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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

#321

Post by rorykoehler »

cloudfifty wrote: post #189
rorykoehler wrote: post #171

The world would be a lot better if we had a reasonable minimum economic floor and unrestricted zero hours at will employment. We're band-aiding over artificial problems we created for ourselves instead of actually redesigning policy and law to fit 21st century technology and the opportunities it presents.

What recent technological changes mandates reverting labour laws? To me that argument just sounds like throwing some buzzword in front of legislators that are scared of being perceived as obsolete.

We need to unburden ourselves of having so many laws. Especially laws that are to fix inherent flaws of our economic system design. Better to change the systems design. Labour laws are only necessary because most people are in dire financial straits if they aren’t working. Give people the power to turn down employment without risking ruin and the whole power dynamic that makes these labour laws necessary goes away.

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

#322

Post by bluesign »

refraincomment wrote: post #52

Uber drivers pay next to no taxes at the moment.. A chat with with them will confirm it. They don't pay VAT (revenue under 80k). They are self-employed, so corporate tax does not apply. They pay a 10% in National insurance. And on income they pay for the 10k to 30k tier, at 20%. Compare this with a normal company hiring staff. Tax burden doubles just with addition of VAT.

how can VAT be related to drivers tax?

VAT is taken from customer and going to government directly.

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

#323

Post by cloudfifty »

rorykoehler wrote: post #321
cloudfifty wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What recent technological changes mandates reverting labour laws? To me that argument just sounds like throwing some buzzword in front of legislators that are scared of being perceived as obsolete.

We need to unburden ourselves of having so many laws. Especially laws that are to fix inherent flaws of our economic system design. Better to change the systems design. Labour laws are only necessary because most people are in dire financial straits if they aren’t working. Give people the power to turn down employment without risking ruin and the whole power dynamic that makes these labour laws necessary goes away.

If what you are referring to is a proper UBI that covers all necessities I would agree with you. But that would indeed change the power dynamic radically in favour of workers so I'm not sure how that would be passed without more or less a revolution.

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

#324

Post by tobmlt »

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.

Yes indeed. I guess I will use this comment to explore its objectionable properties. I think I can come up with a somewhat nuanced reason for objection (not saying this has any bearing on legality). Let me talk it through. Here goes:

The Resturant gets paid and the customers get food. The delivery service adds value and gets paid for it. If someone doesn’t realize doordash is not the Resturant by now... who cares? As long as the restaurants reputation is not hurt... (here’s were the issues start)

To that end, if I am the Resturant, I see that I can add my own delivery service, undercut doordash by a bit, and make more money, and control my reputation by employing people who have incintives aligned with me, then great! Thanks doordash, for showing me the way.

Ah, but can I? Maybe not without forming a power group with other restaurants (or some other economic structure..?), as the cost of adding a “real employee” may be greater than the margin added by the delivery service. I need a structure that both aligns incentives between delivery service and Resturant, and is cost effective. Since restaurants weren’t already doing this, probably it has to happen at the meta-Resturant level of it can be done while preserving reputation at all. (Of course, the difficulty of it depends on the food being served, so that’s why, e.g. pizza was already being delivered.)

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

#325

Post by kingaillas »

sokoloff wrote: post #304
kingaillas wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes middlemen serve a useful purpose. For example, I like grocery stores because they deal with farmers and food distribution and save me from driving out to source my own produce from growers. Sometimes they... might not. It's all relative the cut they demand. So here, are food delivery companies worth ~30% of cost? Yes, all sort of anecdotes are possible to drum up in this situation. Long term, across the ent…

> Somebody is paying that [30%], you or the restaurant The customer is. They are the only one bringing money into the system over the long-run. The customer is paying for the ingredients, the property tax, the delivery, the lights, everything. The restaurant just handles the money.

Right, so when a middleman comes along that apparently requires a 30% cut, either the customer pays it (prices go up). Or the restaurant absorbs the cost (possibly partially).

