US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors | Hacker News Reader

US court rules Uber and Lyft workers are contractors

bbc.com

218 pointsgostsamo202 comments

https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/A163655.PDF

^ Actual court ruling which is linked in the article itself.

I find the article's headline misleading. The court ruled that a proposition that was passed by voters in California which classified these drivers as contractors was mostly constitutional and would be allowed to have the effect of law, noting that California's legislative branch was free to change the law if they had the requisite votes to do so.

It wasn't the court, but California voters, which decided these workers are contractors. The court simply ruled that this is something voters are allowed to decide (and that lawmakers can change if they so choose).

Lawmakers cannot change if they so choose. Propositions amend the constitution of California. They can modify it, but they have to honor the rule itself and cannot simply remove it or abrogate it through this alteration.

> Legislature can amend Proposition 22’s provisions with a statute passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses, so long as the statute is “consistent with, and furthers the purpose of,” the initiative and the Legislature complies with certain procedural requirements

> Lawmakers cannot change if they so choose... They can modify it,

You know here all this time I thought that "modify" is a synonym of "change". So can lawmakers modify it or can they not modify it?

I read modifying it requires like super super majority like over 80% of approval from senate legislature, effectively it couldnt be done

So it is yes and no i guess, in theory yes, in practice better forget about it. This is state constitution, it isnt meant to be modified as someone pleases

Our State Constitution is modified frequently at the ballot box.

This one amendment to the law is just more difficult to amend than all the rest of the Constitution because it was designed specifically to be extremely difficult verging on impossible to amend but not technically impossible to amend as part of its text; and voters approved it with a far lower threshold than it would take for the legislature to modify it.

> This one amendment to the law is just more difficult to amend than all the rest of the Constitution

No, its not.

The Constitution can only be amended by a vote of the people (either by initiative or proposed by the legislature.)

This law can be amended by a vote of the people (either by initiative or proposed by the legislature), or it can be amended within certain bounds by a 7/8 vote of each house of the State Legislature without a vote of the people. It is, strictly, easier to amend than any part of the State Constitution.

On paper you are 100% correct that it is strictly speaking legally easier to amend this law; but in reality, clearing the majority necessary to amend our Constitution is politically a lower bar than getting 7/8 of the legislature to amend this particular law. We really do amend it regularly and most voters I talk to don’t put a whole lot of thought into whether it’s a constitutional amendment or a statute. If they’re for whatever it is, they’re for it, and if they’re against it, they’re against it. The mechanics matter to a minority of us.

> On paper you are 100% correct that it is strictly speaking legally easier to amend this law; but in reality, clearing the majority necessary to amend our Constitution is politically a lower bar than getting 7/8 of the legislature to amend this particular law.

Perhaps, but the comparison isn’t “7/8 of the legislature vs. a bare majority of the people” it is “7/8 of the legislature or a bare majority of the people vs. a bare majority of the people”.

It is absolutely not harder to amend Prop 22 than the State Constitution, or a normal initiative statute. It is easier. Perhaps only so slightly easier as to make no substantial difference, but your claim is that it is harder, and that is completely wrong. Even if it is not substantially easier, it is also not at all harder.

You know what? I’ll concede this one. Technically you’re correct, but I think we have a different perspective on which of these two is a lower bar to clear and that’s fine. Cheers!

change and modify some times have different meanings in legal systems and can apply to versioning of the laws (don't know if that is the case here)

as an example you might say Law X section 7 says Uber drivers are contractors.

In some systems a change would be to remove this provision or to say the opposite.

a modification might be to add:

The definition of contractor will follow the amended definition of contractor as in Law Y Section 9 - subsection Uber contractors.

So in essence, the law system uses different rules for language and applies it to everyone, but almost everyone uses language in a people way, not in a legal way. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

In essence every complicated field has specialized jargon that differs from the common usage, also I'm not sure if this is the case in California legal system, I was just pointing out that some systems differentiate between what it means to change and modify - generally when discussions are made between experts in that system.

In many engineering contexts, modify and change would mean two distinct things. Of course, it's context dependent but:

- "Modify" this part on the widget: Please alter this part to function correctly.

- "Change" this part on the widget: Please replace this part with a new part so that the widget functions correctly.

e.g. if I modified a cover, it probably means I drilled an extra hole or something to make it fit.....if I changed the cover, it probably means that I found a new cover that had the right hole.

The one and only job of lawmakers is to create or change laws as they so choose.

Obviously lawmakers must still abide by laws in effect*, but they can absolutely change those laws if they have sufficient votes to do so.

Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers, nothing is off-limits with enough votes.

* Some countries suspend enforcement of laws within the physical space of legislative chambers. As an example, I understand over in Japan it's perfectly legal for a Diet member to murder someone in the Japanese Diet's legislative chamber because laws prohibiting murder aren't in effect in there. IANAL so I could be misled by urban legends.

