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Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

nytimes.com

251–260 of 357 posts

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#251
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am forced to treat the people who cut my lawn and clean my house as employees, according to tax law, for funding unemployment insurance among other things. It's the other way around: The people who cut your lawn force you to treat them as employees. What stops you from hiring a "proper" contractor? > But Uber's labor force, without which literally the company wouldn't exist, are not eligible for the same benefits…

They do provide insurance: https://www.uber.com/drive/insurance/

That's news to me, I stand corrected.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#252
post #23

It’s sad that the idea of people being able to get by and live a comfortable life without the benefits from a full time job is so far outside the Overton window that it’s not even mentioned in these conversations. That seems like such an obviously better outcome for everyone - what if we got rid of healthcare benefits and other types of favorable tax treatment that are tied to full time employment so that everyone is…

> which anecdotally, I have talked to a lot of drivers who really like this aspect of it

Really? What is it exactly that they like about that?

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#253
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

except all those people who's supposed to have been insured will now no longer be (but would've paid their premium, at least partially). So what happens then? Either those people lose their money, or the state bails them out. If the gov't forces an insurer to keep a reserve (for such an occasion), then it becomes regulation!

Those people lose their money. I can't think of a good reason why they'd expect to get that money back, they were paying for a service that was being provided up until the company could no longer provide it. Losing your money to a failed company is a cost of doing business sometimes, it's a risk everybody takes when they purchase things in advance. The company/owner would owe a refund for the service not provided due…

> Those people lose their money. I can't think of a good reason why they'd expect to get that money back, they were paying for a service that was being provided up until the company could no longer provide it.

> Losing your money to a failed company is a cost of doing business sometimes, it's a risk everybody takes when they purchase things in advance. The company/owner would owe a refund for the service not provided due to company collapse, whether or not they can pay that is another matter and should be accepted as part of the risk. There's no such thing as risk free business and attempts to remove the risk inevitably remove part of the value too.

I think we as a society have deemed it unacceptable to hold consumers accountable for company selection in some specific industries. Banking and healthcare come to mind. We certainly don't think it's okay for depositors to lose their shirts over a banker's risk taking and we hold that value to such a degree that in America at least it has been codified into law.

I know at least NJ mandates a separate fund that insurers must pay into to protect against this instance.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#254
post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The legal basis of Citizens United was that individuals don’t lose rights by coming together as an organisation. So the NYT has free speech rights because its owners have free speech rights. And if a propaganda film like Fahrenheit 9/11 or Bowling for Columbine can be sold by a film studio a group of people can come together, whether as a for profit or not for profit corporation to produce their very own propaganda f…

Nobody is talking about annulling free speech rights, the issue is granting extra free speech rights to entities that are not people, as well as considering activities speech, and therefore protected, that are not speech. Like donating money to political campaigns. People can still donate their money, but to allow corporations, which are explicitly created to concentrate money and power, to donate money to politician…

> the issue is granting extra free speech rights

Nope. It is about prohibiting corporations and unions from using their funds to make independent expenditures for speech [1].

> In fact, some companies having a tendency to curb free speech through contracts denying people the right to talk about certain things.

Your example is strange. Such contracts are not imposed by the government.

> corporations get used to dodge personal liability by their owners and employees

You should clarify what you mean by this and how it is relevant to the issue at hand.

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/09pdf/08-205.pdf

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#255
Uber represents the new kind of company where all the risk is pushed to the employee, while all the profits are pulled to the company. Making all your employees supposedly outside contractors facilitates a race to the bottom between these contractors.

Same with food delivery companies. The drivers have to provide and maintain the vehicle, organize their own health care, pension and insurance. Some companies even disallow them to work for different companies, which is a direct violation of the contractor dynamic. Recently a Dutch judge ruled that these food delivery contractors were not actual free agents but bound to their one supplier of rides. The judged ruling was that this is not correct as they lacked the freedom to work for other companies.

