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Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

courdecassation.fr

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Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#191

Post by SergeAx »

I beleive France is a very socialist country. There was a story when France Telecom got private as Orange and new bosses put enormous pressure on employees to get them quit and not lay them off, because laying-off people is very expensive in France. It caused 35 (!!) suicides, and three bosses was jailed for that last December [1]

I wonder, will Uber escape signing backdated contracts with all their drivers in France (and what if some of them are illegal migrants?) or will it have to properly lay them all off, with compensations etc?

I also wonder what would be an economy of Uber in France with all their drivers being employees. Will it be 2x or 3x price? Even then it is somehow better than shameless official Paris taxi drivers.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-50865211

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#192

Post by avianlyric »

throwaway744678 wrote: post #177
oarsinsync wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having more than one job doesn't mean I'm necessarily self employed. I could work at a supermarket during the mornings, and a cornershop in the evenings, and still be an employee in both cases.

In the case of a driver, they get the ability to dynamically pick their rides in real time, and choose from the different apps the one that pays the most. There's a paradox in this: Uber and its competitors would ideally like their drivers to be 100% committed; yet they also need the drivers to be able to work for several apps as a defense against requalification as an employee.

I don’t see why the same couldn’t apply to supermarket employees, where you can dynamically choose your shifts in real time and pick the highest of all the available work.

I mean there are even a number of worker supply firms out there that provide workers on this basis. A business needs people to clean floors, they issue a request to their supplier and they supply the nearest, cheapest available workers.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#193

Post by ElFitz »

jakub_g wrote: post #34

Now it would be interesting to see the opinion of the court on fake IT contractors (SSII), where as a developer you are a full-time employee of company X, rented for years as full-time "consultant" to company Y, on premises of company Y, just with lower salary and no profit sharing & no bonuses that staff of company Y enjoys. (This has been a common practice of Microsoft in US in 1990s and they lost a lawsuit on that…

Without even getting into the whole crappy world of SS2Is and "ESNs", a lot of the actual software contractor work in France could also be requalified as employement.

Most often, clients pick your hours, where you can work, assign you what would be a regular job, with very low autonomy on the tools you can use and how you can do things, along with half-year, sometimes more, renewable contracts, and a contractual interdiction to subcrontract in the work.

But most freelancers just don't seem to want to be actual employees, and prefer the higher pay and ability to leave on short notice. Perks that can only hold as long as the talent shortage.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#194

Post by andrewla »

alistairSH wrote: post #131
m11a wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say John make a platform right now and set the rule that there's no negotiations permitted. Builders accepting the proposal must accept at the listed price. Obviously there remains a variation in the quality of the different proposals (some builders may be more polite, or use better wood). Obviously, the key difference here is that I would be able to choose what builder I want, but the customer on Uber doesn't get to…

I'd argue that in the builder-app, the builder has now been transformed into an employee, same as an Uber driver. To me, "setting prices" is more than just refusing/accepting prices set by an algorithm/app, but the ability to negotiate those independently. In the cake example, a baker absolutely could attempt to negotiate for chocolate. They might not "win" the negotiation, but they have the option. Edit - in the tax…

Sure, corporations are using it to reduce wages and benefits, etc. But gig economy is not really a new concept -- almost every tradecraft profession has a similar dynamic; as an electrician you are generally not paid by an employer, you instead go out and get work. This gives you the freedom to set your own hours and tune the amount of work that you take on to support your lifestyle.

I think the problem with a lot of these gig economy services is that they are often pumped by VC/PE money in an attempt to generate monopolies by over-capitalizing. If we got rid of that dynamic (which is a difficult problem) then this disappears. If there are a hundred different Ubers, operating in different cities, then gig workers are put in a better position to bargain by selecting a service to use.

The cost here is that the customer is inconvenienced; a single app with a single payment system seems like a better deal. But distributing this responsibility actually makes the overall system more robust and leads to interesting solutions throughout the stack, rather than converging on whatever terrible systems have been hard-coded by the over-capitalized market leaders.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#195

Post by throwaway744678 »

bluntfang wrote: post #190
ampdepolymerase wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you cannot simultaneously work for both.

Just curious, when are you "working" for uber or lyft? I'm honestly not sure how it works. Do you collect an hourly wage when you are waiting? Or do you only collect money when you actively driving a passenger?

Drivers get a percentage of each ride.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#196

Post by zuminator »

m11a wrote: post #96

> The criteria for self-employment include the possibility of building up one's own clientele, the freedom to set one's own rates, and the freedom to set the terms and conditions for providing one's services. Immediately I'd seem to agree with this statement. I think of typical self-employment businesses; hairdressers, freelance developers, etc and this seems to apply. You can set your own rate and your own terms, ev…

To me the main reason why this is not analogous to Uber is that with Uber, the bidder does not set the rate, Uber does.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#197

Post by bitxbitxbitcoin »

andrewla wrote: post #188
alistairSH wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your shed example, a builder could contact you and negotiate the price (perhaps the $100 price you set is completely unrealistic). That's not possible with Uber - there is no price negotiation - only declining/accepting a ride. Similar argument for changing toppings on a cake - a caterer can negotiate changes to the cake - an Uber driver has no such flexibility. Regardless, given corporate (human?) nature is to le…

I think the strongest argument against this point of view is that the drivers can opt to work for multiple car services to get a handle on their price structures. It's certainly possible for a traditional employer to allow that arrangement, but you have to admit it is an uncommon thing. It's much more analogous to a contractor working for a general contractor -- if I'm a plumber I can take gigs from multiple general…

But do general contractors in your example punish plumbers if they are found to be working for multiple general contractors?

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#198

Post by rtkwe »

chrisseaton wrote: post #107
rtkwe wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those mostly also belong to a bigger company that handles call in dispatches.

I don't think they've ever had radios in though, doesn't seem likely that they also take dispatches.

You don't need a radio now because of cell phones...

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#199

Post by username90 »

on_and_off wrote: post #67
freepor wrote: post #59

All of this is a legal system that has a square hole and a circular hole not knowing what to do with a triangular peg. Governments job is to realize that this is a new category of work and create laws specifically to address it.

why does the government need to bend backwards to allow underpaid jobs ?

These aren't jobs, all jobs I know require a lengthy job application and thorough screening so you probably wont even get it. The fact that it is possible to earn money without all of that is a good thing, and governments trying to outlaw such work is horrible imo.

And no, Ubers model wont work with employees due to the minimum hourly wage. Currently people need to do a good job to earn money, but if each worker is guaranteed a certain amount per hour then uber will be forced to start screening and firing applicants manually like everyone else instead of the current automated process.

Re: Highest French court reclassifies Uber drivers as employees

#200

Post by pishpash »

madsbuch wrote: post #160
Mirioron wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people voluntarily choose those jobs then doesn't that mean those jobs are better than the alternatives they have? It also provides a pretty nice service.

That people are able to do what's best for them is a faulty assumption and the key argument for regulation.

By this amazing logic, that people (regulators) do what's best for somebody else who is not even oneself should be an even faultier assumption.
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