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California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

reuters.com

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Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#2
> Remedying those harms more strongly served the public interest

I hate reporters using this language to describe court opinions. It’s a legal term of art that makes decisions sound political.

The judge ruled based on the law. Lawmakers balance public interest. Yes, the court furthers that through its work, but it isn’t actively creating the scales by which to weigh these parties’ interests.

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#3

> Remedying those harms more strongly served the public interest I hate reporters using this language to describe court opinions. It’s a legal term of art that makes decisions sound political. The judge ruled based on the law. Lawmakers balance public interest. Yes, the court furthers that through its work, but it isn’t actively creating the scales by which to weigh these parties’ interests.

[deleted]

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#4

> Remedying those harms more strongly served the public interest I hate reporters using this language to describe court opinions. It’s a legal term of art that makes decisions sound political. The judge ruled based on the law. Lawmakers balance public interest. Yes, the court furthers that through its work, but it isn’t actively creating the scales by which to weigh these parties’ interests.

> The judge ruled based on the law.

Are you basing this on anything other than the ideal that we Americans are taught about how courts work? In practice, a reasoned argument can be made for two or more interpretations of law and judges are often entirely "political".

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#6
post #5

So does this mean it'll be more economical for me to just rent cars again and drive myself whenever I fly to California?

I always say this whenever this comes up, but, the number of duis since Uber has been operating have dropped precipitously. I don’t want to be on California roads late at night without Uber.

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#8
post #5

So does this mean it'll be more economical for me to just rent cars again and drive myself whenever I fly to California?

Possibly. It was only a matter of time before VC-subsidized undercharging for better taxi services ran out.

But Uber/Lyft are a better service than the taxis of old, so I'm inclined to continue using them vs car renting.

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#9
This has been an interesting battle in terms of civil governance. Basically Uber & Lyft threatened to put the initiative they wrote, on the ballot if the legislature passed AB5, which they did.

Uber and Lyft are now doing everything they can to get it to pass which will set up its own court fight.

Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" is it the Legislature/Governor or is it special interests who can spend enough to put bespoke laws into effect and make bespoke changes to the state constitution?

California didn't help itself when it implemented term limits which had the unpleasant side effect of never having any legislators with enough experience in the job to know how to really get things done, and so the "work" of writing laws has also fallen to special interests. This has never been more clear than the last 4 years where California has had a single party in both houses, and a Governor and still cannot legislate anything that special interests oppose.

I don't know what the "solution" would be but it does not feel like it is serving the people of California well (as someone who lives here).

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#10
post #6
post #5

So does this mean it'll be more economical for me to just rent cars again and drive myself whenever I fly to California?

I always say this whenever this comes up, but, the number of duis since Uber has been operating have dropped precipitously. I don’t want to be on California roads late at night without Uber.

I don't care if uber can't pay back their VCs and goes under because of this ruling. There is a model that has shown to have a service people want and are willing to pay for, the market will find the right price with a different company. Drunk driving reduction has been a good thing about these services, but it doesn't need to be uber.
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