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Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

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Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#161

Post by bpodgursky »

jluxenberg wrote: post #36
Skunkleton wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...Uber drivers reported earning $13.47 per hour, which means that on average, drivers report that their car is costing them over $6 per hour to operate. If you were to drive full time, that would get you about 27k/year, which is about the average income that a taxi driver makes. Rideshare companies are asking you to take more personal financial risk than you might as a taxi driver, but giving you more flexibility.…

Tangent: $6/hr sounds a bit low; actual costs are probably higher. The IRS standard mileage rate (the amount you can deduct from your taxes for each mile driven) is $0.58/mi ( https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/standard-mileage-rates ) $6/hr operating costs means the driver is driving a max of ~10mi/hour, if costs to operate are in line with IRS guidelines.

The IRS deprecation is very far above the costs in actual practice. It's a very conservative number.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#162

Post by macinjosh »

Daishiman wrote: post #90
macinjosh wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're gas lighting us by ignoring the fact that this personal risk is taken at personal choice. If someone wanted the arrangement that comes with an employee/employer relationship there are jobs that offer that. But not everyone wants that, some people prefer, for their own reasons that are really none of your business to be an independent contractor. This is about choice plain and simple.

Personal risk isn't an isolated thing. Thousands of people taking personal risk have systemic effects, and these companies aren't paying into it, even though everyone around these "risk-takers" suffer the consequences.

> Thousands of people taking personal risk have systemic effects

How do you know the personal situation of each of Uber's/Lyft's drivers? How do we measure risk for each person in an objective way? Some people might be at no risk, some higher. We can't know! What right is there in taking away options that benefit some people because it might possibly not work well for someone who voluntarily signed a contract? This is not liberal policy. This is paternalistic, state-controlled economic oppression.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#163

Post by ericd »

coldpie wrote: post #78
hammock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I was curious about what drivers think. I guess they're not happy [1] but want to be independent contractors still [2]. If the employers don't want the change... and the employees don't want the change... and the customers don't want the change... and the shareholders don't want the change... and the residents of California don't want the change (exhibited by the threads yesterday with outcry over the decision to sh…

I'm not a resident of California (rather, Minnesota), but I do want it to change. I don't use gig services because I think anyone doing 40[1] hours of work deserves a wage they can live off of, along all the other employment protections we've worked so hard to implement. Gig services are cheap because they don't meet that requirement. If gig services were required to meet that minimum wage and workers' rights, then I…

And where does that "enough money to live off of" come from? Unless the company has a lot of fat to trim, it has to come from customers in the form of higher prices, or from investors throwing more cash onto the bonfire. What happens when customers would rather not use your service than pay the amount whatever you're proposing takes?

It's very possible that this market only exists at the size that it does at a price that doesn't support what people in the US think of as "a wage they can live off of", and that by mandating more compensation, then there will be a whole lot of drivers for whom this just isn't an option anymore.

That said, I think drivers should be able to set their own prices, and that there should be a real market with bidding, but the UX will probably suffer.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#164

Post by shuckles »

coldpie wrote: post #78
hammock wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I was curious about what drivers think. I guess they're not happy [1] but want to be independent contractors still [2]. If the employers don't want the change... and the employees don't want the change... and the customers don't want the change... and the shareholders don't want the change... and the residents of California don't want the change (exhibited by the threads yesterday with outcry over the decision to sh…

I'm not a resident of California (rather, Minnesota), but I do want it to change. I don't use gig services because I think anyone doing 40[1] hours of work deserves a wage they can live off of, along all the other employment protections we've worked so hard to implement. Gig services are cheap because they don't meet that requirement. If gig services were required to meet that minimum wage and workers' rights, then I…

The highest leverage way to help low income people in California is by focusing on reducing the cost of being alive. High barriers to earning money will just continue the decades long out migration of low income workers.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#165

Post by tempsy »

serjester wrote: post #99

Completely anecdotal but I bring this question up every time I drive in an Uber and overwhelmingly the drivers tell me they want to stay independent. No one is forcing drivers into their jobs. I really struggle to understand why we need bureaucrats imposing their idea of what a market should look like on an fairly efficient market. From my experience the drivers are perfectly aware of the costs that go into driving s…

imo biggest problem with the independent argument is Uber and Lyft actively penalizes you as a driver if you decline unprofitable trips. Also I believe Lyft (unsure about Uber) even stopped showing you how much you make per trip and instead just rolls it into one summary, presumably to make it harder for you to do the cost/benefit of deciding whether a trip is worth doing.

