california is forcing all rideshare contractors to be employees. that's not just a checkbox on a form.
Determining whether someone is an independent contractor has always involved multiple factors. Flexibility of working hours is just one of the factors.
You cannot say categorically that having the ability to choose your own hours makes you an independent contractor rather than an employee.
Other factors include:
* What level of control does the employer have in dictating HOW the work is done?
* Is the worker performing work that is outside the usual course of the employer's business?
* Is it customary for the work to be performed as an independent trade?
The employer's business is connecting cars to riders with software. The driver's usual job is HR, and he uses the lyft service to make extra cash on his way home.
The last point is not something that determines a contractor. What you choose to do for money does not have to be a trade. It can be anything.
There are no working hours. You don't get paid by lyft for hours you 'work.' You get paid for engagements you pick -the rides. Getting paid per project, not for time you put in makes you a contractor for that gig.
That doesn't sound very independent to me.
W2 means you get paid salary or by the hour. Have you ever seen a W2 stub? It doesn't have 'projects' on it. It has a pay rate. Becoming W2 for drivers means they have a salary, and a bonus. So now they're hourly employees. This is literally on the W3 form employers submit to the IRS every year. Not knowing the paid amount before hand is one of the things making it a contract, yet you're claiming not knowing how much you will get paid makes it W2. Amazing gymnastics.
paid per project you choose yourself =contractor. salary or rate =employee.
determining how much you get paid has nothing to do with employee or not. in fact, as I keep stating, not knowing how much you get paid literally makes you not an employee.
The dissonance here is amazing. Uber and Lyft literally started operating in cities and countries where rideshare was explicitly outlawed, hoping they would come around. But now that they had a year to prepare for this, all they found it in themselves to do is pick up their toys and go home? Don't fall for it.