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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

#401

Post by def8cefe »

Jommi wrote: post #391
def8cefe wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you being so rude? You've been disrespectful since your first comment in this thread. My point is even the French classify rideshare drivers and taxi drivers differently, per your own admission.

My apologies, I think I started off on a bit of a negative tone because I might have mistakenly analyzed your comments as a bit pompous and disrespectful as well. If that was not your intention, my bad. I should always better assume best intentions, not to mention discuss is always more productive if we stay on a positive tone. What I wanted to establish here is that 1) Conditions for driving for a ridehailing platfo…

I drive a taxi in a rich community 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Trust me when I say any pompousness was beaten out of me some time ago. :)

You've made some reasonable points for sure. The universal difference between traditional taxi drivers and Uber drivers that I want to reiterate is that truly self-employed taxi drivers are paid directly by customers, whereas Uber drivers are always paid exclusively by Uber. That, I feel, is a very important distinction when comparing their employment status.

Here in Ontario rideshare drivers and taxi drivers both have different legal status. Most legislation is on the municipal level but there is provincial law as well that makes the distinction.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#402

Post by pishpash »

sk5t wrote: post #304
pishpash wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pray tell, why does the builder capriciously click "accept project", repeatedly, knowing that some projects are more worthwhile than others, other than that they are compensated adequately for the risk? On what basis should someone presume to contradict the builder's calculus on this kind of tradeoff?

Well, those are the terms of the sometimes-lousy arrangement they have with the market-maker, which arrangement certain jurisdictions will construe as employment , due in large part to the builder/employee's lack of true contractor-like agency to consider and set a price for assignments. That some people are willing to participate in this zany scheme doesn't mean the court necessarily ought to view them as non-employ…

I think that's where the problem lies. A functioning market imposes certain restrictions on participants. A good regulator also adds requirements to ensure fairness, access, etc. One requirement (for instance) could be that you need to provide certain kinds of information about the work. Instead of doing this, what's the point of beating around the bush and inventing that one of the marks of employment is a "sometimes-lousy arrangement"? When did that become the defining characteristic of employment, as opposed to simply an unfavorable contract?

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#403

Post by paxys »

nicoburns wrote: post #309
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Target pays workers hourly wages. It would be quite something if they allowed you to work at Walmart during the hours you're being paid an hourly wage by Target.

Well one can't simultaneously drive a passenger obtained via Uber, and a passenger obtained via Lyft either.

Waiting for a ride with both apps turned on is actually pretty common.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#404

Post by caymanjim »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #383
nickbauman wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not price negotiation really at all because uber can and does kick people off the platform for not accepting rides. https://www.businessinsider.com/how-uber-drivers-get-deactiv...

That says they get kicked off for canceling too many rides. Accepting a ride and then canceling it is different than not accepting it to begin with.

They can also get kicked off for not accepting enough rides. When you're online and available you can't ignore what comes along.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#405

Post by manquer »

nabnob wrote: post #231
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.

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.

pretty much it is the same in consulting or any other freelancing industry, the customer always picks given the parameters ( availability, price, skill, experience etc) are acceptable. You can only choose to accept or deny as freelancer. It is always a demand driven, not supply driven.

You can choose to drive for other platforms today, you can directly engage customers ( uber drivers in my country occasionally ask you to cancel and pay directly) all of this would be illegal if they are employees.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#406

Post by saghm »

paxys wrote: post #403
nicoburns wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well one can't simultaneously drive a passenger obtained via Uber, and a passenger obtained via Lyft either.

Waiting for a ride with both apps turned on is actually pretty common.

Drivers aren't paid while they're waiting though, right? It seems to me like this is just holding two separate jobs of the same type (which I don't think is uncommon for the types of positions one might have at Target or Walmart), with the only difference being more flexibility of which hours to work.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#407

Post by danboarder »

foobar1962 wrote: post #180
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.

> pick their own "clientele": Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Door Dash, etc... They aren't clients, they are the "platforms". The clients are the people paying, not the people collecting.

Except they are the clients paying the driver. Uber, Lyft, etc pay the driver, so they are the client as they are the ones paying. The rider pays Uber directly, not the driver, so from the driver's perspective the gig companies like Lyft, Door Dash, or Uber are the clients they can choose to work with at any given time.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#408

Post by manquer »

xg15 wrote: post #244
viscanti wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The main difference is that the handymen can easily look for other customers elsewhere to find an alternative job. Uber drivers don't have this choice. I'm not sure what the situation is like in France, but most Uber drivers I've seen have the Lyft app open at the same time. It seems pretty trivial to download another app and use both at the same time (easier than almost any other freelancer finding more sources fo…

Choosing between two service providers is not the same as making offers and setting terms yourself.

I do not know france, but for example in India smart drivers who do that all time, use uber as lead gen tool for regular recurring customers like office going employees, senior citizens with regular hospital visits and build relationships offline and network just like any good freelancer.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#409

Post by fidelramos »

waheoo wrote: post #344
netcan wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws are, kinda by definition, highly legible. Reality is fuzzier. Whether or not Uber drivers fall under current legal definitions of "employee," I think they obviously do fall into the common sense definition that should be regulated under labour laws. Reality doesn't fall neatly into categories, which is why laws tend to have tons of details and exceptions. Some labour is day labour, piecemeal, etc. Labor laws do…

The amount of hang wringing in this thread to ignore this simple reality and defend their darling uber is kind of disgusting. Now id just wish law makers wake up and regulate paypal et al as banks.

Yes, because banking regulation works so well. coff 2008 coff coff.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#410

Post by danboarder »

awb wrote: post #116
boudin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main differnce is that the handymem can easily look for other customers elsewhere to find an alternative job. Uber drivers don't have this choice. They can't do a counter-offer neither. Technically, as you said, they can refuse. In practice, the power that Uber has on his drivers limits those choices a lot.

The inability to negotiate is the key point. On the point about choice, there are areas where drivers can drive for Uber or Lyft though so some drivers do have choice.

I think choosing one gig over another is a form of negotiation. The driver thinks about what will pay more: Delivering an Amazon Prime package, driving for Uber, delivering a meal via Postmates, etc. So by choosing the one that pays best you're rejecting the others. So they have an incentive to pay more and get you to work their gig.
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