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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

#81

Post by s17n »

randmeerkat wrote: post #65
dpc_pw wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

These zero sum arguments are pointless and needlessly inflammatory.

That's exactly what's going to happen, though. Uber and Lyft are not very profitable so they can't actually afford to increase wages or benefits out of their own pockets. If they increase prices, the market will shrink, so drivers won't have work.

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

#82

Post by takeda »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #74
syntaxing wrote: post #62

This has always been an interesting discussion morally. On one side, our free market should be able to allow any drivers to not work for any ride sharing company if they choose not to. On the other hand, the question I haven't been able to answer is if they truly have viable options or if the workers understand they are making under minimum wage. It's hard to balance between the freedom of choice and regulations to p…

Except what all the employment hawks ignore is that 70% of ride-share drivers don’t want to be employees. Number one concern is pay. Number two is autonomy. Benefits aren’t even a consideration. This whole thing is about lawyers and the taxi industry. It’s bullshit. Uber is far from perfect, but let’s make sure we raise every point when arguing about it.

But Uber/Lyft/Doordash etc can give them autonomy, they can make them true contractors.

I also doubt that the law forces companies to have a work schedule for their employees. From what I understand it just says that benefits are provided if employee works for more than certain amount of hours.

So to me it seems like it's all about exploiting their drivers (treating drivers like employees without providing advantages that employees have)

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

#83

Post by s17n »

dybber wrote: post #68
dpc_pw wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That’s not the alternative scenario. The alternative scenario is that either Uber/Lyft or another company abides by the rules, and deliver the same service with hired employees. The demand is there. Yes, it will become a bit more expensive for the consumer, but that price difference, is what it costs to give decent benefits and rights to workers.

> The demand is there.

I'd be very surprised if this turns out to be true. Ridesharing is competing with public transit, personal vehicles, walking, etc. If prices significantly increase, the market size will go back to what it was before Uber.

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

#84

Post by azinman2 »

donor20 wrote: post #71

AB5 has been a total disaster. The number of special cased carve-outs is ridiculous - it's not a normal law. Obviously AB5 was hacked together by some special interests (unions maybe - what is history?). It's totally unworkable. The carveouts that keep coming are the sign of this - how many are there now, anyone have the list? And yes, I'm a maxed out dem donor. If AB5 is the way workers rights are going to be advanc…

What would they be?

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

#85

Post by akiselev »

donor20 wrote: post #71

AB5 has been a total disaster. The number of special cased carve-outs is ridiculous - it's not a normal law. Obviously AB5 was hacked together by some special interests (unions maybe - what is history?). It's totally unworkable. The carveouts that keep coming are the sign of this - how many are there now, anyone have the list? And yes, I'm a maxed out dem donor. If AB5 is the way workers rights are going to be advanc…

> The number of special cased carve-outs is ridiculous - it's not a normal law.

I looked up AB5 [1] and read about the "carve outs" last time the topic came up, among several other. It's far shorter than other nontrivial bills and I couldn't find a single one that didn't specifically mention a superseding precedent or specialized State or Federal law that had supremacy regardless.

For example, the primary exceptions are driven by the Borello test from Borello & Sons, Inc. v. Dept. of Industrial Relations which is a California supreme court decision [2], the interaction between California and Federal fishing regulations [3], and a vast array of past state and federal regulations written for licensed professionals like lawyers, doctors, and even commercial truck drivers [4].

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

[2] (c) (1) Subdivision (a) and the holding in Dynamex do not apply to a contract for “professional services” as defined below, and instead the determination of whether the individual is an employee or independent contractor shall be governed by Borello if the hiring entity demonstrates that all of the following factors are satisfied: ...

[3] (ii) “Commercial fisherman” means a person who has a valid, unrevoked commercial fishing license issued pursuant to Article 3 (commencing with Section 7850) of Chapter 1 of Part 3 of Division 6 of the Fish and Game Code. ...

(C) On or before March 1, 2021, and each March 1 thereafter, the Employment Development Department shall issue an annual report to the Legislature on the use of unemployment insurance in the commercial fishing industry. This report shall include, but not be limited to, reporting the number of commercial fishermen who apply for unemployment insurance benefits, the number of commercial fishermen who have their claims disputed, the number of commercial fishermen who have their claims denied, and the number of commercial fishermen who receive unemployment insurance benefits. The report required by this subparagraph shall be submitted in compliance with Section 9795 of the Government Code.

[4] (8) (A) Paragraph (2) shall not apply to a subcontractor providing construction trucking services for which a contractor’s license is not required by Chapter 9 (commencing with Section 7000) of Division 3 of the Business and Professions Code, provided that all of the following criteria are satisfied ...

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

#86

Post by ksolanki »

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…

I do not fully understand this, but isn’t this the story at the federal level as well?

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

#87

Post by mathnovice »

Larrikin wrote: post #10
josh2600 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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

If the right price is more than outright owning a car I don't see how. Today I don't drive because I can uber. If ubers end up costing me more than $300 a month I'll just get a car.

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

#88

Post by nickpp »

donor20 wrote: post #71

AB5 has been a total disaster. The number of special cased carve-outs is ridiculous - it's not a normal law. Obviously AB5 was hacked together by some special interests (unions maybe - what is history?). It's totally unworkable. The carveouts that keep coming are the sign of this - how many are there now, anyone have the list? And yes, I'm a maxed out dem donor. If AB5 is the way workers rights are going to be advanc…

AB5 was written by the Teamsters - an multinational Syndicate who couldn’t include and collect Uber drivers membership fees unless they were actual employees.

Its main architect, Lorena Gonzales, is a Teamsters woman through and through, by her own admission.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Brotherhood_of_T...

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

#90

Post by fairity »

akiselev wrote: post #85
donor20 wrote: post #71

AB5 has been a total disaster. The number of special cased carve-outs is ridiculous - it's not a normal law. Obviously AB5 was hacked together by some special interests (unions maybe - what is history?). It's totally unworkable. The carveouts that keep coming are the sign of this - how many are there now, anyone have the list? And yes, I'm a maxed out dem donor. If AB5 is the way workers rights are going to be advanc…

> The number of special cased carve-outs is ridiculous - it's not a normal law. I looked up AB5 [1] and read about the "carve outs" last time the topic came up, among several other. It's far shorter than other nontrivial bills and I couldn't find a single one that didn't specifically mention a superseding precedent or specialized State or Federal law that had supremacy regardless. For example, the primary exceptions…

What's your point? Yes, these carveouts all fall back to a version of the law that is much more lenient on the definition of an independent contractor. That should be obvious...if there wasn't any pre-existing law that defined contractor, businesses would make every employee a contractor.
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