Slightly off topic, but it's rather poor form to use the term slaves to refer to people who clearly aren't. Unless the driver had, say, taken out a loan from Uber in order to pay for their car, they don't even meet the mark for indentured servitude.
There are millions of actual slaves living on this planet, children and adults forced into labor, sex, what have you. Calling someone with a shitty job a slave devalues the meaning of the term and softens the reality that there are right now more people than the number you have ever met in your life and likely ever will who can be bought and sold as property.
Would this open the door to preventing Uber drivers from operating multiple services at once? I've seen plenty of drivers with multiple phones up running both apps.
I'm guessing the future of this is that there will be a certain standard to the amount and conditions of participation the driver will have before they're considered employees.
Similar things happen for freelancer. You're a freelancer so long as you meet certain criteria for actually being independent and not living off a single client. As soon as your livelihood depends on a single client who's consuming an inordinate amount of time, no matter what the contract says you can successfully sue for benefits and the law will be on your side.
Not in New Zealand if you work in the movies or in game development. In New Zealand the law is for sale and Warner Brothers invested.... Now workers in the film industry and the computer game industry have no employment rights.
You can mandate large contiguous sections of time on your service and punish drivers who reject rides during that time. A driver who is driving a passenger for Lyft obviously can't pick up a passenger for Uber.
Don't think this will change much. Taxi drivers get to choose how they do their job (i.e. who to pick up). Moreover taxi companies do not forbid customers from tipping nor do they get a percentage of a taxi driver's gratuity. Lastly, you can be a taxi driver at multiple companies, whereas Uber has sent messages to some drivers not to drive for both Lyft + Uber.
Which is why taxi drivers continue to meet the definition of a contractor, while Uber drivers do not. Uber's entire model is built over the control they exert to enable the experience they desire. Without that control, they don't have a brand, but by needing that control, it prohibits their operating model (using contractors).
What about software contractors that are handed work equipment, required to work a minimum of 40 hrs (full time) and have to show up to an office. How are they not considered employees?
Does Uber define what sort of vehicle you can use? Do they provide any sort of guidelines or rules on how the work is done? Are you only providing services for Uber?
If the above answers are yes, they're breaking the law.
>Do they provide any sort of guidelines or rules on how the work is done?
I wonder what constitutes rules on how the work is done. If I use a bike to pick people up and drop them off, and I not doing the work, or am I doing the work in a way that is violates the rules? If I pick people up and then drop them off in the wrong place intentionally, am I not doing the work or am I violating rules on how the work is done?
So is the car a specification for work or is it a guideline on how to do the work? Seems like CA thinks its the latter, but I definitely see the argument for the former. Its more clear cut in freelancing--the end product shouldn't indicate the type of computer that it was developed on. For Uber, the car is definitely part of the experience that you're being paid to provide as a driver.
Anyways, i'm not qualified to speculate about any of this. I'm just going to be unhappy if a decision similar to this somehow prevents me from making a few hundred bucks every now and then for driving drunk people home from bars.
> Anyways, i'm not qualified to speculate about any of this. I'm just going to be unhappy if a decision similar to this somehow prevents me from making a few hundred bucks every now and then for driving drunk people home from bars.
I'm not qualified to speculate either, I'm just going to be unhappy if Uber is permitted to continue to violate labor and transportation laws.
Then why does Uber tell its drivers that it will fire them for low acceptance rates?
> And is it ok for contractors to refuse to perform?
Of course it is. That's what a contractor is, the very definition: someone who has economic independence from the client, and therefore can accept or refuse any particular job for any or no reason.
Refusing jobs is something an employee can't do, however. And that distinction is one major reason why Uber's "contractors" are actually misclassified employees.
I think all of your assertions are wrong. Not only do Uber drivers have some ability to choose pickups, taxi drivers are usually required to pick up the passenger. Tipping is allowed with Uber. Uber does not take a percentage of tips. Many/most drivers drive for multiple services. I've never heard of the messages you reference.
Well, it’s simple: Currently, the drivers are liable to get insurance, get a license, etc.
So, for example, if a uber driver has an accident, he has to pay himself for all the costs.
This ruling also provides safety for the drivers, because the driver (which has to behave as if he was an employee) now also gets the protections valid for employees.
Nobody wants to willingly insure some random Uber driver. Would you? Or would you start demanding references, background checks, the backing of a larger entity?
There are quite some major differences from being regularly employed. For example, you can work whenever you want including never. Let me know what your boss says about that.
A lot of regular employments have this, too. Even employees in some government agencies in Germany can just decide to go to work 3 hours later, or not at all that day.
This is not something that is specific to contractual work.
User's insurance isn't particularly great.
