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Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

courdecassation.fr

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Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#31

Post by tasogare »

dahfizz wrote: post #14

So can Uber force French drivers to work certain hours? As an American, I have poor understanding of what employment entails in the EU. If the Uber drivers are just hourly employees, what changes for them? In the USA, you only see real employment benefits if you are a salaried employee. An hourly worker gets paid their wage and that's it (no sick days, retirement, etc).

If you’re an employee you benefit healthcare, retirement etc. As I understand it, the basic week of work is 35h. You do do less if part-time. Employers also use "cadre" (white collar) contract for more qualified workers they want to milk more than the legal 35h.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#32

Post by Frenziefrenz »

dahfizz wrote: post #14

So can Uber force French drivers to work certain hours? As an American, I have poor understanding of what employment entails in the EU. If the Uber drivers are just hourly employees, what changes for them? In the USA, you only see real employment benefits if you are a salaried employee. An hourly worker gets paid their wage and that's it (no sick days, retirement, etc).

Such an all or nothing approach sounds slightly peculiar, to put it in the nicest terms possible.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#33

Post by vkou »

ars wrote: post #6
negrit wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you jump to this conclusion?

Is there such a thing as an employee with random hours? Isn't the whole point of an employee that there is an expectation of regular work?

> Is there such a thing as an employee with random hours?

As any junior employee in retail or the service industry will tell you, yes.

Their hours are random, unpredictable, up to the caprice of their manager and are assigned with very little notice. They also rarely add up to 40h/week.

During a labour shortage, this goes the other way, where managers end up scrambling to staff their store/restaurant, because their less-reliable employees decided to not show up to work, with very little notice.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#34

Post by jakub_g »

Now it would be interesting to see the opinion of the court on fake IT contractors (SSII), where as a developer you are a full-time employee of company X, rented for years as full-time "consultant" to company Y, on premises of company Y, just with lower salary and no profit sharing & no bonuses that staff of company Y enjoys.

(This has been a common practice of Microsoft in US in 1990s and they lost a lawsuit on that. In France, this is still an open secret and a way to milk junior developers. The markup those contractor companies make is crazy.)

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#35

Post by rahimnathwani »

rickbutton wrote: post #30
rahimnathwani wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't all of this also apply to taxis? Taxis pick up at taxi ranks or off the street. Taxis have regulations set by an organisation. Taxis (in most places) have rules that say they must take the most efficient route. In most places, taxis aren't allowed to refuse a customer based on destination. Does that mean that a taxi driver is an employee? Of course not.

Why not? Sounds like they would also be an employee under this ruling.

Whose employee? That of the taxi organisation which regulates them, but doesn't actually pay them? That of each of individual customer, who are the ones who pay them?

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#36

Post by floatingatoll »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #24
pkaye wrote: post #13

Seems a fair judgement since all the restriction make the drivers effectively work as employees: > Drivers who use the Uber application do not build up their own clientele, do not freely set their rates, and do not determine the terms and conditions of providing their transportation service. The company imposes the itinerary and the driver’s fare is adjusted if this itinerary is not followed. The destination is unkno…

Doesn't all of this also apply to taxis? Taxis pick up at taxi ranks or off the street. Taxis have regulations set by an organisation. Taxis (in most places) have rules that say they must take the most efficient route. In most places, taxis aren't allowed to refuse a customer based on destination. Does that mean that a taxi driver is an employee? Of course not.

Traditional taxi drivers own their taxi medallions and may transfer those medallions to other drivers, which provides one key aspect of their "independent" contractor state: If the cab company mistreats them, they can take their medallion elsewhere.

Uber's model prohibits drivers from subcontracting (transferring) their rides to others, which pierces the veil of 'independent contractor': either a contractor can subcontract, or they're not a contractor.

Caveat: This is not at all a complete argument for or against taxis or gig economy, but is meant to show how a division exists between the two to permit further consideration of the ruling.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#37

Post by boudin »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #24
pkaye wrote: post #13

Seems a fair judgement since all the restriction make the drivers effectively work as employees: > Drivers who use the Uber application do not build up their own clientele, do not freely set their rates, and do not determine the terms and conditions of providing their transportation service. The company imposes the itinerary and the driver’s fare is adjusted if this itinerary is not followed. The destination is unkno…

Doesn't all of this also apply to taxis? Taxis pick up at taxi ranks or off the street. Taxis have regulations set by an organisation. Taxis (in most places) have rules that say they must take the most efficient route. In most places, taxis aren't allowed to refuse a customer based on destination. Does that mean that a taxi driver is an employee? Of course not.

Some taxi drivers are employees, it really depends.

Some taxi companies have abused the independent contractor status as well and went through the same kind of trial in court. Here's an example: https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2017/12/12/taxi-drivers-emplo...

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#38

Post by chrisseaton »

rickbutton wrote: post #30
rahimnathwani wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't all of this also apply to taxis? Taxis pick up at taxi ranks or off the street. Taxis have regulations set by an organisation. Taxis (in most places) have rules that say they must take the most efficient route. In most places, taxis aren't allowed to refuse a customer based on destination. Does that mean that a taxi driver is an employee? Of course not.

Why not? Sounds like they would also be an employee under this ruling.

An employee of who?

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#39

Post by timdiggerm »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #24
pkaye wrote: post #13

Seems a fair judgement since all the restriction make the drivers effectively work as employees: > Drivers who use the Uber application do not build up their own clientele, do not freely set their rates, and do not determine the terms and conditions of providing their transportation service. The company imposes the itinerary and the driver’s fare is adjusted if this itinerary is not followed. The destination is unkno…

Doesn't all of this also apply to taxis? Taxis pick up at taxi ranks or off the street. Taxis have regulations set by an organisation. Taxis (in most places) have rules that say they must take the most efficient route. In most places, taxis aren't allowed to refuse a customer based on destination. Does that mean that a taxi driver is an employee? Of course not.

...aren't taxi drivers employees?

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#40

Post by lostgame »

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #19
nerfhammer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Uber is a public company now, it has not been VC funded for a long time 2) Regular taxi companies generally also treat drivers as contractors

> 1) Uber is a public company now, it has not been VC funded for a long time They also typically lose around $1 billion per quarter. Unless they figure out how to be profitable, they will eventually run out of money. So really, they are still burning cash on the roughly $20 billion of VC capital they raised, plus the money they raised during IPO. https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/8/20793793/uber-5-billion-qu...

>> They also typically lose around $1 billion per quarter.

What?! How on earth do you burn through $1B a quarter on a ride sharing app?

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