Hospitality staffing platform Qwick has been sued by the city of San Francisco, which claims the company misclassifies its workers as independent contractors.

Qwick is “a staffing company with an app that is in flagrant violation of labor and employment laws business model,” City Attorney David Chiu said in a press release. “It uses convenience and flexibility to mask its decision to deny workers their rights.”

Qwick matches restaurants and event production companies with contingent workers to fill empty shifts, according to the city attorney’s office. The company provides front- and back-of-house workers — including servers, bartenders, dishwashers, cooks and event staff.

San Francisco’s city attorney says it’s legal for staffing firms to supply those workers on a W-2 basis, but Qwick provides them as independent contractors.

Qwick’s workers operate alongside hotels’ and restaurants’ own employees, according to the city attorney’s office. The company refers to its workers as freelancers and independent contractors, but they are “employees by every legal standard” since Qwick interviews them, monitors their performance, controls their eligible shifts and terminates them if they perform badly, the attorney’s office said. The city added that Qwick pays its workers directly and they are forbidden from seeking employment at Qwick’s client business where they perform work.

Qwick has been contacted for comment by Staffing Industry Analysts.

“If this illegal business model is allowed to take hold, hundreds of thousands of positions in the food and beverage industry risk illegal misclassification, and hospitality workers will be pushed into poverty,” Chiu said.

Litigation over independent contractor classification is also taking place against Uber and Lyft, according to the office.