Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules • Hacker News Board

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#321

Post by dahfizz » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

ByteWelder wrote: post #275

hobom wrote: post #226

Unfortunate consequence of a legacy legal system. Uber drivers are clearly neither quite like employees nor are they entrepreneurs, and the law should come up with a fitting category that ensures they are protected from exploitation but continue to enjoy some of the freedoms associated with the gig economy.

The regulations in The Netherlands in this regard have recently (May 20160) been updated to prevent fake freelance/independent status. There are a bunch of guidelines, but the main factors generally boil down to these questions: Is the employee working for a single employer? How much independence do they have? (e.g. holidays, working hours, etc.) Were the contract details mandated by the employer? etc. Sources (in Du…

Those three questions seem pretty weak to me.

Its not hard to imagine a software engineer who likes to work a part time job on the weekends, gets to set their own hours as long as they complete assigned tickets, and who negotiated their employment contract aggressively. That person would still be an employee.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#322

Post by mrweasel » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

Grimm1 wrote: post #225

Legitimate question, will Uber shut down it's Dutch operations now? Will this cost them more money than it's worth to operate there, and would they shutdown to send a message to other nations about there intent should similar rulings be made? Uber's margins have always been super thin, I would imagine this makes them squarely unprofitable in the Dutch market.

> Will this cost them more money than it's worth to operate there

But isn't that already the case? I not sure Uber is making a profit anywhere in the world, so maybe they don't care if they lose $0.58 or $0.75 per ride?

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#323

Post by arenaninja » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

dnautics wrote: post #320

adventured wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of people working in restaurants work for multiple companies, they're still employees. And do they cook one food order at a restaurant they work for, then 15 minutes later walk across the street and cook for a competing restaurant for 30 minutes, and then immediately walk back across the street and cook a food order for the other restaurant? No, of course that's not normal. This will ultimately accelerate th…

> And do they cook one food order at a restaurant they work for, then 15 minutes later walk across the street and cook for a competing restaurant for 30 minutes, and then immediately walk back across the street and cook a food order for the other restaurant? No, of course that's not normal. As a former Lyft/uber driver this is absolutely correct. It gets even hairier: suppose you are sitting on both apps (or even mor…

> It gets even hairier: suppose you are sitting on both apps (or even more) waiting for a ride. Do you get to double-bill two companies for minimum wage hours?

IMO this is a no-brainer, the answer is yes, double-bill. The same applies if you get two remote jobs, you bill both.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#324

Post by fallingknife » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

wwtrv wrote: post #256

fallingknife wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I'm talking about though. The government thinks people should have these things but doesn't have the political will to implement them so they demand that employers provide them rather than just paying cash. This is the reason that the category 'employee' exists in the first place.

‘so they demand that employers provide them..’ Yes, that’s the situation in the US, yes, not sure how relevant it’s to this discussion, though. In many European countries healthcare is funded through a payroll tax and provided by the government/a public agency.

Yes and that's what we should do instead of this half assed, politically expedient, 'make the corporations pay for it' bullshit that we do now.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#325

Post by Ansil849 » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

bitdivision wrote: post #318

Ansil849 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Taxi drivers are not knowledge workers, or artists and clearly not entrepreneurs. > They are easily replaceable "cogs in the machine", like many non-specialised factory workers, office clerks, retail employees and so on. > There's a reason why humanity introduced protections for vulnerable workers in almost every society. I appreciate the point you're making, but I also think you are grossly undervaluing the specia…

I agree uber drivers =/= black cab drivers, but I'd also argue that most people don't want or need a black cab driver today. What extra services does a black cab driver provide over an Uber driver in London? - Better knowledge of traffic patterns? - Ability to recommend places, give you local knowledge That's all I can really think of. I agree that local knowledge is sometimes useful, but the vast majority of the tim…

It's all about the subtle nuance of the service provided. A skilled driver will know which route to take if the passenger wants the absolute quickest route, or if the passenger wants a scenic route, or which cobble-stone roads to avoid if the passenger says they're feeling a bit ill, or hundreds of other such intricacies and peculiarities which come with offering expert service which someone who just has a GPS app on their phone and some free time can't begin to offer.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#326

Post by blendergeek » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:55 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #27

Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.