> Even the US Federal Constitution can be changed by lawmakers

This really depends on how loosely you define "lawmakers."

The federal legislature cannot amend the Constitution by itself, as it requires a 2/3 supermajority of the House and Senate, 3/4 supermajority by the states, which are not what one would traditionally refer to as 'lawmakers' but I guess could colloquially be sort of.

There's of course the constitutional convention path, but that's even less kind-of-sort-of fitting any normal definition of "lawmaker."

3/4 of the States and each and every State makes its laws and approves (or not) amendments through their own legislatures which are by definition lawmakers.

Congress isn’t the only legitimate legislature in the United States.

> The federal legislature cannot amend the Constitution by itself, as it requires a 2/3 supermajority of the House and Senate, 3/4 supermajority by the states, which are not what one would traditionally refer to as ‘lawmakers’ but I guess could colloquially be sort of.

No, state legislators (and it is 3/4 of state legislatures that need to ratify) are absolutely, 100%, lawmakers. If one wants to differentiate federal from state lawmakers to refer specifically to either one, the appropriate adjective is used along with "lawmakers", but "lawmkers", without qualification, definitely encompasses both.

> there’s of course the constitutional convention path, but that’s even less kind-of-sort-of fitting any normal definition of “lawmaker.”

No, again, the convention is an alternative to Congress for proposing amendments, but they are still ratified by state legislatures, comprised of state legislators, who are exactly within the usual definition of “lawmkers” without further qualification. (And do so exactly as much as when the exact same group ratifies amendments proposed by the other mechanism, not “even less kind-of-sort-of”.)

> passed by a seven-eighths majority in both houses

Holy mother of supermajorities ...

What's the procedure for reversing a ballot measure? Can only be done via a different ballot measure?

thats why i almost always vote no on these now. its too hard to undo if there is unintended consequences or the vote was bought by some large company.

Yes, the people have primacy over the representative bodies, so usually a ballot measure can only be modified by a subsequent ballot measure. This one makes a special allowance for unilateral amendment, within certain bounds, by the legislature as well as being modifiable by a ballot measure (which can either be proposed by petition or by a simple majority of the legislature), and is therefore strictly (if only slightly) easier to modify than a normal ballot measure.

The purpose of these things is to overrule the representative legislature when it doesn't match the opinions of the people (who are the real legislators who have delegated power to the representatives). It would be foolish to permit your agents to overrule the principals. It is the sensible thing to do.

Yeah, it's a high bar to clear, but they didn't have to include that in the proposition. If they hadn't, then legislature would be entirely unable to modify it.

Think about that before getting all fired up about 7/8 - most ballot initiatives completely exempt themselves from legislative amendment. That's the default.

I am aware of that fact now, but it's not making it better

Correction: 2020 Proposition 22 was an initiative statute that modified the Business and Professions Code (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displayexpand...), not the California Constitution. And the clause that allowed amendments with 7/8 supermajority exists to make it easier to amend than if the clause did not exist, since by default initiatives can’t be modified by the legislature at all (Constitution Article II Sec 10(c) https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...)! It is common to choose a threshold above the known opposition (my earlier comment with more examples https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28259306), and 7/8 is above the 73% that voted for AB5 (https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xht...).

> Propositions amend the constitution of California.

Initiate Constitutional Amendments do, Initiative Statutes do not. Prop 22 was an initiative statute, and as such did not amend the Constitution.

Nevertheless, because the legislative power resides in the people first and is delegated by them to the legislature to the extent that they have not themselves exercised it, an initiative statute, while subordinate to the State Constitution, cannot usually be altered by the legislature (the legislature can propose changes, but they must be passed by the people.) But, OTOH, Prop 22, as you note, contains a provision allowing a legislative hypermajority to amend it, and so can, in fact, be altered by the legislature unilaterally.

On the gripping hand, though, those unilateral alterations that the legislature can make are explicitly limited, and do not include making app-based drivers regular employees rather than contractors.

> I find the article's headline misleading.

I see Uber stock is up 6% pre-market. That suggests to me investors thinks Uber's liabilities are reduced as a result of this ruling.

The fight over contractor status was versus regular employee status, which would require providing benefits. So, market rejoice, these driver folks are on their own.

Editorializing a bit, but CA referendums are so silly. I was asked to vote to resolve an employee/employer dispute in kidney dialysis centers. There's so many of those types of things.

So, crazy enough, I know the head lobbyist for the group that was fighting against that kidney dialysis thing.

It's been struck down three times and, according to her heavily biased opinion, would seriously adversely affect access and choice. The company spent something like several hundred million dollars fighting that proposition and two before it.

Crazy that one special interest can get some signatures to fight for something like that with the only real goal to boost their profits well another special interest fights against it to save theirs.

Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars are burned in the process.

> hundreds of millions of dollars are burned in the process

Not burned. Those dollars went to lawyers, advertising platforms, etc.

So... parasites. Burned sounds appropriate

Which produces as much value, in human terms, as burning them. Possibly less. I think the metaphor stands.

> It's been struck down three times and, according to her heavily biased opinion, would seriously adversely affect access and choice. The company spent something like several hundred million dollars fighting that proposition and two before it.

All because the (licensed) employees wanted safer conditions for their patients?

Something I find suspect is how spending hundreds of millions is profitable unless you're raking in many times that amount per year.

I suspect they're guarding massive profits as opposed to advocating for patient access and choice

it's a good point. From my understanding it was the difference between having a business and not having a business.

So, more a fight for survival than a fight for just profitability.

Though my memory is fuzzy… We were talking about this over Thanksgiving dinner after several drinks and haven't discussed it since

I am so tired of the kidney dialysis centers voting. I think I vote on one every time I've voted for at least 4-5 years

Labor unions seem to put that kidney dialysis measure on the ballot for every election, then they are outspent by more than 100-to-1 by the kidney dialysis companies on TV ads, and the measures never pass.

Money wins, and the unions could spend more but they don't in this case.

I don't see any of the propaganda on this either way. Based purely on what I read on the ballot and in the state issued supplementary booklet (I forget what it's actually titled) I did not read any compelling argument to vote for this.

Remember, unions are fundamentally limited to a warchest of some fraction of their memberships pooled income, while companies are propped up by investors YOLO'ing.

Unions by defintion have to focus on doing more outreach in ways that don't translate to throwing money at a problem and making it go away. Capital wielders will always have the advantage in that department.

And you will be asked to vote on the kidney dialysis thing again and again. It's already been on the ballot 3-4 times. The voting public doesn't care for it and it's been soundly defeated each time.

I'm not really sure who's bankrolling it.

That suggests to me, a lot of investors are using the wrong strategy of trying to time the market.

California Labor Union Leader: "Our system is broken. It would be an understatement to say we are disappointed by this decision allowing companies to buy their way out of our state’s labor laws"

Uber Executive: "Our system is working. We’re pleased that the court respected the will of the people by upholding a voter-approved law.”

Is there some reason to suspect that there was corruption involved with this ruling? Or is this just general fearmongering?

The buying was the money spent to ferociously promote prop 22, not paying off judges.

Breaking news: people with skin in the game talk their book. Full story at eleven!

Worth noting that the vast majority of the actual drivers agree wtih the Uber Executive here.

I imagine drivers prefer this because they saw the alternative was going back to being screwed over by the taxi companies. At least this way when they get screwed over by Uber they have a bit more say in when and how it’s being done and while that may be bad it is an improvement over what they had before.

The reality is these drivers need some kind of guild or union because as it stands they are being taken advantage.

Everyone seems to forget or disregard the fact that these lawsuits are paid for by the taxi industry. Even when they dig up a few Uber drivers, it’s all a sham.

70% of surveyed rideshare drivers prefer to be independent contractors. If there was a serious majority for employment, Uber and Lyft simply wouldn’t exist.

Surveyed by whom and how was the question asked?

I can't vouch for the validity of the statistic you mention, as you didn't source it.

However, I can provide with 100% certainty that I would prefer being paid 1 trillion dollars an hour instead of my current wage. In fact, I would prefer being paid every dollar amount between my current wage and 1 trillion dollars an hour.

Labor preference does not dictate market conditions. Labor preference has an especially low impact in circumstances where the compensation is low and competition for good paying jobs is fierce. It is wrong to state that if a serious majority of ride-share drivers wanted employment Uber and Lyft wouldn't exist.

I think the GP is stating that market dynamics would dictate that someone working as a 1099 for ride share that also had a preference for w2 status would simply find a different, w2 job instead of continuing to work SS a 1099. And I agree with that statement.

The reality is that gig workers fit in neither of the legacy regulatory categories ("employee" or "contractor").

I expect we'll spend a few destructive decades thrashing around before legal systems have adapted to this invention.

This right here is the key that is missing. We need a new category of worker that's 1/2 way between, OR we need to have universal healthcare and a better social safety net. The main argument here is if the company has to provide benefits, sick leave, etc.

If benefits were provided for everyone by default, it wouldn't matter.

Here's an idea: outlaw employer-provided health plans.

This would solve so much. Almost unreasonably so.

It pains me to have to disallow companies from making a private transaction, but it seems to be it would benefit everyone much more than universal Healthcare.

If they’re not an employee, how are they not a contractor? What third thing is missing?

Contractors with an app

Probably the biggest novelty is that they work whenever they want.

A gig worker can work 0 or 80 hours a week, and not ask for permission either way.

