Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#351

Post by Volundr » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #148

Jochim wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> Plenty of people working in restaurants work for multiple companies, they're still employees. And do they cook one food order at a restaurant they work for, then 15 minutes later walk across the street and cook for a competing restaurant for 30 minutes, and then immediately walk back across the street and cook a food order for the other restaurant? No, of course that's not normal. This will ultimately accelerate th…

> They can easily kill off competition using this by eating the labor supply.

I'm not at all sure they can. You haven't really explained here why Uber is apparently capable of hiring all drivers and starving the labor pool, yet Applebees can't use the same strategy for cooks, or Amazon the same strategy for warehouse workers or software engineers.

Calling them "moronic regulators" without explaining why the same model that works in other markets can't work in this one isn't all that compelling.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#352

Post by tmathmeyer » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #327

etchalon wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. Universal healthcare would empower a lot of entrepreneurs, make it easier to attract talent for smaller companies, and free me of a completely ridiculous amount of paperwork and oversight each year. If someone told me, as a business, I could just pay a tax and know my employees had access to the same quality of care as everyone else, I'd sign up in a heart beat.

How about we get companies and government out of healthcare?

you just want no health care at all then?

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#353

Post by paulluuk » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #268

gpvos wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 diffi…

> There are many labor laws that hinder innovation and keep employment down

I think it's fair to say that the huge majority of labor laws actually protect laborers, and have been won through blood and sweat over many generations. To opt on "the safe side" and say "look, yes jobs at Uber are complicated, but if you work there 40 hours per week then it's a fulltime job and we should treat it as such" is quite fair.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#354

Post by ChicagoDave » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

If this ever happens in the U.S. I won't bother with driving Uber anymore and this would probably put them out of business. The Taxi industry will win back from the disruption that Uber caused.

This has nothing to do with worker's rights. No one gave a crap about Taxi driver's work standards and they are/were treated worse than Uber drivers.

This is all about the Taxi industry fighting back.

75% of all ride share drivers would prefer to remain independent.

In Chicago, I can make $42/hour driving Uber. I still don't understand how anyone can claim I'm being mistreated.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#355

Post by Ansil849 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #350

Ansil849 wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about the subtle nuance of the service provided. A skilled driver will know which route to take if the passenger wants the absolute quickest route, or if the passenger wants a scenic route, or which cobble-stone roads to avoid if the passenger says they're feeling a bit ill, or hundreds of other such intricacies and peculiarities which come with offering expert service which someone who just has a GPS app on…

That's nice. They should continue to offer this premium service at premium prices, then, for the few people who are willing to pay the premium.

My point up-thread was that this tier of service used to be more or less the de facto standard of service that you would get for a standard, not a premium, fee. Over time, it has deteriorated and is now the domain of specialty car hire services. I'm not sure that that's a good thing.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#356

Post by yawaworht1978 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:04 PM UTC

krickkrack wrote: post #345

It's interesting to me that, generally speaking, both Uber and it's drivers are fine with the way things are, entering into a mutually agreed upon contract... Only to have people who have no skin in the game tell them both what they have to do... because it's 'the right thing'.

That's not the whole picture, though. You can't bring a bull to a full dance club and do a rodeo, just because you and the bull mutually agree. There is collateral damage here, taxpayers paying the social expenses meant to be paid by Uber and the unemployment money and services for the taxi drivers pushed into unemployment by the Uber money burning scheme for predatory pricing practices is something that is not mutually agreed upon with the governments. Uber is dancing on a thin thread on this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001985...

So the government imposed a bit of a less radical change, as predatory pricing consists of predating(done) and recoupment(not happened yet). This is the legal term for Microsoft embrace, extend, extinguish practice.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#357

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:05 PM UTC

wwtrv wrote: post #264

Ekaros wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The hardware (ML chips, failsafe systems, LIDAR, radar, cameras, other sensors) isn't cheap. I'd expect an autonomous car to cost at least 5k-10k more if mass produced at a similar scale, and probably more than that in practice due to smaller numbers. Plus R&D of course.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#358

Post by mattmanser » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #320

adventured wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of people working in restaurants work for multiple companies, they're still employees. And do they cook one food order at a restaurant they work for, then 15 minutes later walk across the street and cook for a competing restaurant for 30 minutes, and then immediately walk back across the street and cook a food order for the other restaurant? No, of course that's not normal. This will ultimately accelerate th…

> And do they cook one food order at a restaurant they work for, then 15 minutes later walk across the street and cook for a competing restaurant for 30 minutes, and then immediately walk back across the street and cook a food order for the other restaurant? No, of course that's not normal. As a former Lyft/uber driver this is absolutely correct. It gets even hairier: suppose you are sitting on both apps (or even mor…

Does Lyft even operate in Holland?

Here in the UK Uber drivers have Uber stickers on their cars. I rarely get picked up by a driver without them.

What imaginary other company are they working for that would tolerate that?

It might not be the case in America, but over here it certainly seems most drivers are working for one company.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#359

Post by pbreit » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:09 PM UTC

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'd say "wrongly so". The right answer is somewhere in the middle, leaning to "contractor". Drivers literally never have to even show up. The flexibility offered by contractor status is the #1 benefit to drivers.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#360

Post by akagusu » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 5:11 PM UTC

The so called gig economy was built upon a unsustainable business model that depends of exploitation of workers.

It's not just Uber. All companies in the gig economy work like this. It's not only about paying minimum wage and benefits either, it's also about shifting the costs of doing business to the workers calling them independent contractors.

As independent contractors, drivers need to pay for their car, pay for gas, taxes, insurance and maintenance costs, but if they were employees from the beginning, all these costs would be getting out of the Uber's pockets.