In California, Uber Loses Another Round in Driver Debate
wired.com
wired.com
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).
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/How-Do-You-Report-Suspected-T...
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.
There would be a political route to changing driving classification, but Uber has an incredible lobbying machine.
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.
Uber explicitly does this for many of their drivers.