Uber drivers “employees” for unemployment purposes, NY labor board says

I must admit that I’ve been working white collar engineering jobs for nearly 15 years now, so I’m not exactly an authority on being a minimum wage worker. I thought you were still eligible for unemployment and that it was paid for by your employer?

I agree that it’s important to push intellectually beyond a reform-minded liberalism that seeks to “take the edges off” of Capitalism. But that doesn’t exclude using the history of labor protections or organization as a jumping off point.

If by “nice things” you mean “maximally exploitative capitalist businesses”, sure.

Can you blame people for trying to make a career out of it when that's how Uber and Lyft marketed themselves when they first started to grow?

For the many people who do work these jobs, this ruling strengthens their protection.

The problem is that "contingent workers are persons who do not expect their jobs to last or who report that their jobs are temporary" and I don't think factors in anyone with a full or part-time job that also does side work.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/news.release/conemp.nr0.htm

So, you might be right, but without better evidence and a more complex analysis from you, I can't really buy your conclusion.

[0] - https://www.bls.gov/news.release/conemp.nr0.htm

I chose to work as CEO of Amazon, but Amazon had other ideas.

I take Uber a lot and not once has a driver had anything bad to say about the “gig economy”. Most are thankful to make a couple extra bucks during their free time.

Their ability to make that money is under constant attack by those who supposedly “know better” than they do about how they should be earning a living.

As an occasional user of such services, I am OK with paying an increased rate if it means that the drivers are able to get unemployment.

The agreement between an employer and an employee is not "mutual" because of the massive power differential. Your premise is flawed.

People who have the ability to choose get to choose where they work. Many people do not have this freedom of choice. Otherwise people wouldn't continue to work for places that steal tips or sexually harass employees.

"Also, last I knew, Uber wasn't driving around forcing people to work for their service."

This is not, and never has been an excuse or defense. It has literally no bearing on anything.

> there's so many people that went ahead and are doing it full time as their primary source of income.

Did you ever think that they do this because it’s their best opportunity and they’re acting rationally? That taking away the opportunity to drive for Uber would be bad for them? It’s a way to make money that didn’t used to exist and people want to kill it because it’s vaguely incompatible with their political ideas.

This is the industry that decided that "ride sharing" consists of getting in somebody else's car and telling them where you want to go...

We already account for these situations due to part-time jobs. NY requires a certain amount of wages be met to be eligible for unemployment benefits, for example.

Does this also mean that, say, an iOS developer could be considered an employee of Apple due to their livelihood being closely tied to that platform?

From our comfy seats and nice intellectually stimulating jobs, it really looks like Bangladesh should be standing up for its workers and telling Nike what's what. But then Nike will just move to neighboring starving Nepal, and Bangladeshis will have to return to farming and being affected by flooding and having a really, really bad time.

It's bad that things are bad, but it's good that they could be worse otherwise.

In every state I'm aware of, unemployment insurance is managed by the State. It is a form of social welfare, and the government will intervene to e.g. extend unemployment benefits during periods of high unemployment. Applicants for benefits also cannot be denied on a case-by-case basis, and certain groups of people almost certainly receive more in benefits than they pay in. Private insurance would not achieve the same objectives.

It's no different than any other company. Most places have benefit levels tied to work levels. Working full time you get full benefits, for part time your benefits are lower and below a threshold, there are almost no benefits.

It's this weird middle-area that I think is causing the most friction.

As a thought experiment, I wonder what would happen if these platforms allowed drivers to set their own rates on a per trip or per session basis. As an independent contractor, you have complete control over how much you charge in order to make up for the burden of no benefits and heavy taxes.

I would rather not wait until more workers lose their lives.

Something tells me you’re not very familiar with the history of Uber’s business practices.

It’s pretty easy to “create jobs” when you can move into jurisdictions and skirt the local laws.

In some cases, for example Pensacola Florida (where ride sharing was criminal), Uber solicited drivers from other counties where ride sharing was legal, with bonuses, to provide services in Pensacola during spring break. One of those drivers was arrested almost immediately.

In counties throughout Florida where ride sharing was illegal (civilly and criminally) Uber drivers racked up millions in fines that have never been paid. Why? Because Uber paid for their own lobbiest (who is a lawyer) to represent the drivers in court and then literally did nothing on their case and just let them linger. This is all beneficial to Uber and damaging to drivers.

Not to mention other issues such as Uber training driver in these jurisdictions on how to avoid detection by police.

One day someone might put together a study of the total numbers of drivers who now have criminal records for nothing more that becoming an Uber driver...when you get a criminal record for doing what you were hired to do, that should fit the very definition of exploitation.

The biggest problem with this approach is that it's often used to delay action until it's well beyond the point where it becomes necessary. It's very similar to the 'Well, we just don't know, and we need to do research' approach that tobacco companies used, very successfully, for decades in the arguments about whether their products cause cancer.

In the case of Uber, one state implementing these stricter measures is actually a good way to collect the needed data to make these decisions on a wider scale across the country. NY will take this approach and we'll see the results. Other states can look at those results and try to figure out a better way.

Yes! A thousand times yes! Just because Uber is letting everyone i the door doesn’t mean they should get to dictate new terms of what employment means. Imagine your employeer removing your healthcare and defending the decision with the argument “well we’ve now set it up so anyone can just walk in the door and start working and we’ll pay them per hour worked. I know that’s not what you are doing but we have to treat everyone the same so we’re also cutting your pay”.

> The first draft of the paper, released last month, said the median profit was $3.37 an hour, but the author released a new analysis on Monday following criticism from Uber. In the new analysis, the researcher reported the higher median profit of $8.55 an hour.

Another quote from your link:

> Alex Tabarrok, a George Mason University professor who called the paper’s findings “dubious” last week, said he still had concerns about the researcher’s reliance on questionable survey data and that he believed the average hourly profit of Uber drivers was closer to $13 an hour (similar to figures the company has cited).

One of the biggest benefits is working whenever you want. A paper by the NBER found drivers get twice the consumer (or producer in this case I guess) surplus they would from less flexible arraignments:

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23296

The relationship that Uber sets up between drivers and riders in NYC is exactly the same as the relationship that all FHV services in NYC set up between licensed drivers and riders. Uber operates as an FHV service, no differently from any other.

EDIT: Before downvoting, you may want to look up the facts here. In NYC, unlike some other cities, Uber and its drivers are licensed by the TLC. There is literally zero distinction between the operations of them from any other FHV service.

A significant drop in wages can be considered constructive dismissal, but it's generally difficult to prove without explicit evidence of the intention behind it. And in this case, it's pretty hard to make the argument that it constitutes constructive dismissal, since there is zero evidence that Uber acted in a way to target the driver by intentionally cutting their earnings specifically, whether or not those actions were intended to target or retaliate against the driver.

For all of the phoniness behind phrases like "ride-sharing" and "gig economy", workers have never had a more horizontal relationship with their bosses -- except, perhaps, in higher pay-grade service sectors where "bosses" are referred to as "clients".