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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

#471

Post by novok »

PunchTornado wrote: post #445
ProAm wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is exactly what being a contractor is though. Accepting contract work you'd like, and turning down work you don't. Otherwise you are an employee.

A ride is more like a task. I've been a contractor and I couldn't refuse jira tasks. You've signed a contract with the company, you should do all the jira tasks they throw at you.

Many people argue that those kinds of contractors are employees. Often your an employee of the contracting firm AFAIK too, so you have to follow the implicit orders of the contracting firm.

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

#472

Post by bogomipz »

>"If the appeal doesn’t work out for Uber, it will be banking on voters to determine its fate. Khosrowshahi said if that’s the case, the service would likely shut down in California until November, when voters in the state decide on Proposition 22, ..."

I'm curious has the current situation with Covid-19 affected the likelihood of this passing? Would't the fact that CAREs Act allowed gig worker to collect unemployment assistance have swayed public opinion on upside of being designated a full time employee and the ability to collect unemployment when things go south?

For all the talk by the companies behind Prop 22 about a "third way", why wasn't the this third classification made a ballot initiative instead of simply saying they should be classified as a an independent contractor? Does it not seem odd to believe in a "third way" but have your legislation call for classification using one of the existing two?[1]

[1] https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...

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

#473

Post by temp667 »

spamizbad wrote: post #36
temp667 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The corruption here is incredible - the taxi cab industry had insurance of like $20K per accident (talk to the women who got brain damage), would never pickup in bad areas AND paid their workers as.... independent contractors!! You think your taxi driver is a W2 employee - please think again. The number of carve outs in this new "principled" rule is incredible, and more industries keep asking for them (freelance writ…

Sadly I've noticed Uber drivers have a system to avoid nasty area pickups (but they can't do that with drop-offs). It seems like given enough time the ridesharing industry is adopting all the bad habits of the Taxi industry.

Not as good a system as cabs did. Especially with uber black I got picked up in very very tough areas in a prior job/career. Cabs didn't come period.

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

#474

Post by runako »

twblalock wrote: post #315
thatguy0900 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't every law specifically intended to put a group of people in noncompliance with it? What's the point of making a law if everyone was going to comply regardless?

The power to create laws is not supposed to be used as weapon. It clearly was in this case. AB5 was written in bad faith with the goal of hurting specific companies, not with the goal of writing a sensible law that sets a framework for how businesses ought to operate. They wrote it in such a hurry that it unintentionally hurt a bunch of other people and small businesses. That's not how laws are supposed to work.

Would you consider all labor and environmental laws to have been crafted as a weapon?

One could argue that much of our labor and environmental protective apparatus was written to curb behaviors of specific companies (or "business models," if you prefer).

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

#475

Post by idontpost »

londons_explore wrote: post #437
msoad wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to work at Lyft. It is disgusting how Lyft and Uber treat drivers with their A/B testing etc. Those PMs have no sympathy for drivers. A driver can end up in an experiment group that totally screws his income. WRT to drivers not going to neighborhood I have a solution for you: let passengers offer higher pricers. This is not a new idea BTW

> It is disgusting how Lyft and Uber treat drivers with their A/B testing Society as a whole needs to answer the question "is it moral to roll a dice and offer a worse service to people who get an odd number?" In my view, it is. As far as that person is concerned, they can pretend your company doesn't exist and go to another company (and maybe roll another dice) Some other people would say "all businesses must treat…

This is silly.

Companies have ALWAYS had test products that they offer to a subset of customers.

There's no legal test to be applied here.

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

#476

Post by gamblor956 »

refurb wrote: post #268
gamblor956 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the people leaving CA were of the far-right political persuasion, so good riddance to them. And generally, CA is already overpopulated for the amount of housing currently available (or constructable within the near future), so having fewer people actually relieves a lot of the overusage issues currently plaguing many of the public services in CA. With specific respect to the tax issue, the flipside of "one mo…

Most of the people leaving CA were of the far-right political persuasion, so good riddance to them. Ha! Yeah, CA is known for it’s multitude of far-right groups. And if they are so far right, why are they leaving and voting for left wing policies in other states? Suffice to say CA has some of the highest taxes of any state, yet it also has some of the worst social problems - poverty, homelessness, etc. I’d say it CA…

CA is a huge state, and while the big cities are mostly liberal, the rural parts of the state are very conservative. Nixon and Reagan hail from Southern California, and up until fairly recently, Orange County and the Inland Empire were more conservative than the Southeast.

