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Update on AB5

uber.com

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Re: Update on AB5

#181

Post by stilist »

dymk wrote: post #144
FireBeyond wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyers argue all the time. It's not a legal truth because their chief attorney says so. They are entitled to claim (within reason) as much as anyone else is. And, of course, they will claim the most favorable definition. In other situations, notably when they are arguing against entrenched transit/transport interests, they "become" a transport company. It's a question of which hat fits the day.

FTA: > But just because the test is hard does not mean we will not be able to pass it. In fact, several previous rulings have found that drivers’ work is outside the usual course of Uber’s business, which is serving as a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces. Previous rulings have found his statement to be accurate. So you don't have to take his word for it, you can take a judge's.

Those rulings were made without the context of the new law, though, so the results may be different.

Re: Update on AB5

#182

Post by shkkmo »

lacker wrote: post #74

I think the law will be bad for the people it affects, so this is good news for Uber drivers. Uber isn't operating at a profit, so they don't have extra margin to pass on in the form of extra driver pay or employee benefits. If Uber has to shrink their business in California or exit entirely, that won't be good for drivers either. It reminds me of before my software engineering career, when I was working at The Gap.…

How will the law change anything for Uber or it's drivers? As I understand it, this law just codifies existing legal precents under which Uber has already successfully withstood legal challenges. It doesn't really change the nature of the ongoing legal challenges that Uber will continue to face.

IMHO, the whole point of this law is just to weaken the existing precedent by giving exemptions to the Lawmakers' buddies and donors.

Re: Update on AB5

#183

Post by djsumdog »

Wow, just .. wow. I thought it was going to be Uber's plan of coming under compliance of AB5 and sugar coating the entire thing to made them sound like some honorable people. But no, they're still scum. You get half way through and you realize it's just business as usual. We're going to ignore, fight and not give a shit about the law.

The build up to this legislation was that it was specifically around companies like Lyft, Uber, Dolly, etc. To argue against this just shows how desperate the company is to not give up anything.

Personally I stopped using Uber in 2016 and never looked back. I'd rather pay more for a Lyft. If both of them disappear tomorrow, there will always be Taxis; and maybe cities will finally start building out real mass transit like America has needed for decades, instead of hanging on to the brain-dead dream of a self-driving cab.

Re: Update on AB5

#184

Post by staticautomatic »

carlob wrote: post #141
kstrauser wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. I'm neutral on Uber, but their advertising is that you book an Uber ride. You don't use Uber to find a driver you like and then hire that driver from now on. Basically, the drivers are treated as the fungible part of providing service to the passengers. Contrast with Airbnb where owners can treat it like an advertising network to market their rental room, and it's totally reasonable to expect that a…

As a matter of fact I know of one person who met a driver through Uber and decided to hire them daily to get to their job without going through Uber ever again. I think that this is extremely rare and that everything in Uber is set up to prevent something like this. Same thing goes for Airbnb and the obfuscation of emails.

It used to be more common. Back when it was all town cars, and up through the early days of UberX, I frequently got business cards and phone numbers from my drivers.

Re: Update on AB5

#185

Post by buboard »

pslam wrote: post #76

Uber's defense fails The Duck Test. They are describing a job, people doing a job, people paying for a job, and people taking a cut of the profits. They just don't use those words. I suspect if/when this gets to a higher court, the whole thing will come crashing down, because to allow Uber's weaselly redefinition of common terms, would be to allow other classes of employment to similarly become unprotected.

That would be good. It could e.g. open the way for apple to be forced to hire all the app programmers

Re: Update on AB5

#187

Post by epmaybe »

carlob wrote: post #141
kstrauser wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. I'm neutral on Uber, but their advertising is that you book an Uber ride. You don't use Uber to find a driver you like and then hire that driver from now on. Basically, the drivers are treated as the fungible part of providing service to the passengers. Contrast with Airbnb where owners can treat it like an advertising network to market their rental room, and it's totally reasonable to expect that a…

As a matter of fact I know of one person who met a driver through Uber and decided to hire them daily to get to their job without going through Uber ever again. I think that this is extremely rare and that everything in Uber is set up to prevent something like this. Same thing goes for Airbnb and the obfuscation of emails.

I think it's actually a violation of the uber TOS for the driver to circumvent the app, and of the passenger not following the community guidelines of Uber, if I understand correctly. Similar to how Wag's new TOS tries to prevent contractors from seeking pet walking outside of the service.

Re: Update on AB5

#188

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

azylman wrote: post #179
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I am saying is, misplaced workers (if Uber does indeed become subject to AB5 and they must be employees) is these folks will find other work. The related point is these people are fully capable of that work. Finding new work can be painful, but the damages are over-stated because there's low friction to entering work that doesn't demand specialized skills. Do you have two hands and can walk? Great, you can work…

You're assuming there's unlimited demand for employees by McD's... which, in point of fact, is absolutely not the case.

It was a single example of a low-skilled job. The generalized point is that you can go to any employer looking for low-skilled labor. There's high transferability between these sort of jobs.

Re: Update on AB5

#189

Post by gandutraveler »

pslam wrote: post #76

Uber's defense fails The Duck Test. They are describing a job, people doing a job, people paying for a job, and people taking a cut of the profits. They just don't use those words. I suspect if/when this gets to a higher court, the whole thing will come crashing down, because to allow Uber's weaselly redefinition of common terms, would be to allow other classes of employment to similarly become unprotected.

Isn't being a driver on Uber platform same as being a seller on Amazon marketplace? Amazon takes care of delivery, cancellation etc and charges a commission for those services.

Re: Update on AB5

#190

Post by shkkmo »

shawndellysse wrote: post #7

Are they really trying to claim that Uber is not a transportation company but instead "a technology platform for several different types of digital marketplaces"? I guess we do live in a post-truth era.

I don't think any of Ubers claims are changed in this post. This post just claims that AB5 changes nothing for Uber because Uber is already operating under the Dynamex precedent.
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