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

reuters.com

51–60 of 423 posts

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

#51

This ruling could pave the way for a model that is good for everyone. As of now the gig economy exploits the poor[0]. Unless you think making 70% less than minimum wage is fair. 0: https://web.archive.org/web/20180302041610/http://ceepr.mit....

Is not being able to work for Uber and being unemployed more fair? Or do you or California's government have any more fair deal to offer these people?

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

#52
post #16

If Uber and Lyft don't win their proposition, they can either agree to classify their drivers as employees, or some company that is willing to classify drivers that way will take over the market. People are commenting as if app-based ride share will no longer be available. It might cost more, but it wouldn't be much more.

> People are commenting as if app-based ride share will no longer be available. It might cost more, but it wouldn't be much more.

Uber lost $8.5 billion dollars in 2019. Think about that. Uber is losing the better part of a billion dollars every month. They are hemmorrhaging money at their current prices. It will cost a lot more for this to be profitable when you consider how much more expensive this will make the drivers.

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

#53
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…

I don't know about other major cities in California, but in San Francisco, taxi medallions were free until Gavin Newsom decided to "monetize" them in 2010. After that the city sold them for $250,000 each while providing low interest loans (via a local credit union) so drivers could pay for them. When Uber and Lyft arrived, their drivers didn't need medallions and there were no limits on how many drivers either company could have on the street. The medallion system collapsed and those who took out loans for them did indeed end up getting screwed.

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

#54
post #41
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.

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…

The academic literature is overwhelming support of the argument that legislative term limits have zero value. They only lead to inexperienced, ineffective legislators.

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

#55
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's problem is precisely that it is a one party state. Even a few decades ago, California was not the one party state it is today. Having multiple candidates with meaningful differences on the ballot automatically lowers the ability of special interests to rule the state because it is difficult to be supported by people on completely different sides of the aisle.

The proposition that made California the way it is is the one that meant that the primaries are non-partisan and the final race is between the two top contenders. This means that special interests in California need only present their cause through the lens of leftism and they will automatically find sympathetic candidates in the top two, no matter who those are. Contrast this with a partisan primary system. In that system, on the final ballot, it would be difficult for special interests to formulate an argument appealing to both candidates.

EDIT: for some reason, I am downvoted but there is little engagement or actual refutation of what I'm saying. If you're going to downvote, at least say something. Otherwise, it makes it seem like the one-party state's propaganda arm is awake and working.

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

#56
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

And AB5 was just clarifying what the law after Dynamex v. Superior Court

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

#57
post #16

If Uber and Lyft don't win their proposition, they can either agree to classify their drivers as employees, or some company that is willing to classify drivers that way will take over the market. People are commenting as if app-based ride share will no longer be available. It might cost more, but it wouldn't be much more.

But what about the driver who doesn't want to be classified as an employee? What right do they have?

Less trite - my nephew is in his mid-twenties and appreciates the flexibility that food delivery and ride sharing allows him. Is legislation that outlaws that an improvement?

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

#58
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…

At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical leftist, I'm struggling to see how more of the blame can be on term limits, and not just a side-effect of our current version of democracy under capitalism. Simply put, if I had 100B, and there was outside force threatening my business I would certainly invest to protect myself - this includes mundane things like investing in security and outside threats like regulation. I…

I've been looking for my copy of the LA Times article on this and have yet to find it. So allow me to recount from my not necessarily trusty memory.

During an investigation of the impact of term limits on the California the times talked with former "long term" members of both the Assembly and the Senate. In that discussion the people who had served for longer terms felt that you needed the time to understand what made a law "good" versus what made a law "bad." Examples of good and bad were things like it would not be found to be unconstitutional, or its interpretation would be clear to judges who were ruling on it. Things like that. Bad laws are ones that are ambiguous to the point of being unenforceable or are overturned at the first challenge. There was also some discussion of "wisdom" in terms of knowing what things would benefit most from change vs changing things that are easier but less durable.

They found that the time clock on legislators terms made them more eager for "easy wins" rather than tacking complex problems. This was especially true of legislators who were hoping to jump into national politics. So while a legislator had the freedom to introduce a bill to solve a tough problem many times over a long career, each time taking into account the feedback from others over how it was crafted, term limited legislators felt they could not "waste time" on something that they would not be able to see through in the amount of time remaining to them.

And while legislators have always had staffs that would help in the development and drafting of legislation, in terms of likely being able to get the legislation over the finish line, laws that came from special interests with the promise of providing "good press" to support it are seen as a better bet.

By the same token, I am not a California Legislator, nor have I been one (although I have considered putting my name in the running to develop some experiential learning there). As a result I cannot know for certain how much I read about the process is biased in a way that someone who was part of the process would easily spot.

Whether or not what I've read about the process is accurate, it is still an area that I am interested in and I find the "dual" between the legislature and initiative writers interesting in its own right.

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

#59

What happens if Uber and Lyft pull out of California? Here is a list of Organizations and Individuals who are against Prop 22 Seems like there are a lot of Unions, School Districts, and every Democrat in Government from Biden all the way to the local level. https://sickofgiggreed.com/endorsements/

If they pull out, some other company willing to abide by the rules will probably appear to fill the gap, with the same service, but in terms where workers aren’t exploited.

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

#60
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.

The answer to this likely depends on different drivers. Maybe a single blanket policy is not the answer.
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