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Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

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Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#991

Post by ianferrel »

lokar wrote: post #550
ianferrel wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's an anti-moonlight clause, I think it's saying that you can't do what many drivers do now, which is sign on to both apps and wait for a ride to come in, then sign out of the one you're not serving. If you're an employee on the clock, you can't be on the clock for two different organizations at the same time.

Why can't they start the clock once they accept a ride?

Because labor law says that if you're ready and prepared to work for an employer, you have to be paid whether or not you're actively involved in something. Waiting around for a ride counts as "working", so you get paid for it.

It's the same reason that an employer can't make all their employees clock out when the factory production line stops to fix a problem.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#992

Post by notthemessiah »

po8crg wrote: post #986
umvi wrote: post #720

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine creating an app called "Clean Streets" - basically people can put bounties on streets, other people can collect the bounty by picking up the litter. Sounds like a great little idea right? The app takes a 1% fee for server upkeep. Win/win, bored teenagers make some extra money and your neighborhood gets cleaned up... right? Wrong. Turns out, people aren't willing to pay that much for people to clean up their s…

I think this makes a much deeper point. You can't create an app that will pay people badly because it will pay people badly. We (society) have traditionally massively underpaid people who are time rich and cash poor, but who have basic life necessities provided outside of their income - teenagers, most obviously, but historically the same applied to middle-class married women (look up "working for pin money"). But th…

It misses a bigger point: Uber/Lyft drivers don't set their own prices, and can't be considered independent contractors. Nothing stops me from putting up an ad on Craiglist and putting up a price for a gig, and taking more time to complete the gig than I would have gotten for waged labor. It would be absurd to consider me an employee of Craigslist, and rightly so. But if Craiglist forced me to accept a certain price and took their cut, I'm effectively performing waged labor.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#993

Post by dang »

baggy_trough wrote: post #600

California politicians can burn in a fire.

Please don't do this. We ban such accounts. Maybe you don't feel you owe California politicians better, but you owe this community much better if you're posting to it.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#994

Post by cgriswald »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #640
cgriswald wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a BOFH, we had a guy working the night shift who would always be a little slow at getting processing done in time for the rest of corporate to show up and need their data. It was odd but I don’t remember anyone looking into it. Until one time there was a problem with one of the jobs (which meant other jobs could not be run) and no one had their data in the morning. He was asked why he didn’t contact one of…

Looks like his job could have been replaced with a script?

Absolutely. I wrote such a script as a proof-of-concept and was yelled at because it was considered a 'security risk' for me to use company tools to write code (as a not-hired-for-programming employee) even though I already had access to literally all the company's data and their security practices were such that exfiltrating their data without being caught would have been trivial even if I never placed any code on their systems. The place was extremely dysfunctional and there were significant trust issues that were completely irrational and inconsistent. So a script that did this job was largely out of the question.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#995

Post by FireBeyond »

pembrook wrote: post #944
FireBeyond wrote: post #940

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not like these companies are minting profits. Possibly because they're dramatically undercharging, loss leading, to get "market share"? Undercharging, and drivers being paid "not very much" seems like two issues that are ... very much related.

So you're suggesting...the solution is to raise prices, and then transfer the added cost to drivers to give them benefits? I actually know of a system by which you could do that on a grand scale...for every single worker in America. Not just rideshare drivers! It's a concept commonly found in a far away continent most Americans have only dreamed of one day traveling to, called "Europe." How it works is simple. You ra…

As someone who was born in the UK and lived until the age of nearly 30 in Australia, I'd be entirely inclined to agree with you.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#996

Post by doonesbury »

pembrook wrote: post #938
henryfjordan wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AB5 was an absolute cop-out by the CA Legislature. They should have defined a third class of workers with protections somewhere in between Contractors and Employees. But when it comes to the vote in November, a vote to exempt Uber/Lyft from AB5 is a vote to strip drivers of all protections. Uber and Lyft will be free to go back to exploiting drivers for Maybe you are hoping the legislature will eventually come up wit…

> Uber and Lyft will be free to go back to exploiting drivers for Exploiting? Can you please cite another industry that has the capacity to employ millions of unskilled labor people at $10/hr and ALSO allow them the freedom to set their own schedule? It's clear you've never worked a minimum wage job before. Flexibility on hours is next-to-impossible at these jobs. If people are willing to make a few bucks an hour les…

I agree with this position. Let workers decide for themselves how best to use their time.

