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Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

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Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#421

Post by thatoneuser »

kingnothing wrote: post #367
kirykl wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridiculous that it takes a legal battle for Uber to offer these customer and driver friendly features

I used to work at Uber. I'll focus on one particular point: allowing drivers to see where riders are going before they accept the trip. Uber, at least when I worked there, was heavily against this functionality as it allows drivers to discriminate against riders who are going to poor neighborhoods or from cities to suburbs where they may have difficulty in getting another rider. That feature is bad for the overall ec…

That sounds like what a roomful of execs would cleverly start talking about to cover there asses, when in reality they knew what they were doing.

If uber cared about guaranteeing your trip to the airport, guarantee it will come and guarantee it's worth the drivers time. If uber cared about folks in the suburbs then guarantee a driver won't go 30 miles one way and then hope they'll get a ride that will take then back home instead of possibly further away.

This "ecosystem" had many of changes to be fair to the drivers and still guarantee a level of experience for the passengers. But the execs of uber have ALWAYS been fast to shove the burden onto the driver for their profit.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#422

Post by ThrustVectoring »

vadym909 wrote: post #406

Great- I think this will bring forth the root cause of the problem which is employer tied benefits and employer tied taxes. Right now there are entire business models based on avoiding taxes and benefits. You can have protections like min wage, sick leave, etc and still make it really simple os that evvery individual pays the entire tax (employer and employee payroll taxes) for every dollar they earn. It can be scale…

The nominal burden of who "pays" employment-related taxes or benefits is completely separate from who the actual tax incidence falls on. Would you rather get paid $10k that you owe $1000 of taxes on, or get paid $9k with the $1k of taxes already withheld for you? Either way, the total cost of employing you remains the same for the company, and the take home pay after taxes remains the same.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#423

Post by deminature »

Will_Do wrote: post #247
pininja wrote: post #166

I work at Uber outside of the rides/eats business and observed many feature releases to adjust the business after AB5. What I saw released: - Enabling drivers to see where a rider is going before accepting the trip [0] [2] - Removed a main penalty for declining rides, “No More 85% Acceptance Rate Requirement For Uber Pro” [2] - Drivers get set their own fare with a multiplier [1] (the article details screenshots and…

That's pretty interesting! In my view, the set your own fare part and penalty removal definitely moves them from the "employee" zone to "self-employed" in the everyday definition. I guess AB5 is much more strict.

AB5 imposes an ABC test on businesses after the precedent set by Dynamex [1]. The specific point of contention the judge has is the B of the ABC - that is whether drivers 'perform work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business'. Uber argues it is a technology company first, and drives/delivers second, whereas the judge argues the opposite. Convincing arguments can be made for both sides.

The modifications discussed in the top-level post address the A and C portions of the test, but not B unfortunately. The B clause is very broad, so likely has ramifications for many tech companies.

Taken to its furthest extent, AB5 makes Airbnb hosts Airbnb employees, Amazon marketplace sellers Amazon employees, eBay sellers eBay employees, Twitch streamers Twitch employees, etc.

[1] https://www.californiaemploymentlawreport.com/2019/03/unders...

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#424

Post by kart23 »

komali2 wrote: post #41

Why would they bank on voters? Do they really think people are going to vote against driver protections in california?

Uber has a lot of power here. They have the ability to speak directly to millions of young people, and explain the issue to their advantage and ensure the vote goes their way and the only issue the people will see is that they are no longer allowed to take uber, and will vote to get that back.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#425

Post by lebed2045 »

kirykl wrote: post #261
iooi wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is removing upfront pricing friendly to customers? It's horrible UX.

getting charged exactly for what you use is great

no, it's absolutely not. There is obvious incentive misalignment here: rider want to get to the destination as fast as cheap and possible, and the driver wants to earn as much and as little work as possible. Here is taking the longer route

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#426

Post by caycep »

I may be a bit behind the loop as to what efforts has been done before, but has there been efforts at doing a "taxi platform" vs. a full ride hail-service app, i.e. just providing an app as a common platform for different taxi medallion holders to ride hail and maybe handle payments but without handling full fledged ride recruitment and rates?

