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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

#371

Post by humanrebar »

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #329
humanrebar wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not exploitive to pay people a modest wage for modest productivity, especially if the role can be part of a successful career. You also ignore the point that entry level jobs provide advancement opportunities that are sometimes better for disadvantaged folks (or even folks changing careers) compared to expecting them to (re)train at four year universities, etc. People talk a lot about apprenticeship these days..…

You're not wrong as long as the definition of "modest wage" isn't subjective and is instead collectively agreed within society (i.e. a minimum/living wage). I think you're saying the same as this Economist article[0] which says that "the workers who are most vulnerable to losing their job as a result of the minimum wage are those whose productivity is low". Empirical data on this also shows, perhaps counter-intuitive…

There's nothing undignified about working an entry level job. I've done so myself, as have billions of others around the world.

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

#372

Post by fairity »

coolspot wrote: post #358
fairity wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It might cost more, but it wouldn't be much more. It will cost substantially more. Employment taxes and benefits alone add another 30% to Uber's cost structure. On top of that, paying drivers for downtime (which will be inevitable in an employment model) will add who knows how much more. I wouldn't be surprised if prices rise by 50%+ in suburbs.

They don’t have to make drivers employees, they can treat them as contractors if they follow limitations on how to work with a contractor.

One of the limitations of AB5 is that: The worker is performing work tasks that are outside the usual course of the company’s business activities.

It’s hard to see how they can claim drivers as contractors under this guideline

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

#373

Post by jimnotgym »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #197
jimnotgym wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>70% of ride-share drivers don't want to be employees Firstly, is that backed up by data? Secondly, what is their reason for not wanting to be employees? Is it something about immigration law, exploitative employers or truly something about freedom?

Yep. https://therideshareguy.com/uber-driver-survey/ Why is it so hard to believe drivers enjoy their freedom? They get to control their schedule. Turn the app on and off. Quit after two rides or drive for ten hours because the hits keep coming. This is not exploitation. There’s a small number of drivers taking advantage of free lawyers backed by the taxi industry. But more than anything. If you don’t like ride share…

> Other ethnicities like Hispanic/Latino reported just 7.1% compared to the national average of 17.8%

Disclosure. I am not in the United States, I am no expert. But the over-representation of some groups may be what is wrong with that data. It could be that those people that were missed by the survey feel more exploited?

Across the pond in the UK it is not drivers welfare that is driving me to think they should be employees, but tax. In the UK being employed means your boss pays national insurance (a kind of tax). Secondly VAT (sales tax) is only charged by entities with sales over £85k ie not one driver on their own (making them much cheaper). However if they were employees the sales would be by Uber and subject to 20%VAT. HMRC finally got around to demanding this from Uber this week.

https://goodlawproject.org/update/hmrc-to-collect-1-5bn-uber...

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

#375

Post by okareaman »

La1n wrote: post #346
okareaman wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you may find this hard to believe, but some people like to help other people and be of service. I drive where I want and when I want. I don't have to pick anyone up. That's going to change if we have to be employees. Taking away freedom and forcing employees to follow restrictive rules is how to breed resentment. You're going to miss Lyft and Uber when it is gone and turns into a taxi company.

I think your situation as retired sv programmer might be very different to someone who drives Uber to make ends meet.

That's very true but the majority of the drivers are part timers like me. What will eventually evolve I think is a two tiered situation, where full timer employees will be held to a schedule and directed in their job in exchange for benefits while more casual people like me will be free without benefits.

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

#376

Post by benjaminjosephw »

humanrebar wrote: post #371
benjaminjosephw wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong as long as the definition of "modest wage" isn't subjective and is instead collectively agreed within society (i.e. a minimum/living wage). I think you're saying the same as this Economist article[0] which says that "the workers who are most vulnerable to losing their job as a result of the minimum wage are those whose productivity is low". Empirical data on this also shows, perhaps counter-intuitive…

There's nothing undignified about working an entry level job. I've done so myself, as have billions of others around the world.

Agreed. There's a lot of dignity in honest work. Exploitation can rob people of that dignity but it doesn't have to.

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

#377

Post by greengreen »

lisper wrote: post #344
okareaman wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm enthusiastic about the software that Uber and Lyft are developing to make this whole thing work so beautifully. I catch their algorithms making mistakes sometimes. I catch them doing something sneaky sometimes (Lyft more than Uber.) I have some ideas on how to make it work better. I've done 2000 rides and picked up some really interesting people. I like to go to different cities and try them out. It's fun. If my…

Fair enough. Let me restate my concern in less fraught terms: > "Up to 70% of drivers are like me and ... would like you to vote yes on Prop 22 if you are in California." This is a claim that has been widely promulgated by the big gig-economy companies in a wide-ranging PR campaign. Do you have any actual independently-verifiable data to support it, or are you just blindly repeating it to advance a political agenda t…

https://therideshareguy.com/california-proposition-22-2020/

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

#378

Post by tathougies »

iso947 wrote: post #207
tathougies wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Don’t you have ranked or proportional voting? Even with ranked voting people could choose from different democrat legislators (a Sanders vs a Biden) but be confident republican won’t get in with a plurality.

But that's what I'm saying.. when the candidates are so similar that certain interest groups always get their way (for example biden and sanders agree on oil, unlike republicans and sanders), then certain special interests become privileged

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

#379

Post by tathougies »

dragonwriter wrote: post #242
tathougies wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is ridiculous. California's gop is broadly successful as most of the states land is republican by far. And at the state level that's what matters. Plus it's only a few years ago that california had a gop governor. You can say lots of schwarzenegger but he didn't campaign like it's Kansas.

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

#380

Post by Ericson2314 »

read_if_gay_ wrote: post #203
Ericson2314 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine term limits of 1 day. No one would be making sound decisions with those yeas and nays. I have no idea what terms limits of 1 day would do; it's not obvious to me. Please argue your point. > And why would they always be 50 / 50 and "cancel out"? I'm not talking about a vote split additive cancel out. I'm talking about how in `(termLimit * nFor) / (termLimit * nAgainst)` the `termLimit` factors cancel out. >…

> (termLimit * nFor) / (termLimit * nAgainst) How is that supposed to be an accurate model of the effects of term limits?

Fine, make it more complex:

> (f(termLimit) * nFor) / (f(termLimit) * nAgainst)

Same result. Unless you think that one side of vote is distinctly affected by term limits?

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