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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

#41

Post by munk-a »

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.

Taxi drivers are almost certainly mostly employees. "Contactor" is a kinda arbitrary employee status which has some theoretical usages - but most of the time it's just abused to deny employment benefits from employees.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#42

Post by chrisseaton »

dahfizz wrote: post #28
zwieback wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if that's true. Our hourlies get benefits like health insurance, vacation, etc. Maybe not as good as salaried but it's not as clear cut as "hourly pay only."

What does paid time off even look like if you don't have a set schedule, though? Will Uber drivers just get n hours of wage added to their paycheck every month?

I work for an organisation on a contract of as many hours as I want, and I just get paid pro-rata for days off. It’s effectively just extra pay.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#43

Post by vkou »

xenospn wrote: post #15
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

And it has been losing tons of money for even longer. Without VCs to bail them out several times a year, how will they justify operating at a huge loss in France without a viable path to profitability?

Somehow, taxi companies in France have figured out how to operate profitably.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#44

Post by djrogers »

floatingatoll wrote: post #36
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.

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 subco…

> Traditional taxi drivers own their taxi medallions

That's not really the case in a lot of places - drivers 'rent' medallions from Taxi companies, as the medallions cost many times the annual income of a driver. Although, their value is droppnig due to ridesharing apps.

[1]

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#45

Post by chrisseaton »

lostgame wrote: post #40
BigBubbleButt wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Subsidising rides, a lot of engineers required to run a massive real-time system, and big legal teams to work in so many regions.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#46

Post by spullara »

munk-a wrote: post #41
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.

Taxi drivers are almost certainly mostly employees. "Contactor" is a kinda arbitrary employee status which has some theoretical usages - but most of the time it's just abused to deny employment benefits from employees.

All of the taxi drivers I knew in SF when I lived there rented their taxi for the night, up front.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#47

Post by munk-a »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #35
rickbutton wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Does this reasoning mean that all waiters are independent contractors? They collect cash directly from the customer and reserve a portion of that before passing it on to their employer (the tip) - taxi drivers (who are members of a firm) due end up paying the firm dues for the service of having a pooled call center and possibly maintenance services.

I think trying to determine if someone is an employee based on if they receive cash from customers is a pretty arbitrary line that seems to exclude some pretty valid definitions of independent contractors like temporary workers and sales consultants.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#48

Post by rtkwe »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #35
rickbutton wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There's the obvious choice of the dispatch company they work for.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#49

Post by munk-a »

zwieback wrote: post #16
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).

I don't know if that's true. Our hourlies get benefits like health insurance, vacation, etc. Maybe not as good as salaried but it's not as clear cut as "hourly pay only."

In America very few of those (except health insurance) are actually mandated by the government. Sadly in the US most employment benefits are only exchanged at the grace of the employer.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#50

Post by curiousgal »

jakub_g wrote: post #34

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…

It is a win-win situation, the majority of those junior devs are from North Africa and they still make way more than they would have back home.
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