
Seattle Considers Measure to Let Uber and Lyft Drivers Unionize - deegles
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/14/technology/seattle-considers-measure-to-let-uber-and-lyft-drivers-unionize.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0
======
ThomPete
My families economic downturn which ended up with us having to put our house
on foreclosure and my dad having to declare personally bankrupt was based on
something very similar.

My dad was driving for a European logistics company. The drivers were
contractors and had to deal with all the expenses themselves just like Uber
drivers.

My dad and another guy were spokespeople for all these drivers and when they
tried to organize voluntarily to get better conditions the company simply
released my dad and the other guy from their contracts.

Long story short my dad only recently got out of his personal bankruptcy after
more than 20 years of dealing with the consequences of him trying to stand up
for his co-contractors.

So if you ask why do we sometimes need protect this right by the law. This is
why.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
Would your dad have continued to have gainful employment, had he not tried to
organize the drivers?

If so, it sounds as though it was his own actions that led to his financial
predicament.

The other question that crossed my mind is, was he unable to find another job
as a driver anywhere in Europe or the U.S. (wherever he was based)? It seems
as though there has been a continuing shortage of long haul drivers in the
U.S. at least. As far back as I can remember, about every other 18-wheeler I
see has had a "drivers needed" sign prominently displayed.

~~~
LukeG
It sounds like you're suggesting that his father deserved to be fired for
attempting to support unionization. You can advocate for whatever you like,
but understand that this position is in opposition to generations of workers-
rights efforts.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
No, I don't think he deserved to be fired, but his actions did precipitate his
getting fired.

------
jngreenlee
This is going to lead to messy public arguments, at least in part driven by
existing cab drivers that will be seeking rents from the successful upstarts.

I think this tactic was used before in other historically disrupted
industries...the incumbents would push for unionization to keep inefficient
players on life support, at the cost of the upstarts.

Note I'm not opposed to people's freedom to unionize. In fact, it should not
take an act of government to "permit it", and people should do it if they
want. It's just the unintended consequences and manipulation of the move to
unionize that are interesting.

~~~
RickHull
> Note I'm not opposed to people's freedom to unionize. In fact, it should not
> take an act of government to "permit it", and people should do it if they
> want.

Everyone has the right to organize a voluntary union. What requires special
legislated privilege are things like collective bargaining, which is not a
normal component or outcome of voluntary negotiations.

Modern unions in the United States enjoy many legal privileges that were
specifically lobbied for. It's this type of privileged union which is being
argued for, not a mere voluntary association under an impartial legal regime.

~~~
gburt
Can you share some of the arguments in favor of involuntary unions? (I'm even
willing to invest some time digging if anyone has some pointers to potential
sources of literature, I am genuinely interested.)

My personal experience has been that when I've been the so-called
"beneficiary" of one, it has not actually benefited me and has often made for
awkward scenarios where there is me and the counterparty ("employer") and this
weird semi-interested third-party regulating how we can interact, regardless
of what is actually in my self-interest.

Just to be clear, I am all for collective bargaining in the sense of a bunch
of (small) actors choosing to work together against an adversary. I would do
this myself if I deemed it beneficial. I don't understand why we would mandate
that individuals had to be bound by the agreement whether they want to
participate or not. I recognize that this is a common structure though.

~~~
latj
What you are describing is what existed before what we have now. A group of
people working for an employer would try to negotiate for safer working
conditions, better benefits, etc. The employer would take the list of demands,
fire the person who handed him the list and say, "I'm not giving you any of
this shit and anyone who talks about it again gets fired too."

So people started organizing by trade. It made sense because workers of a
common trade share experiences and grievances. If one particular employer
treated its workers bad, that trade guild had more leverage by threatening
work stoppage against other employers who could put pressure on the first
employer.

Over time employers started to converge and grow in power. Now you have a
company who employs thousands of people in multiple locations. To keep the
balance in power, the unions converged and grew in power. You cant threaten to
replace a union worker if everyone who does that job is in the union(1).

Now the unions are big enough to disrupt economies, sway elections, etc. They
are large professional entities of lawyers, financial managers. They want
everyone in the union for maximal leverage (ie fewer scabs, more dues) so they
lobbied to affect the policies we have today.

The small voluntary no-admin-overhead organization you are describing is
ideal, but its really unlikely to work. It would depend on the employer
allowing it to happen.

I could say more here about the growing wealth gap, criminalization of
poverty, and the quiet ongoing class war, and end with a Malcom X quote,
"Anytime you depend on your enemy for a job you're in bad shape." But I dont
feel like saying all that. ;)

1\. robots

~~~
JoshTriplett
> You cant threaten to replace a union worker if everyone who does that job is
> in the union

If an employer did something like that, the FTC would go after them for
abusing a monopoly to dictate pricing, for anti-competitive practices (e.g.
contracts that prevent doing business with competitors), etc. But somehow it's
OK for unions to do that?

