A comparable example is Google Play or the Apple store. They take a cut of your pay by connecting you to customers but they don't call you an employee. Where is the uproar there?
In Uber's case, and AFAIK, the drivers don't have any of that. They just have to take a course, and then they can just take any job they want, when they want, without fixed hours or even fixed days per week.
To me, they sound more like freelancers than employees.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permatemp#Vizcaino_v._Microsoft
This happens all of the time. Large US companies sometimes only hire contractors that have employee status with some other firm to protect themselves.
In the standard test to determine whether an person is an employee, they look at things like who supplies the equipment, who sets the hours, whether it possible for the contractor to have a loss -- most critically in the Uber case, you are more likely to be classified an employee if you do the work that is the purpose of the company.
What that means is that if I clean the offices, I can be a contractor because the purpose of the company might be to make and sell widgets. If I am on the factory floor making the widgets, then the labor dept. frowns on a contractor classification.
These are all just guidelines -- the labor dept or a judge will make the call, but US tax laws incent them to prefer employee status.
(IANAL, but I have served on an employment board, overseeing a US Labor dept regional office)
when did social responsibility go out the window? to me, this isn't a profitable business if they have to claim responsibility for the people they are putting in risk to make a buck. yet, they do it anyone and pass the cost on to the tax payer and no on seems to mind.