Uber’s worst nightmare has come true:

In what could be an explosive decision, the California Labor Commission has found that a driver for Uber in San Francisco is an employee of the company. That’s from a ruling filed in state court on Tuesday and first reported by Reuters. It’s pretty damning. “Defendants hold themselves out as nothing more than a neutral technological platform, designed simply to enable drivers and passengers to transact the business of transportation,” the commission writes. “The reality, however, is that Defendants are involved in every aspect of the operation.” [Slate]

So far, the ruling only applies to one driver from San Francisco, but the precedent could be far-reaching. Uber plans to appeal.

Sarah Maslin Nir has won the June Sidney Award for exposing rampant abuses in the nail salon industry in New York City. The 13-month investigation included interiews with well over a hundred nail workers from around the city. Only one in four reported being paid minimum wage. Some earned day rates of just $10, and trainee manicurists not only didn’t get paid, they had to pay their bosses to learn the trade. 

Read more about the winning series and its impact in The Backstory. 

Rosa Goldensohn, the latest winner of Hillman’s award for social justice reporting at CUNY J-school, has a new longform piece in 219 Magazine called, “John and Ken,” it’s the story of twin brothers. One became a prison guard at Rikers’ Island, and the other became an inmate. 

Millions of people will now have to wait longer for deportation relief. On Tuesday, a federal appeals court refused to lift an injunction blocking the Obama administration’s immigration reforms.

Twenty-six states are suing to stop the president from putting his proposed reforms into action. They say he is overstepping the powers of his office by changing immigration policy without the approval of Congress. The administration says that the president doesn’t need a vote from Congress because he’s simply exercising his discretion over how to enforce existing immigration laws. 

The injunction was originally granted by Judge Andrew Hanen, a Brownsville jurist who makes a cameo appearance in Sarah Stillman’s Sidney Award-winning story, “Kidnapped at the Border.” In 2013, Hanen notoriously urged the Department of Homeland Security to deport undocumented parents living in the United States for trying smuggle their children into the country.