~~~
__jal
Maybe.

A very short answer is that there are many differences between capital and
labor. (It is even right there on the tin - we don't call our system
"laborism", and a few actual words related to that meaning are popularly
demonized in the U.S.)

Sure, sure, corporations are people ("my friend"), but most humans still see a
difference between John calling in sick because he didn't like seeing his pal
Bob fired and things like redlining, oligopoly partitioning, etc.

It has to do with power dynamics, and this is well recognized in law. (One
example is that contracts between parties of disparate power are generally
interpreted in the light most beneficial to the least powerful. For more
extreme cases, look up the legal sense of the word "adhesion".)

And recall that capital always has options.

\- Happy employees tend not to unionize. Many places normally considered to be
natural homes for unions don't have them because management doesn't give them
a reason to need one.

\- If capital or management decides those proles are too uppity, it can close
shop. (Labor also has this option, but that's called 'suicide' and considered
in a rather different light.) Walmart did this a while back when (IIRC) their
butchers successfully beat them and unionized; Walmart got out of the meat
cutting business.

\- Outsource. Amazon has a pile of circuit-breaker corporations that supply
them backs and hands. Those corporations (really, binders on a Delaware shelf
and bank accounts) take the heat from lawsuits when the backs break and the
hands are smashed by robots. This use of non-human shields works surprisingly
well in some circumstances, but the tight coupling with the mothership needed
by app-driven job direction would make it look pretty strange if they set up
shell companies to supply "workers", so that one may not work for Uber.

(update: fixed my goofy formatting.)

------
ksenzee
The Uber policy executive says the proposed Seattle law is “generally believed
to be flatly illegal”, eh? I wonder when Uber acquired this sudden respect for
the law.

~~~
outside1234
When they are the ones whose business model is being disrupted...

------
blisterpeanuts
The irony of this situation is that Uber and Lyft would probably never have
gotten this big, had they hired only full time employees with benefits.

Their business model works. That's why they're bigger than GM now. And that's
why suddenly they're being perceived as unfair and exploitative.

In the Western social democratic system that more or less pervades the old
industrial nations of Western Europe and the U.S., financial success is an
invitation to lawsuits, unionization, and government fines.

The unionization is couched as a class warfare thing -- the management/owners
are making big bucks and we workers are making peanuts -- but in reality, it's
all about fighting for a piece of the pie.

The Teamsters rep in Oakland summed it all up: even though Uber's buying a big
building there and employing 2,000 to 3,000 people, it's time to unionize and
make them "give back".

I just hope that Seattle and California don't set a national trend, or this
may be the beginning of the end for the sharing economy, just as manufacturing
ended, and just as outsourcing has hollowed out the computer programming field
and other domestic professions. What will there be left for Americans to do,
if we keep shooting down every innovative business model like this?

~~~
biocomputation
So you think some people should be able to form a business like Uber or Lyft,
but you don't think other people, such as their contractors, should be able to
form their own business for the purpose of negotiating collectively?

Because that's all a union is: it's a business. Laws are only required
because, as history shows, wealthy business owners want/wanted a completely,
and in many cases, illegally, tilted playing field.

Unions are a significant part of the reason that there's a middle class at
all.

~~~
blisterpeanuts
They can try to form a syndicate to force higher rates from Uber. But Uber can
just hire different people, problem solved. Clearly there are hundreds of
thousands of people willing to drive for Uber. Supply and demand.

I'd be much more sympathetic to a group of drivers who say, we've had it with
these low Uber/Lyft rates. Let's form our own ride company, pay ourselves
more, and compete with Uber. Get someone to write apps, create websites, do
advertising, etc., and then get out there and compete.

That's what makes the wheels of the economy turn around, my friend:
competition. Unionizing is like hermetically sealing a container so that
nothing gets in, and nothing gets out. A static system that cannot change.

But competition opens new doors, admits new ideas, and who knows? Maybe higher
rates for drivers proves to be a competitive advantage and their new company
will do very well, forcing Uber and others to raise their own rates.

If higher driver rates are a good thing, then the smart businesses will do it,
and succeed. Right?

------
lvspiff
I've never understood how Uber/Lyft gets away with calling drivers independent
contractors. If they were independent contractors shouldn't each driver be
able to set their own rate and then the company factor in their cut? The model
right now seems more like the taxi companies - You drive for uber/lyft you
play by their rules/rates - thats not much of a freelance model.

~~~
prostoalex
Ability to set rates does not define the employer-employee relationship.
Uber/Lyft are lead generators to driver's (highly successful and thriving)
transportation business. Every once in a while they will present a new
customer willing to pay a certain rate, the driver can accept or reject that
request.

