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Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

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Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#231

Post by nabnob »

danboarder wrote: post #108
m11a wrote: post #96

> The criteria for self-employment include the possibility of building up one's own clientele, the freedom to set one's own rates, and the freedom to set the terms and conditions for providing one's services. Immediately I'd seem to agree with this statement. I think of typical self-employment businesses; hairdressers, freelance developers, etc and this seems to apply. You can set your own rate and your own terms, ev…

But people I know who are trying this gig economy part-time can pick their own "clientele": Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Door Dash, etc... they work for whichever client they want, on their own schedule. As an "employee" of Uber, I doubt they will want you working for competitors.

Uber does not let you pick your clients. Drivers get a request for a trip that they can either accept or deny, and they also penalize drivers for rejecting too many trip requests.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#232

Post by nabnob »

m11a wrote: post #122
danboarder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But people I know who are trying this gig economy part-time can pick their own "clientele": Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Door Dash, etc... they work for whichever client they want, on their own schedule. As an "employee" of Uber, I doubt they will want you working for competitors.

See, this is key. If Uber has to class them as employees, it should also be able to deny them from working on other platforms. It should also be able to set working hours. And deny drivers the ability to refuse rides if they wish to keep their job. It could provide a daily salary and not let drivers decide or see fares. Because this is what employment typically entails.

Uber does penalize drivers for rejecting too many rides.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#233

Post by manigandham »

madsbuch wrote: post #160
Mirioron wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people voluntarily choose those jobs then doesn't that mean those jobs are better than the alternatives they have? It also provides a pretty nice service.

That people are able to do what's best for them is a faulty assumption and the key argument for regulation.

This attitude that people need to be saved from themselves usually leads to worse conditions for everyone.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#234

Post by username90 »

avianlyric wrote: post #210
hnewsshadowbans wrote: post #201

With Uber want to work? Press a button. Want to take a break? Press a button. Want to work again? Press a button. Take as long a break as you want. Work as long as you want. No timecards. No obnoxious coworkers. No intrusive questions. No douchebag bosses making your life a living hell. In what other job do you have this sort of freedom without the instability of traditional selfemployment? What more could you ask fo…

> Its side hustle money for bored college kids with some free time. Except it isn’t. If it was then Uber wouldn’t be trying to setup vehicle leasing schemes for their drivers. If it was true then I would actually meet some college kid drivers, rather that 30 year old migrants. If you’re a single mother raising 5 kids on Uber, then you probably have no choice. Telling them they’re “doing it wrong” won’t feed their kid…

Fact is that every time you create a new way to earn money some people will do it full time no matter the feasibility. So basically you argue that we should have the current wage-slave economy forever instead of giving workers more choice. The only reason Uber is even a hint of a problem today is that we only have a single occupation following this model, but if it was more widespread and you could pick between a plethora of different things to earn money by as easily as Uber then suddenly the problems with Uber today would disappear instantly.

I understand that the current wage-slave model is better for employers, workers can't go home early if they feel tired that day for less pay since it would get them fired. Instead they have to tough out their hours every day. Similarly if a part time worker wanted a bit of extra money they could just choose to work more a few times, but that is also impossible in the current model. It assumes that workers are like machines who reliably work XX hours per week with no deviations. And even hourly jobs requires you to pick shifts beforehand and often you can't even get as many hours as you want or need, and you can still get fired for picking too few shifts etc.

So I feel that Uber is a much more humane way to handle labor than current employment contracts.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#235

Post by Consultant32452 »

alistairSH wrote: post #131
m11a wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say John make a platform right now and set the rule that there's no negotiations permitted. Builders accepting the proposal must accept at the listed price. Obviously there remains a variation in the quality of the different proposals (some builders may be more polite, or use better wood). Obviously, the key difference here is that I would be able to choose what builder I want, but the customer on Uber doesn't get to…

I'd argue that in the builder-app, the builder has now been transformed into an employee, same as an Uber driver. To me, "setting prices" is more than just refusing/accepting prices set by an algorithm/app, but the ability to negotiate those independently. In the cake example, a baker absolutely could attempt to negotiate for chocolate. They might not "win" the negotiation, but they have the option. Edit - in the tax…

Home Depot sets prices for services like carpet install. They sub it out to various installers. AAA subcontracts out to local tow operators to provide nationwide coverage. Huge segments of the economy would fall apart of we made all of those kinds of people employees.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#236

Post by jteppinette »

BitwiseFool wrote: post #111
oarla wrote: post #101

I am not sure I understand why this is a win for Uber drivers(genuine question). Is it considered a win because now they are treated as employees, so they will have benefits like sick pay, vacation days etc? What was the policy when they were not employees? Would they be penalized(financially) if they took a sick day? France already mandates some of these for contractors, so not a huge benefit, I think. I doubt it'll…

I have a hunch this is actually being done to hurt Uber drivers and save the already well-regulated Cab industry in France.