Day labor existed long before Uber. There's no functional difference except the hiring agency pays by the job instead of by the day.

In Europe, you can't drive for Uber or deliver food without a standard work contract which includes: healthcare, pension, payroll and income taxes.

Drivers here PAY private companies a weekly amount in order to work for Uber et all (to have that contract). Uber et all work with these companies only, not individuals.

How does the prevalence and costs of Uber and food delivery in European cities compare to US cities? I don’t know myself, just wondering how this difference effects the end consumer.

Uber exists in Vienna but I've never found a reason to use it. Public transport is amazing, and the only time I would need a car (to the airport at night), taxis are cheaper

User costs the same as old taxis where I live and there's no reason to use it.

Well the apps are better, but that's about it for incentives to use Uber/Bolt.

My view from a few times in Europe is, public transport is preferred during the day, but if you want to go out late in the evening ride sharing and/or taxi are way more convenient because there would be limited train/bus working.

Uber taxis have died in my UK city. The quality was always weak compared to the very good taxi services which was perfectly fine pre-Uber. Uber had vouchers and a marketing push that made it a thing but people can't get rides now. Rental electric scooters are dominant now.

Food delivery use is declining with the cost of living problems people are facing. Anecdotally I saw it was making people feel bad so it's a habit people have wanted to break - junk food, cold, missing items and paying the price of a week's worth of groceries... ugh... it made people hate themselves but they kept doing it because the convenience was like a drug.

Where I live in the city, everyone has a dozen food outlets within a five minute walk so it was never a rational choice.

Which UK city do you live in? In London, real taxis are 2 or 3 times as expensive as Uber, so Uber and others are very much in use, both for taxi services and for food delivery services.

I won't say which city but London cabs are about twice as expensive as here which will be a factor.

I only ever took one Uber in my city - it took a really bad route and cost more than a normal cab for the same destination. If it had taken a sensible route then it might have been a few percent cheaper but not much. The experience was bad enough not to gamble with it again.

Budapest (no labor contract required for either):

Taxi services have licensing requirements and the rates are set by the government (Uber left the market), typical ride is 10-30 EUR. (Eg. airport to city center is 30+, also around 30+ min.)

Food delivery can be done by anyone, no licensing requirements. Around 700 HUF (about 2 EUR).

Here in Amsterdam, the only drivers that are allowed to drive for Uber are licensed taxi drivers. They tried using scabs here but the city ended that pretty quickly.

I'd be curious to know how this actually breaks down at the end of the day, in dollars, if you were to fully account for all the money. For example, factor in the cost of getting nonemployer health insurance through an exchange, whatever the equivalent of a pension would be such as using an IRA, etc. (Not sure what "payroll and income taxes" mean in this context.)

I don't have a clear sense of how it all nets out, besides loose high-level mostly political assumptions about various social programs that give me a vague sense Europe is going to be better here. Assuming someone was able to take advantage of all the various programs and whatnot in both the US and EU, how does the actual efficiency of delivering these services net out, fully considered. I wouldn't be surprised with a result that showed it is actualy more similar than you'd think, but I also wouldn't be surprised to learn that Europe is doing significantly better on this metric. I just don't know!

If you remove pension and healthcare alone that's probably not too far from 30% in most EU country (+ the matching from your employer), you also lose paid vacation, parental leave, unemployment benefits, &c. I'm not even sure getting twice the hourly rate would make up for it, at least not for the average Joe.

Now it's all nice and fun when you're an IT contractor charging 60$+ per hour, when you're a uber driver making on average 18$ an hour (according to google) it's not that bright, and you still have to maintain your car, pay for gas, &c.

> how does the actual efficiency of delivering these services net out

If you're at the bottom, as uber contractors are, you'll have a better time in Europe, if you're in the top tier and can afford private health insurance, private unemployment benefits, &c. you probably have better services in the US, at a cost

I lived in both systems and I'd say the EU one brings an overall peace of mind you can't replicate in the US unless you're quite rich

You can deliver people or food as an entrepreneur (sub)contractor in Hungary.

I would be surprised if all 20+ countries were unanimous on this.

No, that is wrong. At least in Finland, Wolt drivers are independent contractors. Their entire delivery fleet is composed of third world immigrants who are willing to work for peanuts for no benefits. It is exploitative and the current government doesn't want to do anything to change it.

Whenever I see a post on HN that says "In Europe, blah blah blah" it is bullshit 80% of the time. Sometimes the poster is extrapolating laws from his country to the other 43 countries on the continent, but usually it is just completely made up bullshit based on wishful thinking. I've learned to never trust these comments unless they provide a source.

https://wolt.com/pages/en/fin/courier-center-faq-finland#lin...

>Are Courier Partners employees of Wolt?

