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Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

nltimes.nl

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Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#121

Post by AndyMcConachie »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #69
jacquesm wrote: post #27

Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.

But what if I legitimacy want to be a freelancer? Lifestyle reasons, freedom, whatever. I should have a choice.

I'm a consultant in The Netherlands and for this purpose I control my own BV. Similar to an LLC in the USA.

But I don't drive a taxi, I do computer stuff. If you want to legitimately be independent in NL you can. I have a few friends in the construction industy(plumbers, carpenters, electricians, etc) who are ZZP'ers.

There are a few options open to people who legitimately want to be independent in their work, and this has absolutely nothing to do with this ruling. Or about Uber.

Uber is lying when it says that 90% of Dutch Uber drivers want to remain independent. There have been protests of Uber drivers wanting exactly this kind of ruling from the courts. And two major political parties (Groenlinks and PvDA) have been fighting for this. Uber is full of shit and they know it.

Here is a better article on the ruling. https://www.ad.nl/werk/rechter-uber-moet-chauffeurs-in-diens...

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#122

Post by Jochim »

belter wrote: post #59
jacquesm wrote: post #27

Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.

There are some consequences. If they will be hired as employees it will be first with a temporary contract. Since there is a limitation to renewal of fixed term contracts, after a certain period the employment is seen as an indefinite employment contract rather than a new fixed term agreement. Meaning then they could not be fired something Uber will not want. The limit is 3 years or 3 contract renewals: https://www.t…

> Are some of these drivers not working for other companies also? In that case they really are freelancers/entrepreneurs not employees...I think the decision will be appealed.

That's a pretty bad test on it's own. Plenty of people working in restaurants work for multiple companies, they're still employees.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#123

Post by belter »

belter wrote: post #59
jacquesm wrote: post #27

Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.

There are some consequences. If they will be hired as employees it will be first with a temporary contract. Since there is a limitation to renewal of fixed term contracts, after a certain period the employment is seen as an indefinite employment contract rather than a new fixed term agreement. Meaning then they could not be fired something Uber will not want. The limit is 3 years or 3 contract renewals: https://www.t…

As some Dutch media, (not all), persist on their annoying habit of copy pasting ANP press releases and not doing much of real journalism...or not linking to original sources even if you paid for their subscription services...I am adding some original resources here:

The Netherlands Trade Union Confederation (FNV) has around 1 million members, is both a trade union federation and a trade union and launched the lawsuit.

The FNV's pleading notes for this lawsuit can be found here: https://www.fnv.nl/getattachment/Nieuwsbericht/Algemeen-nieu...

The fact sheet is here:

https://www.fnv.nl/getattachment/Nieuwsbericht/Algemeen-nieu...

Court statement:

https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-contact/Organisati...

The court veredict:

https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/inziendocument?id=ECLI:NL:...

( you can access the original PDF from the drop down menu on the right or the link below)

https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/InzienDocument/GetPdf?ecli...

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#124

Post by dagw »

chii wrote: post #28
brnt wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't have that freedom, you're an employee, which is what this conflict is about. Because if they're an employee, their employer must pay social insurance. The self-employed are exempted from this insurance (although highly encouraged, because, not surprisingly, the vast majority of self-employed people don't become lucky billionaires). Uber wanted to have it both ways, and, not surprisingly, it can't. Self-e…

but from what i recall, an uber driver do have the choice to accept or reject a ride. There's a penalty for rejecting too many rides - but i think that's a fair outcome. Ideally, uber also allows a driver to set the price, and allow a customer to see price comparisons between all offered drivers (and wait times etc), to truly make it a competitive market place.

According to the article: "a driver may only refuse a few trips before being logged out by the system", that plus the fact that they can't set their own fares and Uber can retroactively lower drivers fares, was the main reason Uber lost the case.

If Uber let drivers reject as many rides as they wanted and allowed drivers to set their own fares and negotiate directly with their clients, then they may very well have won the case. But then they would also be a very different company.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#125

Post by XCSme »

hmate9 wrote: post #118
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Autonomous cars are more expensive than drivers; the only reason they dislike having real drivers is that they have a voice.

Over the long run there is no way that autonomous cars are more expensive

Depends on how often they crash.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#126

Post by Maarten88 »

tomp wrote: post #48
jacquesm wrote: post #27

Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.

Must is just as wrong as won't . The ideal solution is, drivers being given the choice. Wanna earn more (but less predictable), pay less tax, have less social security, work whenever you want to? Or do you want to earn less (but completely predictable), pay more tax, have unemployment security, work fixed hours.

> The ideal solution is, drivers being given the choice.

Choice is real only when you have options. Here, the option of having a fixed-income, fixed-time taxi driver job will get out-competed in the long term because it is more expensive, so the other option will be to have no job. Not paying into social security and pension funds saves a lot of money! It may even seem beneficial to the driver in the short term. But it offloads the costs further down the line to society or the driver personally (when reaching pension age or getting sick).

Maybe that type of innovation is simply not good for society and better avoided.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#127

Post by oliwarner »

hungryforcodes wrote: post #69
jacquesm wrote: post #27

Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.

But what if I legitimacy want to be a freelancer? Lifestyle reasons, freedom, whatever. I should have a choice.

So work part time, on the clock.

Obviously this takes the company to provide those sorts of jobs. The problem for Uber is that they won't be able to —as easily— have slack staff, because they'll have to pay them minimum wage to wait for new fares.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#128

Post by nulbyte »

DeusExMachina wrote: post #94
throwawaycities wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that matter? Just because you can pick your own hours/work schedule, that doesn’t make you an independent contractor. At least it’s not determinative in the US under federal law nor any state that I am aware, but maybe that is the Dutch law and the court just got it wrong here

Here in the Netherlands, where the ruling was made, it's definitely the case that being able to determine your own hours is one of the requirements of being a freelancer. When I was freelancing, clients could not tell me at what time I had to be in the office, when I could live, or on which days I had to go, to avoid me being considered an employee.

I don't believe that was GP's point. Setting your own hours is not anathema to an employer-employee relationship.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#129

Post by AndyMcConachie »

pelorat wrote: post #99

Wait, I live in the Netherlands and I wasn't even aware that Uber was around. Didn't they get banned years ago, with only Uber Black being allowed?

You're forgiven. I also live in the NL and I almost never see them. The last time I saw an Uber was two years ago when a friend came from the USA and wanted to use their app to call a Uber.

But then again I never take taxis either. For me it's either walk, bike or OV. It might be like that for you as well, which is why you forgot they exist.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#130

Post by yawaworht1978 »

bserge wrote: post #34
yawaworht1978 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have paid the ridiculous charge from Rome's airport to the city, it's interesting how many measures airports like Rome, Madrid, Barcelona have to take to keep Uber out as good as possible. I still agree with the Dutch court. First, EU has a goal to somewhat harmonize some laws and taxes. Europe should not simply allow any company to come along and undermine everything. If Europe let's this happen, the consequence i…

> claim it from social services You say it like they just walk in, ask for money and get it. It's really much harder, practically impossible if you're not on some priority list (with kids, disability, single mother, etc).

I know, it takes time to claim it, and this actually infuriates me even more, because all the cla procedures are handled by expensive government staff, of course this is due to security checks, to exclude fraudulent claims. All paid for by taxpayers so Uber can burn another buck(they're still never profitable are they, tells me everything about the business model). The good thing is, once it works, it works.
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