I drive Uber for a few months. I hate the idea of "hourly minimums". Maybe we can have that for full time drivers.

But, I would go out on "unprofitable times" (when my hourly pay was substantially less than minimum wage due to a lack of rides) and read books (that I would have read anyway). Doing this I made small amounts of money while doing a leisure activity.

I loved the ability to drive less than full time in exchange for less pay. I don't want to be "on the clock". If I am on the clock and I am not actively working, that is time theft. If I am driving Uber and I don't feel like taking that ride because I'm at a good point in the book I'm reading, I'm free to just sit there.

I liked that option.

Rather than require minimum hourly pay, I want to increase the minimum per mile pay and require Uber to pay the drivers for the time and miles spent driving to the riders.

But please no hourly pay.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#327

Post by dantheman » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

etchalon wrote: post #302

boplicity wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish more people realized how anti-capitalist the current healthcare system is in the U.S. If you want to encourage business, then remove barriers. Governments should be taking care of healthcare, not businesses. Businesses should be focused on the core work they do: Running their business. Not on providing health care. (Same goes, really, for childcare, transportation, and similar benefits that large employers som…

Completely agree. Universal healthcare would empower a lot of entrepreneurs, make it easier to attract talent for smaller companies, and free me of a completely ridiculous amount of paperwork and oversight each year. If someone told me, as a business, I could just pay a tax and know my employees had access to the same quality of care as everyone else, I'd sign up in a heart beat.

How about we get companies and government out of healthcare?

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#328

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:01 PM UTC

safog wrote: post #310

BLanen wrote: post #285

Good. Uber is a unsustainable business built employee exploitation to effectively pay them less than minimum wage while flouting "freedom" to bait the people in the worst situations. This was known from the start. Meanwhile subsidising rides with investor-cash to effectively bait-and-switch society. The recent-ish price hikes are only a start. Anyone repeating their PR should be ashamed. "gigs" are cancer or wait, th…

Yes, clearly you're a smart one and can see things clearly and none of the poor Uber drivers are smart enough to figure it out. Get over yourself.

[deleted]

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#329

Post by consp » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

devcpp wrote: post #205

GekkePrutser wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're not going to do it for the money that uber pays. As a ZZP you're meant to provide for your own pension, sick leave, disability insurance. No way what Uber pays is going to cover that. This is why they're doing it of course, to avoid having to provide those things. But those are statutory rights in the Netherlands. And for good reason, otherwise if someone becomes disabled it ends up on the state's plate.…

Why aren't these payments taken from the employee then? In my country retirement and social security appear right in my paycheck. Why isn't it the same for freelancers (when they declare taxes)? If their wage is too low as you claim, this isn't something that will change when they become employees, so this solves nothing. If this is about a minimum wage, then the real solution is forcing freelancers to work a minimum…

> This assumes the meaning of freelancers is being able to join and leave an employer when you want, and not being able to fix your own prices and refuse gigs like others are saying.

You see it that way, but the Dutch law doesn't. If the freelancer has no real choice and cannot dictate his/her own terms they are not a freelancer but an employee without the benefits of an employee. Social programs should be displayed these days on your paycheck if you are an employee. Not every (administration) company is doing it properly though.

Forcing freelancers to work more hours for less than a sustainable minimum pay solves nothing as the minimum wage is calculated on a full workweek.

I'm sure Uber is allowed to offer freelance work, but not with the current way of doing business. As soon as they let the freelancer dictate the pay (or at least properly negotiate) it looks they will be fine.

Re: Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

#330

Post by maccolgan » Mon, Sep 13, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

Maarten88 wrote: post #126

tomp wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Must is just as wrong as won't . The ideal solution is, drivers being given the choice. Wanna earn more (but less predictable), pay less tax, have less social security, work whenever you want to? Or do you want to earn less (but completely predictable), pay more tax, have unemployment security, work fixed hours.

> The ideal solution is, drivers being given the choice. Choice is real only when you have options. Here, the option of having a fixed-income, fixed-time taxi driver job will get out-competed in the long term because it is more expensive, so the other option will be to have no job. Not paying into social security and pension funds saves a lot of money! It may even seem beneficial to the driver in the short term. But…

In this case, the consumers are making the choice, not the drivers. I'd generally prefer consumers to have more options than drivers, you can't just sacrifice one for the other...