>No. Courier Partners are not employees of Wolt, they don’t have a boss or predetermined work shifts. Wolt Courier Partners are contractors, Wolt pays for each task a Courier Partner has committed to deliver and has completed.

>Like all entrepreneurs, Courier Partners are in charge of their own: taxes, driving log, insurances, compulsory motor vehicle insurance (if they make deliveries with a car or a scooter), pension security, and financial security during periods of illness and unemployment.

>Like all entrepreneurs/independent contractors, Courier Partners are in charge of their own financial security during periods of illness and unemployment. In practice, this means that Wolt does not provide compensation for sick leave or health services on days when Courier Partners are not able to make deliveries.

>Everyone who has a municipality of residence in Finland is entitled to use public healthcare services. As an entrepreneur, Courier Partners are encouraged to consider arranging occupational health care coverage for themselves. Public medical centers and private hospitals can help Courier Partners with matters regarding occupational health care.

Generalizing what may be happening in one European country as "In Europe" is like saying the US never lifted prohibition because there's still a few dry counties

Tried to find source of which exact place made the changes this person suggested, but only found similarly vague "EU commission proposes..."

https://www.wsj.com/articles/uber-to-offer-limited-health-in...

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/09/uber-deliveroo-and-gig-econo...

Meanwhile, maybe they were talking about England, which would be unrelated to any EU commission: https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/uber-to-give-drivers-medic...

> Their entire delivery fleet is composed of third world immigrants who are willing to work for peanuts for no benefits.

It's similar in neighboring Estonia. However the reasons are more than just willingness to work for peanuts. These people are also very willing to break the law.

A lot of the workers are in the country with either tourist or student visas and aren't allowed to work. These delivery companies couldn't even legally hire them. However the way the law works, in the case of contractors, it is the contractor's responsibility to make sure they follow the law. A lot of these people don't even understand that. They just sign up on their phone and get money. What law?

Similar case with taxation. Employers need to pay a lot of taxes per employee. With contractors that requirement is shifted. All the taxes are now the contractor's duty. The delivery contractors, who are not paid a lot in the first place, aren't exactly going out of their way to give away half their earnings. This got to be such a big problem that the government actually had to pass a new law, which came into effect January 2023. At the end of the year, all these delivery companies will need to supply the tax office a full report with how much money they paid each contractor and the contractor's info. Then the tax office can see if the accurate taxes are being paid or not.

Given how much they earn it's very likely they're under the taxation threshold/within the standard tax break (eg. in Czechia if your total income tax is less than 1000 EUR you're not going to pay anything).

> No, that is wrong. At least in Finland

And in Spain and France, its the other way. With the new Euparl draft law soon going to make it mandatory.

https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/02/eu-platform-worker-directi...

Larger voting blocs want it. Finland has a small presence in Euparl. So even if it is not the mandatory law yet, what they said is true - Europe has been incrementally classifying gig workers as employees and it is soon about to make it mandatory.

No. I live at the borders of 3 EU states (PL, CZ, SK) where in each the drivers/couriers are contractors (self-employed).

Is healthcare in employment contracts actually standard in Europe?

Healthcare is completely separate from your employment in EU. It's your personal thing to sort out your health insurance, you just notify your employer when you make a change of insurer (because the employer is sending them your money).

In some states there's a national insurance plan, in some you have a tax-funded healthcare, and in some you have mandatory health insurance (with private insurers, based on your income, 15-30%).

Ok, it's not the same for all. Should it be?

Gig workers aren't quite contractors and aren't quite employees. Maybe need a third class of worker.

“Hustler” economy

Better than unemployed all together

But what properties and laws would apply to this class of worker?

The general rule in Europe is that "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then we treat it like a duck." That is employment and tax authorities don't care what your and your employer call yourselves but they do care about the conditions under which you work. In the UK, for instance, if you are a contractor you can send someone else in your stead to do the work, if you are an employee you obviously can't. So that alone can distinguish between real contractors and actual employees.

I'm not a lawyer so take all this with the necessary quantities of salt.

IR35 is a ridiculous law.

"If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then we treat it like a duck."

I can walk and quack rather convincingly like a duck, but I'm not a duck and any casual observer would agree.

The metaphor provided puts the emphasis on the behaviour of the individual, whereas the behaviour of the hirer/employer is rarely considered... For example, can the contractor be promoted? Can they be given a disciplinary procedure with Union representation? If the contractor has an accident, does the insurance of the company pay for it or does the insurance of the contractor pay for it? Does the contractor have protections from bullying and discrimination?

The point of IR35 wasn't to make it easy for employers to relieve themselves of their usual obligations to people they demand exclusive full time work from by saying "sign this anti-Union waiver and you'll get tax breaks (and so will we!)"

And criteria like whether the nominal contractor has any choice of workplace and schedule is absolutely about the behaviour of the hirer/employer.

