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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

#651

Post by 082349872349872 »

newsclues wrote: post #643
eie73hrhdje wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>... we should treat each other with more dignity... You mean like respecting their decision to engage in gig work despite every other available option? That kind of dignity? The whole issue is pretty rich coming from California. If people are struggling the answer is never that the cost of living is too high due to rediculous zoning and environmental regulations, clearly it's the greedy companies that are the proble…

Do people do gig work out of choice or necessity? Just because people choose or are forced to do a job doesn’t mean they do not deserve respect

The medium is probably just coincidence, but I found the "what do you want to be when you grow up" onesie an excellent meta-comment on class mobility:

https://www.teepublic.com/onesie/328209-what-do-you-want-to-...

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

#652

Post by piva00 »

tasubotadas wrote: post #619
piva00 wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Slavery doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation, if so there wouldn't be classifications of work analogous to slavery. Don't be so shallow minded...

>Slavery doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation from dictionary: slavery - the state of being a slave. slave - a person who is _the legal property of another_ and is forced to obey them. The fact that you use "slavery" as a synonim to hard work and/or high dependance, doesn't make "doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation" true.

Ok, so [0]:

  slavery noun
  slav· ery | \ ˈslā-v(ə-)rē  \
   Definition of slavery
    1a: the practice of slaveholding
     b: the state of a person who is a chattel of another
    2: submission to a dominating influence
    3: drudgery, toil
Or [1]:

  slavery
  in British English
  (ˈsleɪvərɪ  )
  NOUN
  1. the state or condition of being a slave; a civil relationship whereby one person has absolute power over another and controls his or her life, liberty, and fortune
  2. the subjection of a person to another person, esp in being forced into work
  3. the condition of being subject to some influence or habit
  4. work done in harsh conditions for low pay
Or [2]:

  slavery
  Pronunciation /ˈslāv(ə)rē/ /ˈsleɪv(ə)ri/
  NOUN

  1. The state of being a slave.
  1.1 The practice or system of owning slaves.
  1.2 A condition compared to that of a slave in respect of exhausting labor or restricted freedom.
  1.3 Excessive dependence on or devotion to something.
Like others said: use better dictionaries.

[0] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slavery (Merriam-Webster)

[1] https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/slavery (Collins)

[2] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/slavery (Oxford)

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

#653

Post by ghaff »

xmprt wrote: post #538
pb7 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You lack imagination. Only 66 years passed between the first manned flight on Earth and man stepping foot on the Moon. And technology is accelerating at a much faster rate today.

Would you believe someone who in 1970 said, "We landed a man on the moon. In 50 years we'll surely have flying cars!" I'm sure a lot of people believed that in 1970 but look where we are now. Technology accelerates at a much faster pace but often times in ways that you don't expect. The people in 1970 probably didn't imagine smartphones with a global 4G network but instead of flying cars we got this.

Or fusion power. Or natural language conversations with computers (as opposed to largely rote voice recognition).

Deep learning/machine learning have made remarkable advances in recent years--primarily because of both computational (esp. GPU) and storage/data advances.

However, in spite of a lot of money and talent expended on understanding organic brains and human-level cognition over the decades, progress has been slow and there's a general belief among scientists who work in AI spanning CS and neuroscience that there are aspects to human learning and reasoning that we just don't really understand yet.

And that more deep learning, data, and programmed rules won't get you to autonomous vehicles outside of some limited domains. (Which is valuable by itself; it just doesn't get you to robo-taxies.)

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

#654

Post by eie73hrhdje »

microcolonel wrote: post #646
newsclues wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people do gig work out of choice or necessity? Just because people choose or are forced to do a job doesn’t mean they do not deserve respect

I don't see the ‘respect’ and ‘dignity’ in being prohibited from taking work because it is aesthetically displeasing to the 1%.

I feel like you're disagreeing with me but I'm unclear what we are disagreeing on.

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

#655

Post by zaarn »

pbreit wrote: post #466
threepio wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid you're repeating Uber's favorite talking point, which is that everyone should respect the worker's decision to be an employee or contractor. Nobody disputes that Uber can have employees or contractors (or both), or that drivers should, in principle, be able to choose what status they hold. The problem is that Uber currently exerts so much control over its "independent contractor" relationships that they ha…

Uber drivers literally need not even show up. What "control" are you referring to?

Standard employees also can just not show up as they want. Entirely possible for both contractors and employees.

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

#656

Post by ghaff »

Franciscouzo wrote: post #301
ghaff wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it somewhat amusing there are still people bought into the self-driving hype other than in limited circumstances. Does anyone actually believe these companies at this point? Who actually aren't saying much any longer. I'd be far less surprised if Google shutdown Waymo in a year or two than if they actually introduced a door-to-door driving service in an urban area without a safety driver present.

Most driving is in limited circumstances, of course they're not going to offer self-driving rides when it's snowy or raining heavily.

Self-driving in good weather on specific roads (probably limited access highways) is indeed a very useful goal for both convenience and safety. It just won't satisfy the people who want to be driven everywhere and never have to even own a car.

