Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees • Hacker News Board

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

#721

Post by jasonwatkinspdx » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:41 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #715

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also as far as I can tell, there is no worker co-op owned by the drivers anywhere in the world that treats members/drivers as employees with benefits. Why is that? http://www.unioncabpdx.com/ The world is a big place. I'm sure there are others.

> http://www.unioncabpdx.com/ Are you responding to the actual constraints in this discussion of _employees_ with _benefits_? As far as I can tell, Union Cab PDX does not provide employee benefits such as: - minimum hourly wage - paid time off (e.g. funding 2 weeks vacation) - unemployment payments if laid off I don't know if it's related but Unioncabpdx recently left the CWA Local 7901 union as they weren't paying m…

Yes, they provide benefits, including healthcare.

I don't know anything about them pulling out of the CWA local.

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

#722

Post by srean » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

xapata wrote: post #640

clusterfish wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Businesses want more profit. Consumers want to pay less. Workers want to earn more. Pretty much always. This doesn't always result in an optimal outcome. Market power, externalities, information asymmetry, etc. This is why we have regulations. Forcing the society and Uber to pay for drivers to be treated as employees seems like a very reasonable outcome. If they don't like it they can hire less drivers, but the ones…

What does it mean to be "treated like an employee"? I'd like regulation to give everyone healthcare. Are non-employees not worthy?

> I'd like regulation to give everyone healthcare

From what I understand, that would be unamerican.

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

#723

Post by jasode » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 2:57 PM UTC

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #721

jasode wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> http://www.unioncabpdx.com/ Are you responding to the actual constraints in this discussion of _employees_ with _benefits_? As far as I can tell, Union Cab PDX does not provide employee benefits such as: - minimum hourly wage - paid time off (e.g. funding 2 weeks vacation) - unemployment payments if laid off I don't know if it's related but Unioncabpdx recently left the CWA Local 7901 union as they weren't paying m…

Yes, they provide benefits, including healthcare. I don't know anything about them pulling out of the CWA local.

>Yes, they provide benefits, including healthcare.

But Union Cab Portland does not provide a guaranteed minimum hourly wage (a benefit that real employees are entitled to) and they are exempt like every other taxi company in Portland from the minimum wage law because taxi drivers are treated as contractors.

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

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Post by ec109685 » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 3:01 PM UTC

wavepruner wrote: post #720

ec109685 wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nurses have a lot of these benefits. You can work certain shifts for more money than other shifts. Similarly restaurant workers.

Incorrect. I cannot do these jobs. I would quickly lose my ability to walk and use my hands. And no one hires someone who randomly needs to take weeks off and can only work 5-10 hours a week when they can work at all. Not sure why you think you know what my limitations are. Or where you get the idea that employers actually hire disabled people. Look at the unemployment rate for disabled people.

No, I am not saying you can be a nurse. I am saying there are jobs out there that Uber can model a employer / employee relationship after that will still give you the flexibility you desire and need.

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

#725

Post by hajile » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

eie73hrhdje wrote: post #692

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 had a long rambling reply to this that in retrospect I think missed the forest for the trees. Put simply, most jobs are worked out of necessity because we don't live in a post scarcity society. It's a very privileged position to have a real choice between interesting jobs that aren't just two terrible competing options. Removing labor options by force weakens the position of low skill workers because it limits how…

People pay you for a job because you wouldn't do it for free.

This is why so many scientists work for peanuts. This is why most game developers work 60-80 hour weeks for a salary 30+% lower than what they'd make working that boring Java job at corporation X.

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

#726

Post by pseudalopex » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 3:18 PM UTC

momokoko wrote: post #704

pseudalopex wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers are allowed to limit vacation and prohibit working for competitors. California doesn't force them to.

In California employers are absolutely not allowed to prevent workers from working for competitors outside of their working hours. You are correct that they can limit vacation time, but Uber could also limit vacation time for contractors. There is nothing specific in California employment law that does not allow employers and employees to mutually agree to open vacation time.

22 CCR § 1256-32: "If an employee, without the knowledge and approval of his or her employer, accepts work for a competitor, the employee has engaged in misconduct."

I think we agree about vacation time.

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

#727

Post by blaser-waffle » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #712

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…

My guess is that the full story is this: Most Uber/Lyft drivers say they don't want to be considered employees because, for most of them, this isn't actually their job. It's just a side gig. I can't really speak to larger urban areas because I tend to prefer public transit when it's a viable option, but, in the smaller cities where I take most my rideshare rides, a pretty large percentage of the drivers I chat with e…

> Most Uber/Lyft drivers say they don't want to be considered employees because, for most of them, this isn't actually their job. It's just a side gig

For some, sure. Most of my rides have been with Indian/African/East European drivers who do it basically full time. Easily 90% or more.

A small number have been part-timers, mostly stay-at-home moms and retired people. One was a retired bartender and he did Uber mostly because his joints gave out which made standing hard, and Uber allowed him to make some petty cash while talking to people. But hands-down, these were the exceptions, not the rule.

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

#728

Post by blaser-waffle » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 3:29 PM UTC

jasode wrote: post #589

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…

>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…

From http://www.rideaustin.com/faq

> RideAustin is a community driven nonprofit ridesharing company founded by local entrepreneurs. The RideAustin launch team is led by Joe Liemandt, a longtime Austin tech entrepreneur, and Andy Tryba, CEO of Crossover. It is powered by donations, with paid and volunteer hours from both the Austin tech community and the broader Austin community working together.

So it's a non-profit, with volunteers ("volunteers"), who can get a stipend.

Sounds like a legal fiction, but I'd need to know more about how much they pay, how much money the founders make, etc. The cynic in me says it's the same shit but marketed better and not publicly traded, but there may be some genuine benefits.

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

#729

Post by lackbeard » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 3:56 PM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #500

lackbeard wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are employees in that they cannot negotiate rates. Hmm... How is an Uber driver different from a plumber here? Let's say Google needs some pipes fixed at one of its offices and they tell me how much they'll pay, refusing to budge from that figure. That doesn't make me Google's employee. I can choose to do the work for that price, or I can go fix Apple's pipes instead. What am I missing?

Your analogy doesn't map to this situation. Google and Apple would be the people you're driving around, not Uber. The company that employs you as a plumber maps to Uber, which of course would just be you if you were self employed.

Seems like it maps to me. Google and Apple are hiring me to do work, then they are selling the output of that work to someone else (indirectly, in this case, but I don't see how that matters.)

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

#730

Post by lackbeard » Tue, Aug 11, 2020, 4:01 PM UTC

nl wrote: post #475

lackbeard wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are employees in that they cannot negotiate rates. Hmm... How is an Uber driver different from a plumber here? Let's say Google needs some pipes fixed at one of its offices and they tell me how much they'll pay, refusing to budge from that figure. That doesn't make me Google's employee. I can choose to do the work for that price, or I can go fix Apple's pipes instead. What am I missing?

Because Uber sets the rates the customer pays, and the driver gets what Uber chooses. The driver doesn't have the ability to turn up a dial and say "I'm going to charge more now". (This isn't the only distinction between an employee and contractor though of course)

I don't see how Uber's relationship with the passenger has any bearing on a driver's relationship with Uber.

If instead, my analogy were that I was a general contractor who built water slides and a water park put out a bid on construction of a water slide and refused to negotiate, my only option is to take that bid or leave it. Why does it matter what the water park is going to charge the people to ride the slide?