Comment by aresant | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aresant | Hacker News Reader

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This story obviously becomes a proxy for "what to do with uber / sharing economy employees" given the recent labor commission ruling in the favor of a plantiff (1)

I think that the current "one size fits all" thinking is wrong here.

If you look at the actual hour distribution of drivers, self published by Uber (2), you'll see data emerge that is backed up by my personal interactions with uber / lyft / etc drivers:

Category One - Probably Contractors - In my experience a large percentage of drivers are using uber as a stop-gap for other income. Or they are retired. Or are small biz owners etc. They are happy to use uber to pay for weekend gas, insurance, whatever. They work when they want, how they want.

Category Two - Probably Part Time Employees - Drivers that have another part-time job, and use uber as the other "half" of their income. The measure for a "part time employee" is quantified as 1 - 34 hours. But I'd say the more fair measure is 20 hrs.

Category Three - Probably Full Time Employees - Drivers that are working in excess of 40 hours and provide HUGE benefit to uber by being always on, more "professional", and are the backbone to their service model. It also seems like just a sound biz strategy to wrap up your MVPs as employees

When I compare these observations to the data they released last Dec it seems to support those general categories.

And probably each of those levels needs different protections and categorizations in the sharing-economy.

-=

(1) http://recode.net/2015/06/17/uber-drivers-are-employees-not-...

(2) http://newsroom.uber.com/nyc/2014/12/what-does-a-typical-new...

(3) http://www.paychex.com/articles/employee-benefits/5-things-a...

Companies should provide an option.

Let's SWOT this thing.

1099 contractor:

* gets paid per ride

* road wear, maintenance and mileage is tax-deductible

* number of working hours is not capped

* open schedule

* specific geography (mainly airport, mainly residential, mainly events) is up to the contractor

Employee:

* gets paid a set rate per hour

* no car expense is tax-deductible

* number of working hours is capped at 30

* schedule is set by employer

* potential pickup destinations are now more controlled by employer, the app could now demand an employee be at a certain place at a certain time (large sporting event ended, busy hour at the airport, surge in demand in some areas).

The way I see it employee status would be beneficial for some, and contractor status for others. Common assumption in such debate, since that one California driver sued Uber, is that everybody wants to be an employee, meanwhile my UberX conversations with drivers regarding their backgrounds suggest that's not the case, with ability to set their own hours being the key.

Why must an employee get a set hourly rate?

Car expenses are deductible if they are non-commute miles that are required for employment and that are not reimbursed by the employer.

30 hour / week cap? Uh, where?

Why must employer set schedule?

They don't have to, yet if they don't, they open themselves to larger liabilities (30 hour/week requirement alone will land them into buying medical benefits).

Thanks for the correction on mileage deduction, I looked into this, and it turns out mileage is not deductible if the vehicle is being used "for hire" http://www.irs.gov/uac/Car-and-Truck-Expense-Deduction-Remin... But that covers both scenarios (1099 or W-2), which makes it a non-point.

> Why must employer set schedule?

I believe that follows from the Uber argument that cheaper prices increase the usage of the service (and hence surge pricing is beneficial to neither consumer nor Uber). Previously lack of supply was only correctable via surge pricing (which would bring more potential drivers on the road), but now a second corrective mechanism opens up - requiring certain number of vehicles to be present at certain location at certain time.

Other companies do the 30/hr/wk thing because of benefit payouts.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obamacare-mandate-anyone-who...

Interesting, I've had the opposite experience. Most of the Lyft / Uber drivers I've met work MORE than 40 hours a week and are utilizing it for their full time employment. I found out though that I believe for Lyft, if you work more than x hours, they take a smaller cut of your earnings.

Uber also does this now, where they take a lower commission to encourage driving more hours.

Not sure how many hours truckers are allowed to drive, but in a city you have way more things that can go wrong. People should not be allowed to drive past their limits.

There are many more things that can go wrong, but you're driving a much smaller vehicle at much lower speeds so the odds of surviving an accident will be a lot higher.

That said, I still agree with you that rest ought to be enforced just as it is for truckers.

Agree; I've had a driver dressed in a suit driving a brand-new blacked-out Tahoe (obviously a professional driver), and a college kid in a sweatshirt driving a Corolla talking about spring break. One-size-fits-all doesn't make sense.

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