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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

#791

Post by rileymat2 »

ytpete wrote: post #744
rileymat2 wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Despite all the issues with the current situation, there are still a lot of obvious benefits that these workers do get like the ability to set their own hours, not having to work exactly 40 hours every week, and being able to work on multiple platforms. None of those are linked to being an employee or contractor.

I think they are in some cases. An employee can forbid you from working for a competitor at the same time, for example. This is usually a good thing - e.g. Apple doesn't want their Siri engineers moonlighting on the Alexa team after hours. I don't think contractors can be subject to the same sweeping restrictions. I believe for employees paid by the hour, the employer can also dictate the number of hours per week and…

What I am saying is that all those are up to the employer.

So it is disingenuous, when the company talks about additional benefits of being a contractor because those are all self imposed.

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

#792

Post by manfredo »

solidasparagus wrote: post #788
manfredo wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a music publishing company as much as DoorDash is a restaurant. You use DoorDash to get food, but DoorDash is not the person actually making the food. Likewise Apple sells music, but said music is actually recorded and published by some other entity.

Apple has Apple Music, a publishing division, where the head of it has the title Global Director of Music Publishing. It's kind of absurd to say that Apple isn't in the business of music publishing.

If Apple has actually started publishing its own music then indeed Apple would be a music publisher.

But has Uber done the same? Can you charter a car actually driven by Uber employees? As far as I am aware, Uber exclusively builds a platform to link passengers with independent drivers - who can and often do drive for competing services. Akin to what iTunes was before Apple started publishing its own music.

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

#793

Post by pishpash »

sidlls wrote: post #746
pishpash wrote: post #718

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please first define what is "work in the usual course of business". What work that any contractor does, given that it is work contracted for a necessary economic purpose within the business of the contracting party, isn't within the latter's usual course of business? Gig companies are market makers. By their very nature they are sitting in the middle of transactions and would be without a job without the transacting…

> What work that any contractor does, given that it is work contracted for a necessary economic purpose within the business of the contracting party, isn't within the latter's usual course of business? There are existing, relatively easily identified examples: tech companies hiring (on contract) workers to provide janitorial or cafeteria services, retailers hiring contracts to fix plumbing or install fixtures in thei…

Already the landlord hiring a painter example is getting tricky. That is required upkeep of the property. What about hiring a manager? What distinguishes that from hiring a painter?

Regardless, I see you specifically haven't addressed the market maker question. Please articulate a standard by which eBay's on-premise customary work is software development but a gig tech company's isn't. That's literally their regular and customary work of business that is performed on premise at HQ by a workforce that they can actually control (call to work and dismiss). There is no difference between those employees and drivers, huh? None at all? No market maker would have a business without participants doing their own work. The argument is neither thin nor shallow. It gets to the point of whether you can be in the business of making a market for contract labor or services. You seem to argue that that cannot be a business at all, and for what reason exactly?

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

#794

Post by kunai »

lhh wrote: post #745
vExLiz4r08 wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was for just the free market to decide, we would never have gotten rid of child labor. The government also tries to ensure that its citizenry are lifted out of poverty etc., things that free market isn't really incentivized to care for. As the op said, "As a society, we've decided that certain offers aren't acceptable, even if you can find someone desperate enough to take the offer." Am not sure if this situati…

If what you care about is lifting citizenry out of poverty, free markets have the best track record by far, despite countless attempts otherwise.

Free markets are excellent for lifting the baseline level of wealth among a nation's people (Marx admitted this as industrialization rapidly increased the wealth of Western Europe at the time of his coming of age). It does not solve the issue of wealth inequality, and exacerbates it to an extent to the point where an individual's wealth and the labor they expend to create that wealth are completely non-correlating -- you can work four times as hard as a laborer than an investor and not see any return while capital ends up with most of the value extracted from your labor.

Even the most pro-market economists acknowledge this critical, showstopping bug in the free market. Adam Smith acknowledges it. Friedman acknowledges it. Where opinions diverge is the solution, or whether the issue of inequality is even worth solving or worthy of government intervention. If you exit the toxic and obnoxious Silicon Valley Bay Area bubble, look out the window into an actual working class individual's life, I think you'll find plenty of evidence for that answer to be a resounding Yes.

The situation with Uber is similar, and California has decided that it is indeed worth the effort to allow drivers to keep more of the wealth they generate for the company. It's not communism, it's literally the first principle of commerce that individuals providing labor receive full compensation for their labor in return. There is no more a capitalist concept than that.

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

#795

Post by pishpash »

freeone3000 wrote: post #765
pishpash wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear to me that Prong B of AB5 is broken and it's not fixable, except by arbitrary exemptions galore. Rather than admitting this, the state seems hellbent on shoehorning this law into something politically motivated against gig companies. All the actions on the state's part points to bad faith.

Yes, the state's actual goal is to end gig work, by forcing gig work companies to actually treat their employees like employees. I'm for it. (It also seems weird to dismiss government action as politically motivated - of COURSE it is, it's literally political action! It's not going to be motivated by the tides!)

Then just come out and make a clean law against gig work. That's not what's done though.

It's fine to be politically motivated, however it's not good faith to be motivated against specific businesses while pretending to be following a broad principle that then needs exemption holes poked all over it to make work. It indicates there is no principle being followed, or at least they don't know what it should be, a situation which everyone should agree is dangerous.

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

#796

Post by shrib »

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…

hello test xyz

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

#797

Post by pishpash »

phatfish wrote: post #738
pishpash wrote: post #650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in this case they make it less fair, safe and non-discriminatory because those in government think they can ignore basic economics.

A government can ignore "basic economics" (bit of a vauge term), the government creates the environment that businesses exist in. If "basic economics" produce a result that is clearly unethical or a detriment to society then it can be ignored.

You're missing the point. The environment being created makes rides less fair, safe and non-discriminatory. That is what ignoring basic economics does in this case. What are you arguing for, exactly?

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

#798

Post by jjcon »

ashtonkem wrote: post #729
jjcon wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Courts can absolutely choose when to take cases

You do not want courts adjusting when they take cases specifically because of the economy. Doing that is to explicitly make the court an economic actor rather than a legal arbiter, which is a really bad idea.

And on the balance I think that would be preferable to an entire section of the California economy getting wiped out during record unemployment
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