
Uber seeks $7.75M settlement in California labor code class action - rayuela
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-02/uber-to-pay-7-75-million-to-settle-california-drivers-suit
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scotty79
> Under the 2004 law, the state keeps 75 percent of any penalties won.
> Attorneys for employers have nicknamed it the “bounty hunter” and “sue your
> boss” law because of the remaining 25 percent is a reward for the workers
> who bring the case.

USA has strange habit of attaching money to justice. It comes up with various
schemes of making money while exacting justice and gets all surprised while
justice becomes way less just in the process.

In european countries fine is for punishing the offender. Victim might get
some help but one is not usually directly connected to the other.

I feel that those money making schemes prevent from introducing better
solutions because they work to some degree and the damage they do is not
visible till later where it is already huge.

~~~
beaconstudios
fines aren't a great way to enforce justice either in my opinion, because they
incentivise finding perpetrators where there aren't any, and being heavy-
handed with enforcement of the law in order to bring additional funds into the
courts and police departments.

~~~
kakarot
I say we just tie people up and beat them with a cucumber until they say
they're sorry

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frankydp
It is a curious dichotomy that the IP story of the week awarded $500mil in
damages to a Corp, and this labor story effecting "1.6mil" workers is looking
to settle for $7.5mil($1.7mil flagged). Assuming the class identification to
be true, you would think that a wrongly classified worker would have incurred
at least $100 in negatives, even if you only totaled up potential unemployment
it would be more for than this amount for that subgroup.

The gig economy is a wild alternate reality in my mind, where we travel back
to a pre OSHA/DOL period in worker relations.

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beejiu
> The claims by Steven Price, who sought to represent as many as 1.6 million
> California drivers in a class action, were brought under the state’s Private
> Attorneys General Act

From a quick Google, the population of California is 38.8 million. I would be
very surprised if 4% of the population worked for Uber.

~~~
hfsktr
It would make a little more sense if you think of this going back a few years.

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studentrob
> Uber Technologies Inc. is offering its drivers an average of about a dollar
> apiece to dispose of alleged labor code violations that their own lawyer
> said might be worth billions

Wow, now that is cheap.

~~~
sleepychu
Wait, what? Uber's lawyer said they were worth billions?

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muse900
Can someone enlighten me, what are the full working rights in the US opposed
to contractors rights?

I think we had the same issue in the UK, when uber drivers wanted to be
classified as full time workers. Although they do work as contractors e.g no
fixed timeschedule, money directly in their pockets them doing their own tax
etc.

Most uber drivers I talked to in London mention, that they love working
whenever they want without restrictions. Well that comes with the price of not
being classified as fully employed (at least for now).

~~~
sleepychu
IANAL in the UK we have laws that protect people who are really employees but
are classed as independent contractors (this also protects HMRC from bogus
work arrangements to dodge tax, see IR35) if you really see Uber as offering
that flexibility, that's great! If you're working 40 hours a week, every week
for uber, you're an employee.

~~~
beaconstudios
that might sound great, but what about people who want to accept the trade-off
that being a contractor provides? You waive your employee rights (and take up
a B2B contract instead) in exchange for receiving a much larger share of your
total cost of employment.

It's not like HMRC misses out on tax under this arrangement, as the
contractor's business pays employer taxes (plus any corp tax from cap gains)
and the contractor pays their employee taxes.

~~~
bkor
It is to protect the majority of the people. I've seen a lot of cases in the
news where people are forced to change into a contracting role.

A lot of these 'share' companies often don't do anything to inform the tax
authority what work these contractors did for them, thereby making tax evasion
way too easy.

If you're a contractor you really need to know what you're doing. Meaning: a
lot of things you'll need to budget for because it is your responsibility. If
a lot of people don't grasp that, then the problem becomes a government
problem.

I'm an employee and have pretty flexible working times. I don't see why I'd
ever want to be a contractor where as only benefit you have more flexible
working hours. That's not a change!

