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Comment by ams6110 | Hacker News Reader

Will Uber simply ignore the law, as they have done in other cases?

One interesting thing is, they do not seem to need to "ignore" them. The law is just about allowing communication for drivers to band together. Uber could easily cooperate with this law, but not cooperate with demands of a future driver's union.

Because, the brilliance (terrible?) part about Uber is that its so easy for them to get new drivers. The barriers to entry are soo very low. Almost every American that is able to work, is trained to drive, the large majority of them have cars, a decently large set of those people would like extra money, and they have the spare time.

If there was a strike, 1. Surge pricing would kick in, tempting a lot of people to forgo the strike. 2. Within days/weeks there will be a new set of drivers willing to work at the current price.

This whole notion of a "strike" only works if you get 100% of the able bodied men/women to cooperate. The larger the working pool of people, the lower the chances of a successful strike.

A strike would not be limited to not working, right? They could block the roads and so on.

They would lose most of their public support if they did that. This isn't like France, where the majority of people are wiling to put up with hardship to support strikers. Block the roads in the US, or prevent transit from working, and people won't like you anymore.

My understanding is that there is a requirement to negotiate in good faith.

I don't know what that means in actual practice - as companies have certainly proven adept at NOT doing so.

Hopefully

I wonder if you'd feel the same way if I hoped someone would sustain a DDoS against their API endpoints due to their egregious violations of laws around the world; because I'd be fine with that.

Or is it only okay when Uber is disrupting the law and labor rights?

Uber didn't disrupt any labor laws or rights, they followed the existing model for taxi drivers, which were already considered contractors and not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

There are exemptions from the FLSA, including taxi cab drivers. But taxi cab companies and drivers agree to an alternate regulatory paradigm. Uber has been disruptive to law and rights because it claims its drivers are exempt from FLSA and neither uber nor contractor is not a taxi cab business.

If there's an agreement, why are taxi drivers suing their companies, as in Chicago? Which are those rights granted in this agreement, and why aren't those even mentioned in pre-Uber stories describing the crappy situation of cab drivers, such as [1], which describe drivers having to pay to be allowed to work?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1995/04/09/nyregion/driving-a-taxi-di...

Uber breaks the law in mnay countries in Europe, I guess the fines for breaking it are not expensive enough for them.

Maybe we should set the fines according to company assets.

Does Uber break labour laws in European countries? Which ones?

I live in an European country myself, and there was a large campaign by the taxi associations against Uber (though unsuccessful), yet I've never seen that accusation, only regarding other kinds of laws.

Does this count?: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2016/10/28/uber-awaits...

It may count as breaking the law, but not as a disruption of existing practices; minicab drivers were already considered self-employed, despite having much less control than Uber provides: https://web.archive.org/web/20101114091503/http://blogs.mirr...

In French :

800,000 € fine

http://www.leparisien.fr/economie/uber-condamne-a-800-000-eu...

1.2 million € fine

http://www.lefigaro.fr/societes/2016/10/12/20005-20161012ART...

So yes, uber breaks plenty of laws in European countries.

None of those seem like they are violations of labour law, are they?

(Yes, Uber does break other laws, I never disputed that)

Not going to go looking for the specific law now, but you can't use self employed people, or limited time employees for jobs that are usually done by full time employees (with indefinite contract) just because you want to keep costs down.

A denial of service is the opposit of providing a service. You really can't tell the difference? Thats probably why you're moralizing legal code and forgetting that people voluntarily make uber successful.

People also "voluntarily" made mining companies hugely successful in the 19th century. But that doesn't mean the workers, that worked there "voluntarily" didn't suffer greatly from their work.

They worked there voluntarily in every practical sense of the word. There was no threat of violence on behalf of any of the parties entering into contract. Which part of this equation do you feel entitled to intervene in?

If these miners chose to become farmers instead, would you still say that they were "voluntarily" farmers? Or that mother nature was oppressing them by forcing them into hard labor..

I'm absolutely sure people enjoy terrible working conditions and meagre wages just because they want to make their millionaire boss a multi millionaire boss... not because they alternative is to be homeless/be hungry/die of cold.

I'm also absolutely sure you can be whatever you want to be. I.E. an immigrant arriving in the shores of the USA in the 19th century could just build his own cattle ranch. Boy if he accepted to work 18h a day 400m bellow the surface of the Earth, receive a ridiculously small wage for the job and die in his 30's from it, I'm absolutely sure it was because that was actually the miner's life long dream.

Damn unions, destroying those nice miner's dreams of having a miserable life since the 1900's...

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