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#427

Post by SrslyJosh »

rrrazdan wrote: post #375

Well this just sucks. As a frequent SF visitor, Uber/Lyft used to be my primary way of moving around. I don't drive. I also don't see who benefits from this. You had a well functioning service for the users that will be disrupted. You had a flexible way to earn for drivers that will be disrupted. I chat with drivers a lot (to practise my English) and lots of drivers really like chatting too ( A lot of them were recen…

> A lot of drivers were sure forced to drive for Uber for lack of other alternatives but that is not Uber's problem. They did not add to the problem.

Uber ignored local laws to force their way into the taxi market without having to compete on the same terms as existing businesses.

Uber also classified their drivers as contractors to avoid having to pay fair wages and provide benefits.

They've been criticized for this (and many other things) for years. They could have changed course any time, but they didn't want to. They were too busy using internal tools to avoid scrutiny from regulators (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greyball), threatening journalists who wrote articles they didn't like (https://www.theverge.com/2014/11/18/7240215/uber-exec-casual...), and trapping drivers with predatory auto loans (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/05/uber-l...).

This is 100% Uber's fault.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#428

Post by gamblor956 »

GhostVII wrote: post #412
gamblor956 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "dependent contractor" is literally what an employee is, except that in your scenario it would just be an employee without the decades of hard-fought labor protections like bathroom breaks.

No, a "dependent contractor" is completely different from a regular employee. As an employee you are generally required to work certain hours, or at the very least do a certain amount of work in a week, and are paid either hourly or salaried. A dependent contractor, in this example, can set their own hours, start or stop working whenever they want, and gets paid per job rather than per hour or month.

Today I learned from the internet that I have been wrong about the advice I have been providing clients for the past decade... /s

Employees have contracts, too.

Everything you have described as supposed features of dependent contractors are features of independent contractors. Indeed, that last point is one of the biggest historical factors (in the US, and most of Europe) for determining whether a worker is an employee or a contractor. Historically what made a worker an independent contractor instead of an employee was that a worker was economically independent from an employer for their livelihood because they had other clients paying them for the same work. The work independence factors are an outgrowth of that analysis.

As to your other points:

Many employees can set their own hours. Most white collar employees can (and now do, as a result of COVID). It is hourly workers that can't chose when they work, because they are paid on the basis of time work rather than labor performed. Generally, whether a contractor can set their own hours is determined by the contract.

I'm not aware of any contractors that can simply start and stop working during a contracted job without violating their contract, so in that respect your point isn't valid for any worker, employee or otherwise.

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#429

Post by abeppu »

GhostVII wrote: post #412
gamblor956 wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "dependent contractor" is literally what an employee is, except that in your scenario it would just be an employee without the decades of hard-fought labor protections like bathroom breaks.

No, a "dependent contractor" is completely different from a regular employee. As an employee you are generally required to work certain hours, or at the very least do a certain amount of work in a week, and are paid either hourly or salaried. A dependent contractor, in this example, can set their own hours, start or stop working whenever they want, and gets paid per job rather than per hour or month.

How would you compare a "dependent contractor" to a restaurant worker who is largely paid in tips, and where management changes their working schedule frequently and erratically?

Re: Uber CEO says its service will probably shut down temporarily in California

#430

Post by hundchenkatze »

manfredo wrote: post #203
jonahhorowitz wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The requirements for contractors are (known as the ABC test)[0][1]: 1) Part A of the test requires that the worker is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact; and 2) Part B of the test requires that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s busines…

1) Uber drivers are totally at liberty to set their own hours, and drive in location of their choice ( destination are chosen by Uber, but a worker is at liberty to drive in San Jose one day and San Francisco the next). 2) The drivers are outside of Uber's business. Uber is a software and technology company, not a taxi service. 3) Drivers are independent workers, in business for themselves. 4) Same as above. With the…

> 2) The drivers are outside of Uber's business. Uber is a software and technology company, not a taxi service.

What good is all that software and technology if a driver doesn't pick me up when I request a ride. Uber very much depends on drivers to perform their core function.

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