I doubt that, but feel free to upload a youtube video.

A separate set of dedicated laws of course.

Yeah, but we can't possibly add a third category, we have to try and force everyone into one of 2 groups created in the 50s...

Paid per hour, free to chose their working hours, free to work for multiple employers at the same time, etc. How are they not contractors?

They're way more contractors than the contractors that were working 9 to 5, 5 days a week, for years, for my FAANG.

But the fee/payment is dictated by the company which takes away a significant part of autonomy I guess

What does this have to do with being a contractor vs employee. I negotiated my salary. Does that make me a contractor?

Although they have the ability to turn down a ride if the fee isn't high enough, and the price will go up until someone accepts it. I see Uber drivers do this a lot in geofenced areas to jack up the price

I do not think they can choose their working hours, their income does not allow this freedom. Not US, but I did some study on Ukraine immigrants in Poland, etc, they work as self-employed at factories, like LG and Samsung and even make some parts for Porsche cars. A luxury made by slavery, 12 h/day, 6 days a week and minimum hour rate.

Uber's website says:

Drive when you want, make what you need

Earn on your own schedule.

They can't force you to pick someone up.

You’re mistaking the difference between two ends of the world. I have lived and worked in both.

In the US a Lyft/Uber driver owns their vehicle, has an app they can log in and out of any moment they like. The license and registration is checked, the car is regularly inspected. (There are schemes where you can lease out the car but that is another subject). The driver has a chunk of their income taken by Uber/Lyft and they have to pay for fuel and other expenses. Everything is insured. The money isn’t great but it’s your business whether you are “free” doing it. I have done this.

In Poland, the car will often be owned by someone who owns a fleet. The account in the app will be fake. The immigrant driver will be working under another name for the “fleet” owner, and the car will (often) be an uninspected beater. Doing the whole Uber thing was also entirely illegal until a certain point (I don’t know where this is now). So who knows what kinds of corrupt slave relationships were/are going on there. I have not done this, but I live in a Polish city with one of those LG factories.

Factories and how shitty those are is a irrelevant to the topic of this thread.

they can't set their rates.

that's a huge part of being a contractor.

They can. Refusing to take some rides that they do not deem profitable is the same as "negotiating their rate".

If anything, they probably have a lot more power regarding compensation than if they were employees, all earning the same (definitely shitty) salary.

You’ve taken a narrow interpretation.

Drivers have zero ability to set their rate.

That's just refusing work at a given rate. A contractor can say "I used to charge $300/hr; I now charge $400/hr because $REASONS."

definitely agree on the drivers having more flex than employees, at least superficially. employees could always quit, though the mechanics of quitting are heavier for employers than terming a contractor are.

None of them work for multiple employers at the same time.

They are working multiple part-time jobs with shorter-than-customary on-the-clock times, but if they pick up a Lyft passenger, they're only being paid by Lyft for that time, and if they pick up an Uber passenger, they're only being paid by Uber for that time. There's no double-dipping.

The only difference between this arrangement and typical part-time jobs is that with typical PT work, we often think of shifts being measured in hours, whereas with these jobs, shifts are measured in minutes.

As for being able to choose their working hours, it sounds nice in the abstract, but the platforms actively punish drivers whose availability is limited.

> None of them work for multiple employers at the same time.

Just like no contractor bills the same hour to two employers.

> The only difference between this arrangement and typical part-time jobs is that with typical PT work, we often think of shifts being measured in hours, whereas with these jobs, shifts are measured in minutes.

Not at all. There are many differences, namely the ones I have already mentioned above.

> As for being able to choose their working hours, it sounds nice in the abstract, but the platforms actively punish drivers whose availability is limited.

Just like any company would not prioritize doing business with a software engineering contractor who is available an hour from 8 to 9 AM on Tuesdays and then an hour and a half every other Thursday night.

Spin it however you want, they are exactly the same as any other contractor.

Yeah people have real difficulty dealing with things that don't fit neatly into existing categories. I imagine when smartphones were first introduced people had debates about whether they were phones or computers.

Speaking for the rest of humanity: no, we did not have debates as to whether smartphones are phones or computers.

the closest analog i can think of are paid volunteers like people who take usability studies.

they have the flexibility of contractors (they can show up, work as much or as little as they want, and stop whenever they want) but their compensation is set by whomever requisitioned them.

That's still contract work, it's just shitty contract work. Do you think day laborers get to set their own rates? There is absolutely nothing unique about these operations in the US, except they have the sheen of SV exceptionalism.

Daydream: "In an unrelated move, the Governor of California announced that, in order to reinforce the independence of the Judiciary - 'one of the sacred foundation stones of our democracy' - all Judges in California would henceforth be reclassified as contractors. Governor Newsom admitted that there would be some short-term administrative costs in making this change, but insisted that the longer-term cost savings would more than make up for..."

