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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

#131

Post by okareaman »

jonathan-neil wrote: post #106
okareaman wrote: post #91

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…

With all due respect, my experience has been the complete opposite of yours. Do you by chance have any evidence for these claims or are they simply your best guess asserted as fact?

How many rides have you done as driver? Passenger?

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

#132

Post by CameronNemo »

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.

If you are from Europe and you have never visited California, then you have a lot to learn about our crazy transportation. Most of California, and especially Southern California, is car-centric. Los Angeles was the first large city that was built up after the invention of the automobile, and it really shows. Living in LA without a car is a pretty atypical behavior.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/nobody-walks-in-la-th...

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

#133

Post by pbreit »

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…

It's a very small minority that thinks drivers are properly classified as employees. The drivers themselves certainly do not think so. Drivers literally do not have to work.

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

#134

Post by Barrin92 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #127
Barrin92 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But why Uber would want that? What benefit would they get from they middleman, who’d also want to take his cut?

Uber obviously doesn't want it which is why they oppose it. but the law in a democratic society isn't supposed to be written by and for Uber, and the goal of the legislation is guaranteeing employee rights.

The argument just simply takes the wind out of the sails of Uber's best counter-argument, that they somehow would need to cease operations in the state and deprive customers of their service. They wouldn't, they can operate just fine as a software provider, they just don't get to eat the entire value chain. (which arguably apart from taking care of the employee issue also makes some sense from a competition standpoint).

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

#135

Post by CameronNemo »

dmlittle wrote: post #49
tcbasche wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

SF is pretty much the best in the state overall for public transportation, except for maybe small portions of San Diego (like downtown or the UCSD area).

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

#136

Post by okareaman »

dmitriid wrote: post #108
okareaman wrote: post #91

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…

Most of the bullet points you listed are not a sign of bad drivers. Even you, were you a taxi driver, wouldn't take a long drive out of town if you weren't paid for the trip back, for example. And yes, "my car my rules" because that is their car, and Uber imposes severe penalties for bad reviews.

"bad drivers" as in "not making money" drivers. When you go out of town you stay there and take rides or set your direction home and pick up rides in that direction. Drivers who say they don't get paid coming back are ignorant.

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

#137

Post by foota »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #37
foota wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

> 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). Do they do either of these? Their historical approach has been to subsidize the rides, which enriches both passengers and drivers at Uber's expense.

From what I've heard Uber is profitable in markets they are not expanding in.

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

#138

Post by CameronNemo »

ksolanki wrote: post #86
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?

Nope, the federal level has no term limits. Dianne Feinstein has been a Senator for 30 years.

Even without term limits, laws are written by industry at the federal level (if they are ever written, some years we are just lucky to pass a budget at the federal level).

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

#139

Post by pbreit »

jayd16 wrote: post #100
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…

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…

>special interests didn't like it

Almost no one liked it, least of all those supposedly benefitting from it.

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

#140

Post by jonathan-neil »

okareaman wrote: post #131
jonathan-neil wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, my experience has been the complete opposite of yours. Do you by chance have any evidence for these claims or are they simply your best guess asserted as fact?

How many rides have you done as driver? Passenger?

You must have missed my question. I'll ask it again and if you answer, I'll gladly answer yours as well.

Do you have any evidence for the claims you made, or should we continue to assume its anecdotal nonsense at best, shill lies at worst.

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