By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON: President Joe biden intends to name David Weil, who has backed government crackdowns on the gig economy business workforce models as Uber Technologies Inc, to head a division of the US Department of Labor overseeing workers’ rights in concert.

Weil previously served as the senior wage regulator in the administration of former President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017. A feature of his tenure has been to conduct surveys of business use of independent contractors.

If appointed and confirmed, he will return to his post in the Wages and Hours unit of the department, which examines whether concert workers are mistakenly classified as independent contractors and thus miss out on the benefits to which employees are entitled, such as overtime and minimum wage.

Uber did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last month, Biden announced plans to increase the budget for the Wage & Hour division.

Biden’s Labor Department also repealed a Trump-era rule that would have made it easier for companies to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

In late April, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh told Reuters that a large number of concert workers in the United States should be classified as employees deserving of benefits. The policy change is expected to benefit many workers now classified as contractors while increasing costs for businesses that depend on them, like Uber and Lyft.

Republicans and businesses criticized the department’s wage and hours division under previous Democratic presidents, saying its investigations were too aggressive, while unions and activists praised the investigations.