My families economic downturn which ended up with us having to put our house on foreclosure and my dad having to declare personally bankrupt was based on something very similar.

My dad was driving for a European logistics company. The drivers were contractors and had to deal with all the expenses themselves just like Uber drivers.

My dad and another guy were spokespeople for all these drivers and when they tried to organize voluntarily to get better conditions the company simply released my dad and the other guy from their contracts.

Long story short my dad only recently got out of his personal bankruptcy after more than 20 years of dealing with the consequences of him trying to stand up for his co-contractors.

So if you ask why do we sometimes need protect this right by the law. This is why.