I find it very disappointing that companies like Uber and Airbnb managed to create these amazing platforms but have such disrespect for the wellbeing of their workers or how they affect communities in the world.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. I've always found this suggestion a bit disingenuous. First, there is no federal law that bans insurance from being sold across state lines. What they really mean (but can't say because it is not politically appealing) is "Don't allow states to regulate insurance sold in their state." State boards regulate insurance. They seem to do it we…

>It would be great until there was a hard year and the insurance companies would have the be bailed out by the taxpayers. Surely that wouldn't be the case? They wouldn't have to be bailed out; If a company hadn't planned ahead well enough to survive a bad year then they deserve to go under. In an unregulated economy, bailing out failed companies shouldn't be an option.

>> Surely that wouldn't be the case?

That literally was the case in 2008 with AIG

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#257

Uber represents the new kind of company where all the risk is pushed to the employee, while all the profits are pulled to the company. Making all your employees supposedly outside contractors facilitates a race to the bottom between these contractors. Same with food delivery companies. The drivers have to provide and maintain the vehicle, organize their own health care, pension and insurance. Some companies even disa…

It's the same with industries like film in the US, only difference is the hourly rate gets to be pretty high after a few years of work and presumed advancement.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It would be great until there was a hard year and the insurance companies would have the be bailed out by the taxpayers. Surely that wouldn't be the case? They wouldn't have to be bailed out; If a company hadn't planned ahead well enough to survive a bad year then they deserve to go under. In an unregulated economy, bailing out failed companies shouldn't be an option.

>> Surely that wouldn't be the case? That literally was the case in 2008 with AIG

Parent mentioned it would have to be the case, it doesn't have to. If it makes you feel any better replace it with "shouldn't" in your head.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#259
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't live in America, but having strong opinions is fun so I'll wade in anyway :D The things you are talking about are regulatory standards. I've not seen anyone really suggesting that regulatory standards are a problem in the Americas (on the contrary, everything I've read suggests if you have in insurance the whole process can be pretty comfortable). gp's post is, in my eyes, clearly going towards the point that…

> I've not seen anyone really suggesting that regulatory standards are a problem in the Americas This was a major component of Trump's platform, and where the "selling insurance across state lines" thing comes from.

Excuse me, but I've been saying this for a lot longer than Trump has been President. Not everything is about him, you know. Perhaps it is, in fact, a problem that needs to be addressed, regardless of who is in office.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#260
post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is quiet shocking to see #1 getting posted over and over again. Yup. If anything, it'd make things substantially worse. There's a reason all the credit card companies moved to Delaware - they found the most favorable jurisdiction (and work to ensure it stays that way). Health insurers would love to all move to the most insurer-friendly jurisdiction.

Wrong. Everyone incorporates in Delaware because the Court of Chancery[1] has some of the most professional and consistent judges in the country. Both parties know what the judge is going to decide before it ever gets to trial, which makes reaching settlements and thus saving money far easier. A good businessman can work within the constraints of virtually any consistently applied set of rules. It's when court cases…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquette_National_Bank_of_Min....

> The decision attracted little notice at the time. Two years later, the possibilities it opened up became clearer when Citibank, squeezed by interest rate caps, decided to move its credit-card operations out of New York City. The company persuaded Bill Janklow, then governor of South Dakota, whose agricultural economy was struggling at the time due to high fuel prices, to persuade that state's legislature to formally invite the bank there, as required by federal law before a national bank can do business from a state. He then successfully lobbied the legislators to pass a bill drafted by the bank that repealed the state's cap on interest rates, something a small group of legislators were already trying to do. Citibank quickly moved the 300 white-collar jobs in its credit-card division to Sioux Falls, where it has been ever since.

> South Dakota lured a few more large credit operators, such as Wells Fargo, before corporation-friendly Delaware repealed its anti-usury laws as well. Several other states also repealed their interest-rate caps, more lenders entered the credit-card field and introduced newer products and by 1990 the amount of credit cards in use in the U.S. had more than doubled. Credit cards, once a loss leader for the banks that issued them, became a major profit center as banks aggressively marketed them to "revolvers", customers who carried large balances but rarely paid more than the monthly minimum, resulting in large interest payments to the bank.

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