For one, they make no mention of requiring commercial vehicle insurance (https://www.uber.com/driver-jobs) and say that drivers only need personal vehicle insurance.
They have contingent liability injury insurance with a total available of $100K.
They talk of having commercial insurance during trips, but it is only third party liability and UI/UM. If you're a passenger in an Uber accident and insurers decline to cover when they become aware the vehicle was driven commercially, you're out of luck.
Uber doesn't actually have to win these legal battles. They just need to prolong the time until a definitive ruling on driver classification is made until they are ready to roll out a driverless fleet. And prolonging the outcomes of these legal cases 5 or 6 years (appeals, etc) seems pretty reasonable.
There would be a political route to changing driving classification, but Uber has an incredible lobbying machine.
Do you really think driverless cars will be globally ubiquitous in 5 or 6 years? It's not even clear the technology will be ready by then, and if it is, the legal fight to get driverless cars permitted to operate without a licensed driver able to take control will make these legal battles look trivial.
Yes; given the technological and legal hurdles, they'll initially only be allowed in certain constrained areas and uses. They're not going to be anything like a widespread option for a long, long, time, and certainly not something a company like Uber should be betting their business model on.
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[ 16.9 ms ] story [ 1470 ms ] threadThere are millions of actual slaves living on this planet, children and adults forced into labor, sex, what have you. Calling someone with a shitty job a slave devalues the meaning of the term and softens the reality that there are right now more people than the number you have ever met in your life and likely ever will who can be bought and sold as property.
Uber explicitly does this for many of their drivers.
Similar things happen for freelancer. You're a freelancer so long as you meet certain criteria for actually being independent and not living off a single client. As soon as your livelihood depends on a single client who's consuming an inordinate amount of time, no matter what the contract says you can successfully sue for benefits and the law will be on your side.
In the same way and for the same reason Google can prevent an employee from working for both Apple and Google at the same time (by firing them).
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/How-Do-You-Report-Suspected-T...
> Taxi drivers get to choose how they do their job (i.e. who to pick up).
I can reject any fare.
> Moreover taxi companies do not forbid customers from tipping nor do they get a percentage of a taxi driver's gratuity.
Uber doesn't forbid me from getting tips, and doesn't take any of the tips that I do get...
If the above answers are yes, they're breaking the law.
I wonder what constitutes rules on how the work is done. If I use a bike to pick people up and drop them off, and I not doing the work, or am I doing the work in a way that is violates the rules? If I pick people up and then drop them off in the wrong place intentionally, am I not doing the work or am I violating rules on how the work is done?
So is the car a specification for work or is it a guideline on how to do the work? Seems like CA thinks its the latter, but I definitely see the argument for the former. Its more clear cut in freelancing--the end product shouldn't indicate the type of computer that it was developed on. For Uber, the car is definitely part of the experience that you're being paid to provide as a driver.
Anyways, i'm not qualified to speculate about any of this. I'm just going to be unhappy if a decision similar to this somehow prevents me from making a few hundred bucks every now and then for driving drunk people home from bars.
http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employ...
> Anyways, i'm not qualified to speculate about any of this. I'm just going to be unhappy if a decision similar to this somehow prevents me from making a few hundred bucks every now and then for driving drunk people home from bars.
I'm not qualified to speculate either, I'm just going to be unhappy if Uber is permitted to continue to violate labor and transportation laws.
"Do they provide any sort of guidelines or rules on how the work is done?" No. Suggestions perhaps but it's pretty much all common sense.
"Are you only providing services for Uber?" No.
> And is it ok for contractors to refuse to perform?
Of course it is. That's what a contractor is, the very definition: someone who has economic independence from the client, and therefore can accept or refuse any particular job for any or no reason.
Refusing jobs is something an employee can't do, however. And that distinction is one major reason why Uber's "contractors" are actually misclassified employees.
So, for example, if a uber driver has an accident, he has to pay himself for all the costs.
This ruling also provides safety for the drivers, because the driver (which has to behave as if he was an employee) now also gets the protections valid for employees.
Can't the employee get an insurance by himself?
At that point, the employee has the disadvantages of being an employee, and the disadvantages of being a contractor, but the advantages of neither.
There are quite some major differences from being regularly employed. For example, you can work whenever you want including never. Let me know what your boss says about that.
A lot of regular employments have this, too. Even employees in some government agencies in Germany can just decide to go to work 3 hours later, or not at all that day.
This is not something that is specific to contractual work.
There would be a political route to changing driving classification, but Uber has an incredible lobbying machine.
I suspect there's a good chance Uber would make much more money on W-2 drivers since they'd get minimum wage and Uber would keep the surge.
But the current model makes much more sense.