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Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#311

Post by jacquesm »

chrisseaton wrote: post #145
whelming_wave wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The objectionable behavior is that they represent themselves as being restaurant X, or at least present themselves in such a way that finding out that they aren’t actually restaurant X but a reseller is difficult. edit: This got way more discussion than I anticipated. I think that even if there was a massive banner on the top of the site that told you GenericDeliveryCo was operating this website as a front for the re…

Ok but see how we've slipped down from full-on 'fraudulent' to just 'objectionable'? People are allowed to be objectionable if they want to.

Misrepresentation isn't fraud but it is still not legal. You can't pass yourself off as someone or some entity that you are not. See also: 1-900 numbers pretending to be 'the company' but actually just switchboards connecting you through to the company that they pretend to be.

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#312

Post by Nursie »

unishark wrote: post #187
Nursie wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I contract/consult all the time. I don't see these the same - 1. I negotiate a rate. Sometimes I negotiate a higher rate after a few months. 2. I have frequently asked for changes to contract terms, usually after a legal review, and had those changes put in place. 3.... kinda agree with you, not sure it's exactly the same as the uber situation 4. The client company can't evaluate my performance in any way they want,…

Your example is not as logically meaningful however. An example of something not being done (i.e., negotiation) can serve as a proof it is not necessary, assuming it was legal. The converse doesn't work. Maybe your experience is with companies who like to do legally-unnecessary things. Large companies obviously don't negotiate as much as small companies. In the US, contracting for engineering has been outlawed to a l…

I'm not sure why it's not logically meaningful... the parent said that their experience as a contractor was similar to that of an Uber driver, I'm giving a counter-example in myself.

> The converse doesn't work. Maybe your experience is with companies who like to do legally-unnecessary things.

It's not legally necessary to negotiate a pay rate, but it is something that often happens, usually informally. The point is not that it is necessary but that it is possible - an uber driver cannot negotiate. I can and do.

> In the US, contracting for engineering has been outlawed to a large degree

Thankfully that's not the case here!

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#313

Post by 1_person »

prepend wrote: post #188
yomly wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A Chinese restaurant in Lambeth tried disabling uber eats a few years back and running their own delivery service. Our food arrived TWO HOURS after ordering and cold. I'd really rather NOT go back to the old way.

I think it’s just too hard to organize drivers and delivery. I’ve never experienced a restaurant where their own delivery drivers are as fast, efficient, smart as Uber/etc. I’d rather just go pick it up myself than use restaurant delivery. I’m sure there may be exceptions somewhere, but even in Manhattan the deliveries that work for the restaurant sucked. I think it’s that there’s no simple feedback loop. An example…

Have you... actually ordered from a restaurant that's done self-delivery for more than 5 minutes?

I've never, not even once, seen the same driver from one of these services.

This is a huge problem, because every mapping service directs them to an automated exit-only gate that nobody anywhere has the power to open for them -- certainly not if they just sit there for 5 minutes helplessly then chuck it out the window and drive off.

On several occasions I did not even receive a call, text, or any other indication to expect to find my food a thousand yards away sitting in the rain in a parking lot.

They are delivery dilettantes, with no knowledge of their delivery area, no oversight, no guidance.

Most of them have no fixed delivery area, they just follow the next call until they end up two hours away in another county they didn't even realize existed within the borders of their fine state until that evening.

I have received orders so delayed there were legitimate food safety concerns -- upwards of 3 hours from the time of preparation.

3 of the 4 delivery services I have tried did not take responsibility for so much as a single one of these failures to deliver.

2 of them charge more than double menu price for most items on most menus because they added the full base price of an item to (the full base price of an item plus the full upgrade price of an item) in an intentional and deceptive manner.

