> Gig platforms take that power away.
Pretty sure drivers have to "accept" a ride, isn't that agreeing to a rate?
Pretty sure drivers have to "accept" a ride, isn't that agreeing to a rate?
I think it's reasonable to argue that because the contractor had no input into the rate, and if they decline too many rides they might be removed from the service, that they do not have the power to set rates.
What would make this a lot easier is if the apps would just allow you to set a rate below which you're not willing to accept work. The reason they punish you for declining too often is that they don't want the rider to have to wait for multiple drivers who regularly decline all offers before finding one willing to accept it, so that would solve that because you wouldn't even get the offer.
I'm curious to see how this shakes out in the end, because we keep getting these decisions where they say they're employees because X, but then won't they just change X to make them contractors again?
Are drivers removed from the platform if they refuse too many rides?
It seems like the drivers actually have very little power to enact any effective bargaining over rates in practice.
It is clearly not equivalent since uber literally determines the rate. Yes, they can refuse to work below a certain threshold but they aren't in-fact "setting the rate".
Not true. Uber's algorithm sets the rate within certain profitability margins which are determined by uber, "the market" is very artificial since customers only ever see the rates that uber decides they should see rather than what some drivers would actually offer.
> Uber won't find drivers if the rate is too low, for example because it's lower than the costs, lower than the risk, or lower that the competition. Uber (and the driver too) won't find customers if the rate is too high.
Right... uber deliberately structures the market through their explicit control of the price. The price is only "too low" or "too high" with respect to uber's business goals not with respect to what the actual market would do.
True, but not relevant to my point which is that uber explicitly sets the rates, not drivers, and not the market. I understand why they do this, but it's simply false to say that drivers having the option to sometimes pass up on rides is the equivalent of setting their own rate.
A software contract offers $50 an hour. I can either take it or leave it.
Uber offers $x an hour (or mile, or however it works.) Drivers can either take it or leave it.
What do you think is the essential difference here?
Do you think software contractors can somehow force clients to accept any rate they want? No. If they client doesn't want to pay above $x then there's nothing you can do but decline the job. Just like Uber driver can do nothing but decline the job, surely?
The essential difference is that the role of uber is absent from your analogy.
> Do you think software contractors can somehow force clients to accept any rate they want
I'll just assume that's a sarcastic quip in rhetorical question form rather than what you actually think I believe. Obviously, a software contract is negotiated between two parties, unlike in the case of Uber where all possibility of negotiation is eschewed for a price explicitly set by uber. If a driver wants to offer their services for more or less than uber decides, they cannot, and are forced to lower or raise their price in order to gain access to the market.
The drivers can ask for any price they want from Uber. Uber can either accept it or not. That’s a negotiation. What more do you think it needs to be a negotiation? That’s just like a normal contract. I may want my fence painted but I’m not paying over £500. If I won’t go below that is it no longer contracting?
Like any contractor!
If I offer to pay $500 for get my fence painted, a contractor can either accept that or not.
If you want to hire a web developer for $500 a day, a contractor can either accept that or not.
The fence painter, the web developer and the Uber driver, can all set their own rates by either accepting the job or not, can't they? I don't understand what you think is the difference between the first two and the last one?
Second, Uber is running the supply/demand auction system behind the scenes already. Prices are not fixed but dynamic and change in real-time based directly on supply and demand.
I’ve often brought up the app to check prices and decided not to ride for a while. Drivers do something similar.
> thus "the market rate" cannot escape a threshold that is contrary to uber's business prerogatives.
I’m not sure what this means. I’m sure Uber sets some reasonable floor on the price, but it’s more in the driver’s interest than their own. There are absolutely drivers who would drive for below operating cost of the vehicle because either they aren’t bothering to calculate it or they aren’t the ones actually paying for it (e.g. a car that is late on payments and soon to be repo’d).
I think the real issue here can't be resolved by an examination of terms - it involves a power dynamic where Uber contractors are extremely at disadvantage when it comes to being able to set your own rates. I don't know if Uber even has someone on staff that's qualified or expected to negotiate with independent drives that are interested - they have a posted rate that you either accept or they walk away. And, the worst part, they change that posted rate for BS reasons constantly in a way that people can't predict, it makes for an unreliable and misleading income.
They don't just let you go in demanding whatever you want. There's a limit to what they want to pay. Just like Uber.
You can absolutely go in and demand whatever you want. If you ask for 3x, you probably won't get the job. But 5% or 10% over x? It's possible. I don't see how contracting is 'locked in'. You are certainly free to negotiate, unlike on Uber or Lyft's platform.