However I am under the impression that restaurants are NOT operating at a 30% profit margin, and cannot absorb this middleman cut entirely on their own.

It remains to be seen if sales volume goes up enough to offset this. Otherwise the middleman cut will be paid by the customer and thus prices go up.

FWIW, I don't think the middleman adds enough value to demand a 30% cut. So I personally opt out of that and order directly from a restaurant and also pick up in person.

>The restaurant just handles the money.

I thought they were providing the labor for the actual service/product the customer wants. Without that, there is no product for the middleman to attach to and deliver.

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

#326

Post by sokoloff »

kingaillas wrote: post #325
sokoloff wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Somebody is paying that [30%], you or the restaurant The customer is. They are the only one bringing money into the system over the long-run. The customer is paying for the ingredients, the property tax, the delivery, the lights, everything. The restaurant just handles the money.

Right, so when a middleman comes along that apparently requires a 30% cut, either the customer pays it (prices go up). Or the restaurant absorbs the cost (possibly partially). However I am under the impression that restaurants are NOT operating at a 30% profit margin, and cannot absorb this middleman cut entirely on their own. It remains to be seen if sales volume goes up enough to offset this. Otherwise the middlema…

The last line was a callback to the original quote: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/henry_ford_122318

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

#327

Post by djhn »

Closi wrote: post #178
twoslide wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree that Deliveroo fees seem high on both ends (customer and restaurant). Wonder if this means they (a) they are inefficient (b) they have large profit margins or (c) it is actually more expensive to run than one might think. If (a) or (b), the conditions for lower priced alternatives seem high.

The answer is somewhere between A and C depending on what you call inefficiency - Assuming 20 minutes per order (3 per hour) at a minimum wage of c£9 per hour pre-holiday and any other benefits, you are talking about £3 per delivery. They need to pay more than this, as many drive and the fee needs to cover fuel, so call it £4 per delivery or something like that, it's somewhere between £3-£4 probably. So then you add…

The pools for Eats and ride-hailing are separate in most markets.

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

#328

Post by secfirstmd »

Mauricebranagh wrote: post #208
secfirstmd wrote: post #112

Hopefully this will spread to other companies. IR35 in the UK is a very good law when enforced (usually against small businesses rather than big ones unfoet) for cutting through bullshit contract statuses that are designed to dodge employment taxes/benefits. I hope it's extended to bigger companies and elsewhere. I know for example in Ireland lots of big companies like Facebook, Google etc have staff on 11 month cont…

No its not - why should some one doing a 9 month cover for maternity leave be treated as an employee. When "self employed" lawyers can work on the same case for years. Note that ir35 is not uniformly applied - unfortunately its bad employers like Uber et all that fuck it up for professionals like us.

That's different. FAANG has thousands of contractors doing roles that are internal and integral to their company deliberately on 11 month contracts and then rolling them over. The same positions existing for years and not meeting IR35 requirements. What you describe is totally something else.

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

#329

Post by djrogers »

lordnacho wrote: post #25

I don't know anything about how the law works, but it seems to accord with the reality of how people tend to think of jobs. Have you ever met an Uber driver who didn't give the impression that this was what he did all the time? I haven't, though I imagine not everyone is full time. It's quite a way from the idea that anyone with a car can give someone else a ride. For instance, I've never met a driver who happened to…

> Have you ever met an Uber driver who didn't give the impression that this was what he did all the time?

Yes, most of the Uber drivers I’ve had over the years were doing it part time, or to fill in between jobs. I’ve only met one driver who considered driving his only job, and he was retired from his 40 year tech career and drove to get out of the house.

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

#330

Post by zdragnar »

1_person wrote: post #313
prepend wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 an…

I have used several delivery services, and my experience in two major metro areas has been that they are virtually indistinguishable from restaurants that have delivery people. The single biggest difference is that they tack on their own fee- a minor inconvenience since they take the orders online and so are less likely to get it wrong.
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