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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

#191

Post by tgv »

refurb wrote: post #160
tgv wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't (only) about what the actual drivers want. I'm sure they also want more money, but Uber isn't going to give it to them. It's also about fair competition, health and unemployment insurance, pension, etc.

What a bizarre mentality. “I don’t care if this is what you want, you cant have it”

Give me your money. Now why don't you?

You're protecting your own interests. The state has to protect everyone's interests; and there's always an international aspect, at least in the EU. That goes beyond than what short-sighted and possibly "primed" employees might think they want.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#192

Post by yawaworht1978 »

crote wrote: post #172
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…

A bit off-topic, but why would you take a taxi for that trip? A train to the city leaves evert 15 minutes and costs you only €14. By car it's a 30km ride! This is true for basically every single European city. Public transport is of such high quality that taking a taxi simply doesn't make sense.

Was cold after cross continent flight and just missed the train by a few minutes, was also pretty late, place looked abandoned, had a bit too much luggage and had no idea how to get to my destination. Any other circumstances, I would take the train.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#193

Post by refurb »

tgv wrote: post #191
refurb wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a bizarre mentality. “I don’t care if this is what you want, you cant have it”

Give me your money. Now why don't you? You're protecting your own interests. The state has to protect everyone's interests; and there's always an international aspect, at least in the EU. That goes beyond than what short-sighted and possibly "primed" employees might think they want.

Ahhh…. Protecting workers from their own stupidity. Got it.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#194

Post by rambambram »

belter wrote: post #176
jacquesm wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a lot of freelance software engineers in the Netherlands and quite a few of them do. BV starts to make sense from about 100K turnover because you gain some tax advantages, it also makes working for larger entities easier and it allows you to charge a higher rate and to be in an easier position to work with subcontractors. It all depends on what you want, there are plenty of ZZP'ers in software development on t…

What is the difference between those freelance software engineers and the Uber drivers if they are freelancing for one company only? As far as I know, and I am happy to be corrected by somebody more knowledgeable, the famous Dutch ZZP'ers are tolerated. There is in the Dutch Law not a clarification of their legal and tax position: https://onl.nl/zzp-manifest/

Both freelancing and ZZP don't have a legal definition. It's just a business. In these cases a business of one. Without being incorporated, so if you screw up, creditors can come after your personal bank account.

So there's nothing to "tolerate" but money. ;)

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#195

Post by volkl48 »

chrisseaton wrote: post #20
sktrdie wrote: post #6

Bit out of context but I just came back from US (living in Netherlands). Holy flipping hell that place is full of cars. Literally everywhere. I mean I understand using a car upstate New York where things are further apart and everyone has a huge isolated villa. But do you really need 4 lane roads in freaking manhattan? Seems like regulating "car stuff" in general is always a good thing if you ask me.

I can't understand who would want to drive in Manhattan. Like where are they coming from and where are they going? Where do they intend to park when they get there? It wouldn't occur to me in a million years to attempt to drive into a metropolis like that. I see normal private cars driving through New York and London and can't imagine who is in them and what they're attempting to do that means their best route is thr…

I'm from New Jersey originally and have lot of family out on Long Island. Driving into or through Manhattan is very frequently (although not necessarily at rush hour) the most sensible choice, from both a time and cost perspective.

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High commuter rail costs - If you have 2+ people in the car, it's likely equal cost at worst to drive if your origin point is beyond the reach of the subway. This is especially true if you wish to go across the metro and therefore get to pay per-person fares on more than one commuter rail system. Going from 15mi West of Manhattan (NJ burbs) to 15mi East of Manhattan (Nassau County), will run you about $50 per person round-trip. It's not hard to see why no one would take commuter rail with their family of 4 for that trip even if they live next to a CR station and their family on the other side does as well, $200 is a lot of money.

Parking - There's tons of (typically underground) garages in NYC and particularly Manhattan. While you may get gouged if you just randomly turn in to the first garage you see and pay the walkup rate, some minor research on rates can easily get you somewhere to park for $20-35 for a full day in Manhattan. 2 seconds on Spothero and I could park right next to Penn Station 9am-9pm today for ~$22, and that's not a rare exception. This was the case before those services as well, it just required more knowledge of where to look for deals.

