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California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

reuters.com

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Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#391

Post by mepiethree »

brian_cloutier wrote: post #73
haroldegibbons wrote: post #36

This ruling could pave the way for a model that is good for everyone. As of now the gig economy exploits the poor[0]. Unless you think making 70% less than minimum wage is fair. 0: https://web.archive.org/web/20180302041610/http://ceepr.mit....

It's incredibly hard for me to consider this exploitation when people are freely entering into these agreements. I would not accept 70% less than minimum wage, and I'm sure these workers would all prefer to make more than 30% of minimum wage, but they have an entire labor market of other options and they have decided that this is their best option. The onus should be on you to explain why you think it's better that t…

People used to "freely enter" agreements to work for pennies per hour, or to die while building the Hoover dams and the railroads. Are you saying that worker protections are all unnecessary because people freely enter their employment?

IMO, just because someone will work for $4 per hour, doesn't mean that it's ethical for the company to pay them that rate, or that it's desirable to have a society in a race to the bottom. ideally, the wage would be more in line with the actual value that the worker brings in

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#392

Post by mepiethree »

40four wrote: post #302

I think it's safe to say many Californians should start preparing for life without ride-share. Assuming Prop 22 does not pass, the most likely outcome seems to be Uber and Lyft will simply shut down operations for the time being, if not for good. They have already signaled they are willing to do this before this appeal, and they are explicitly saying this is the most likely outcome in the media. The philosophies of b…

What happens? Either a) uber backs down from their bluff, and actually pays people, or b) a new company will fill the void, or c) uber lays off more of its bloated white collar workforce who provide little marginal value to the consumer

It is incredibly alarmist to say that we won't be able to use an app to hail a ride anymore.

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#393

Post by mepiethree »

OJFord wrote: post #226

Don't drivers decide when to work, just open the app and login or whatever and start driving? IANAL and have UK perspective (and AFAIK they remain independent contractors here, but I'm not sure if it's settled) but to me, (IANAJudge though..) that's a sufficient test for the difference between zero hours contract employee and independent. They're not getting given their hours for the week (right?) they're just showin…

It's not necessarily obvious, but the legal definition of an employee in CA has little to do with whether or not you pick your hours. According to dynamax, an independent contractor must:

- be free from the control of the employer AND

- be performing work that is unrelated to the company's core business AND

- have an independent career in the field of the work they perform

https://www.labor.ca.gov/employmentstatus/abctest/

Uber drivers generally meet none of these three requirements

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#394

Post by mepiethree »

vadym909 wrote: post #204

I really don't get why these companies are so resistant to make them employees. No one can force them to pay rich benefits. Employer taxes only cost 10%. If Walmart, Starbucks, Chipotle, Amazon can do it so can they.

Wow, until reading this comment, I had never really thought about the fact that Uber is claiming they'll go out of business if they're required to give WALMART-level worker protections. race to the bottom...

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#395

Post by habosa »

rrss wrote: post #276
habosa wrote: post #240

Regardless of how you feel about AB5, you should vote No on Prop 22 for one reason: > Amending Proposition 22 would require a seven-eights (87.5%) vote in each chamber of the California State Legislature and the governor's signature, provided that the amendment is consistent with, and furthers the purpose of, Proposition 22. Changes that are not considered consistent with, and furthering the purpose of, Proposition 2…

This is an inaccurate take. The default for an approved CA ballot initiative is that it cannot be amended or repealed by the state legislature. Normally changing a ballot initiative requires another ballot proposition, so an initiative permitting the legislature to make changes with a seven-eighths vote is actually more amenable to changes than normal, not less. The California Constitution has a clause that enables i…

Huh I did not know that and I guess most news outlets don’t either!

One more reason why voters can’t really be expected to make the right decision on 40 ballot measures.

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#396

Post by koolba »

mepiethree wrote: post #390
koolba wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then you’re back to the NYC pre-2009 model where you can get a cab anywhere in Manhattan but good luck getting home from Bushwick.

yeah, life is so much better now that we can exploit labor to get ubiquitous and cheap rides

I'm fine with raising the prices to something sustainable. There's no reason it has to be below minimum wage + the cost of maintaining the car.

