City Attorney secures additional $2.3 million settlement for delivery drivers misclassified by WorkWhile

San Francisco, CA (October 20, 2026) — San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced today a $2.3 million settlement with gig staffing company WorkWhile. Over the next three years, the company will pay $2.1 million in restitution to misclassified delivery drivers and $200,000 in civil penalties to the City Attorney’s Office. Starting January 1, 2027, WorkWhile will also treat all its California gig workers as employees rather than independent contractors.

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. The City Attorney secured a settlement benefiting non-driver workers in December 2024 and another settlement for a subset of delivery drivers in January 2026. Under these two prior agreements, the City Attorney has collected $5.1 million in restitution for workers and $400,000 in civil penalties and secured the re-classification of all non-drivers from independent contractors to employees.

Today’s agreement covers the remaining misclassified drivers and brings the City’s litigation against WorkWhile to a close. In total, the City’s lawsuit against WorkWhile yielded $7.2 million in restitution for workers and $600,000 in penalties to the City.

The settlement today resolves a novel argument in which WorkWhile claimed its drivers were covered by Proposition 22, a 2020 California ballot measure that allows certain gig-companies, such as Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, to treat drivers as independent contractors if certain conditions are met. But Prop 22 does not apply to staffing companies, and WorkWhile has agreed to reclassify its drivers as employees.   

“With this settlement, WorkWhile will no longer deny its gig workers the wages and benefits they are owed,” said City Attorney Chiu. “California labor laws are clear, and gig companies cannot sidestep them to shortchange workers. This final settlement ensures the impacted workers will receive the full protection of California employment laws going forward and be compensated for WorkWhile’s prior violations. It builds on our previous wins for workers and helps prevent these exploitative models from taking root.”

Background
WorkWhile is a San Francisco-based temporary staffing company. 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 workers often perform the same duties as the employees of WorkWhile’s clients.

WorkWhile violated California law by misclassifying and treating these workers as independent contractors. As a result, workers were denied a wide range of state and local employee rights, including overtime pay, paid sick leave, paid family leave, health and safety protections, and anti-retaliation protections, among others. The company also failed to provide required workers’ compensation insurance and instead charged workers for an inferior substitute for workers’ compensation.

In June 2024, the City Attorney filed a lawsuit to stop these illegal practices and recover restitution for impacted workers. The lawsuit alleged that the misclassification of WorkWhile’s workforce denied workers the protections, wages, and benefits guaranteed under state and local labor laws. The suit also alleged that WorkWhile’s practices gave it an unfair advantage over law‑abiding competitors, violating California’s Unfair Competition Law.

California law uses a strict three-part standard, known as the ABC test, to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. Under this test, most workers in the state are considered employees. In 2020, Proposition 22 created a limited exception allowing certain companies, under specific conditions, to classify some on-demand gig workers as independent contractors. The City successfully argued that Proposition 22 did not apply to WorkWhile, requiring the company to reclassify its gig workers as employees.

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. In January 2026, the City Attorney reached a second stipulated partial judgment that required WorkWhile to pay restitution to misclassified delivery drivers who worked shifts through September 5, 2025.

Today’s final stipulated judgment, approved by the San Francisco Superior Court on October 19, 2026, concludes the litigation and requires restitution and reclassification for the remaining affected drivers.

The Office’s Worker Protection Team, established by City Attorney Chiu in 2022, prosecuted this case. It was staffed and supported by Ian Eliasoph, Hank Giorgi, Matthew Goldberg, and Maureen Slack. 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.