Scheduling - Off-peak/late-night frequencies are limited and service is often much slower. PATH (a subway with limited reach) to NJ runs 24/7, but late night you're looking at 40min between trains and the trip time often gains 5-10min as well between maintenance and a less direct routing. And if you don't live next to it's limited reach, you're still driving after that. On the actual commuter rail last trip is typically ~1AM and the last few trains of the night have 1-1.5hrs between trains on many lines. I could be back home by car before I even get on the train in Penn Station if I'm particularly unlucky on timing for when the concert I'm seeing ends.

Infrastructure - There's 4 roads to get across the Hudson from NJ in the region, and 2 of them go into Manhattan. Not hard for an accident or minor disruption to make going through Manhattan the only way you're getting across to go to the other side in a sane period of time. The limitations of NYC's "ring" roads also mean you can't necessarily easily just go the longer way around the opposite side of the metro.

There's plenty of areas even within NYC that are poorly served by transit services, to say nothing of the suburbs. When the trip takes 4 transfers to get there, it's a lot less appealing to take and a lot more at risk of issues, even if it should work in theory.

-----------------

I am not suggesting cars are the ideal mode of travel, and I'd like to see further investment in broadening both the reach and service levels of transit services, as well as re-examining fare pricing, but with the current systems/infrastructure being what they are.....yes, there are lots of trips where the sensible choice is to drive.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#196

Post by whiddershins »

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.

Ugh, the unique selling point of working Uber is the flexibility and autonomy. Every driver I talk to says that’s what they love about working it.

What is it in us that can’t let people have what they value, just because it is different than what we value?

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#197

Post by mellavora »

bserge wrote: post #77
lozenge wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most noticeable difference between Uber and other services in my city was the waiting time. 3-6 minutes versus 15-20 minutes. This is achieved by having a lot of underpaid drivers idling or parked nearby. Minimum wage kills that advantage.

I see the advantage of a lot of unpaid drivers, but they also aren't morons. Most Uber drivers say they make good money (all that I've met, too), which imo means better than a minimum wage job like warehousing or w/e. They wouldn't do the job if it meant idling without pay. They couldn't, as it would just burn money.

And how many of the uber drivers who said they were making good money were good at math? People think lots of things to convince themselves that they are doing ok, when a more objective look says 'maybe not'.

I recall one uber ride I had in Kentucky, driver was a retired accountant. He said he figured he was earning about $2/hr after costs. He said he liked it because it got him out of the house and gave him something to do.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#198

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

capableweb wrote: post #180
djhworld wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends, there's a lot of local and national regulations in different countries. For example in my part of the UK, only designated taxis can pick up ride hailers on the street, sort of like black cabs in London. Private firms who use their own fleet of cars can only offer pre-booked services, e.g. pre booked airport runs. Uber and co. shook this up a bit by offering a grey area, where the taxi ride isn't exactly h…

> For example in my part of the UK, only designated taxis can pick up ride hailers on the street, sort of like black cabs in London. Yeah, that makes sense, that's the only thing I've seen around the world as well. But can these designated taxis reject customers at will? That was my question.

Practically, they can but I'm not sure about the regulations. Interesting question though.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#199

Post by mellavora »

phicoh wrote: post #105
bserge wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, bear with me here. Same system as now, but if you make less than minimum hourly wage (calculated every month), the company covers the difference. I am pretty sure the drivers would nearly always make more than that. Or is it illegal to just have employees set their own time/targets?

It gets expensive when drivers game the system. What happens when a driver just stops driving? You have to fire them. Which can take quite a bit of effort. What if a driver calls in sick? You have to check that. If a driver is an employee, who provides the car?

And who provides the car insurance? And who verifies that that insurance allows commercial use of the vehicle?

oh, whoops, forgot that most uber drivers are on non-commercial car insurance...

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#200

Post by criddell »

SMAAART wrote: post #61

What we have here is a unique, unprecedented, real life experiment in Game Theory. Possible outcomes: - Uber could pull out from the Netherlands - Drivers in the Netherlands could organize themselves, but they will need a structure similar to Uber - Other countries will follow the Netherlands ruling We could see the implosion of the gig economy (doubt it) or - most probably - some places like the Netherlands will be…

When the city of Austin, TX added some minor regulations around ride share companies, Uber and Lyft left the city. About 24 hours later, ten new services started up. Shortly after that, Uber and Lyft came back.
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