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Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

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Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#161

Post by j2kun »

Cookingboy wrote: post #6
criddell wrote: post #2

> Uber and Lyft say drivers prefer the flexibility of working as freelancers What would prevent Uber and Lyft from continuing to let employee drivers set their own hours?

Nothing, but since now they have the added cost of health insurance, minimal wage, etc, it would make more sense for them to arrange pre-set shifts for the drivers to optimize for supply/demand based on time of the day. Some drivers would like that arrangement, especially if that's their full time job. But some drivers who do this for supplemental income may not be able to meet the demand of the new fixed schedule se…

You'd think a multi-billion-dollar company with so many smart engineers could figure out how to fit both types of work into their system, if it really mattered. Silicon Valley exceptionalism is a garbage dream if paying your workers minimum wage and having flexible schedules at the same time is an insurmountable challenge.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#162

Post by Game_Ender »

heavyset_go wrote: post #51
rdgthree wrote: post #7

It strikes me that these articles are always biased in the direction of the benefits of being an employee. I have several friends that actively choose to be contractors because they prefer the (legally protected) flexibility to decide their own hours, among other things. It's a personal decision, and there are upsides and downsides in both directions. Sure - some (non-insignificant) portion of Uber and Lyft drivers w…

> I have several friends that actively choose to be contractors because they prefer the (legally protected) flexibility to decide their own hours Those legal protections can be enforced by those who have the means to hire a lawyer. Yes, white collar contractors often get to enjoy the legally enshrined protections to decide how, when and where their work is done. They are often paid twice as much or more than their sa…

Uber drivers can set their own rates in some parts of CA [0]. It’s a pretty big change brought out by these lawsuits to make the drivers as independent as possible.

0 - https://www.npr.org/2020/01/28/800437791/due-to-new-californ...

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#163

Post by temp667 »

specialist wrote: post #123
rdgthree wrote: post #7

It strikes me that these articles are always biased in the direction of the benefits of being an employee. I have several friends that actively choose to be contractors because they prefer the (legally protected) flexibility to decide their own hours, among other things. It's a personal decision, and there are upsides and downsides in both directions. Sure - some (non-insignificant) portion of Uber and Lyft drivers w…

Uber drivers invest $20k for opportunity to earn $15/hr. How much do your contracting friends invest? What's their compensation?

Do uber drivers really not want or need cars for anything other than uber? Some of the places I get uber - there are no sidewalks.

One irony, all the gig economy workers do make a car a LOT less necessary if you are in an area well served by them.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#164

Post by alex_young »

skybrian wrote: post #134
alex_young wrote: post #113

Uber wants you to believe that the cost of paying drivers as employees is that you won’t be able to get a car in most places. This can’t be true. Uber replaced a poorly run system that actually covered most places and employed it’s labor force. If Uber and other car services were forced to recognize their workforce as employees, there would be market incentives to support doing so. American taxpayers pay for Uber and…

If you mean taxi drivers, apparently they were usually contractors, until this new law was passed, anyway. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-s-gi...

Thanks for pointing this out - in SF there was an intentional effort to destroy the employee taxi driver system in the late 70s. This is talked about at length in the article you linked to.

Many other places still have working employee systems for taxis. SF could too if they wanted to change this law.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#165

Post by jariel »

rdgthree wrote: post #7

It strikes me that these articles are always biased in the direction of the benefits of being an employee. I have several friends that actively choose to be contractors because they prefer the (legally protected) flexibility to decide their own hours, among other things. It's a personal decision, and there are upsides and downsides in both directions. Sure - some (non-insignificant) portion of Uber and Lyft drivers w…

"It's a personal decision"

It's not a decision if they have no choice in the matter (one way or another).

Large companies can use their massive leverage to force sub-optimal conditions which are in their favour.

Though there are definitely arguments to be made for 'prefer contractor' - there is no doubt, that on the aggregate, there are huge, systematic problems with the new 'gig economy' that need to be sorted out.

Free markets work when people have skills and at least some leverage, but at the bottom end, where people are less skilled, it doesn't work well, which is why we need to have minimum wage, possibly unions in some cases etc..

New economy, new rules.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#166

Post by temp667 »

microtherion wrote: post #103
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #71

If Uber and Lyft are forced to classify drivers as employees, doesn't that mean these companies will try to lock them in? For example Uber won't allow their drivers to work for Lyft, and vice versa. If this is the case, I think Lyft will die very quickly because as far as I know, most drivers prefer Uber over Lyft.

IANAL, but to my knowledge, in California, a company cannot[ ] legally prevent their employees from working a second job in their spare time, so this kind of lock in would not work. [ ] some exceptions apply, mainly related to IP I think.

That is total BS in california then - if an employer is paying you by the hour for your time, while you are collecting that money they HAVE to be able to expect you are working for them (only).

This idea that uber / lyft drivers (both phones are always running) can work for BOTH companies at the same time seems ridiculous to me.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#167

Post by starfallg »

rdgthree wrote: post #7

It strikes me that these articles are always biased in the direction of the benefits of being an employee. I have several friends that actively choose to be contractors because they prefer the (legally protected) flexibility to decide their own hours, among other things. It's a personal decision, and there are upsides and downsides in both directions. Sure - some (non-insignificant) portion of Uber and Lyft drivers w…

> I have several friends that actively choose to be contractors

I've worked many years as a contractor billing at a daily rate.

The difference being that I can choose to enter permanent employment any time I wanted, due to the field we work in.

It's not the same as contracting for Uber or Lyft. Not even close.

Just some perspective here, not discounting what you said.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#168

Post by stri8ed »

twblalock wrote: post #122
fcsp wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it still voluntary if it happens out of economic desperation?

If Uber and Lyft weren't around, people in a state of economic desperation would have fewer options. California is basically saying that if you can't provide a good job with benefits, you aren't allowed to provide a job at all. That will result in fewer jobs.

This is effectively the same as enforcing a minimum wage. An argument for it would be, its collective bargaining at a national level, while avoiding the coordination problems associated with unionizing.

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#169

Post by lhh »

willio58 wrote: post #145
lhh wrote: post #50

Leave it to California to stick it to a company losing $7 billion per year trying to find its footing. Drivers are voluntarily entering into the current work arrangement. Why does the government need to have an opinion on the matter?

A worker’s will to do something does not necessarily mean that thing is good for the worker or society. Lower classes are currently forced to work for survival, there’s a lot of room for improvement. Poor management of investments on Uber/Lyft’s end is a burden the lower classes should not be forced to take on.

> A worker’s will to do something does not necessarily mean that thing is good for the worker

That strikes me as a pretty condescending point of view. Shouldn't adults be allowed to make their own decisions on what is best for their own lives?

Re: Uber and Lyft ordered by California judge to classify drivers as employees

#170

Post by henryfjordan »

twblalock wrote: post #109
henryfjordan wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things might also stay the same. There's inertia in the current system and the drivers clearly value their flexibility. Why would things change?

Because operating costs increased substantially because of the requirement to provide benefits to workers.

Why would increased operating costs mean they can't offer flexible hours to drivers?

Setting and maintaining a new schedule would ADD to operating costs (gotta pay someone to administer the calendar), so there has to be some other reason.

Is there some magical cost per-driver that nobody (even the Uber CEO) seems to be able to articulate? Stuff like withholding for W2s seems to scale really well. The only cost I can think of that doesn't scale basically linearly with hours worked is healthcare (only kicks in at 30hrs/week).

If anything, Uber and Lyft should be threatening to limit drivers to 30hrs/week. That's what I'd bet on actually happening.

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