If the driver is too busy serving other (higher-paying) customers acquired via
other channels, they can sign off from Uber/Lyft with no repercussions.

In that sense they don't differ much from lead generators for other businesses
(plumbers, roofers, landmowers).

~~~
ThomPete
Lead generators to drivers?

Why can they then decide which car you should buy? Why aren't you allowed to
hire sub-contractors? Why can't the driver just set their own price?

If they where just lead generators then uber would take a cut of whatever
price the drivers decided to take for their ride but the actual price
negotiation would be between the driver and the customer.

So not it's unfortunately not that simple.

~~~
baddox
> Why can they then decide which car you should buy? Why aren't you allowed to
> hire sub-contractors? Why can't the driver just set their own price?

Any lead generator can choose who they deliver leads to, right? Uber can't
literally force any individual to buy a certain type car, but they can choose
to not do business with people unless they have a certain type of car.

~~~
ThomPete
Which makes them more than simply a lead generator. Add to that some of the
other things and it's obvious that it's anything but a simple lead generator.
For examples why should they care if I hire subcontractors?

~~~
swyman
Sorry to just jump in here, but I'm not getting why not allowing
subcontractors matters. Isn't that still under the "lead generators can pick
the terms they offer" umbrella?

Have a reasonably decent car, do the job yourself, maintain a certain level of
customer satisfaction. These all seem like relatively reasonable terms under
which to offer contract work.

~~~
ThomPete
I don't know of that umbrella that is. Got any examples?

------
eloff
Does anybody else think that unions are really labor side price fixing, and
not much different to companies conspiring to fix prices, or the recent tech
companies conspiracy to not poach each other's employees (a form of wage
fixing, but on the side of capital.) It seems hypocritical to support one and
be against the other.

On a less theoretical note, looking at stagnant wages over the last couple
decades, it seems clear that between capital and labor, capital seems to hold
more bargaining power. So something is needed to tip the power balance towards
labor. Whether that's unions or something else, I have no idea.

~~~
moheeb
" _Does anybody else think that unions are really labor side price fixing_ "

I don't think that, at least not in all cases. I've worked in some pretty
crappy places that thankfully had unions in place to protect the workers'
rights and safety.

~~~
eloff
It's a good point that unions are about more than just getting higher wages.

------
shawnee_
The root cause of the need to unionize is a constant: unfair allocation of
profit/dividends, equity, benefits, perks, etc. AKA entitlements the
executives / managers / office people feel entitled to as office people. They
somehow rationalize it's okay to deny the people doing the actual grudge work
these things. Not to mention: it's easier to deny hazard pay for hazard work
when you can convince people they're not your "employees". They're just happy
little contractors doing this kind of work for "fun".

Also: it'll be interesting to see how insurance companies start coping with
drivers who earn from Uber / Lyft.

~~~
tomcam
Very, very dangerous things happen when you allow the state to determine what
fair means to whom.

------
dustingetz
Uber operates at global scale, will they just exit seattle market?

~~~
darkstar999
I imagine that they wouldn't want to set that precedent. Uber is very
aggressive. They will fight this tooth and nail.

~~~
__jal
Or allocate more towards pushing lobbying, technical and business efforts on
self-driving cars harder.

I don't have anywhere near the expertise to guess at how long the legislative
meat-grinder for self-driving cars will take to hammer out, but an amoral
minimax might be to just double down on firing all the drivers, and let them
have a few more shekels for a couple years. But they have the money to walk
and chew worker-bees, so we'll probably see both.

( This is getting further afield, but. Do we even have a semi-reasonable
comparison for a bundle of legal and societal changes involved in self-driving
transport? I can't think of one outside of the original introduction of cars.
And on the legal side, that was mostly new law, not revising the assumption of
human action across criminal, tort, insurance and whatever other categories.
The analogous social changes - at first, demonizing pedestrians to get them
off streets; later, suburbs, the propaganda tying the car to U.S. American
notions of freedom, towns becoming dependent on violations for income, etc. -
are somewhat harder to make bets about, but more interesting.

There certainly have been bigger changes (I'm guessing, of course, but I don't
see auto-autos as a bigger deal than agriculture), but I don't know that legal
codes were as complex then, and I know we don't have extensive records on the
changes. The social upheaval of ag was worthy of the name 'singularity', which
I really don't see self-driving cars as matching.)

------
sandworm101
So the disrupter is to be disrupted?

Really. I cannot help but laugh when the upstart flashing new company finds
itself as the new oppressor fighting to protect their employees from the evil
that is collective bargaining.

Congratulations Uber. You're now Macdonalds.