~~~
beaconstudios
I am a contractor, and I find a lot of benefit in working under this paradigm.
I think the idea that the government should protect people from their own
choices is quite an unpleasant one, as someone can always switch from a
contractor back to an employee if they find it unsavoury.

Benefits I enjoy from contracting:

\- B2B transactions mean I can retain some cash in the business for investment
while paying myself a good salary.

\- My performance is more important to my role because I can be easily let go
- I prefer to align my interests with those of my employer in this way.

\- Being a contractor also means being a consultant to an extent. I am trusted
to bring in expertise to improve processes and I enjoy having a positive
impact in this way.

I agree that the ongoing issue with labour exploitation with things like zero-
hours contracts, forced contracting and using apprenticeships to force lower-
than-minimum wages are bad, but they don't take away from the value of
contracting itself. In an attempt to address labour exploitation, IR35 and
other measures are also becoming major problems for legitimate contractors
too.

~~~
falcolas
> I think the idea that the government should protect people from their own
> choices is quite an unpleasant one

If the government doesn't protect people against immoral companies, who will?
If an employee doesn't understand their obligations to pay extra taxes and
cover their own forms of insurance, and doesn't ask for enough money up front
to cover those costs, they'll go to jail and/or be bankrupt. That creates
costs for taxpayers and corporations, the net loss likely higher than the cost
of a bit of regulation and education.

Why not educate those employees (or ensure that they can't get stiffed for a
lack of education) instead of allowing them to be funneled (or scammed) into
an unproductive dead end? As a taxpayer, I'd rather see them protected and
productive than unproductive and bankrupt.

~~~
beaconstudios
I think the sticking point here is that you're talking from a viewpoint of
companies pressuring employees to convert from full-time to contract. I don't
know if that happens, and it's not the viewpoint I'm talking from - I don't
think a company should be able to pressure an employee to do anything outside
of their employment agreement and there certainly isn't legal grounds for them
to be able to enforce something like that. Harming legitimate contractors in
an attempt to solve this issue by proxy is illogical.

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TeMPOraL
Love the lying headlines.

The title says: "Uber Offers Drivers $1 Each to Wipe Away Labor Threats Valued
in Billions"

The article says: "The agreement calls for about $1.7 million to paid to
drivers(...) The amount each driver gets depends on how many weeks they have
actively driven for Uber."

Regardless, it sounds like a joke. Unless they plan to somehow disqualify 99%
of the drivers, the amount will still pretty much average into a slap in the
face for a drivers.

Also, as I understand the article: the settlement is for $7.75M. "The
agreement calls for about $1.7 million to paid to drivers and earmarks about
$2.9 million in PAGA penalties for California’s Labor and Workforce
Development Agency, with the rest of the settlement sum going toward attorney
fees and administration costs." Which would mean that $3.15M will go to the
lawyers.

I guess the lawyers are the only party that benefits from lawsuits these days.

~~~
uppercasenut
\--"Love they lying headlines...."The agreement calls for about $1.7 million
to paid to drivers"

So they were off, by what, a penny? It's $1.7 million after all. Slice and
dice it all you want...

~~~
TeMPOraL
They don't offer $1 each, they offer $1.7M to be split according to some
criterion correlated with the number of "weeks they have actively driven for
Uber".

~~~
uppercasenut
OK, I got it. But how much can the top person get? Maybe the company doing the
math /sending checks takes $1.5 million.

In short, it's a scam, like most lawsuit settlements. The lawyers get rich,
the state gets some fines and the company admits no wrongdoing and does it
again and again.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I was picking on inaccurate headline. I hate inaccurate headlines - most
people don't read all articles and thus end up believing nonsense when a
headline is invalidated by its article.

RE this settlement being a scam - yeah, I feel the same way.

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fiatjaf
Employee rights and labor laws are the main cause of unemployment everywhere,
and of many related bad economic consequences.

~~~
minikites
Are you seriously advocating for the return to employer abuses/neglect?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fire)

~~~
fiatjaf
That link you just posted has nothing to do with monetary payments, you know
that.