A number of far right groups can trace their origins to the Inland Empire or to CA's far North.

As for the homeless issues: multiple states admit that they use CA as their dumping grounds for their homeless. It was, and still is, the unofficial policy of the state of Texas to buy their homeless tickets to LA. (Former TX governor Rick Perry used to openly brag about this, including when he was running for president.) A recent survey conducted by the LA Times last year found that more than half of LA's homeless aren't even from California. They just came here because authorities back home suggested that they would enjoy CA more. Excluding the non-local homeless, LA would have enough beds to house its own homeless. We just don't have enough to house the entire country's homeless as well.

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

#477

Post by zepto »

gamblor956 wrote: post #359
zepto wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you aren’t being serious or you just haven’t lived in a city with real public transport. You can get to a lot of places in the Bay Area by public transport, but the time penalty for doing and the number of services you have to use is absurd outside of downtown SF. Typically 3x driving and upwards. Compare this to New York, or London or Amsterdam, where it can be close to parity, or on the 1-2x range. (I mentio…

Zepto, prior to covid, it was faster to take LA Metro between Santa Monica and LA, or Hollywood and LA, or Pasadena and LA, or Long Beach and LA, than it was to drive those same distances. During rush hour, it was approximately 1 hour faster to take Metrolink between LA and OC destinations than it was to drive the same distance. In the Bay Area, it was at least 1 hour faster to take BART cross-bay than to drive, espe…

I agree with you about rush hour and with central downtown locations only, although even at those times and for those specific routes the Bay Area only approaches parity with the other cities I listed.

I think the point about geographic density is completely fair as an explanation for why the disparity exists, but it mostly serves to confirm the general point.

If you consider the percentage of locations or population addressable in a unit of time - e.g. in 1 hour, by public transport. The Bay Area does terribly.

This is an argument why public transport cannot substitute for ride share or car services in the Bay Area in the way that it can in other cities.

I speak as someone who has personal experience of all of these cities.

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

#478

Post by twblalock »

runako wrote: post #469
twblalock wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That seems like the definition of capriciously applying laws, and would seem like it would create more problems arising from unequal application of laws. AB5 is a case of capriciously writing laws. The state wrote a new law that was specifically intended to put Uber and similar companies in a state of noncompliance with it.

> specifically intended to put Uber and similar companies in a state of noncompliance with it. It would be capricious if it were more targeted, written without ample public discussion, or if the affected firms had no ability to continue operations. As I understand it, none of that is true of AB5. For example, the affected companies are free to use contingent workforces in a manner similar to the other many thousands…

If it wasn't targeted, then why are there so many exceptions written into the law? Lawmakers added exemptions for dozens of different types of businesses. If this was intended to be a generic law about worker classification they wouldn't have needed to do that. They really had Uber and similar companies in their crosshairs, and they intended to apply this law narrowly to them.

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

#479

Post by slipheen »

School-Cotton wrote: post #378
vkou wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a bad law - if Uber can't operate in compliance with it, it has a bad business model.

OK, if that's true, then what's the problem with them stopping business in California? According to your logic, everyone wins.

In my view, that's exactly right.

They should either treat their drivers like FT employees, pivot to a new (legal) service, or shut down entirely (and disband the company).

If they can't treat their drivers decently and follow the law, they shouldn't exist.

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

#480

Post by omnipugent »

novok wrote: post #467
deminature wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 mo…

So if Adorama sells on amazon.com, does adorama the corporation become an employee of amazon? If the separation on that mindfuck is 'register a corp / LLC', then what prevents drivers making an LLC to drive for uber?

Couldn't Uber allow other operating companies to use its service along with Raiser/Raizer LLC as long as they follow certain platform terms?
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