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Update on AB5

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Re: Update on AB5

#201

Post by JMTQp8lwXL »

azylman wrote: post #195
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My point was that there's not an unlimited supply of low-skilled jobs. The fact that if you're qualified for one, you're qualified for another isn't really relevant when they can be very hard to find in some areas.

There's been a bifurcation in employment: high-skilled and low-skilled employees are most in demand. The service industry is hurting for people. Hotels, restaurants, fast food places, etc. In fact, the NYTimes recent wrote about the hotel industry:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/travel/hotel-jobs.html

Re: Update on AB5

#202

Post by aliston »

rando56473 wrote: post #149
aliston wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question isn’t whether they’re doing a job, it’s whether drivers are acting as contractors vs employees while performing the job. Ironically, taxi drivers are also contractors. I’m surprised nobody has brought up the fact that the status quo pre-Uber was a contractor model as well. The real problem is that the Dynamex decision is legislation from the bench that redefines “contractor.” The historical definition of…

Just dropping in to say that “legislation from the bench” is a charged, shallow criticism that says nothing except about the critic’s own political philosophy. The fact is, courts have been legislating from the bench for as long as we have had courts, and before then — the U.S. inherited its judicial traditions from England, after all. California is a common law jurisdiction. The essence of common law is that courts…

Without going down the rabbit hole of Constitutional Law, I’ll just point out that there are folks on the Federal Supreme Court that disagree, in principle, that courts should be making laws.

That aside, if you think it’s a shallow criticism in this case, why do you think it required legislative action to have any effect? In other words, if this wasn’t legislation from the bench, ab5 is a noop.

Re: Update on AB5

#203

Post by darkwizard42 »

spiznnx wrote: post #126
xg15 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuine question: Why would classification as employee automatically mean an end to the flexible work times? To my knowledge, there are numerous business areas where it's possible to negotiate flexible work hours, so wouldn't this be here possible as well?

It wouldn't be an end to flexible work times, but due to per-employee overhead costs, the cost/benefit to the employer from the number of hours an employee works clearly spikes at a few different points due to overheads. At 0hrs/week, there is no overhead. At 20hrs, this is another ideal point since while you do have to give your labor a lot of rights, you don't need to offer certain benefits (vacation, sick pay, dis…

Not to nitpick in your post, but for CA this would be at 30 hours for the benefit of healthcare. CA Industrial Relations still classifies 40 as full-time, so unclear on what benefits are tied to that

Re: Update on AB5

#204

Post by mynameisvlad »

amyjess wrote: post #125
bscphil wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of me thinks Uber could get away with this if they just relaxed some of their current driver policies (e.g. more limited penalties for cancellations). The issue is whether doing so would drastically deteriorate the quality of the service for riders. I'm going to go with yes. The only times I use ride sharing services (Lyft, not Uber) are in high-density situations like getting to and from the airport. Dependin…

> Up until a year or two ago, the drivers would then see where I want to go and then call me on the phone to say they didn't want to go there, telling me to cancel the ride they had accepted. I systematically refused every time so that (usually after a few minutes) they would give up and cancel it themselves. This would usually happen for 2 or 3 drivers in a row, making ride-sharing a miserable experience for me. I'v…

Oh yeah, they 100% know of all the shit drivers do to get out of cancellation penalties on their end. My favorite is when I actually had to use the "driver is going the wrong way" option when I was looking at a map and had a driver decide to go north up a highway when I was very clearly south of even his starting point.

Re: Update on AB5

#205

Post by azylman »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #201
azylman wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point was that there's not an unlimited supply of low-skilled jobs. The fact that if you're qualified for one, you're qualified for another isn't really relevant when they can be very hard to find in some areas.

There's been a bifurcation in employment: high-skilled and low-skilled employees are most in demand. The service industry is hurting for people. Hotels, restaurants, fast food places, etc. In fact, the NYTimes recent wrote about the hotel industry: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/travel/hotel-jobs.html

This is an interesting read about the hotel industry. I don't think it disproves the idea though that there are people who want to low-skilled jobs who can't find them. For instance, from that article:

"The popular Mackinac Island in northern Michigan has only 500 year-round residents but approximately 3,000 jobs in the summer months. Delays on the approval for seasonal worker visas this year forced one resort to temporarily close its restaurant."

When it's their "season", they're probably hurting for staff, but when it's not, all those thousands of people are out of work and need to try to find a new job...

Re: Update on AB5

#206

Post by spookthesunset »

eaurouge wrote: post #177
basch wrote: post #121

I think there is more truth to their argument than people are giving them credit for. It seems like an in bad faith perspective to not give their claim some credence. It makes YOUR argument stronger to first make the best version of Ubers argument before rebutting it. Does it make me a Microsoft employee if I use Outlook to conduct business? Does it make me an Ebay employee if I sell things through ebay? Until Uber e…

Ebay doesn't control how much you sell your product for. Ebay doesn't police how you sell, package, or ship your product. It's mostly hands off. Compare this with the level of control Uber exerts on its drivers. Similarly, Ebay's service is less dependent on how well you provide your commerce services, it pretty much lets the market determine your prospects on its platform. On the other hand, Uber is highly reliant o…

Uber and lyft have to dictate the price the end user pays. Nobody would use the service if they had to collect bids from a bunch of drivers each time they wanted to go somewhere. As a result they wouldn’t have an effective pool of customers needed to attract drivers.

I agree with others. These “gig economy” jobs are a different classification of worker that doesn’t currently exist. Dunno what the details should be but they aren’t quite contractors and they aren’t quite employees.

California could have taken the lead and helped define this new classification...

Re: Update on AB5

#207

Post by darkwizard42 »

lonelappde wrote: post #27
buboard wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or that e-bay is not a fashion store. (I think u re referring to a probably tiny part of uber that leases cars to drivers)

Ebay matches sellers (who choose what to sell) with buyers (who choose what to buy). Uber tells drivers where to go, and when, if the driver agrees to do the work. Uber regulates the kind of cars acceptable, and regulates who does the work. Your Uber driver can't subcontract the drive to another driver.

Uber doesn't tell drivers where to go or when, drivers are free to go whereever they like (but Uber does provide incentives and information on where demand is)

Uber regulates what cars are acceptable the same way an Ebay seller has to maintain some standards in their store. Similarly Ebay also verifies that you can even be a seller on their platform, just like Uber does with background checks, DMV checks, etc.

To your last point on subcontracting...I'm not even sure thats part of being a contractor or employee so its neither here nor there.

Re: Update on AB5

#208

Post by shkkmo »

The reporting around this law is absurd.

Despite how it is covered, the law notably fails to do ANYTHING to help gig employees as it just codifies existing case law.

What this law does do is carve out exceptions in that case law so that gig employees have LESS protection.

This law could have been paired with other real protections for gig employees but that did not happen. No minimum wage guarantee extensions, no rights to organize, no improvements in access to the safety net...etc

How do people let our politicians get away with claiming they are protecting people with a bill that does nothing but erode those protections?

Re: Update on AB5

#209

Post by duskwuff »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #198

It seems Wall Street is not all that worried about AB5. https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/UBER/ Looking at the 5 day stock trends, it seems up compared to last week.

AB5 didn't appear out of nowhere, and its passage didn't come as a surprise. The potential impact of AB5 on Uber's business would have been priced into the stock as the bill progressed through the legislature.

Re: Update on AB5

#210

Post by shkkmo »

shkkmo wrote: post #190
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.

The post truth era is people claiming this bill adds protections for gig workers when it's actual effect is to limit those protections from applying to the lawmakers buddies and donors.
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