that sort of big brother behavior is the antithesis of independence and throws out any argument that Uber is somehow just providing drivers with lead gen software like they’re Salesforce or something

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#166

Post by coldpie »

orangecat wrote: post #145
coldpie wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a resident of California (rather, Minnesota), but I do want it to change. I don't use gig services because I think anyone doing 40[1] hours of work deserves a wage they can live off of, along all the other employment protections we've worked so hard to implement. Gig services are cheap because they don't meet that requirement. If gig services were required to meet that minimum wage and workers' rights, then I…

Serious question: is your main complaint the low pay, or lack of benefits? If Uber increased pay to an average of $30/hour after expenses but still treated them as contractors and told them to buy their own health insurance, would you be ok with that?

Both. I'm not an employment law expert, but things like mandatory breaks, working conditions, PTO (pa/maternal leave, etc.). If you work a full time job, you are entitled to a comfortable life with a healthy work/life balance.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#168

Post by throwawaygh »

marcinzm wrote: post #157
square90 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CARES Act and state-level programs are paying unemployment assistance to contractors and self-employed individuals not usually covered by unemployment [0], [1]. [0] https://www.edd.ca.gov/about_edd/coronavirus-2019/pandemic-u... [1] https://www.edd.ca.gov/about_edd/coronavirus-2019/cares-act....

Which is a one-off "world is burning down" case which no one planned for or expected. Hardy a long term plan by the VCs to take advantage of everyone else. I'm guessing unemployment insurance didn't cover a lot of the rest of the unemployed either for COVID (as it ran out due to never being designed for this situation) so it came from taxes. In which case no one paid into the social safety net except through taxes (w…

Any remotely competent student of history can foresee occasional economic crises with high unemployment. That’s why we have a national unemployment insurance scheme.

Maybe you don’t foresee a pandemic, but only in the same way that you don’t foresee getting side-swiped when a car passes you while blowing its tire. Or having your house’s roof ripped off by a tornado. Totally unforeseeable events, but somewhat predicable circumstances.

The bailouts in crises are not one off because there’s always going to be another crisis.

Taking care of contractors who work for employers that arbitrage labor protections == corporate bailouts.

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#169

Post by beached_whale »

jluxenberg wrote: post #36
Skunkleton wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...Uber drivers reported earning $13.47 per hour, which means that on average, drivers report that their car is costing them over $6 per hour to operate. If you were to drive full time, that would get you about 27k/year, which is about the average income that a taxi driver makes. Rideshare companies are asking you to take more personal financial risk than you might as a taxi driver, but giving you more flexibility.…

Tangent: $6/hr sounds a bit low; actual costs are probably higher. The IRS standard mileage rate (the amount you can deduct from your taxes for each mile driven) is $0.58/mi ( https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/standard-mileage-rates ) $6/hr operating costs means the driver is driving a max of ~10mi/hour, if costs to operate are in line with IRS guidelines.

I was talking to a taxi dispatcher at some function here in Canada, and it came up that each vehicle on the road would drive about 500km/day. That's about $200-$250/day in what the per distance rate many employers give out(40¢-50¢/km) for fuel and wear on vehicle. But assuming an 22hrs of driving a day(on a taxi with multiple drivers), that's about 22km each hour or $11/hr for fuel and wear on the vehicle according to what many employers would pay in addition to time driving. This is in Canadian dollars, so $11/hr is about $8/hr in USD and works out to an average of $16USD/hr of driving(assuming (22km|13miles)/hr average)

Re: Uber and Lyft shutdown in California averted as judge grants emergency stay

#170

Post by usaar333 »

all_blue_chucks wrote: post #154
serjester wrote: post #99

Completely anecdotal but I bring this question up every time I drive in an Uber and overwhelmingly the drivers tell me they want to stay independent. No one is forcing drivers into their jobs. I really struggle to understand why we need bureaucrats imposing their idea of what a market should look like on an fairly efficient market. From my experience the drivers are perfectly aware of the costs that go into driving s…

We should all care. Uber doesn't provide health insurance. Instead Uber drivers get their healthcare costs covered by the rest of us (either via ACA subsidies or written-off care provided to the uninsured).

Making them employees doesn't give them health insurance. Only if they work over 30 hours a week, which Uber is highly incentived to cap.

Besides, what you are actually stating is that Uber riders should pay for Uber driver's health insurance, rather than the general population.

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