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Comment by m11a | Hacker News Reader

See, this is key. If Uber has to class them as employees, it should also be able to deny them from working on other platforms. It should also be able to set working hours. And deny drivers the ability to refuse rides if they wish to keep their job. It could provide a daily salary and not let drivers decide or see fares.

Because this is what employment typically entails.

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If Uber has to class them as employees, it should also be able to deny them from working on other platforms.

Why? In America, there are tens of millions of people who work more than one job. They're still employees; just employees of more than one company.

Fred's Plastic Fork Factory can't tell me I can't moonlight at Alice's Diesel Cafe and Firing Range.

Fred's Plastic Fork Factory can tell you that you can't moonlight and can fire you if you do.

Such a clause is pretty common in employment contracts.

I've seen these precluding secondary employment with competitive entities, but it seems there'd be little competition between Fred's and Alice's businesses (based on name alone).

there is competition between uber and lyft though, you can driver for both at the same time

> In America, there are tens of millions of people who work more than one job.

not simultaneously, or even interleaved in 30 minute increments.

As someone who has the ability to work 2 tech jobs if I wanted to, I could context switch every minute if I wanted to due to the technology allowing me to do so. Why should other people be unable to do this if the tech is there to support it?

Yes, but this is due to the fact that most jobs require your physical presence, Uber does not.

which is actually an argument that they are not employees.

No it is not and never was. Sales people - going back a very long time and include fully traveling ones - are not employees? How about traveling service technicians, not infrequently located all over the country, far from any company office? Home office - not uncommonly full time even, e.g. the company I work for does not even have an office but people employed all over this and other countries - are not employees? Please don't arbitrarily redefine "employment" to make your point.

You are the one who has been entirely disingenuous... the previous post made a very good point which you have not contradicted.

TIL: on-call doctors are not employees.

Anti-Moonlighting clauses are perfectly legal, though not without controversy:

https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/...

In France, an employer can set working hours and working conditions, as long as both comply with the law. There are restrictions for safety and health reasons for example.

However, if the work is part time, employees can’t be restricted from working at another part time job, unless that job is for a direct competitor of the employer, in which case the restriction is sometimes allowed. (The idea being there could be a conflict of interest or loyalty.)

Uber can now restrict drivers from driving on other platforms ? This will impact both the consumers and drivers for the worse.

I don’t know if Uber would be permitted to do that, I just know that in some cases it’s allowed. The term used is “concurrence déloyale” or “unfair competition”. In practice, if there was a dispute, the courts would decide if a part-time employee driving for another platform constitutes an act of “concurrence déloyale”.

In any case, I read in Le Monde this morning that this recent decision by France’s highest court may mean that Uber will just stop doing business in France (although it’s too soon to know for sure).

Here’s the link to the article in Le Monde for those who read French:

https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2020/03/05/pour-la-c...

Edit: Punctuation. Also, the article is behind a paywall. Sorry about that, I didn’t notice, as I have a subscription.

Great, let Uber do all that. Set working hours, deny them from working on other platforms, deny them from being able to refuse rides.

And let the free market compete for drivers by allowing other "gig-economy" companies to not have any of those restraints and seeing which company attracts drivers and which one dies.

Uber does penalize drivers for rejecting too many rides.

Are they going to pay more, cover health insurance due to this exclusivity clause?

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