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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

#21

Post by koolba »

VRay wrote: post #15
foota wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be that the market won't exist (or that the quality of service will diminish because of the lower network effects) if there isn't sufficient demand at a break even price post legislation.

I'll bet you could set up an actual marketplace with automated matchmaking it probably wouldn't be as good as Uber/Lyft can make things by forcing "contractors" to take unprofitable rides, though

And then you’re back to the NYC pre-2009 model where you can get a cab anywhere in Manhattan but good luck getting home from Bushwick.

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

#22

Post by not2b »

drewblaisdell wrote: post #4
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #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.

> 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".

AB5 was very clear about how Uber and Lyft drivers should be classified. There wasn't any ambiguity and it wasn't a hard case.

If Prob 22 wins, then that part of AB5 is overruled. If not, drivers are employees entitled to minimum wage and everything else employees are entitled to.

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

#23

Post by blmsjw »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #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…

Maybe you should ask yourself why the single party is unable to oppose special interests? It’s almost as if they were working together for some odd reason hmmm...

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

#25

Post by rectang »

drewblaisdell wrote: post #4
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #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.

> 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".

One of the great distinctions between natural languages and programming languages is that programming languages have comparatively little ambiguity — because computers do not have the capacity to consider external context when interpreting the intention of the programmer, and thus cannot resolve ambiguous constructs.

You'd hope that tech folks, from constantly having to accommodate this defect of computers, would develop a sophisticated appreciation for ambiguity. Instead, it seems that the ability to appreciate nuance atrophies.

Legal language may be more formalized than everyday language, but there is still lots and lots of ambiguity. The idea that there is a single correct interpretation of "the law" is nothing more than collective self-deception.

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

#26

Post by beambot »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #17
ChuckMcM wrote: post #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…

> 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. I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? The fear of rocking the boat effects anyone that, well, will live longer. Whether…

Yay & Nay votes aren't the only job of legislators. They're often responsible for writing good legislation too -- something that's arguably difficult to do if you're new to the job, so the task (largely) falls back to special interests to "help" with the process.

By way of example: Literature. It's easy to read a good book; it's much harder to write one without lots & lots of practice.

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

#27

Post by [deleted] »

foota wrote: post #13
Larrikin wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It could be that the market won't exist (or that the quality of service will diminish because of the lower network effects) if there isn't sufficient demand at a break even price post legislation.

[deleted]

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

#28

Post by foota »

VRay wrote: post #15
foota wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be that the market won't exist (or that the quality of service will diminish because of the lower network effects) if there isn't sufficient demand at a break even price post legislation.

I'll bet you could set up an actual marketplace with automated matchmaking it probably wouldn't be as good as Uber/Lyft can make things by forcing "contractors" to take unprofitable rides, though

> I'll bet you could set up an actual marketplace with automated matchmaking > it probably wouldn't be as good as Uber/Lyft can make things by forcing "contractors" to take unprofitable rides, though I think it's hard to tell what would happen. There's no reason that we would necessarily expect that uber drivers would not take lower wages for rides if they had to in a market.

It's hard to know whether Uber deflates the price of rides to keep demand high (and thereby steals surprlus from the drivers) or whether they inflate the price of rides to take a larger cut (and thereby steal surplus from riders).

Of course it's also hard to say whether if the price to the consumer went down the drivers would actually make more without Uber if the theoretical drop in price was less than the extra amount drivers get from Uber's previous cut.

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

#29

Post by d23 »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #17
ChuckMcM wrote: post #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…

> 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. I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out? The fear of rocking the boat effects anyone that, well, will live longer. Whether…

> I've never understood this argument. Potential "yay" and "nay" votes are both term-limited, so the "inexperience" should cancel out?

What? Take this to it's logical conclusion and imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays.

And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? If you know nothing about a fairly complex topic, it's easy to be mislead, especially by someone with an ulterior motive that's playing a game much longer than your term limits.

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

#30

Post by youeseh »

cm2012 wrote: post #24

Incredibly dumb. Taxi drivers have not ever been employees, what's the difference now?

The difference is in the power imbalance. Taxi drivers hold much more power and control over their ability to earn compared to Uber and Lyft drivers.
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