Our government, and large swaths of the media, is owned by banks and corporations. The vestiges of the pre-industrial democracy we had persist as a sham to keep the electorate’s consent for and compliance with this system.

Uber and Lyft are not people and shouldn’t have been permitted to spend $1 on this campaign nor towards the campaign of any politician.

Unfortunately it won’t be until bread is $30/loaf that the public will wake up to what’s going on.

>pre-industrial democracy

You have a very rose tinted view of how democracy was in the past or who actually made decisions.

It wasn't perfect but it existed. Calling it rose-colored is to downplay how bad it's gotten. The complex of multinational corporations and their lobby groups that run our government today didn't exist then, the e.g. railroad companies are no comparison.

It existed - if you were a White man. Nice work if you can get it.

My brother in christ, this country LITERALLY started as a bunch of rich white dudes stirring shit up to get essentially their own self designed government where only wealthy white dudes could have a say and black people were not even allowed to be considered people.

The fact that a couple of them had some ideals and there were handwavy references to those ideals does not change that America was not a democracy for a very long time, with reasonable arguments that it still isn't

The US was founded by a bunch of rich white men who mostly inherited their wealth and literally owned other human beings. A lot of the government structures were explicitly designed to prevent the masses from having too much of a direct voice as they couldn't be "trusted." Electoral college to override a "bad" popular vote (not that most states did popular votes), senators not chosen by direct election, etc.

edit: Not to mention the US had an actual horrible bloody civil war fought by forcefully drafted soldiers due to conflicts over government processes. Truly a staller example of democratic decision making right there.

The democratic situation was wayyy better than it is now.

You did not refute the original point. You've only managed to muddy the discussion with irrelevance and noise.

There was no argument but a baseless statement and I replied likewise. It's on the original person to make a coherent argument with facts and not for everyone else to do their legwork.

They should have the right to put their proposal to a vote and make their case, and the did, and they won. This was a democratic vote by the citizens of California. And if it were a democratic vote by the Uber drivers, it also would have won.

I think you missed the point. Companies are not citizens therefore, op argued, as non citizens they should not have a voice in election outcomes. It’s a fair point, as a comparison we don’t allow visa holders to vote.

I also suspect the citizens were influenced in their opinions by all the money spent to ‘educate’ the electorate. Somehow it feels wrong to allow a corporation to pay to set school curriculums, but when it comes to corporations paying to set policy that’s entirely ok.

The ACLU and unions aren’t citizens either, should we ban them from participating?

If we want to ban Corps then absolutely.

Paying officials to set policy is wrong. Spending money to make your case, convince people that you are right, and advocate that they support your political position is a fundamental right in a democracy.

Freedom of the press guarantees the right for citizens to be able to publish as they please, and the owners and management of Uber are citizens as much as anyone else.

The problem isn't with the owners and managers spending money it's the company itself. c.f. Citizens United.

FOX/CNN/MSNBC spend millions on influencing politics every day. That's freedom of the press. Uber has the same rights.

> Uber and Lyft are not people and shouldn’t have been permitted to spend $1 on this campaign nor towards the campaign of any politician

The arrogance of California's elite this topic exposed is breathtaking. The only way for the other side to have won is because they were brainwashed. The only legitimate vote, or survey among those whose lives we're debating, is the one that sides with the enlightened minority.

Uber and Lyft are groups of people.

The US Army is a group of people, too.

My brother and I are both Uber drivers. and i am totaling fighting him at the dinner table cuz….

for me, being contractor brings me so much needed things likeflexible hours and able to get surge extra pay, and write off things, so just no other way.

But brother really wanted full time hours w/ health insurance and most importantly if injured or let go, he gets compensation and unemployment. TO EaCH his own!!!

Maybe it's different where you are but I'm not aware of any restrictions on the flexibility of working hours or pay when you're classified as an employee.

The substantial difference is you'd accrue holiday pay pro-rata and be able to take statutory sick leave.

Employees in Europe have to have fixed amount of hours in predictable schedule. There's no way it could be the same. It definitely would outclass many workers who would like to earn side income.

But their pay directly scales with the amount being charged to the customer. Let's say that I am a driver classified as an employee. I give a one hour ride at 8PM and the customer is charged $100 - I will make my hourly wage (let's say $18). Now, let's say I give that same ride at 8AM during rush hour. Uber surge is 3x and the customer is charged $300 - I still make $18 for that trip.

Uber and Lyft drivers now pay a percentage back to the platform but their profit or loss is directly tied to customer payment amounts.

Now let's say that the pay structure isn't a flat dollars for hours.

It's entirely possible to have a base of $18/hr with a commission based on the value of the ride once it's over a certain amount. Lots of places do similar things.

