If the state wins, I wouldn't be surprised if Lyft and Uber pulled out, or at least increased their fares by a substantial amount.
That's ok. They're welcome to pull out. But they won't. Time and time again we see that business rather just raise their fares and make money than pull out of large markets. They are after all money-driven.
as long as there is a penny to be made, someone will make it. If Uber leaves another will fill the gap. I don't feel that regulation generally stifles business, only margins.
I'm not sure why people think that drivers for Uber & Lyft shouldn't be treated as "contractors". I know I'm in the minority on this, but to me it seems that you can jump in and out of employment with Uber & Lyft quite easily, to the point that it does seem more like contract work. As an anecdote, I took a Lyft to the airport with someone who had stopped driving for 6 months in order to get started with a new full ti…
At least in Australia I think someone is only a contractor if they earn income from multiple different companies. If it's all from one then they are an employee.
Seems for me every driver works for both Lyft and Uber
Do you have some numbers to share to support the hypothesis that pension plans will bankrupt these states without new taxes?
Illinois: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-illinois-pensions/illinoi... (Illinois' unfunded pension liability climbs to $133.5 billion) https://www.policyed.org/pension-pursuit/pension-liability-s... (PolicyEd: Interactive Map of Pension Liability by State and City) Illinois is an outlier, and is seriously in trouble, but most other states will be fine.
Total pension liability (from your numbers): 133.5 billion
There are 12.80 million people in Illinois, so the per-person liability is $10429
A typical pension is paid out over the course of about 20 years. The liability per person per year is $521
Put differently: the pension liability per year is 6.675 billion. Illinois rakes in about $45 billion per year in taxes.
That's at most "awkward" to handle and at best "easy" and possibly even trivial.
Or it could be about protecting employee rights against exploitative corporations who flout the law for profit. Edit: and society for that matter. See Al Capone, a murderer, being finally arrested for tax evasion as an example.
Curious, in which world has taxation ever been for the benefit of the employee?
Only in parts of the world where inequality is high.
Closing the loophole in the law that lets them treat workers as "contractors" rather than employees is going to torpedo their whole business model.
I'm not sure why people think that drivers for Uber & Lyft shouldn't be treated as "contractors". I know I'm in the minority on this, but to me it seems that you can jump in and out of employment with Uber & Lyft quite easily, to the point that it does seem more like contract work. As an anecdote, I took a Lyft to the airport with someone who had stopped driving for 6 months in order to get started with a new full ti…
In my book, if you can't determine the price for your service, you aren't a contractor, pure and simple. Uber determines the rates, sets their fees, supplies the clients, and has rules about how many times you can skip/pass on choosing to accept a fare. Uber basically controls every aspect of the entire process but let's people choose when they want to work. That "benefit" is thrown out to drivers so that Uber can try to claim they are "contractors" because they can choose when to work. I don't think that should be the only test - and for the states that have rules on how to define such things, most of them do not have that as the only test. Plus, I work for a large corporation and there are salaried people here who choose when to work and when not to work. Mostly the sales team than anyone else but it definitely exists. Similar story for real estate agents, financial planners and investment managers, etc. They are usually salaried employees of a firm who can set their own hours.
Or it could be about protecting employee rights against exploitative corporations who flout the law for profit. Edit: and society for that matter. See Al Capone, a murderer, being finally arrested for tax evasion as an example.
Nah it's ok. Everyone here lives in a privileged position where they will never end up working less than minimum wage for uber so the only thing that matters is a slightly lower cost no matter what the cost to others is. Also uber is a hip and trendy startup so they can do no wrong!
What a pointless comment. It's just a bunch of sarcasm with no information. I was doing part time delivery while freelancing a couple years ago. Please post something substantive not this junk.
"We should just let corporations do whatever they want"
I wonder how many people have this opinion just to stick it to "the man" -- seems like most of the anti-Uber HN crowd does not actually drive for Uber, but nonetheless express a passionate hatred for their business model.
why would not working for someone preclude you from having an opinion about that companies questionable business practices?
but hey, it's easier to sleep at night when you just dismiss opposing opinions due to their lack of the exact same life experience as you?
These talking points died in 2016. Now that Uber isn't subsidizing rides with investor's money and raised their fares, Uber is actually more expensive than taxis in NJ. There's no reason ride hailing companies need to violate labor laws to do business.
Those talking points are 100% true. Uber started in San Francisco. You could not get a cab on the weekend for any amount of $. You could not get a cab to come to the "tough" neighborhoods. This is 100% fact. I once called 4x and was told one was coming - falsely (I did live in what was then a "bad" neighborhood). My roommate walked across the entire city. Uber started with licensed transit vehicles - now called uber…
> I once called 4x and was told [a taxi] was coming - falsely
Same deal in Pittsburgh, though I only called 2x on the first instance and 1x on the second. Then I stopped using taxis unless forced.
> credit card machine "broken"
This happened twice last week to me in SoCal and seems to happen about 50% of the time I use taxis.
Curious, in which world has taxation ever been for the benefit of the employee?
Taxation is, broadly, spent on citizens and citizens benefit from that. I pay taxes that cover the police as well as the schooling that lowers the chance of people around me having to resort to crime.
In the context of Uber vs NJ, the drivers are already remitting taxes as contractors. The $650M demand from the state isn't a driver initiative with them demanding "Uber needs to pay more taxes.." it's the state saying "What we've collected from drivers isn't enough and we want more from Uber.."
Another great example of the government mafia stifling innovation and trying to extort and rob everyone at every opportunity. Government is the big iron ball attached to our foot holding us all back.