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US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

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Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#41

In Europe, you can't drive for Uber or deliver food without a standard work contract which includes: healthcare, pension, payroll and income taxes. Drivers here PAY private companies a weekly amount in order to work for Uber et all (to have that contract). Uber et all work with these companies only, not individuals.

How does the prevalence and costs of Uber and food delivery in European cities compare to US cities? I don’t know myself, just wondering how this difference effects the end consumer.

User costs the same as old taxis where I live and there's no reason to use it.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#42

In Europe, you can't drive for Uber or deliver food without a standard work contract which includes: healthcare, pension, payroll and income taxes. Drivers here PAY private companies a weekly amount in order to work for Uber et all (to have that contract). Uber et all work with these companies only, not individuals.

How does the prevalence and costs of Uber and food delivery in European cities compare to US cities? I don’t know myself, just wondering how this difference effects the end consumer.

My view from a few times in Europe is, public transport is preferred during the day, but if you want to go out late in the evening ride sharing and/or taxi are way more convenient because there would be limited train/bus working.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawmakers cannot change if they so choose. Propositions amend the constitution of California. They can modify it, but they have to honor the rule itself and cannot simply remove it or abrogate it through this alteration. > Legislature can amend Proposition 22’s provisions with a statute passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses, so long as the statute is “consistent with, and furthers the purpose of,” the ini…

> Lawmakers cannot change if they so choose... They can modify it, You know here all this time I thought that "modify" is a synonym of "change". So can lawmakers modify it or can they not modify it?

change and modify some times have different meanings in legal systems and can apply to versioning of the laws (don't know if that is the case here)

as an example you might say Law X section 7 says Uber drivers are contractors.

In some systems a change would be to remove this provision or to say the opposite.

a modification might be to add:

The definition of contractor will follow the amended definition of contractor as in Law Y Section 9 - subsection Uber contractors.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#44

In Europe, you can't drive for Uber or deliver food without a standard work contract which includes: healthcare, pension, payroll and income taxes. Drivers here PAY private companies a weekly amount in order to work for Uber et all (to have that contract). Uber et all work with these companies only, not individuals.

How does the prevalence and costs of Uber and food delivery in European cities compare to US cities? I don’t know myself, just wondering how this difference effects the end consumer.

Uber taxis have died in my UK city. The quality was always weak compared to the very good taxi services which was perfectly fine pre-Uber. Uber had vouchers and a marketing push that made it a thing but people can't get rides now. Rental electric scooters are dominant now.

Food delivery use is declining with the cost of living problems people are facing. Anecdotally I saw it was making people feel bad so it's a habit people have wanted to break - junk food, cold, missing items and paying the price of a week's worth of groceries... ugh... it made people hate themselves but they kept doing it because the convenience was like a drug.

Where I live in the city, everyone has a dozen food outlets within a five minute walk so it was never a rational choice.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the prevalence and costs of Uber and food delivery in European cities compare to US cities? I don’t know myself, just wondering how this difference effects the end consumer.

User costs the same as old taxis where I live and there's no reason to use it.

Well the apps are better, but that's about it for incentives to use Uber/Bolt.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#46
post #27

Gig workers aren't quite contractors and aren't quite employees. Maybe need a third class of worker.

But what properties and laws would apply to this class of worker?

The general rule in Europe is that "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then we treat it like a duck." That is employment and tax authorities don't care what your and your employer call yourselves but they do care about the conditions under which you work. In the UK, for instance, if you are a contractor you can send someone else in your stead to do the work, if you are an employee you obviously can't. So that alone can distinguish between real contractors and actual employees.

I'm not a lawyer so take all this with the necessary quantities of salt.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#47
post #27

Gig workers aren't quite contractors and aren't quite employees. Maybe need a third class of worker.

But what properties and laws would apply to this class of worker?

A separate set of dedicated laws of course.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#48
post #8

https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A163655.PDF ^ Actual court ruling which is linked in the article itself. I find the article's headline misleading. The court ruled that a proposition that was passed by voters in California which classified these drivers as contractors was mostly constitutional and would be allowed to have the effect of law, noting that California's legislative branch was free to change th…

[flagged]

It has been known for a long time. There were laws. Y'all need to rollback Citizens United and have sensible caps on political spending before all your state constitutions have been rewritten for you.

A related necessary measure is for courts to assess the "effective cost" of someone using a bullhorn they own, like an app, to promote a specific electoral position so that full page interstitial on a widely used app isn't considered cost-free but self-dealing political ad-spend that could exceed the cap and be illegitimate interference in an election.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#49

Isn't this debate largely a false dilemma? Its obvious to me that an additional category is prudent, or that people besides employees should have access to subsidized health care premiums and some form of paid sick leave. that doesnt have to come from the employer and that doesnt have to mean that worker flexibility is curbed. contractors can already do retirement benefits plans such as the 401k plan, running your ow…

The UK has a “worker” [0] classification between employee and true independent contractor. It provides protections like minimum wage and time off while preserving freedom about when and how someone works. It seems like it would fit this case well, but I doubt it will ever happen. Unions are the major force pushing for gig workers to be classified as employees because they’d be able to unionize. [0] https://www.gov.uk…

> Unions are the major force pushing for gig workers to be classified as employees because they’d be able to unionize.

What stops them unionising?

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