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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

#241

Post by appleflaxen »

okareaman wrote: post #128
greendude29 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you aware that the majority of drivers don't drive full time? If full time drivers don't like it or don't make enough they should apply for employment at a company that meets their needs. A lot of service workers depend on tips.

> A lot of service workers depend on tips.

This isn't a good argument that tips are a beneficial practice.

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

#242

Post by dragonwriter »

tathougies wrote: post #55
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…

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…

> 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.

No, it's not.

It's not even a proposition. It's that the California Republican Party tries to campaign like it's Kansas, that keeps them hovering right at the border of the level where Democrats have a 2/3 supermajority in both houses plus control of the statewide offices.

> 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,

It's actually pretty rare that the jungle primary provides same party candidates (and it's never, IIRC, done “Democrat plus leftist third party”), so, no, that wouldn't be true even if the California Democratic Party was reliably leftist, which it decidedly is not, see, e.g., Dianne Feinstein.

> 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.

It's actually not, you just craft it around the local district not left-right ideology.

> 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.

Downvoting is saying that something isn't a productive addition to the conversation, engaging is saying that even if it is wrong, it is. There's really no good reason to engage when downvoting, or vice versa, they serve opposing purposes.

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

#243

Post by Cederfjard »

jonathan-neil wrote: post #208
Cederfjard wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that an unbelievable number? Uber has been around for a decade now, surely there’s been ample time?

The number of rides isn't unbelievable. What is unbelievable is that 2000 rides by 1 person would render a data set that would scientifically support even a fraction of the claims in his original post.

OK, but we were always talking about anecdotal data in casual conversation right, not hardcore scientific analysis? I think even the original poster acknowledged that.

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

#244

Post by bufferoverflow »

jonathan-neil wrote: post #206
okareaman wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lyft is sneaky. They sent me to a cemetary next to a busy area once when I was on the hwy going home and then cancelled the ride once I got to the cemetery. Then they messaged me and said as long as I was in a busy area, why didn't I wait? The thing that pissed me off was the algorithm actually directed me to drive into a cemetary on a dark night, as if someone was there waiting for me. Of course I didn't go in the c…

Yes I think the guy making false claims without even a shred of data, despite being asked for it by multiple people you replied to, multiple times, is a shill. Now a lengthy post bashing Lyft and praising uber. Lmao... really? I am absolutely certain you are a shill at this point.

Thousands of rides is not "without even a shred of data". You, on the other hand, have no data, yet seem to be very outspoken on the topic. If anyone is a bot in this conversation, it is you.

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

#245

Post by C1sc0cat »

roenxi wrote: post #225
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…

> Watching this fight I wonder "Who is in charge of governing California?" The same people vote on the proposition who vote for the government. I don't like the things California tends to vote for but it is nothing short of enlightened to allow people a mechanism to directly overrule the legislature. If the people don't like the government's labour law, who are the government to object? I can't for the life of me see…

To be fair only "workers" and employees should be able to vote on employment law then, no students no pensioners.

This is why employment law needs to be take away from the states - have one federally defined set of laws - stops a race to the bottom.

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

#246

Post by bufferoverflow »

auggierose wrote: post #155
schalab wrote: post #145

Lets say I have a club I own, but I need to keep the riff raff out. I cant openly ban poor or low society people from entering which would be considered "evil". But what if I mandated every service from a staff must be tipped with atleast 100$, because we value our workers more here. This achieves the same purpose and I get to pretend to be egalitarian. If this law is passed, ride sharing apps will still exist. They…

"ride sharing" is not how people use it. People use it as a cab.

And it doesn't matter. Now it's a fully consensual relationship between Uber and the driver (and the customer), where everyone involved agrees to the terms voluntarily. The law changes that, and will simply result in the loss of jobs.

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

#247

Post by bufferoverflow »

rgossiaux wrote: post #222
omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search puts them at 6.9 billion rides in 2019, so profitability should come with a $2/ride increase. I think their current rates are a lot, so their current rates plus $2 are also a lot, but I think most riders would tolerate it.

If that was only in the US or other wealthy economies, maybe. But they're an international company. Some of those rides are in places where a $2 increase doubles the price of the ride. I think it would be more revealing to compare with their total receipts and see the % change that would be required.

The proposition is California-specific. Will not change anything outside of CA.

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

#248

Post by bufferoverflow »

Judgmentality wrote: post #67
omgwtfbyobbq wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search puts them at 6.9 billion rides in 2019, so profitability should come with a $2/ride increase. I think their current rates are a lot, so their current rates plus $2 are also a lot, but I think most riders would tolerate it.

This is ignoring how much more expensive it will be if the drivers are employees. I don't know how much that is, but I'd imagine in addition to those $2 it would likely add another 30% or so to the total cost (someone more knowledgeable please chime in with a better estimate). Of course that's assuming you're operating at Uber's scale (there are still overhead costs), but since prices go up you aren't, so now the pri…

> I don't know how much that is, but I'd imagine

There's your problem. I think you need to go and research and see how much an employee costs to the employer in CA. In terms of taxes, overhead, accounting, insurance, and everything else CA demands.

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

#249

Post by praestigiare »

Ericson2314 wrote: post #17
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…

> 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…

That would be an accurate analysis if this was, for example, random noise in a system. But inexperience is not random, and cannot be said to "cancel out" in any meaningful way.

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

#250

Post by tgv »

fairity wrote: post #93
tgv wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's an issue of freedom: drivers can drive for the company they like, just not as a wage slave.

His point is that they're not "wage slaves". They can freely move to another minimum wage job. The fact that they don't indicates that Uber is a better deal.

For now. If Uber gets away with it, all taxi companies will follow, and the situation changes.
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