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US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

bbc.com

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Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#151

Post by passthejoe »

jvanderbot wrote: post #75
diceduckmonk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I find the article's headline misleading. I see Uber stock is up 6% pre-market. That suggests to me investors thinks Uber's liabilities are reduced as a result of this ruling.

The fight over contractor status was versus regular employee status, which would require providing benefits. So, market rejoice, these driver folks are on their own. Editorializing a bit, but CA referendums are so silly. I was asked to vote to resolve an employee/employer dispute in kidney dialysis centers. There's so many of those types of things.

Labor unions seem to put that kidney dialysis measure on the ballot for every election, then they are outspent by more than 100-to-1 by the kidney dialysis companies on TV ads, and the measures never pass.

Money wins, and the unions could spend more but they don't in this case.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#152

Post by josho »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126
josho wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> maybe an agency could put up comment periods for specific industries The problem is there is no agency with a financial incentive to support the individual drivers. The drivers don’t earn enough on their own to create meaningful representation. If the drivers somehow were able to pool their resources under some sort of a guild then they might. But that will take a lot of organizing and someone with resources that c…

> no agency with a financial incentive to support the individual drivers There is a massive political operation trying to represent drivers. They just didn't bother asking the drivers what they want, they made assumptions for them. That's why we have this multi-year string of bills, propositions and lawsuits.

Do you have any sources, after a quick google I wasn't able to find much on lobbying that is done onbehalf of drivers.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#153

Post by mrguyorama »

user3939382 wrote: post #110
marcinzm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>pre-industrial democracy You have a very rose tinted view of how democracy was in the past or who actually made decisions.

It wasn't perfect but it existed. Calling it rose-colored is to downplay how bad it's gotten. The complex of multinational corporations and their lobby groups that run our government today didn't exist then, the e.g. railroad companies are no comparison.

My brother in christ, this country LITERALLY started as a bunch of rich white dudes stirring shit up to get essentially their own self designed government where only wealthy white dudes could have a say and black people were not even allowed to be considered people.

The fact that a couple of them had some ideals and there were handwavy references to those ideals does not change that America was not a democracy for a very long time, with reasonable arguments that it still isn't

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#154

Post by mrguyorama »

rhino369 wrote: post #121
josho wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the point. Companies are not citizens therefore, op argued, as non citizens they should not have a voice in election outcomes. It’s a fair point, as a comparison we don’t allow visa holders to vote. I also suspect the citizens were influenced in their opinions by all the money spent to ‘educate’ the electorate. Somehow it feels wrong to allow a corporation to pay to set school curriculums, but when…

The ACLU and unions aren’t citizens either, should we ban them from participating?

If we want to ban Corps then absolutely.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#155

Post by mrguyorama »

xwdv wrote: post #137

Good for the drivers, good for the customers, good for Uber, bad for the heavily entrenched taxi industries.

Ah yes, clearly the very local and independent (from each other) taxi companies were the big evil corporations instead of (checks notes) the giant multinational funded by literal blood money from oil barons that openly flouted laws and had an internal team dedicated to writing systems to mislead law enforcement.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#156

Post by no_wizard »

MrDunham wrote: post #89
jvanderbot wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fight over contractor status was versus regular employee status, which would require providing benefits. So, market rejoice, these driver folks are on their own. Editorializing a bit, but CA referendums are so silly. I was asked to vote to resolve an employee/employer dispute in kidney dialysis centers. There's so many of those types of things.

So, crazy enough, I know the head lobbyist for the group that was fighting against that kidney dialysis thing. It's been struck down three times and, according to her heavily biased opinion, would seriously adversely affect access and choice. The company spent something like several hundred million dollars fighting that proposition and two before it. Crazy that one special interest can get some signatures to fight fo…

Something I find suspect is how spending hundreds of millions is profitable unless you're raking in many times that amount per year.

I suspect they're guarding massive profits as opposed to advocating for patient access and choice

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#157

Post by renewiltord »

uoaei wrote: post #8
CSMastermind wrote: post #2

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]

People vote as they vote. Part of giving people free agency in their choice is allowing them to post a convincing message. They aren't allowed to outright lie, but convincing people is a natural thing to do.

And naturally the losers of any vote always say "they're voting against their own interest" and "advertising and propaganda did X". So there is no information value in claiming that. P("advertising and propaganda manipulated people into this vote" | "I supported the opposite position and lost") is approximately 1.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#158

Post by renewiltord »

arlort wrote: post #15
akira2501 wrote: post #3

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…

> passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses Holy mother of supermajorities ... What's the procedure for reversing a ballot measure? Can only be done via a different ballot measure?

The purpose of these things is to overrule the representative legislature when it doesn't match the opinions of the people (who are the real legislators who have delegated power to the representatives). It would be foolish to permit your agents to overrule the principals. It is the sensible thing to do.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#159

Post by jedberg »

BurningFrog wrote: post #129

The reality is that gig workers fit in neither of the legacy regulatory categories ("employee" or "contractor"). I expect we'll spend a few destructive decades thrashing around before legal systems have adapted to this invention.

This right here is the key that is missing. We need a new category of worker that's 1/2 way between, OR we need to have universal healthcare and a better social safety net. The main argument here is if the company has to provide benefits, sick leave, etc.

If benefits were provided for everyone by default, it wouldn't matter.

Re: US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

#160

Post by mydriasis »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #107
mydriasis wrote: post #100

What does this mean for the average Uber or Lyft driver? How does their quality of life or employment change as a result, generally? I'm not well-acquainted with this kind of stuff.

Used to be a Lyft driver:. By changing status, it would be possible for Lyft/Uber to restrict drivers from being on the other platform simultaneously. This means probably a takehome drop of 20~30%. The truly egregious one though is FedEx/Amazon drivers, who (IIRC) are "contractors" and forced to use branded vehicles, wear uniforms, and have their driving monitored like crazy. They are definitely employees, and are ru…

Yuck, that all sounds terrible!
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