 — Empowering App-Based Workers Act · Filed by Brian Schatz (D-HI) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 28, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill requires digital labor platforms (ride-hail, delivery, gig-work apps) to disclose how they monitor workers, set pay, and make decisions about work assignments. It caps take rates (the percentage platforms keep from consumer payments) at 25% for ride-hail services, prohibits wage-setting based on worker surveillance data, and requires platforms to show workers itemized pay breakdowns and weekly statements. Workers gain the right to authorize representatives to receive these disclosures, and the bill protects workers who report violations.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a transparency mandate coupled with algorithmic wage restrictions and a take-rate cap—all designed to reduce information asymmetry and wage theft in platform work. The core function is accountability for opaque labor management systems, not a subsidy or carve-out.
What the text implies
- Platforms may respond by reclassifying workers as employees to avoid algorithmic wage restrictions, which could increase labor costs but also grant workers statutory employment protections (minimum wage, overtime, benefits)—a second-order effect not explicit in the bill.
- The 25% take-rate cap applies only to on-demand ride-hail; delivery and other gig work remain unregulated on take rates, creating incentive for platforms to shift business to unregulated verticals.
- Quarterly reporting to the Secretary creates a federal database of platform labor practices, enabling future enforcement and research but also concentrating sensitive worker data in government hands.
- The bill's definition of 'covered digital labor platform' excludes platforms that 'only provide the means by which service providers can reach an end-user without involvement of the platform in terms or conditions of work'—a narrow carve-out that may allow some platforms to evade coverage by claiming minimal algorithmic involvement.
- Authorized agent provisions enable labor unions and worker advocacy groups to receive worker data at scale, potentially accelerating unionization efforts and collective bargaining in platform work.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
App-based workers—disproportionately people of color and women earning below minimum wage—gain enforceable transparency rights, algorithmic wage protections, and a 25% take-rate cap in ride-hail, reducing wage theft and enabling informed decision-making. Consumers also gain visibility into how much platforms retain. The bill restrains platform power, not worker rights.
Named in the bill
Secretary of Labor, Uber, DoorDash, Amazon Flex, Lyft, Instacart, digital labor platforms, app-based workers, ride-hail industry, delivery services, labor organizations, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Where it stands
4 cosponsors: 3 Democrats, 1 Independents.
- Jul 28, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Jul 28, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
4 lobbying clients named this bill on 5 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $1,080,000 in lobbying spend. A filing names 6 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 72% of bills with at least one filing.
Brian Schatz, the sponsor, reported $431,697 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- Doordash, Inc. — $750,000 on 1 filing
- Flex Association — $210,000 on 2 filings
- Grubhub Holdings Inc. — $80,000 on 1 filing
- Flex Association — $40,000 on 1 filing
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 20, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (50,094 characters) on Jun 3, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 20, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
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