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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

#561

Post by ezoe »

icebraining wrote: post #558
ezoe wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my country, it's illegal for the taxi driver to decline the customer unless it has valid reasons(the customer is violent or threatening, does not satisfy the hygiene standard, road is damaged etc). I think it's a fair regulation for it will casually lead to the discrimination. Also, in my country, being a taxi driver requires special license and certified car so Uber/Lyft doesn't offer the service. They don't want…

How is that regulation enforced?

By the usual law system. Police find the suspects, send it to the prosecutor, the court, lawyer, judge and all.

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

#562

Post by tokai »

fastball wrote: post #559

Honestly I think all of these ideas about what isn't and is a contractor are wayyyy over-specified. To my mind, a contractor has always been just someone you are hiring for a particular piece of work. It's about one-offs. You are not hiring them for a year, in which time they will do an indeterminate number of pieces of work. That is what an employee with a salary is for. You are hiring them to do a particular piece…

>I can't think of any occupation where the "employee" is getting paid on a per-task basis (rides in this case) and I would consider them an employee.

Piece rate work payment exists in construction, agriculture, and other industries. People are permanently on staff, but only paid in direct relation to their productivity. It's an old trick to extract the value of labour.

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

#563

Post by beerandt »

chriskanan wrote: post #549
thesimon wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Uber and Lyft were so welcome Then you are lucky. I can't count the times the drivers called me before picking me up, asking me where I want to go and then cancelling if it was nearby (or no answer at all). I never cancel, but they do. And when they don't do that, they are extremly annoyed when it's something close to the airport.

I've used both hundreds of times in the US, and that has never happened to me. They would only call to sync our positions to find each other, which happened very rarely.

This is basically the same thing, except cancelling based on pick-up location instead of destination. The app apparently doesn't always tell the driver exactly where the pickup is- it only gives the direction to drive and the next turn or two. It only gives the exact location once they're close to it.

This is to keep drivers from cancelling based on an out of the way pick-up location.

When they call, it's almost always to get information that the app won't give them.

I've gotten burned by both.

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

#564

Post by icebraining »

ezoe wrote: post #561
icebraining wrote: post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that regulation enforced?

By the usual law system. Police find the suspects, send it to the prosecutor, the court, lawyer, judge and all.

You're missing the part of getting evidence. Seems downright impossible to prove.

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

#565

Post by ta455634 »

prepend wrote: post #551
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They want to stay independent, fine. Then actually treat them like independent contractors. Let them set rates. Let them decline rides without facing penalties by the platform. Make the changes necessary to fit the independent contractor model. And not just the rideshare company, but the state too: these workers need unemployment insurance, as Covid has shown, and somebody needs to pay for it: be it the workers or th…

Independent contractors can’t set their own rates or decline jobs. FedEx uses independent contractors with established rates and requirements to carry. There are many independent contractors who can’t set rates or choose not to do parts of the job. Even my local barber shop co-op makes independent contractors have price ranges and doesn’t let them refuse walk ins if they are on duty. When I was an independent contrac…

I think the distinction is that Uber is claiming to facilitate a contract between the driver and the user. In your examples, not being allowed to refuse work (I would guess) was given as terms of the contract, whereas the argument against Uber is that Uber is setting the rates that drivers are allowed to use to enter into a contract and penalizing them for not entering into a contract. That said in the system where contracts are made between drivers and riders if a drivers accepts a ride and then cancels it that would be a breach of contract and I think Uber would be right to use that as a reason for delisting drivers from their marketplace.

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

#566

Post by SubuSS »

fooker wrote: post #243
ttymck wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the alternative look like? A contract for 10 rides? A contract for one week at a time? What if the driver wants to serve one ride, and then never again: what contract models allow that single ride to fulfill a "contract"?

Contracts can be pretty arbitrary. "Independent contractor -- except can't turn down a ride."

Could this be simply solved by having their star rating influenced by % ride drops? Uber can provide its price estimate as just that - a kelly blue book value so that riders can compare and contrast?