------
sebringj
I thought customer ratings helped with that, meaning, if someone has a cheap
ass car, is sloppily dressed, is rude and smells, they'll probably be ubered
out of a job. The opposite case usually means they have some decent income.
Meaning, Uber won't stand up if it doesn't have good service, meaning good
employees which kind of works itself out in a self-rating community, no? This
isn't the days of old where a corporation can mask treatment of its workers
and they must outcry and protest or is it? I'm not an Uber driver but just
thinking out loud.

------
wehadfun
Why would a law have to be passed for the drivers to organize?

~~~
dheera
What part of a "union" can possibly be made illegal in the first place? It
seems to me that freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are sufficient
conditions to implicitly allow freedom of unions, since a union is really just
a bunch of people assembling and speaking to each other of their own accord.

~~~
pc86
1A: "Congress shall make no law..."[0]

The First Amendment just says that Congress can't do it, not that a private
company you're not being forced to work for can't.

To that point, you can be fired for attempting to unionize in certain
circumstances. Seattle is just trying to explicitly extend that protection to
contractors.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#F...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#First_Amendment)

~~~
dheera
I see. This is a helpful explanation. Thanks!

------
macu
Feels like we can imagine how we'll define the future:

Government and industry will react in ways we understand to initiatives of our
own. They'll be quick to allow any motions that will limit the growth and
power of our new companies. We should maximize on this.

------
gertef
Here's a quick primer on unions in the US. [https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-
protect/employerunion-rights-...](https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-
protect/employerunion-rights-and-obligations)

------
LordHumungous
>David Plouffe, the Uber policy executive and former Obama campaign manager,
said at an event in Seattle this year that the proposed law was “generally
believed to be flatly illegal.”

Sad to see that Plouffe has sold his soul to corporate America. I wonder what
his former boss would think.

------
outlace
Well once self-driving cars take over none of this will matter

~~~
vkou
Uber will never be interested in taking on the capex of owning a full fleet of
self-driving cars.

~~~
intopieces
Sure, but perhaps they'll do what Lyft has done: partner with a company that
already owns a fleet of vehicles [0].

[0][http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/09/ride-hailing-company-lyft-
par...](http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/09/ride-hailing-company-lyft-partners-
with-hertz-shell-to-gain-edge-over-uber.html)

------
mrfusion
What currently stops them from unionizing? (I hope it's not a dumb question)

------
nostromo
I wonder if this will lead to other groups asking for this ability.

Take farmers, for example. Maybe they could lobby for a waiver for collective
price-fixing. Or hair stylists, or truck drivers, or gardeners...

~~~
toomuchtodo
> or truck drivers

I assume you've never heard of the Teamsters union?

~~~
nostromo
A quick Google search says that only 5% of truck drivers are unionized.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Your comment asked if other industries might unionize. I simply pointed out
there's an existing union for truck drivers, not its membership level.

~~~
nostromo
Sure, makes sense.

My point is more about price-fixing though. Obviously a union that represents
100% of Seattle cabbies will have a lot more power to set prices than 5% of
truck drivers.

I suppose it will come down to the language of the Seattle law -- the article
isn't clear if this is an optional-membership union or not. I presume it's not
optional, because otherwise it would be very easy for Uber and Lyft to
sidestep.

~~~
ncallaway
The full text of the proposed bill is here:
[http://seattle.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Text&GID=3...](http://seattle.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Text&GID=393&ID=2296991&GUID=A1841B13-CF4F-4E5A-9409-A613DC6B2B15&Title=Legislation+Text)

Each "driver coordinator" (e.g. Uber and Lyft) will have one union entity that
is certified to enter negotiations with the driver coordinator — as chosen by
the majority of drivers who choose to participate in the process.

As far as I can tell, the law doesn't require drivers to enter the union but
it doesn't prohibit such an agreement:

> 1\. Nothing in this Section 6.310.735 shall preclude a driver coordinator
> from making an agreement with the EDR to require membership of for-hire
> drivers in the EDR’s entity/organization as a condition of being hired,
> contracted with, or partnered with by the driver coordinator to provide for-
> hire services to the public

The main thing the law does is prevent the driver coordinators from punishing
specific individuals from participating in the process. This is a critical
factor that is necessary for any real union to take off — otherwise Uber can
simply fire anyone who expresses any desire to unionize and prevent the union
entity from attaining any critical mass.

> A driver coordinator shall not retaliate against any for-hire driver for
> exercising the right to participate in the representative process provided
> by this Section 6.310.735. It shall be a violation for a driver coordinator
> or its agent, designee, employee, or any person or group of persons acting
> directly or indirectly in the interest of the driver coordinator in relation
> to the for-hire driver to:

> 1\. Interfere with, restrain, or deny the exercise of, or the attempt to
> exercise, any right protected under this Section 6.310.735; or

> 2\. Take adverse action, including but not limited to threatening,
> harassing, penalizing, or in any other manner discriminating or retaliating
> against a driver because the driver has exercised the rights protected under
> this Section 6.310.735.

