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California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

nytimes.com

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Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#181

Post by [deleted] »

droidno9 wrote: post #110
pieix wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for posting the exact wording of the bill. Which of these three clauses are not satisfied by drivers for a ridesharing company?

The burden of proof would be on Uber and Lyft to show: (B) The person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business. This would be a hard sell because Uber and Lyft are in the business of providing transportation to people. They may argue that they're only providing the platform that enables drivers to provide rides, but considering the amount of evidence that says otherwise, I'd like…

[deleted]

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#182

Post by jcims »

kart23 wrote: post #64

So what's actually going to happen? I'm still confused. Ridesharing drivers will now be paid wages, not based on the time that they have a passenger? Will the ridesharing service have to pay for the cars and their maintenance? From the article, it seem the only effect is that drivers are going to be scheduled in advance, and flexibility is going to be decreased.

Also does this mean that there will be limits on how many drivers are allowed in a locale?

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#183

Post by monkbroc »

Is there any reason to believe the ride sharing companies won't reorganize their drivers using a similar model to what Amazon uses for their delivery drivers: contract to external firms that employ drivers so the parent entity is absolved of responsibility?

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/us/amazon-delivery-driver...

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#184

Post by moduspol »

cheriot wrote: post #46
hayksaakian wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your case seems to be a consequence of how healthcare works in America (insurance). For those of us lucky enough to be in good health, the "Gig economy" as-described would be just fine.

> For those of us lucky enough to be in good health It's a common refrain that only people with health problems need health care, but that's just not true. Risk has a price. That's why health care and life insurance for healthy people is not free. Good health just makes it easier to pretend that risk isn't there. Tying health care to employment is a historical accident long overdue for change.

> Tying health care to employment is a historical accident long overdue for change.

This, 100%. It wouldn't solve everything, but it'd be a huge positive step to roll back tax incentives that encourage this.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#185

Post by unionpivo »

dodobirdlord wrote: post #104
comex wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not only will they cap it as you have said, but generally you aren't allowed to be employed by multiple employers. Citation needed.

> but generally you aren't allowed to be employed by multiple employers This is a standard condition of many employment contracts that the employee not also work for a competitor. Uber and Lyft previously had no such condition because drivers driving for both companies helped their case that drivers should be considered independent contractors. But now that drivers are employees by fiat, Uber will obviously ban drivi…

Why would uber or lyft do that, because they know the other will do the same ?

It will reduce the number of aviable drivers on each platform, thus pushing their (drivers) price up.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#186

Post by lr »

monkbroc wrote: post #183

Is there any reason to believe the ride sharing companies won't reorganize their drivers using a similar model to what Amazon uses for their delivery drivers: contract to external firms that employ drivers so the parent entity is absolved of responsibility? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/us/amazon-delivery-driver...

Then that makes them too much (or exactly like) a taxi outfit, which would not go down too well.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#187

Post by DanielBMarkham »

monkbroc wrote: post #183

Is there any reason to believe the ride sharing companies won't reorganize their drivers using a similar model to what Amazon uses for their delivery drivers: contract to external firms that employ drivers so the parent entity is absolved of responsibility? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/us/amazon-delivery-driver...

This is an important point, as many times these laws claim to do one thing and end up doing another.

Does this fix a problem? Or does it keep the old problem, just in a new configuration, and add barriers to entry for new participants?

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#188

Post by influx »

stickfigure wrote: post #14

If this actually gets enforced, I predict we'll all be talking about the law of unintended consequences in a year's time.

Won’t this just mean that Uber hires all their drivers, prevents them from driving on another service, waits for Lyft to die and then raise rates?

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#189

Post by lr »

“Some of the companies are not done fighting the bill. Uber, Lyft and DoorDash have pledged to spend $90 million to support a ballot initiative that would essentially exempt them from the legislation.”

And how may people who drive for these companies are not citizens and cannot vote?

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#190

Post by swalsh »

mikekchar wrote: post #150
droidno9 wrote: post #43

For those of you who want to read the bill: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.x... . The pertinent part of the bill: 2750.3. (a) (1) For purposes of the provisions of this code and the Unemployment Insurance Code, and for the wage orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission, a person providing labor or services for remuneration shall be considered an employee rather than an independent contra…

As a software contractor... (A) and (B) are terrifying. I think (A) means you really can't do contract work while working under the direction of a manager, or PGM. So you essentially have to be doing work for hire rather than filling in a specialist role for a defined period of time. (B)... Wow... So if the company is a software development company, they can't hire contractors??? I really hope I'm reading that wrong.…

In 2019, it's probably not too out of scope for nearly any business to argue software is a core part of their daily activities. The digital transformation is basically done, if in the last 10 years you didn't turn your company into a quasi-tech company your competitors did and you died.

I'd make the guess that one could go into finer detail on what specific type of software development falls in-line with the daily activities, but software development in general might be too broad. An ecommerce company probably could argue php development is part of its daily development, but if it hired a contractor to modify their build system, that might be outside the scope of their core business.

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