Most customers will search for a range of rating + price - so the market can regulate itself. I mean we accept amazon displaying user ratings - so I don't know why this won't work.

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

#567

Post by prepend »

ta455634 wrote: post #565
prepend wrote: post #551

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Independent contractors can’t set their own rates or decline jobs. FedEx uses independent contractors with established rates and requirements to carry. There are many independent contractors who can’t set rates or choose not to do parts of the job. Even my local barber shop co-op makes independent contractors have price ranges and doesn’t let them refuse walk ins if they are on duty. When I was an independent contrac…

I think the distinction is that Uber is claiming to facilitate a contract between the driver and the user. In your examples, not being allowed to refuse work (I would guess) was given as terms of the contract, whereas the argument against Uber is that Uber is setting the rates that drivers are allowed to use to enter into a contract and penalizing them for not entering into a contract. That said in the system where c…

Uber is the market maker, so it’s a three part contract. Between driver and rider; between driver and uber; between rider and uber.

Part of the market making function is matching prices offered and taken. Theoretically Uber is chopping off all the drivers with too high a price and riders who want too low of a price and “forcing a rate” is really just matching all the compatible rates that fall into a close range (“the algorithm”).

Maybe Uber could do more to show all the incompatible rates. But I think they delist drivers who would ask too high.

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

#568

Post by SubuSS »

icebraining wrote: post #564
ezoe wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the usual law system. Police find the suspects, send it to the prosecutor, the court, lawyer, judge and all.

You're missing the part of getting evidence. Seems downright impossible to prove.

I believe it will go along the lines of a sting. Get enough complaints, send enough undercover cops on said bad rides (short routes / racial differences - whatever the drivers are being accused of) and get em.

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

#569

Post by londons_explore »

gwd wrote: post #535
xapata wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had taxi drivers yell at me for how close I lived to the airport. Angrily banging the steering wheel. "I waited in line for 2 hours and I get this fucking fare!?" Then they drive maniacally fast, weaving through traffic hoping to catch the tail end of passengers disembarking my flight. Mildly terrifying. Uber and Lyft were so welcome.

But that's partly because, in all likelihood, the taxi driver also couldn't set their own rates. If that taxi driver could have asked $20 instead of the $3.75 legally mandated by the meter, would you have paid it? It seems like allowing a proper market, where both riders and drivers could bid on rides, would solve both this problem and the SuperShuttle problem.

It doesn't, because at 3am in a sparsely populated bit of town, there aren't enough participants for a market to work.

For me to have real choice as a rider, I need at least a few different offers from drivers on the table, at which point I can pick the cheapest/fastest/highest rated/whatever.

Likewise, for the driver to have a true choice, he has to have multiple ride offers in front of him to pick the best.

The reality is that in most local markets, most drivers spend the majority of their time sitting around because there are no riders (and therefore would never turn down any work), and riders are frequently so far from drivers that there is only one driver to choose from within 10 minutes waiting time, so they would be forced to accept the ride, whatever the price.

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

#570

Post by bhupy »

sixstringtheory wrote: post #508
bhupy wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drivers usually keep both apps open and active, then accept the first dispatch they receive and temporarily go offline on the other app while finishing the trip. Then lather, rinse, repeat.

I used to work multiple jobs at different restaurants, where I’d do a morning shift at one and an evening shift at the other. They could be considered competitors. What is the difference between what I did and what drivers do, besides the frequency of and duration of shifts? I don’t know what kind of laws might govern requirements here. Could be different between cities/states/countries, too. Now, maybe they’d dictat…

Sure, and in a world where Uber & Lyft drivers are employees, drivers would be forced to work shifts in the same way. They’d have to clock in a certain number of hours as part of the condition of “employment”, be it full time or part time.

What they would not be able to do is drive on both simultaneously. There’s virtually no low skilled minimum wage job that affords you the flexibility of setting your own hours at different employers.

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