
Uber and Lyft drivers are employees, California regulatory agency finds - aspenmayer
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/uber-lyft-drivers-are-employees-california-regulatory-agency-finds-n1229616
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aeternum
This seems like a step in the wrong direction.

Uber/Lyft and the rest of the gig economy have helped to improve the
'liquidity' of jobs. This is generally a positive for society as it allows for
more rapid wage price discovery.

Government policies have continually eroded this liquidity. For example a tax
subsidy for employer-provided health insurance may sound like a benefit, but
for many it raises the barrier to switching jobs. The new company may not
offer the same insurance thereby not allowing you to keep your doctor.
Companies know that these barriers exist and it allows them to underpay
employees.

The other problem is by tying all of these benefits to gainful employment, we
make losing a job an unrecoverable event for too many. Not only does someone
now have the stress of finding a new job, but they also lose health insurance,
disability, retirement benefits, etc. We should be adopting policies that make
it easier for people to switch jobs, not harder.

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Traster
I think this is actually a step in the wrong direction that is likely to
result in us going in the right direction faster. The core of the problem we
have is that there are a bunch of new jobs known as "gig economy" jobs and
they don't neatly fit into the traditional idea of a 9-5 job.

The result is that currently you basically fall either into "Yes 9-5 job,
employee protections, healthcare, regulation etc" or "Not an employee, no
protections, no unemployment insurance etc.". The thing is, when these jobs
were considered like the latter case, they worked great for gig economy
companies since it makes their workforce weak, and gives the companies as much
leverage as they could possibly want and shifts liabilities off their balance
sheets. The problem is that it's very difficult to get that regulatory scheme
changed by workers, because that's not who has power in this system.

Now that workers are in the "employee" camp we've now got a bunch of highly
motivated companies that are going to lobby for reform, and if we're careful
to do it right, we could actually see the reforms that should have been made
earlier anyway where there's no longer this massive chasm around the term
"employee".

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jahaja
The reason that these kind of jobs exists in the first place is not some
inherent sudden demand for them by modern society. It's because this form was
required to create the plausible deniability that the drivers were not
employees and thus much cheaper labour. This is the entire USP of the gig-
economy, lower labour costs. Don't get fooled by a shiny app.

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btechdog
I deliver for Doordash and Grubhub. I don’t accept every offer that comes to
me, I keep both apps open and I wait for an offer that I know I can profit
from. If I were an employee, I’d likely be obligated to take every job offer
and get my guaranteed minimum of say, $12 an hour. But as independent
contractor, I can make $20 an hour. Isn’t the best, but I make more than
McDonalds and I don’t want to chain myself down somewhere while I look for an
actual internship/job in my field (halfway through a computer engineering
degree). It gets me through college and I take more ownership in the job than
if I was just some employee at chumbawumba cheap labor Corp. Only benefit I
would wish for in my case is some sort of car insurance offer given a minimum
delivery quota and discounted maintenance plan (oil changes, etc.) as it’s
directly relevant to the type of work.

~~~
jahaja
wtf, a propaganda post from a brand new account?

------
specialist
No one talks about the cars.

200k drivers. $25k for the kit (car, phone, misc). That's $5,000,000,000 of
costs Uber & Lyft ducked.

What other employment requires you to front the boss $25k for the privilege of
earning starvation wages?

 _For years, both Lyft and Uber have said that if they are forced to
reclassify gig workers as employees that such a change would have an adverse
effect on their profitability..._

No doubt.

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prostoalex
How does it work with taxi drivers? Don't they front the cost of the vehicle +
medallion?

~~~
tschwimmer
Commonly they rent the car. If you own the car and medallion, you’re sort of a
business unto yourself.

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say_it_as_it_is
Government is expanding the scope of definitions used for regulation until
everything fits. "Regulation creep risk" must be accounted for by investors
and entrepreneurs seriously considering chasing their dreams.

Even if you are technically correct that your startup isn't within guidelines,
you'll need hundreds of thousands (millions?) of dollars of budget to fight a
neverending series of lawsuits.

Transportation industry is but only one example.

