Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by _ea1k » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:02 PM UTC

Kaotique wrote: post #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 disa…

> 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.

What profits are you referring to? My issue with this line of thinking is that it basically makes it sound like these companies are sitting on some huge volume of excess cashflow that they could freely give to their contractors if they simply chose to do so.

AFAICT, they actually charge similar rates to taxis (which also usually use contractors here) while not making as much money, and providing a vastly better end user experience.

I don't see a lot of room for better worker pay here.

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

#292

Post by chii » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:06 PM UTC

ShrinkingWild wrote: post #271

vageli wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't agree that that is unacceptable, regardless of what "we as a society" have deemed. The consumers being held to account for their own business dealing is the reality of the situation, they're giving their money over to the business and in doing so accept the risk. Taking that risk and putting it on everyone who didn't take that risk through bailouts using tax money is unacceptable. Analogizing to a more person…

For businesses that provide somewhat of an essential service, the 'buyer beware' mantra does not result in societally good outcomes.

For example, healthcare services should be considered essential, and therefore, should not be left up to the market forces, as these forces would mean that some part of the population who is not profitable to serve will not get served.

in such cases, the best option is a socialized mechanism (such as universal healthcare, paid for by taxation). For some reason, the US of A is very much against this idea. It's as if these ideas have been tainted with the smear campaign of communism and red-scare.

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

#293

Post by crashbunny » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

e1g wrote: post #276

crashbunny wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, everyone should have the opportunity for education, but if no one can live on the pay of an uber driver so everyone skills up to get a better paying job, who will drive the ubers? I think everyone working fulltime should have a liveable wage.

“Everyone working full time should have a loveable wage”. It’s a useful thought experiment to see where does this break down for you. Does every startup deserve funding if the founder promises to commit full time? Does every aspiring artist or actor get a liveable wage if they promise to engage full time regardless of their skill? Does every researcher get paid even if their focus is on playing video games? At some p…

It's just a sentence, not a detailed essay of my thoughts covering all the bases. I was thinking along the lines of everyone working fulltime for a single employer. Uber drivers are contractors apparently, but if uber lets them work 40ish hours a week, I personally include them. Basically, the response to all of your questions is if a single employer is paying them either hourly or per task and wants/needs/allows them to work full time, then they should get a liveable wage. If they suck they should be let go. I'm sure there are exceptions.

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

#294

Post by el_cujo » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:08 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #57

People seem to forget that "professional driver" is an actual job available for close to a century now if you really wanted a full-time position. Uber already works with FTE drivers at higher tiers like Lux and Black. All of the drivers I've asked over 1000's of rides have said they prefer the freedom and flexibility to work on their own time. Yes they want more money, but not at the cost of the flexibility. They alr…

It kind of reminds me a lot of the discussion of fast food jobs and raising the minimum wage. On the one hand, yeah, it sucks if you're trying to support a family of four on 7.25/hour. But at the same time, its great as a summer job for a teenager who wants some extra spending money. Same with Uber, its great for college students wanting to make extra money at night but don't want to be stuck in a strict schedule or for someone who wants to make some money on the side for a vacation fund, but probably sucks as a full-time job.

I'm not advocating that we tell the full-timers "tough luck" by any means, I just think it is important to keep in mind when these topics come up that unlike some industries, the workforce isn't necessarily uniformly filled with employees seeking a "job" job with full benefits and the works, and in fact the business model of the company may rely on this. Doesn't make the suffering of the employees who are trying to make a go at it any less valid, but it does give a fuller view of the situation.

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

#295

Post by ShrinkingWild » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

lagadu wrote: post #288

ShrinkingWild wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one would, uber would be forced to either pay higher or go out of business due to a lack of supply in drivers. As it stands though, supply of drivers way outweighs demand for drivers, so they get paid less. A "liveable wage", whatever that is, isn't a workable solution for a lot of businesses, simply because the actual value of their work may be lower than the liveable wage. Now instead of getting some money for f…

I argument that if a business can't provide a livable wage to its full time employees, then the business isn't viable.

