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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

#81

Post by throwanem »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #68
floatingatoll wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> either a contractor can subcontract, or they're not a contractor. This doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I often work as a contractor. If I decided one morning to send a friend into a clients office to fulfil my duties, I would not even expect them to be able to gain entry to the building.

Are you a contractor, or are you an employee of a contracting firm? I've been both, and it is a meaningful distinction.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#82

Post by ElKrist »

pkaye wrote: post #20
ars wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Those are called zero hour contracts. It seems like they exist in France also: https://theculturetrip.com/europe/france/articles/what-to-kn...

No they don't exist in France.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#83

Post by dnautics »

munk-a wrote: post #62
chrisseaton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Waiters can be employees of a restaurant. Who can taxi drivers be an employee of?

The dispatch company - the company which, generally, has their name painted on the side of the taxi.

No, you don't understand. They are customers of the dispatch company. They pay the dispatch company licensing fees and rent. Totally different, way more exploitative and way more legal arrangement.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#84

Post by suifbwish »

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…

Oh you mean like fucking Google?

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#85

Post by smcphile »

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).

In France, by law hourly employees get medical insurance, a certain amount of paid sick leave, unemployment insurance and also contribute to a pension plan. These benefits are partially paid for by the worker and partially paid for by the employer. Hourly workers must also be paid at least a minimum net wage (after deductions for benefits), currently 7.82 euros per hour.

Contract workers pay for their benefits themselves. They’re legally required to pay into the national health insurance plan and to make payments into a pension plan, but the rest is optional. There is no required minimum wage.

Whether it’s better to work as an hourly worker or as a contract worker essentially depends on how much you’re making in each case.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#86

Post by chrisseaton »

munk-a wrote: post #70
chrisseaton wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think all taxi drivers work with a dispatch company. Most just pick people up at the side of the road don’t they?

I think that's a mis-categorization - I do agree that these exist (and a lot of them fall into the "airport taxi" class since that's a reliable place to get business) and a cab operating in such a manner sounds plausible to be an independent contractor. But organizations like Yellow Cab exist and is the way most folks hail a cab, even at hotels - when you ask the concierge to get a cab for you they'll almost certainl…

> they'll almost certainly call a local company and ask for a cab to be sent over

In my experience they just step outside and wave one down.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#87

Post by Frenziefrenz »

dnautics wrote: post #83
munk-a wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dispatch company - the company which, generally, has their name painted on the side of the taxi.

No, you don't understand. They are customers of the dispatch company. They pay the dispatch company licensing fees and rent. Totally different, way more exploitative and way more legal arrangement.

Where, in France? Considering they are employees in the Benelux I find that implausible. Especially considering that the OP is about a French court saying that Uber was just trying to find a loophole so they wouldn't have to treat their employees like any normal taxi company.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#88

Post by AmericanChopper »

throwanem wrote: post #81
AmericanChopper wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> either a contractor can subcontract, or they're not a contractor. This doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. I often work as a contractor. If I decided one morning to send a friend into a clients office to fulfil my duties, I would not even expect them to be able to gain entry to the building.

Are you a contractor, or are you an employee of a contracting firm? I've been both, and it is a meaningful distinction.

I’ve been both a contractor directly for companies, and contracted through contracting companies (being an employee for a contracting company is usually called being a consultant, which I’ve also been). In either case I would not assume that I could arbitrarily sub-contract my work out to others.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#89

Post by tombot »

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…

Medallions are a US permit, this article is about a ruling in France.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#90

Post by aglavine »

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 are reinvesting a lot.
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