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Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

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Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#351

Post by jojobas »

abvdasker wrote: post #320

The consequences of this ruling are probably not going to be known for a while. This is certainly bad for Uber & Lyft insofar as it will greatly increase their operating costs. The question is what effect the ruling will have on drivers. Uber is not a profitable company with fat margins like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple or Netflix. I don't see any way for Uber to absorb the increased costs that come with full empl…

>drivers will no longer be able to choose when they work

Why? Uber is still free to let them choose if they choose so.

>Going forward people who want to drive for Uber will have to interview like any other job

Why? Uber would be free to hire without interview.

>this will bring a big improvement in quality of life

That's the point.

>The rest will be out of a job

It was deemed that this kind of a job is not worth having people in, often being below minimum wage and with no protection. In a bit of hyperbole, abolition took jobs from slaves as well.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#353

Post by ummonk »

xyzzyz wrote: post #177
TeMPOraL wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine the fun metagames this would cause. If the government took Uber's stick away, the company would be forced to find a rate at which they'd have enough drivers to allow for reasonably short pickup time. Drivers then could, over their local "$city Uber drivers" FB/WhatsApp group, agree to not take any ride below $X, thus forcing Uber to raise their rates to $X (+ Uber's cut). (While dropping drivers from the plat…

There is no stick; they already have to do that. If the drivers don’t like the rates and think they earn too little, they quit. Uber has to ensure that drivers make attractive rates if it wants retain them. And indeed, it offers lots of bonus pay, special deals etc precisely for that reason. > Drivers then could, over their local "$city Uber drivers" FB/WhatsApp group, agree to not take any ride below $X, This is, of…

The bonus pay and special deals are actually what would make the contractor classification somewhat questionable, even without the California law. Uber is using incentives to try to control its drivers' hours.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#354

Post by satya71 »

abvdasker wrote: post #320

The consequences of this ruling are probably not going to be known for a while. This is certainly bad for Uber & Lyft insofar as it will greatly increase their operating costs. The question is what effect the ruling will have on drivers. Uber is not a profitable company with fat margins like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple or Netflix. I don't see any way for Uber to absorb the increased costs that come with full empl…

I think Uber already chooses when they work and for how long. Uber will have to cap the hours at 8 hrs a day to save on overtime. But the "new employees" can work multiple jobs if they want.

Are there employment laws I'm not aware of that require "interviews"? Most fast food works can become employees by just walking in the door, I think.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#355

Post by specialist »

mysterEFrank wrote: post #132
specialist wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber drivers invest $20k for opportunity to earn $15/hr. How much do your contracting friends invest? What's their compensation?

That's not fair. It's like claiming that airbnb hosts spend 500k to earn 100 dollars a night. Most people own cars anyways, this is an opportunity for them to make money off of that investment.

Unfair how? That's the calculus.

The sharing economy, gig economy, concessionaire model, MLM ponzi, franchise system, value-added reseller channel are minor variations of a time proven wealth transfer scheme.

The mark provides the capital and labor, and carries most of the risk.

The landlord, platform, broker, aggregator extracts all of the profit, value, wealth.

Any time a serf prospers is accidental. And quickly remedied.

By any other name, right?

It's be nice if the critics would reject the frame. Instead of phrases like late stage capitalism, just speak plainly.

It's feudalism. Repackaged and rebranded. But still just plain old feudalism.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#356

Post by Gunax »

kangaroozach wrote: post #264
dnautics wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having been a driver for 1.5 years my questions for you are these: 1. If Uber and Lyft allow their drivers to choose, would it be reasonable for them to make "having the other app on at the same time" cause for dismissal? I know of no other employee that is allowed to simultaneously bill time on a competitor. Contractors, absolutely. Employees, no. 2. What if Uber, instead, charged $1.00/mo for the drivers to use the…

1. Makes sense. CA is wrong to outlaw voluntary working relationships between two parties. 2. Interesting idea, but then all companies could just do this and make the same claim that their employees/contractors/vendors are just customers too! Not gonna fly.

In terms of legality I agree with the judge.

In practical terms, this is trivial for uber to dodge. All they need to do is transform from a company offering rides, to a company connecting riders to drivers. It sounds like a big difference but I susoect very little about the user experience would change.

For instance they could allow riders to offer different rates, but heavily favour (through ui and other soft incentives) the suggested rate.

In the end the drivers would be driving the same car at the same price with the same benefits.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#357

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

aeturnum wrote: post #335
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can imagine Uber offering jobs v.s. contractor positions with differing levels of support, remuneration, and expectations. Legally, in California, they can't do that. As outlined in the article, the 'ABC test' is the legal test for determining whether someone is an employee or a contractor. The 'B' part of that test is "The worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business." If…

Gotcha - so a company can choose to use employees or contractors for a given type of work, but must be consistent within that type of work? So, for instance, you might hire initially a contractor to create the encrypted part of your product, but once you had hired someone to do that work full time you would be legally barred from hiring additional contractors to do that?

> so a company can choose to use employees or contractors for a given type of work, but must be consistent within that type of work?

Pretty much, though even then it is determined by what the courts decide is the company's "normal course of business." Obviously there are big gray areas here. And, also obviously, there are many cases where both the worker and the employer would prefer to treat the relationship as a contractor relationship, and if they both agree there is nobody to file a lawsuit contesting it (unless, of course, there are lots of people in the exact same role who could challenge the classification, as is the case with Uber).

Also, note while there are federal rules that determine IRS classification, California has stricter laws when it comes to employee vs contractor.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#358

Post by missedthecue »

mleo wrote: post #347
missedthecue wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just raise taxes because either way, it's the consumer paying. Not Uber. It would take much less effort

It's the consumers using the services that pay extra costs associated with these services. Socializing the costs through general taxes across the greater public that does not use gig economy services is not good.

And the benefit of doing it my way is that it takes one session in congress and no further actions, whereas building, maintaining, and policing an entirely new regulatory framework would likely be on net costlier than raising income taxes by a few basis points on the top couple tax brackets.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#359

Post by apta »

c3534l wrote: post #56

I'm not surprised. Uber and Lyft try co classify their workers as contractors when it comes to taxes and benefits, yet undermine workers abilities to actually be independent contractors when it suits them to do so. If you want to be a platform that helps connect drivers with passengers, then be that app. You can't then go in and set rates, not pay per client, not give contractors the ability to work for the customers…

Maybe we should consider for a second that the law is broken (hint: it is).

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#360

Post by satya71 »

pb7 wrote: post #215
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well... many people work more than one job. IANAL, but I don't think your employer can forbid you from working more than one job. But Uber and Lyft are direct competitors. I have a clause in my contract that forbids me working for a direct competitor, but I'm a software engineer and I have knowledge of trade secrets. A driver? Not so much. So I think that a court would find a restriction that you couldn't work for bo…

They can't forbid you from working in your off time but now you're their employee -- you work 8 hours straight during which you're not allowed to work for a competitor or you're fired. If you want to work for Lyft for another 8 hours after that, go ahead. But Lyft isn't going to let you work for 2 hours and pay you benefits.

Most part-time employees do not get any benefits. So no big change there.
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