Chiu secures $4.5 million settlement for delivery drivers misclassified by WorkWhile

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (January 21, 2026) — City Attorney David Chiu announced today that he reached a $4.5 million settlement with gig staffing company WorkWhile, requiring the company to pay restitution to thousands of delivery drivers. The settlement requires WorkWhile to pay $4.1 million in restitution to its delivery drivers and $400,000 in civil penalties to the City Attorney’s Office.

In June 2024, the City Attorney sued WorkWhile for depriving its gig workers of critical employment protections and benefits by misclassifying them as independent contractors instead of employees. In December 2024, the City Attorney secured a stipulated partial judgment and injunction that required WorkWhile to pay its California non-driver workers $1 million in restitution and reclassify all non-driver workers as employees. The ongoing lawsuit has so far yielded $5.5 million benefitting WorkWhile gig workers and helped bolster the City’s enforcement of labor laws.

“This agreement is part of our groundbreaking work to fight misclassification and prevent these exploitative models from taking root,” said City Attorney Chiu. “As a result of this agreement, thousands of California drivers will have their stolen wages returned to them. We are proud that this builds on our previous wins for workers and further levels the playing field for law-abiding competitors in the staffing industry.”

“San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu continues to lead the nation in taking on corporations that cheat workers and once again, he has won back worker wages,” said Lorena Gonzalez, President of California Federation of Labor Unions. “This settlement with temp staffing company WorkWhile will give misclassified delivery drivers millions of dollars in restitution for wages they earned but were not paid. Just as important, it will send a message that we are done letting companies get rich through a business model of exploiting workers.”

“These results—over $4 million for drivers—shows the powerful role cities can play in enforcing workers’ rights, especially important now as the federal enforcement craters,” said Terri Gerstein, Director of the NYU Wagner Labor Initiative at NYU’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service. “Notably, the City Attorney has recovered restitution for workers statewide, not just in San Francisco. The settlement also includes $400,000 in civil penalties to be used to fund future labor enforcement. More city attorneys nationwide should follow San Francisco’s lead and enforce critical workplace protections.”

Background
WorkWhile is a San Francisco-based temporary staffing company. Since its founding in 2019, WorkWhile has grown rapidly, with half a million workers operating in 30 major metropolitan areas across 27 states. Through its app, WorkWhile provides client businesses with workers, hired and paid by WorkWhile directly, to fill empty shifts. WorkWhile fills shifts in many different industries, including delivery, warehouse, hospitality and food service, food production, event service, and general labor. WorkWhile’s gig workers often work alongside and perform the same functions as employees at the client businesses.

WorkWhile has violated California law by misclassifying and treating these workers as independent contractors. As a result of this misclassification, the workers have been denied a wide range of state and local employee rights, including the right to overtime pay, paid sick leave, paid family leave, health and safety protections, and anti-retaliation protections, among others.

WorkWhile also did not provide legally required workers’ compensation insurance coverage but instead charged its workers a “Trust & Safety Fee,” which funded a substandard insurance-like product, shifting the cost of a workers’ compensation-type protection from the employer to its low-wage workers.

In June 2024, the City Attorney filed a lawsuit to stop to these illegal practices and recover restitution for workers who had been harmed. The lawsuit alleged that the misclassification of WorkWhile’s workforce violated a host of state and local labor laws and denied workers the protections, wages, and benefits guaranteed under law. In doing so, the City alleged WorkWhile gained an unfair business advantage over other law-abiding businesses, constituting a violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law.

The stipulated partial judgment, approved by the San Francisco Superior Court on January 16, 2026, requires WorkWhile to pay restitution to drivers who were misclassified and worked California shifts on or prior to September 5, 2025. The City Attorney will continue to litigate the classification of WorkWhile drivers who completed shifts after September 5, 2025.

In December 2024, the City Attorney reached a stipulated partial judgment and injunction that required WorkWhile to pay its California non-driver workers $1 million in restitution and reclassify them as employees moving forward.

This case is prosecuted by the Office’s Worker Protection Team, established by City Attorney Chiu in 2022. It is staffed and supported by Ian Eliasoph, Hank Giorgi, Matthew Goldberg, Maureen Slack, and Lauren Tantriella. The Team’s mission is to protect the rights of workers in San Francisco and California with an emphasis on combating systemic business practices that exploit marginalized workers. Building on the Office’s longstanding leadership in affirmative litigation, the Team investigates and litigates instances of wage theft, employee misclassification, and other abusive workplace practices.

The case is People of the State of California v. WorkWhile, et al, San Francisco Superior Court, Case No. CGC-24-615401. View the stipulated partial judgment.