We expect eBay/Amazon/Etsy to enforce standards on their platforms, but no one would argue that their sellers are employees.
I'm not convinced that having price and ride quality standards invalidates the contractor relationship.
I'm not convinced that having price and ride quality standards invalidates the contractor relationship.
As a kid I refereed soccer games. There was a set cost structure for each game depending on age group and whether I was assistant referee or center referee.
There was a system where I could sign up in advance if I wanted the work or not. Uber drivers know exactly what they are getting into and they are free to quit at any time.
I was not an employee of the soccer leagues, I was an independent contractor who was able to work for multiple leagues if I wanted to and who was able to quit at any time.
There is a fundamental role in society for temporary work.
The employer will always set the price in any kind of business relationship. If I hire a contractor to remodel my house for 4 weeks does this mean he is a full time employee of mine and I need to provide him benefits. If he doesn't want the work, he doesn't need to be there.
New Uber drivers don’t know what their pay will be. They can eventually keep a running average to get some idea, but that’s only meaningful as part of an ongoing relationship.
Surge pricing seems like a benefit to the drivers, but as they can’t simply decline endless non surge prices that’s not an individual price negotiation. Essentially, their options are quit the platform or accept the vast majority of whatever is being handed to them.
Actually you were an employee, just misclassified. If you took them to court you would likely win.
Being able to set your own hours, working part time, working for other employers, quitting at any time - these are all possible in an employee relationship.
In general, flexibility in classification of workers almost always plays out poorly for the majority of workers.
Also, length of relationship is judged on how renewable it is not how long it lasted. You can fire anyone on their first day.
It’s really a question of how open ended the work is not how long someone spends doing it. A restaurant always needs people to cook food and a league always needs a referee as an inherent part of it’s business model. On the other hand a company might only need an architect when designing their new office, aka it’s inherently a finite business need. That architect can largely work at a location and time of their choosing, the referee needs to be where and when the games are taking place. Similarly, an Uber driver needs to be picking someone up at a specific location and specific time going somewhere else or waiting 1 hour doesn’t work.
A contractor is someone you hire to perform a particular piece of work. An employee is someone you hire for their skill who is then expected to do many (sometimes varied) pieces of work.
https://www.axios.com/amazon-price-practice-antitrust-elizab...
Of note the way it’s implemented is actively designed not to be used. Effectively Uber lets those drivers multiply their existing calculation by some number but not for example simply set a minimum charge or actually negotiate individual trips. Further, regularly declining trips is not accepted.
I get the design. And of course uber wants to encourage lowering prices. However, the point remains: driver set prices, even if the design makes it less obvious. Eventually, if a driver has a number in mind, the driver flips a button to get that number.
As for negotiate individual trips, I don’t understand the point here. You set the prices for dollars per mile / per minute. The trip price is reflective of what the driver set already.
Why negotiation is important is overhead. Dollars per mile / per minute doesn’t cover time to pick someone up. If someone wants to go 1 miles and it’s going to take you X minutes to pick them up that’s much worse than a trip that’s 10 miles long and takes the same X minutes to pick them up. Uber really doesn’t want drivers to be able to decide such trips or people left for hours end up going to other platforms. However, Uber is pushing these losses to their drivers.
Now, if Uber is pushing people to take such unprofitable trips that’s fine if drivers are employees. But, it clearly breaks the model of drivers as independent contractors with each trip being independent.
PS: in term of breaking the law that’s not an automatic prosecution. Enforcement tends to be extremely lax on such issues.