Here's what I don't understand about uber/Lyft and finance people who invest in them:

- they are loss makers bleeding serious money.

- Fedex tried the independent contractor routed and was required to make them employees too.

Where is the business sense here?

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#997

Post by throwaway_kufu »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #950
throwaway_kufu wrote: post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not that the law dictates this shift, it's that the economics do. You can check their S-1 filing for the “economics” of it...Uber before going public was losing money and acknowledged the legal risk they had been misclassifying drivers as contractors and should drivers be reclassified as employees it’s an existential threat to Uber. That’s the economics of it...Uber knew they were in the wrong, they knew the d…

This isn't how their S-1 reads at all... they never say they misclassified drivers. The drivers were truly independent contractors under the law at the time they filed and they note that if they were converted to employees this would cause a GREAT increase in costs... You took a potentially objective point and added a ton of spin to it :/

> This isn't how their S-1 reads at all...

Of course they don’t admit they misclassifying the drivers, but Under the S-1 risk factors:

The independent contractor status of Drivers is currently being challenged in courts and by government agencies in the United States and abroad. We are involved in numerous legal proceedings globally, including putative class and collective class action lawsuits, demands for arbitration, charges and claims before administrative agencies, and investigations or audits by labor, social security, and tax authorities that claim that Drivers should be treated as our employees (or as workers or quasi-employees where those statuses exist), rather than as independent contractors... Nevertheless, we may not be successful in defending the independent contractor status of Drivers in some or all jurisdictions... any such reclassification would require us to fundamentally change our business model, and consequently have an adverse effect on our business and financial condition.

In fact the IPO includes citations to multiple lawsuits including one they settled for $20M for improper classification.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#998

Post by manigandham »

ornitorrincos wrote: post #781
xienze wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many of them already have other commitments and drive for extra income. Exactly, why are so many people forgetting this aspect of ridesharing? The whole point is that you can pick it up and put it down whenever you want for a little extra cash. VERY early on people were able to make a killing doing Uber and that gave others a false impression that this was somehow a viable full time job. It's been years and years s…

Isn't that the point? They spent more than sustainable by paying better than anybody else. Now they are trying to avoid the laws that made them unprofitable in the first term. it was unsustainable from the beggining, they just expected to gain the public opinion to change the laws

It's no different than any other supply and demand market. If you open a new business selling shoes, nobody guarantees you an income or protection from competitors who take all the customers.

A low-skill contract like driving casual passengers just has too much competition to be worth a full-time position, but it's still a great way for extra income with little commitment.

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#999

Post by throwaway123x2 »

manigandham wrote: post #141
throwaway123x2 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People freely worked under abusive conditions in factories in the Industrial Revolution before the labour rights movement. No one wants to go back to that.

This is a tired argument. Please name the abusive conditions that actually apply here. AB5 affects more than just ridesharing too. Many writers, artists and other creative professionals are suffering as well. What abuse are they affected by?

The point is that Industrial Revolution capitalists used the same argument that you're using. Those people were "freely" working, except that it was the only real work that could be had. Are people working for Uber/Lyft for whom it's the only way to feed their families, or to supplement their income enough to pay the mortgage or make the rent still "freely" working? If everyone had secure salaries with healthcare and vacation days, how many of those people would "freely" choose to continue working for Uber and Lyft?

Re: Rideshare operations are being suspended in California

#1000

Post by mola »

ProcNetDev wrote: post #931
mola wrote: post #919

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could also be good public transportation. Much more efficient.

I'll believe in public transportation in CA whenever Marin county gets a BART station. Trust me if that happens we'll be able to ride our flying pigs everywhere.

Well then something is broken with PT in your neck of the woods. Too bad for you.
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