What does this mean for the average Uber or Lyft driver? How does their quality of life or employment change as a result, generally? I'm not well-acquainted with this kind of stuff.

Used to be a Lyft driver:. By changing status, it would be possible for Lyft/Uber to restrict drivers from being on the other platform simultaneously. This means probably a takehome drop of 20~30%.

The truly egregious one though is FedEx/Amazon drivers, who (IIRC) are "contractors" and forced to use branded vehicles, wear uniforms, and have their driving monitored like crazy. They are definitely employees, and are ruining it for Lyft drivers.

Yuck, that all sounds terrible!

Hope eventually it’ll be it’s own category. Contractors are not generally incentivized by UX patterns, gamification and bonus systems to work more.

Navigating the bureaucracy of a corporation as a consultant certainly seems like gamification

Good for the drivers, good for the customers, good for Uber, bad for the heavily entrenched taxi industries.

Ah yes, clearly the very local and independent (from each other) taxi companies were the big evil corporations instead of (checks notes) the giant multinational funded by literal blood money from oil barons that openly flouted laws and had an internal team dedicated to writing systems to mislead law enforcement.

Isn't this debate largely a false dilemma?

Its obvious to me that an additional category is prudent, or that people besides employees should have access to subsidized health care premiums and some form of paid sick leave. that doesnt have to come from the employer and that doesnt have to mean that worker flexibility is curbed.

contractors can already do retirement benefits plans such as the 401k plan, running your own is far more flexible than an employee’s version

its lazy to “solve” these gaps by reclassifying workers as employees

it is also ridiculous that only giant corporations can lobby the people to get its own exemption passed to restore contractor status, other groups should have this power too. maybe an agency could put up comment periods for specific industries, removing this need from the legislature or proposition process

round hole, square peg

>or that people besides employees should have access to subsidized health care premiums and some form of paid sick leave.

Or perhaps there should be a national health insurance that all citizens could have by default?

Oh wait, this is the United States, so that'll never happen.

The UK has a “worker” [0] classification between employee and true independent contractor. It provides protections like minimum wage and time off while preserving freedom about when and how someone works. It seems like it would fit this case well, but I doubt it will ever happen. Unions are the major force pushing for gig workers to be classified as employees because they’d be able to unionize.

[0] https://www.gov.uk/employment-status/worker

I initially found the choice of the word "worker" in the headline curious but with this context it makes sense coming from the BBC. Thanks.

> Unions are the major force pushing for gig workers to be classified as employees because they’d be able to unionize.

What stops them unionising?

NRLB doesn't offer a clear way for contractors to unionize. By clear way, it might be "no way".

Contractors can form a company and negotiate with other companies as a group. Happens all the time.

This can be a form collusion that runs into anti trust law. There’s even a court case about this involving public defenders who were hired as independent contractors being unable to unionize for this reason.

The UK also has some of the poorest workers and working conditions when compared to neighbouring peer countries.

The worker classification has resulted in a situation of extreme precarity for millions of people by explicitly creating a class of employee that do not enjoy the same rights as those who are financially/socially better off than them. Consider the following:

> Workers usually are not entitled to:

> minimum notice periods if their employment will be ending, for example if an employer is dismissing them

> protection against unfair dismissal

> the right to request flexible working

> time off for emergencies

> Statutory Redundancy Pay

Frankly, this describes an employment class that outright refuses to acknowledge the humanity of those categorised under it. A closer look at the context of "time off for emergencies" exemplifies this. Compared with an "employee", a person classified as a worker is not legally entitled to leave work to:

- Attend the birth of their child. - Respond to their partner being assaulted or mugged. - Care for their child should their school close. - Maternity/Paternity leave (They are still entitled to Maternity/Paternity pay however).

Consider also that many of the protections workers are supposed to enjoy are simply not enforced and that the people who fall under the category are unlikely to have the financial means, free time, or information to bring a legal challenge should their rights be violated.

Given how obviously the classification erodes employment protections, I really don't think there lies a justification for the creation of this underclass other than it being profitable for those with money.

> maybe an agency could put up comment periods for specific industries

The problem is there is no agency with a financial incentive to support the individual drivers. The drivers don’t earn enough on their own to create meaningful representation. If the drivers somehow were able to pool their resources under some sort of a guild then they might. But that will take a lot of organizing and someone with resources that can stop driving to spend time organizing.

And therein is the problem. We have a large labor pool that is not protected by employment law and is easily exploited through low pay rates. So how is a driver supposed to find money to fund their own 401k plans when they are barely covering their costs?

> no agency with a financial incentive to support the individual drivers

There is a massive political operation trying to represent drivers. They just didn't bother asking the drivers what they want, they made assumptions for them. That's why we have this multi-year string of bills, propositions and lawsuits.

Do you have any sources, after a quick google I wasn't able to find much on lobbying that is done onbehalf of drivers.

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