Only if you're enforcing the "livable" wage. Those people who would be working for under your "livable" wage would still be out of that money though.

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

#296

Post by mhaymo » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

SpaceRaccoon wrote: post #155

landryraccoon wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are saying that venture capitalists and naive investors are paying for part of my ride each time I take an Uber why wouldn’t I want to get as many subsidized rides in as I can before they go broke? How am I as a consumer not gaining every time this happens?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing The idea is that while it is nice to enjoy subsidized rides at the moment, as a consumer you may suffer in the future due to Uber establishing a monopoly.

Uber has no moat, so cannot possibly exploit a monopoly. The hardest part of their service to replicate is the drivers, and since they're all contractors they are free to work for Uber's competitors!

Even if Uber gained 100% share of car rides in an area, if they decided to exploit that by increasing their prices it would be relatively easy to create a competing company and undercut them.

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

#297

Post by tbyehl » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:31 PM UTC

francisofascii wrote: post #118

baddox wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite understand the connection to globalization or more rural communities. Urban cities, of course, generally offer the best walkability simply because of population density. In my experience in the United States, suburban communities and small towns are most literally unwalkable due to the design of the road network. In rural areas generally it's not feasible to walk simply because your place of work, groce…

Before globalization, rural communities had walkable towns, maybe just a few blocks, but enough stores to fulfill daily needs without the use of a car. Now all those communities have is big box stores several miles away.

Those walkable towns are/were just a smaller version of what we have today: an urban core that most of an area's population lives too far away to reasonably walk to.

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

#298

Post by TheRealDunkirk » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

jkaplowitz wrote: post #273

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a better way to express this idea, then: How do we create a REAL market for health insurance, so we can buy it like EVERY OTHER KIND OF INSURANCE?

It's not like every other kind of insurance, though. Health "insurance" covers many expected and predictable costs, which isn't what insurance is about in any industry. What we call health "insurance" is really just access to health care with expenses adequately covered, with only the portion of that covering unexpected or unlikely risks properly falling under the heading of insurance. Additionally, even the true ins…

That is an awesome answer, but pedantic. The real question is, again: how do we express the idea to create a REAL market for health "insurance"? It's not about the difference between health "insurance" and other kinds of "insurance." The question is how to express how to create a market for it.

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

#299

Post by ddxxdd » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

derekp7 wrote: post #88

dgzl wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friendly reminder that our 10th Amendment rights exist specifically to limit federal power, and to give states superceding power over the federal government. The opposite doesn't actually exist.

Except for Article 1 section 8. If it can be used to prevent a farmer from growing crops to feed his own animals, then it can be used to regulate insurance sales across state lines.

The current is moving in the opposite direction now. Female genital mutilation is now legal in America because federal courts have decided that it's better than abuse of the commerce clause: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/21/health/fgm-female-genital...

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

#300

Post by scarface74 » Wed, May 15, 2019, 2:46 PM UTC

crashbunny wrote: post #242

chii wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're confusing poorly paid contractors with highly paid and sought contractors. there's no difference. If your skillset is sought after, you get more money (by exercising your market demand). The fact that there are many poorly paid people is not a problem of the companies paying them poorly, but of society not creating equal opportunities for those people (e.g., for education) to skill up.

Yes, everyone should have the opportunity for education, but if no one can live on the pay of an uber driver so everyone skills up to get a better paying job, who will drive the ubers? I think everyone working fulltime should have a liveable wage.

So if my 17 year old son making Pizza were working full time, how much should he be making?

What about the franchise owner? An article was posted here a few weeks back saying the average yearly take home pay of a 7-11 owner was less than $40K a year and he was working 60+ hours per week.

Then the next argument is usually if they can’t pay a livable wage and be profitable that they shouldn’t be in business. Which is really a great argument on a site where many people work for money losing tech companies who are only in business because of VC funding.