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

#657

Post by bhupy »

dustinmoris wrote: post #577

Lots of HN comments are here like "I know people who prefer to be contractors", "My sister's neighbours little brother actually doesn't want to be treated with respect by Uber", blah This is utter nonsense. Being a contractor means being self employed. You don't get paid leave or sick pay. It's a risk taking and doesn't make any sense in the gig economy where the wages are close to minimum rates. If you are truly sel…

> Lots of HN comments are here like "I know people who prefer to be contractors", "My sister's neighbours little brother actually doesn't want to be treated with respect by Uber", blah

It's a willful misrepresentation to characterize these merely as anecdotes. Polls/surveys show that drivers overwhelmingly share this sentiment[1].

> This is utter nonsense. Being a contractor means being self employed. You don't get paid leave or sick pay. It's a risk taking and doesn't make any sense in the gig economy where the wages are close to minimum rates.

This is not a prerequisite for being a "contractor". That the rates are "close to minimum rates" is a reflection of the market demand for the labor.

> If you are truly self employed then you have a skill which you can market, you can charge fees which allows one to put money aside for things like unpaid leave or sick days.

Again, this is nice in theory, but not necessarily true for all self employed contractors.

> If you are truly self employed then part of your job is building customer relationship, building up recurring customers, increasing your business through marketing, word of mouth, etc.

Again, this is nice in theory, but not necessarily true for all self employed contractors.

> Uber drivers are NONE of this.

Correct, but that doesn't change the fact that they are not employees.

> They clock into an app which belongs to someone else and they have no share in.

This was true before Uber/Lyft, where taxi drivers had to pay for the privilege of driving a car with a medallion that belonged to someone else. They were independent contractors under that arrangement.

Today, Uber/Lyft drivers report to no boss and can decide to drive whenever they want on a whim. They can drive 20 hours one week, 2 hours the next, and then take a vacation indefinitely with no repercussions. When Uber/Lyft announce layoffs for cost cutting, drivers are notably not affected. Insofar as drivers have experienced less work during COVID, it’s because there are fewer riders requesting rides, which suggests a rather direct rider-to-driver relationship.

> They can't even negotiate their own fees. That itself is fucked up.

Yes, Uber drivers can’t really set their own rates (this is changing soon), but that’s also not really a prerequisite for independence. There are loads of platforms where the intermediary only buys services by providers at set rates and sells them to a buyer, where the providers are not literally employees of the platform provider, eg: health insurance. This was also true of taxi drivers before Uber/Lyft came around.

> It's complete nonsense in extremely disingenuous by anyone here to suggest that an Uber driver is a self employed contractor and that this is good for them.

This is a borderline rule breaking content on its face, but just to engage with it, how do you know what's good for them? Maybe get off your high horse and speak for yourself.

[1] https://www.cadriversurvey.com/

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

#658

Post by scarface74 »

dustinmoris wrote: post #577

Lots of HN comments are here like "I know people who prefer to be contractors", "My sister's neighbours little brother actually doesn't want to be treated with respect by Uber", blah This is utter nonsense. Being a contractor means being self employed. You don't get paid leave or sick pay. It's a risk taking and doesn't make any sense in the gig economy where the wages are close to minimum rates. If you are truly sel…

Well. There have been stories of independent truck drivers that are being forced to leave California because they can’t be independent any more.

Jason Snell, a long time editor of Macworld, was let go years ago and decided to do podcasting and blogging full time, but he still wanted to do freelance writing. The new laws passed in California made it more difficult.

The only reason the gig economy is bad is because we have an ass backwards system where your health insurance, unemployment insurance, etc is tied to your employer.

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

#659

Post by scarface74 »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #591
jasode wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>All gig workers are slaves and we should treat each other with more dignity and upgrade them to employees. It's our bloody duty as a decent human being. Lyft/Uber can upgrade them to employees but the arithmetic of bottom-up economics means Uber has to raise prices to cover full employment benefits. The raised fares conflict with what passengers are willing to pay . E.g. even though yellow medallion taxis often cost…

>Lyft/Uber can upgrade them to employees but the arithmetic of bottom-up economics means Uber has to raise prices to cover full employment benefits. The raised fares conflict with what passengers are willing to pay Then the business is not profitable enough to exist. Simple as that.

You know the entire purpose of the company that runs this site is to fund businesses that aren’t profitable enough to exist? Only two companies that YC has funded have gone public.

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

#660

Post by moduspol »

ethanbond wrote: post #603
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Lyft/Uber can upgrade them to employees but the arithmetic of bottom-up economics means Uber has to raise prices to cover full employment benefits. The raised fares conflict with what passengers are willing to pay Then the business is not profitable enough to exist. Simple as that.

It’s incredible how many people just start from the assumption that these services must exist and then work backward from that. Obviously you run into serious dissonance when you arrive at the pricing problem, where the solution is quite simple: they shouldn’t exist. Then you can start thinking about real solutions to urban transit that have existed for more than a century.

The starting assumption is that free and rational adults are choosing to work for the wage and customers are choosing to pay a sufficient price, so it should exist. That's not working backward, or dissonance--it's an acknowledgement of reality.

It's a different unrelated group claiming that it shouldn't exist if it doesn't provide the pay / benefits they think it should.

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