Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

nltimes.nl

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 500 posts

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#261

Post by boplicity »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #257
belter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I bet employers are wishing they never got involved in benefits. Now they're just the governments execution arm for social programs and they're stuck forever. Looking back, the only reason employers started getting involved in Healthcare was because the 1942 Stabilization Act restricted them from raising wages and they had to come up with a more creative way of competing for talent. Now the ACA forces companies to pr…

I wish more people realized how anti-capitalist the current healthcare system is in the U.S.

If you want to encourage business, then remove barriers. Governments should be taking care of healthcare, not businesses.

Businesses should be focused on the core work they do: Running their business. Not on providing health care.

(Same goes, really, for childcare, transportation, and similar benefits that large employers sometimes offer, often because these things are not effectively provided by the government.)

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#262

Post by e3bc54b2 »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #257
belter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I bet employers are wishing they never got involved in benefits. Now they're just the governments execution arm for social programs and they're stuck forever. Looking back, the only reason employers started getting involved in Healthcare was because the 1942 Stabilization Act restricted them from raising wages and they had to come up with a more creative way of competing for talent. Now the ACA forces companies to pr…

Considering those same employers also get massive subsidies for every kind of self-inflicted damage, which results in massive C-suit cash-outs and buy-backs, this is the least the commons could hope for.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#263

Post by Traster »

Grimm1 wrote: post #225

Legitimate question, will Uber shut down it's Dutch operations now? Will this cost them more money than it's worth to operate there, and would they shutdown to send a message to other nations about there intent should similar rulings be made? Uber's margins have always been super thin, I would imagine this makes them squarely unprofitable in the Dutch market.

This is what is likely to happen to Uber almost everywhere eventually. Courts will slowly re-impose the workers rights that Uber set out to avoid, the cost of an uber ride will go up, which will shift riders back to more traditional transport - busses, trains, bicycles and cars. Leaving a much smaller, much less powerful Uber. Without the scale and the price making power, Uber will see its value massively massively drop shrinking to the value of a large taxi company (albeit one that's throwing huge amounts of money away on extremely expensive silicon valley engineers)

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#264

Post by wwtrv »

Ekaros wrote: post #131
hmate9 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Depends on how much more expensive autonomous car is. If such car is 1 million and regular is 100k and lifetime of both is 5 years you can pay more than 20 per hour to driver...

Creating an autonomous car in the first place is the expensive part, the marginal cost can’t be significantly higher than the cost of a regular car.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#265

Post by ur-whale »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #47

I remember quite well some people here claiming that Uber was just about to replace all their drivers with autonomous cars. It was back in 2015... we're in 2021.

> replace all their drivers with autonomous cars.

And now, they have been given a huge incentive to do just that.

Way to foster innovation Dutch govt. !

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#266

Post by toshk »

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.

Social security is just a hole in the Dutch law, freelancers should just also start paying social security. Like they do for instance in Spain, then they can also get unemployment money etc.

The effect of this will be temporary 0 hour contract and you create exactly the same situation with less flexibility for the employee and a limit of three contracts of a year.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#267

Post by [deleted] »

kevincox wrote: post #258
hobom wrote: post #226

Unfortunate consequence of a legacy legal system. Uber drivers are clearly neither quite like employees nor are they entrepreneurs, and the law should come up with a fitting category that ensures they are protected from exploitation but continue to enjoy some of the freedoms associated with the gig economy.

Possibly a better option is to remove these categories together. What would happen if we struck the whole concept of "Employment" from the law. As a person you just had the chance to get income. We can retarget all of the laws and benefits previously using Employment to be about income instead. If you make an income you can pay into a pension, pay taxes... Everyone is entitled to some number of vacations and sick day…

[deleted]

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#268

Post by trompetenaccoun »

gpvos wrote: post #114
shimonabi wrote: post #97

Great to see that over 100 years of labour laws won by the workers' movements can't be innovated away in SOME countries.

Well, you can fool all of the people some of the time, so it was possible for many years.

How were they fooled? In the Netherlands, no one is forced to work anywhere. People drive Ubers out of their own volition, whether we think it's stupid or not. I'm not sure about other countries but in China where the market used to be even less regulated, both drivers and customers switched in droves from traditional taxis to ride hailing apps. For various reasons they just like it better. And it's not exactly difficult to see the advantages even if you have concerns about labor laws.

There's always a case to be made that any form of employment is exploitation. Sararīman, as the corporate slave is known in Japan. The question is how much regulation do we want. And do we want it for regulation's sake, or does it actually benefit the people. There are many labor laws that hinder innovation and keep employment down.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#269

Post by azeirah »

rattray wrote: post #249
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.

I'm unfamiliar with Dutch ZZP, and it sounds like there are indeed specific rules that preclude Uber drivers from neatly fitting into the category. But why would a better fix not be to require ZZP contractors to pay into government-matched/supported funds for healthcare, retirement, etc? Many people really prefer to not be an employee. Why tether their health and old age to a big employer with a ball and chain?

I'm Dutch but not particularly knowledgeable about this, but as far as I understand it the reason being a ZZP'er is so popular is precisely because you don't have to hand in a lot of money to required stuff like retirement and insurance and stuff.

The types of zzzp'ers I'm most familiar with are in construction and they are cheaper than traditional businesses. They're outcompeting traditional businesses because they don't have to pay retirement and insurance and all that.

It's been a topic for years here what to do about ZZP'ers because if something _does_ happen to one at work (ie an accident to their health or to the house they're working on it whatever) they typically don't have insurance which leads to big personal problems for them.

It's like a high risk high reward type of thing, but the issue is that they're also outcompeting traditional workers all over the place.

Otoh, if you were to require them to pay for stuff like insurance and retirement, the whole idea of being a zzp'er will cease to make any sense. You don't earn any higher any more, you will need to charge more so people have no reason to prefer your services over traditional ones.

Zzp'er just means that you work alone and have no personnel. Ie, similar to a freelancer basically.

Also sadly enough, often zzp'ers are less skilled than traditionally employed individuals. Not exactly sure why that is but might be related to how they were trained and a lack of institutional knowledge due to not working with an established workplace/having regular colleagues etc

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#270

Post by wwtrv »

thow-58d4e8b wrote: post #212
AndyMcConachie wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Same in Finland, Baltics or central/eastern Europe. Almost everything is within walkable/bike-able distance. Public transportation has good coverage, is affordable and safe. Taking taxis is just not something people normally do. From here, Uber feels like a quintessentially American solution for a quintessentially American problem. Real world example - taking Uber to my workplace would cost me one-two hours of net pa…

‘..Baltics’ maybe in Estonia.. in Lithuania Uber (or rather companies that are competing with it) is quite popular and that prices were very low (due to competition between different apps) until quite recently (mass transit is not that great here, though). AFAIK while not used by most people, it is also quite popular in Ukraine. Due huge income inequality the prices are very low but there is still a substantial section of the population which can afford it.
Post reply on HN