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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

I wouldn't hold out hope considering the other key cities Uber operates in (SF and LA in California, NYC in New York, New Jersey, and London [1], which account for 1/4 of their bookings) have made similar determinations. São Paulo was the holdout.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23713582

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Even though this is still an ongoing legal battle, laws in each country are very different and might cause Uber business to be viable in some and not others. In Brazil labour laws are extreemly harsh and many say an employee costs between 50% and 150% more as compared to employment costs in other countries[1].

Also the social impact is different in different countries. Brazil is the only developing country in the list above. I live in São Paulo, and I can say before Uber, taxi cabs were a thing for rich people. Uber and it's competitors drove costs so low, poor people can now aford rides. I didn't find Sao Paulo stats, but in Rio, app drivers are 3x the number of cab drivers[2].

Uber estimates 1.9mi users might not be able to afford anymore if the law passes, amongst many other claims [3].

[1]: I won't pick specific sources, search 'custo brazil' if you are interested [2]: https://oglobo.globo.com/rio/pesquisa-mostra-que-aplicativos... [3]: https://www.uol.com.br/tilt/noticias/redacao/2020/03/09/nova...

Not only that, but in São Paulo a taxi license was in some places worth a lot of money. License owners would typically rent it, and would illegally hoard them, giving them to family members who never drove a taxi, just so he could have more and rent them out. Legally, one person could only own one. Then there are the taxi companies, which also hoarded hundreds of licenses, mostly through corrupt means.

You can’t argue consumer surplus as a benefit (“Everyone gets Uber now!” Versus taxis for just the rich) if you’re avoiding employment costs. Taxis were for rich people because they could afford the fully loaded costs.

If the financial model is unsustainable because of employment law and the costs required by the law, the business is fundamentally flawed and unsustainable.

Uber works thanks to greed. When a driver knows he earns as much as he gets customers he will try to optimize his driving patterns. This cuts down a lot of overhead you otherwise need managing when, where and who should be able to drive for money. Making people employees with minimum hourly wages ruins this dynamic and suddenly Uber would need to add that extra overhead as well.

> Making people employees with minimum hourly wages ruins this dynamic

This is the most important question!

Is there a way, inside the brazilian legislation, to give them full workers rights but keeping the pricing per km rather than hour?

There really should be...

Interesting, thank you for the link. Funny thing that one argument used against it, is that nowhere in the World, Uber is paying Employee Benefits.

It’s too early to say that they were determined as employees in any of those cities. The cities WANT them to be employees because it takes the burden off them to get jobs for them, but the legality of those ruling haven’t been finalized. There are plenty of reasons why they shouldn’t be considered employees and there was a study released by Cornell this week that showed more than 75% of drivers are part-time anyway and want freedom, not full time employment.

You mean this one? [1]

> "Uber and Lyft covered the costs of the study [...] The study was priced as cost-plus, which covered the costs of the research plus overhead to the university. In total, study costs came to $120,000. [...] Driver earnings for all of our analyses came directly from Lyft and Uber. "

Yeah, real convincing.

[1] https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...

And, anyway, this would only argue for giving them an option, not for giving nobody the option of working full time. 25% is not a small number

Would that be the Seattle-specific Cornell study [1] that came out on Monday?

Aside from relying on data collected in a specific locality not under discussion, it doesn't appear to make any sort of assertion regarding what drivers want, contrary to your claim on its behalf. Where are you getting that information? You should cite your sources, so others in the conversation can evaluate them independent of the claims you make for them.

[1] https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/reports/71/

> there was a study released by Cornell this week

Which was funded by the rideshare companies themselves and which has been heavily criticized for its methods, it should be pointed out.

>Cornell this week that showed more than 75% of drivers are part-time anyway

10 drivers working 1 hour a week contribute less to the platform than 1 driver working 40 hours a week. The study should adjust for the amount of time drivers are on the platform and not just sheer number of drivers. Just counting drivers seems an obviously flawed approach designed to make the part time count seem high.

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