My take from the article is thay if Uber were to currently offer its "driver-partners" benefits like health insurance, they would legally be considered employees, which neither party wants.
https://www.ehealthinsurance.com/resources/small-business/of...
But what? The only thing I can think of is to pay adherence to the letter of some other employment contract (which is probably a problem with that contract and possibly isn't enforceable? and adhering to the letter and not spirit is silly). What else?
There is a separate argument for if this is actually true for Uber/Lyft/etc (as in do those companies exert too much control over their contractors for them to actually be considered contractors and not employees) but in principal this is why you might want -not- to be employed.
It's important to remember that companies will always take the maximum they can get away with for the least compensation.
In the current situation that is asserting some control over the drivers to disincentivize them declining jobs but fairly little else because to exert more control would invalidate their claim their drivers are independent contractors. This is beneficial to Uber as they don't need to pay payroll taxes and provide health benefits etc that are tied to employment in US. i.e the overall cost to Uber per km driven is probably lowest this way.
The moment their drivers become employees there is no benefit to them not exerting all the control they can under an employment agreement. For instance there will no longer need to be a system for surge pricing because there won't be a need for surge compensation for drivers to increase supply because now the drivers are employees you can schedule shifts to ensure demand is met with sufficient supply.
Will it lead to a large portion of Uber drivers no longer being able to drive for Uber? Most likely. Will the drivers that remain be better off? Most likely as they were probably already full-time but not receiving benefits. Will ride prices go up? Most likely. Would this be better overall? Maybe, it's not as clear cut as a lot of people are making it out to be.