I informed them of this repeatedly and went up a completely scripted escalation chain that very obviously started in another jurisdiction and very obviously said exactly what I was later informed after requesting a point of contact for service of process was absolutely not their policy (specifically: they have my money now so I can go and find something convenient with which to fuck myself)

I have to conclude that either you've been trying to order take out from the hardware store and been sorely disappointed that your pizza never arrived or must live in alternate reality filled with sunshine, rainbows and GrubHubs that aren't openly defrauding their delivery partners, customers, and shareholders

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#314

Post by pessimizer »

FeepingCreature wrote: post #264
pessimizer wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you can. You can make it illegal for the accused to lack representation in court if they desire it, you can make it illegal for a person to walk the street without a certain minimum amount of money in their pocket, you can make it illegal for a person under age X to not be at school at a particular part of the day without a reasonable excuse, etc. It's been done. You can even always define an occurrence as an ac…

No I'm saying the notion of illegality does not apply, and in fact leads to absurd consequences. For instance, if you make it illegal for the accused to lack representation in court, you can then sue them for not having representation, a suit from which they cannot defend themselves, lacking representation, which then opens them up to another suit, ad infinitum! I think there's some conflation of "regulating" and "ma…

You get to choose who you apply laws to when you write them. If I make it illegal for a court to proceed if they do not provide representation to a defendant who desires it, I don't have to arrest the defendant.

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#315

Post by granzymes »

rogual wrote: post #6

The court made very specific arguments: 1. Uber set the fare which meant that they dictated how much drivers could earn 2. Uber set the contract terms and drivers had no say in them 3. Request for rides is constrained by Uber who can penalise drivers if they reject too many rides 4. Uber monitors a driver's service through the star rating and has the capacity to terminate the relationship if after repeated warnings t…

> Even if this does hurt Uber short-term, it sounds like the gig economy will be just fine, as long as companies change their behaviour with respect to the above points.

Uber isn't actually going to reclassify their drivers after this ruling because the case was about its policies as of 2016. For example, they have since removed the penalties for rejecting too many rides. Labor activists would have to go back to court for current drivers.

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#317

Post by unishark »

vidarh wrote: post #107
unishark wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Take away the gig economy part from Uber and it becomes a regular taxi market, an industry that has been around for a hundred years already, with all the checks and balances installed already (from driver and passenger rights to ride fares to maximum amount of drivers allowed to operate in a certain area to avoid oversaturating the market). Let's not forget that in that world uber drivers are unemployed while taxi…

In that world customers flow back to the many minicab companies and Uber competitors in London, which will need to take on more drivers. It's not like Uber is the only app like this in London. I have at least four different ones on my app, and Uber is rarely the cheapest as it is.

So minicab companies pay more and charge less than uber? How does that work economically? And wouldn't everyone just switch to the mincab companies, both drivers and passengers, if that's the case?

Re: Uber drivers are workers not self employed, Supreme Court rules

#318

Post by pessimizer »

dexen wrote: post #292
pessimizer wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously asking how the relationship is different between a driver and Uber and a driver and the city they live and work in? The difference is both Uber and drivers are subject to the rule of law, whereas the rule of law isn't subject to Uber or the drivers except through the legislative process, which this is an article about. Nobody is saying that Uber can't apply whatever terms they want to the relationsh…

I am unhappy with your mis-representation of my post. I'm not asking beyond a clear "rhetorical question" used to emphasize the incredulity of the situation, quite the opposite: I am pointing out that the points, as described , are equivalent. That's not a contentious issue here. Obviously different points could be raised and argued - as per other posts in this thread. However the specific points on which the court d…

I'm saying that they're not in any way equivalent other than they are both sets of rules.

The government gets to determine whether you are an employee, because Uber is subject to laws. The government is also subject to its own laws, but there's no requirement that a government be subject to the same rules that it applies to a company that operates within its jurisdiction. Otherwise, why would we even try this in court? If Uber is entitled to identical treatment as the government, this case could have been tried in Uber's own court.'

I'm not misrepresenting you, I'm disagreeing with a false statement. The government's medallion system is not the same as Uber's structure with respect to drivers because drivers are considered citizens in their relation to the government, while they are considered employees in their relationship to Uber. The medallion holders are not entering into either an independent contractor or employee relationship with the government, they're following the law as all citizens (and companies) are required to.

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