121–130 of 423 posts
What's relevant for HN is that this is not the full list: if you are a freelancer, or if you are a company that hired California freelancers, you are out of business in California.
As a retired programmer who drives Lyft/Uber, it's always interesting to hear my liberal programmer friends take the side of the "working class" drivers against the Big Brother-ish Big Tech companies. I might have been one of them in the past. I'll probably be one of them in the future when self-driving cars replace drivers. But for now... Most of the drivers who don't make enough money are bad at their job. Californ…
I hope 22 passes. The current incentive structure between drivers, riders, and Uber is really good. The ability to scale up and down quickly based on demand, surge pricing, incentive to give more rides to make more, not wait around etc. This legislation seems like it’ll make things worse for most people, except people interested in doing the minimum number of fares possible to not get fired (and the teamsters pushing…
I can see how it might raise the price of worse rides but why would it cause more no-shows/cancelling?
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…
> if the workers understand they are making under minimum wage. The Uber workers most definitely are not making minimum wage. They actually see very well how much they’re making, and are not as gullible as HN likes to imply to not notice if they were ripped off. It is common for people here to make argument that Uber drivers make less than minimum wage, but that typically proceeds on some very dubious assumptions, wh…
And that is a very profitable business and healthy market actually the problem is just, Uber would have to give up its world domination plans and admit it's a software company, not the future of transportation
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...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_Gonzalez#Early_life,_ed...
She was involved with the AFL-CIO, but I see no mention of involvement with the Teamsters union.
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…
How do you think it should have played out? Laws were passed, special interests didn't like it and now there's a court battle. And immediately you say nothing can get passed that special interests oppose. California has the curve ball of the proposition system. Its not that hard to make it to the ballot with anything. It can be a little silly but it is what it is. How is this a term limits issue? What would you like…
That is where special interest is most heavily felt. This court ruling is mostly meaningless. There is a proposition on the ballot that directly addresses this employment/independent contractor issue. It would supersede the legislature and make it nearly impossible for the legislature to repeal or amend the law. The prop also happens to have the most expensive campaign in history behind it. Something like 90-95% of the money came in on the Yes side and it is almost exclusively coming from Uber, Lyft, and similar companies.
Basically these companies didn't get what they wanted in the legislature. They didn't get what they wanted in court. So they are trying to buy it from the public. They are hoping we aren't motivated enough to educate ourselves on the issue and will instead just vote Yes because all the campaigning is telling us to do so.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
How? As far as I understand, this is literally impossible with AB5, unless they get an exemption like all the other contractor-based industries.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> if the workers understand they are making under minimum wage. The Uber workers most definitely are not making minimum wage. They actually see very well how much they’re making, and are not as gullible as HN likes to imply to not notice if they were ripped off. It is common for people here to make argument that Uber drivers make less than minimum wage, but that typically proceeds on some very dubious assumptions, wh…
If drivers can easily do that then honestly it shouldn't be difficult for Uber to move from a ridehailing company in California to a SAAS service provider, that is to say license the technology platform to companies that manage the drivers in a traditional way. (In fact that is literally how Uber operates in some European countries where drivers are already classified as employees). And that is a very profitable busi…
As a retired programmer who drives Lyft/Uber, it's always interesting to hear my liberal programmer friends take the side of the "working class" drivers against the Big Brother-ish Big Tech companies. I might have been one of them in the past. I'll probably be one of them in the future when self-driving cars replace drivers. But for now... Most of the drivers who don't make enough money are bad at their job. Californ…
Anecdotally: 100% counter to what virtually every Lyft driver who drives full-time has told me. Data-wise: Where is your evidence? I thought that by now, the free market would have solved all of the above problems? Philosophically: No one's job should be dependent on tips. Tips ALWAYS are filtered via biases that tap into sexism, racism, xenophobia, and never a financially responsible way of building an economy. Vote…
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.
That's not true. The demand is there because the cost makes sense. I had a car, but after considering the cost of owning (and parking) that car, I found that I was better off not having a car and relying on Uber when I need to get somewhere that requires a car. If that math no longer makes sense, I'll probably go back to driving.
As a retired programmer who drives Lyft/Uber, it's always interesting to hear my liberal programmer friends take the side of the "working class" drivers against the Big Brother-ish Big Tech companies. I might have been one of them in the past. I'll probably be one of them in the future when self-driving cars replace drivers. But for now... Most of the drivers who don't make enough money are bad at their job. Californ…
Maybe if they were paid enough, and/or had to vie for a limited supply of drivers, they'd turn on AC, clean their car, do short rides, etc. People forget that when Uber was charging a fair price, the rides and drivers were nice. The race to the bottom has squeezed a lot of the good drivers out of the normal tier, and now you get busted vehicles with dirty interiors, and drivers not suited for driving OR hospitality.