As Enrique Lopezlira explained to me, “if you’re an older worker with family responsibilities, switching [jobs] might not be as easy because there might be transportation issues, there might be scheduling issues, and maybe day care issues.”

“I think the pandemic really has been a tipping point involving co-workers collectively trying to be a countervailing force to the market power of firms—and I think that’s great,” says Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the University of California at Berkeley. “But there’s a lot of work still to be done.”

UC Berkeley’s Labor Center estimated that it worked out to having a wage floor of $5.64 per hour, a little more than a third of what New York City drivers are guaranteed now.