This ^ it is always helpful to see who is doing the lobbying.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#237

Post by namdnay »

hnewsshadowbans wrote: post #201

With Uber want to work? Press a button. Want to take a break? Press a button. Want to work again? Press a button. Take as long a break as you want. Work as long as you want. No timecards. No obnoxious coworkers. No intrusive questions. No douchebag bosses making your life a living hell. In what other job do you have this sort of freedom without the instability of traditional selfemployment? What more could you ask fo…

> Its side hustle money for bored college kids with some free time

So a side hustle for bored college kids is undercutting people who need a real job to feed a real family. Hardly an argument in favour of Uber?

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#238

Post by slovenlyrobot »

mavelikara wrote: post #166
slovenlyrobot wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK HMRC has just absolutely devastated the London contracting market due to a rule shakeup like this. Speaking as an ex-contractor and current hiring manager, the result has been disastrous.

What were the changes and it's negative results you observed?

They moved responsibility for determining whether a person is acting as an employee or a vendor in the vast majority of cases to the client, who must demonstrate a bunch of factors (I'm not a tax guy), not least

- the "vendor's" right to substitute himself for a replacement they subcontract (via employment or otherwise) to, irrespective of the client's deemed suitability of the chosen replacement

- the "vendor's" right to a significant level of autonomy, such as the ability to choose their working hours and lunches, and have high level control over their workflow

- the process of determination 'employee' vs 'vendor' must be significantly documented and can be challenged in retrospect for years after completion of the contract

Falling on the wrong side of a determination could leave the client liable for mandatory national insurance and pay-as-you-earn tax deductions. Now HMRC need not prosecute individual contractors, but instead clients (who may hire hundreds of contractors), making the enforcement process much more efficient for them, and much higher risk for the clients.

Net result for companies: building big overnight temporary teams out of contractors e.g. for 6-12 month projects are vastly less likely to do so, for fear that at some future date, the tax man could claw back a year's worth of tax for e.g. 20 contractors on the same project, with non-compliance and late payment penalties lumped on top (which themselves increase with respect to how long it took HMRC to get around to investigating you). It could be the case (hypothetically) that it would only require one member of a team to report the inability to substitute, or the presence of a line manager, for an entire project team's worth of tax to get a question mark placed next to it.

Net result for contractors: anyone who understands what's going on has either pivoted into becoming a permanent employee, avoiding the whole mess, since contracting is an expensive activity to begin with, and the premium has now been removed, or has banded with a few friends and attempted to set up "micro agencies". I've already encountered these, where substitution was advertised very early in conversation.

Net result for the market: it will be all but gone by April 2020.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#239

Post by hnewsshadowbans »

avianlyric wrote: post #210
hnewsshadowbans wrote: post #201

With Uber want to work? Press a button. Want to take a break? Press a button. Want to work again? Press a button. Take as long a break as you want. Work as long as you want. No timecards. No obnoxious coworkers. No intrusive questions. No douchebag bosses making your life a living hell. In what other job do you have this sort of freedom without the instability of traditional selfemployment? What more could you ask fo…

> Its side hustle money for bored college kids with some free time. Except it isn’t. If it was then Uber wouldn’t be trying to setup vehicle leasing schemes for their drivers. If it was true then I would actually meet some college kid drivers, rather that 30 year old migrants. If you’re a single mother raising 5 kids on Uber, then you probably have no choice. Telling them they’re “doing it wrong” won’t feed their kid…

If people want to work for Uber so badly then whats Uber's place not to accommodate them? If single mothers need help so badly then thats not Uber's problem, they're out to run a business not save the world. The government should do something useful for them instead of effectively putting them out of work.

Yes the main effect of this is the company will have to restrict its standards and probably less of these people we're supposedly so concerned about will be able to work anymore due to qualifications or being able to cope. And those left now get to enjoy more regulations, supervisors, time cards, and workplace surveillance and the daily grind just like the rest of us drones. Heck Uber is barely scraping by as is. This might be the killing blow and now everybody is out of work. Good job.

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