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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

#41

Post by whyenot »

beambot wrote: post #26
Ericson2314 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Many legislators come to the job with previous experience serving at the county or city level. Once they have are elected at the state level they can serve for up to 12 years. To me, that seems like a reasonable balance between giving them enough time to gain experience while not allowing them to stay in office forever and amass the power and corruption that led to the passage of term limits (proposition 140) in the first place.

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

#42

Post by dudus »

johnloeber wrote: post #32
youeseh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No they don't. Taxi drivers are exploited end-to-end. There's a reason why the medallions eclipsed a million dollars in price. The drivers have to lease their cars on a daily basis, and start at around $160 leasing fee in the hole. They're driving for many hours before they start making any money at all. That's not "power and control", that's getting totally screwed. And every Uber or Lyft driver who has ever driven…

Just because taxi drivers were exploited it doesn't mean Uber drivers aren't. They are exploited in different ways.

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

#43

Post by gregschlom »

cm2012 wrote: post #24

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

That's not a very good argument though. The question is: will it benefit Uber and Lyft drivers to become employees?

Whether taxi drivers have ever been employees is not relevant.

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

#44

Post by KorematsuFred »

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…

Legislatures and Governors are merely instruments and people should be in charge. Having lived in many countries I would rather live in a country where Uber and Lift can add something to ballot rather than where they secretly bribe Governor or Legislators.

Both Uber and Lyft are California companies with billions of dollars in investment and thousands of employees, if they are facing an existential crisis I would at least give them a fair chance. California's hare brained policy to push some virtue signaling measure down the throats of Uber and Lyft is not good for gig economy, riders and innovations. Self driving cars would put all this theater to rest for good hopefully.

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

#45

Post by jerrya »

tcbasche wrote: post #35
umvi wrote: 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?

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't California have public transport? Renting cars isn't the only option I would think? I dunno, I'm not from the US so maybe I just don't understand.

California is a huge state, and LA, Southern California is huge metropolitan area, so too is the San Francisco Bay area.

Public transportation is mostly buses and some amount of light rail, they are indeed options if you are only traveling short distances, otherwise they are not a timely option if they are any option at all.

Within the city of San Francisco, I mostly travel either by my own car, by walking, or by bus or light rail, but SF is very unique in California, but to get to places in the region, outside the city, public transit is not your best bet

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

#46

Post by thebradbain »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #33
beambot wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even when the outside interests don't write the legislation, it's the staff and not actually politicians that too: politicians are basically constantly in meetings / at events and have no time for such work. :| Nothing prevents the staff from being retained from when legislator to the next.

And that's partly how you end up with what many people would perceive as a "shadow government" -- obviously a group of people are writing the laws, and most likely they're experienced in doing so, but who _are_ they? And who are they accountable to?

Kind of like the bureaucratic equivalent of external consultants coming into a private company.

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

#47

Post by KorematsuFred »

cm2012 wrote: post #24

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

Taxi drivers have unions through which they have pressurized government to create unusual barriers to entry. Thus they become rent seekers.

Also in many cities like NY, the taxi driver is not the owner of the taxi badge, since a badge costs upward of $300K it is often owned by some rich guy/company and taxi driver is basically a contractor treated even worse than Uber and Lyft's drivers.

California's move to force Uber to change agreements of its employment is nothing but a move to create new kind of rent seekers.

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

#48

Post by dybber »

Important victory for workers everywhere. Drivers is only one if the first areas where gig companies tries to avoid rules and regulation on worker protection, rights and benefits, by making employees into contractors. I hope we can get similar legislation introduced here in Denmark.

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

#49

Post by dmlittle »

tcbasche wrote: post #35
umvi wrote: 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?

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't California have public transport? Renting cars isn't the only option I would think? I dunno, I'm not from the US so maybe I just don't understand.

I can only speak for SF. While SF does have a public transportation system it leaves a lot to be desired. It usually runs late or not at all. Sometimes it's faster to walk 40-50min than it is to wait for the bus to stop by.

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

#50

Post by the_svd_doctor »

tcbasche wrote: post #35
umvi wrote: 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?

Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't California have public transport? Renting cars isn't the only option I would think? I dunno, I'm not from the US so maybe I just don't understand.

Public transport in the US, in general, sucks big time. California is no exception.
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