SuperShuttle drivers say they face tough times under firm's franchise system It's not that the Nigerian-born Maryland resident is unemployed. But as a driver for the airport van service, SuperShuttle, he must pay the company $900 a week or more before he takes home any money of his own. And going into his fourth day one week in January, Enajekpo was still more than $100 short of settling his weekly debt. "People back home [in Nigeria] think, "Oh, you're in America so you must be doing well," " he says. They don't understand. Once, drivers of this ubiquitous blue-van airport shuttle service were salaried employees. But in the past 13 years, SuperShuttle has transformed its drivers into franchisees - what the company calls independent business owners. In doing so, SuperShuttle has shifted, in its own words, "hard to manage variable costs from the company" to the drivers, making "gross profits more stable and predictable." "It was too expensive and, frankly, almost all of our businesses were losing money," says Thomas LaVoy, chief financial officer of SuperShuttle. Some drivers say the shift has allowed them greater flexibility and a chance to start their own business. But Enajekpo and hundreds of other drivers across the country say the changes have done more harm than good - and, in a series of lawsuits, they say the company doesn't allow drivers independence and is cheating them out of wages and benefits they would be entitled to as employees. "It's really a big racket," says Mack Green, a Minneapolis driver who is also suing SuperShuttle. It's a good company for someone in the company. But the way they have it operating, they could never lose, because the driver is responsible for everything. SuperShuttle disagrees. "We offer an opportunity to independent business people who want to be in business for themselves a solid foundation, a good company, association and the means with which to be successful," says Judy Robertson, head of franchising at SuperShuttle. How a franchisee operates a business really is dependent on a franchisee, their drive. Challenges to the model This transformation of employees into franchisees and independent contractors, which has been going on for decades, has led to a legal problem known as employee misclassification. When a company classifies its workers as contractors or franchisees, the worker loses some labor protections such as overtime pay and minimum wages, and the company is exempt from tax payments such as unemployment and workers" compensation. Yet the boundary between legal franchisee or contractor and employee isn't entirely clear, which means that various state and federal regulators, and even the courts, may allow different standards for the same company. That certainly has been true for SuperShuttle. On the federal level, the National Labor Relations Board is split: In Denver, regional officials found SuperShuttle drivers were employees and allowed to unionize. In Dallas and Baltimore, they haven't been able to unionize and both cases are now on appeal.