What I'm not okay with is going back to the only option being a oddly smelling yellow cab that will only pick you up in the profitable parts of the city and refuses to take you parts of the city they deem unprofitable on the return trip.

I truly believe that Travis Kalanick has done more to stop drunk driving and end racism than any other for-profit company of the past two decades.

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#397

Post by strawberrypuree »

ryandrake wrote: post #362
strawberrypuree wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And it's a bit insulting to say California voters don't have the wherewithal to digest political advertisements and make their own decisions. On top of this, voters don’t even need to digest political advertisements. The state sends a booklet that describes all the proposition, the pro position, rebuttals to the pro position, the con position and rebuttals to the con position , plus how much money was spent from ea…

Unpopular opinion, but I think we're giving a little too much credit to the average voter. There are a lot of low-information voters out there who don't pour through the booklets and published rebuttals and rebuttals to the rebuttals. Media saturation works. It doesn't always work, and you can always go back and find exceptions, even some very high profile ones, but if it didn't work in general , we wouldn't see so m…

I’m one of those schmucks who thinks the solution to ignorance and misinformation is education, and that there should always be more options for voters, not fewer. It’s not about credit to the voters, it’s about making sure the avenues for change are always open. That’s one thing I love about California — it’s a fucking mess, we have no one to blame but ourselves, and there’s always someone trying to do something about it. Compare this to the Texas style of democracy — legislature meets only ever other year and if you don’t like something you can get out - I’ll take the California way.

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#398

Post by vincnetas »

ericmay wrote: post #347
FireBeyond wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Less repetitive/boring" != "less mentally taxing".

Sure, but that also doesn't mean you can't work just fine doing 80 hours/week in some jobs and not be fine working 80 hours/week in others.

No one should be doing 80 hours a week, that's 12 hours each day without weekends + commute (1 hour) + 8 hours sleep, 2 hours for eating and you have 1 hour left for the "all the other things". And thats if you don't have children. If you do you already spending more than 24 hours a day.

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#399

Post by yeetman21 »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #336
yeetman21 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

minimum wage should be set at the state level, or even lower

Why do you think that? its stops states playing beggar my neighbour is one good argument against doing this.

10 dollars in Nebraska will get your further than 10 in Cali. 10 dollars in Oxnard will get you much further than 10 in SF

Re: California appeals court rules Uber, Lyft must reclassify drivers as employees

#400

Post by proc0 »

benjaminjosephw wrote: post #366
proc0 wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do companies have to train you? Is this law or God's mandate? Is there even evidence that providing some safety net for your employee somehow creates a better employee and/or company? Ultimately this is about controlling others vs. not wanting others to control you. IMHO people need to fail in order to learn properly, and safety nets remove this risk which in turn also removes the learning, effectively preventing…

I got into software through a paid internship at a webdev company that was spinning out a startup on the side. The founders were great folk who invested a lot into the tech/startup scene in the city. They also invested in their employees and into me. Without them, I wouldn't have had the head-start that I did. I'm not suggesting that companies should be compelled to behave like this. I am saying that there's at least…

Of course it's better to train and all that, I'm saying it's probably not a good idea to somehow have a global solution to all kinds of relationship between every type of company and employee. Every industry and every company will have different solutions to what they need and they'll know best how to set their employees for success. This is all done in a mutual agreement. A better strategy is having everyone understand their options in order to make better decisions when it comes to choosing an employer/employee, and again all of this is specific to the industry.

The problem with fighting worker rights is that not all workers are the same, and having a small group of people decide all the intricacies of the system for all industries is unrealistic. At the very least there would be a concerted and visible effort to adapt solutions for each industry, but that's not what happens, it's always some global abstract mandate that has unintended consequences. Politics is the ultimate solutioning by committee, so it's always inefficient and often hurtful to use politics to solve societal problems which are really the collection of the decisions people are making. Encouraging businesses is one thing, but deliberately blocking actions and forcing decisions on ALL business is almost never a good idea.

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