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Comment by gargs | Hacker News Reader

“Drivers don’t want to give up their freedom to choose if, when and where to work.”

Drivers might have the freedom to turn off their phones and choose not to work, but they don't have the freedom to choose which routes/destinations. Seems to me that their argument is one-sided and deceptive.

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If you don't have that freedom, you're an employee, which is what this conflict is about. Because if they're an employee, their employer must pay social insurance. The self-employed are exempted from this insurance (although highly encouraged, because, not surprisingly, the vast majority of self-employed people don't become lucky billionaires). Uber wanted to have it both ways, and, not surprisingly, it can't. Self-employed people do whatever they like, including choosing the rides they drive for Uber.

but from what i recall, an uber driver do have the choice to accept or reject a ride.

There's a penalty for rejecting too many rides - but i think that's a fair outcome.

Ideally, uber also allows a driver to set the price, and allow a customer to see price comparisons between all offered drivers (and wait times etc), to truly make it a competitive market place.

Ideally for who?

According to this article drivers weren't given information on fare or destination when they were offered fares, until legally required in California. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/uber-change...

They won't be letting drivers set fares until legally obligated. They are a taxi service that cosplays as a "ride sharing" "marketplace" in the legal system.

Uber is all about keeping maximum control of the driver while denying them the rights of employees (or in the UK, "worker" status, which is a halfway house between employee and self employed)

According to the article: "a driver may only refuse a few trips before being logged out by the system", that plus the fact that they can't set their own fares and Uber can retroactively lower drivers fares, was the main reason Uber lost the case.

If Uber let drivers reject as many rides as they wanted and allowed drivers to set their own fares and negotiate directly with their clients, then they may very well have won the case. But then they would also be a very different company.

If I hire a contractor to renovate my home to my exact specifications, by your logic they are my employee because they couldn't choose the "route" or "destination?"

They do get to set the prices (the part gp forgot to mention).

Employees also set their own prices? "For me to accept a job offer, you have to pay me at least $150k" - that's setting your own price.

They can choose to not work with you and instead work with another client that has specifications that fit better with their work.

So do drivers for grubhub/doordash/uber eats. They see the final payout and have the choice to skip the order if it doesn't pay well enough.

Except for the part that the companies will punish them for rejecting orders, and that they can't negotiate the price of the orders nor set any price themselves.

Are you saying if I hire a contractor with a price set by me and I would "punish" (i.e. never hire them again) when they don't agree, they are suddenly my employee?

When you are hiring contractor you offer a price the contractor can come back and say I can do it for this higher price. Clearly not employee. On other hand the gig workers can't lets say offer to bring your food for 1000€ this one time. They should be able if they are independent.

1. Doordash does not penalize for skipping orders. They give the total payout first to allow people to skip orders in the first place. It’s a feature. 2. Because you see the price before accepting an order, you are effectively negotiating the orders you want to take based on price. You can sit in your car all day declining orders until you see a price you agree with.

If you were to hire contractor from company that was set-up to outsource your work to one of it many sub-contractors which only worked for them and had no deciding power how to do it and for what price, yes they would be employees.

They could reject based on the drop/pickup location at least in my area.

Only if they're rated high enough. This is not available to every driver.

https://www.reddit.com/r/uber/comments/lzl3xp/why_doesnt_ube...

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