No Surprise, Uber and Lyft Lied About Helping Workers | Hacker News Reader

No Surprise, Uber and Lyft Lied About Helping Workers

jacobinmag.com

42 pointsCharlesW7 comments

I feel it hard to understand the truth with so much propaganda from Uber and Lyft that muddies the water.

That said, once I took a Uber ride and the driver strongly urged me to support Prop 22. According to him, he (and most of the drivers) works for multiple companies. It would be impossible for them to continue do so if Prop 22 failed to pass, and they would have a large income drop. It seems to me that the view is his own true belief.

The article seems to have proposed many downsides of Prop 22 for drivers, but it didn't address his concern. Would be nice if someone could give a more two-sided view.

Your driver was brainwashed by propaganda. No response necessary.

Can you elaborate a bit more? I don't know how I can refute his concern (of course I'm not in the field though).

It seems true that if Prop 22 were passed, he would have to become an employee for one company, so he wouldn't be able to work for 5+ companies at the same time.

Sure, but if by that company having to treat him as an employee he got paid three times more plus benefits, without having to burn the candle at both ends on 5+ dystopian gig economy companies, he would probably come out on top.

And if there’s no business in charging riders 3x more for their ride? Throwing him out of work is an acceptable outcome?

In lieu of companies that harm and abuse workers, there are things like taxi companies where people can make an actual living.

Why wouldn’t they be able to multi-app? As far as I can tell this is double talk. “If we have to W2 them we will make a condition of employment that they can’t be clocking hours in multiple apps at once.” That is the only explanation I can see for why there’d be any issue. At least in California there is no law that would restrict either company or employee in such a way, in fact the case law on non competes seems to lean the other direction with preference given to workers not being restricted from practicing their trade except in very limited circumstances. So they’re creating a straw man unworkable situation that would only be created by them pushing an unworkable system and supporting employment agreement.

There are many alternative ways to structure this relationship. Many with just as much or more chance of being long term sustainable for all parties than the current model which definitely works for one party but we have good evidence is not sustainable and workable for all the workers some of whom are being chewed through and exploited.

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