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Businesses The Courts Transportation Technology

Uber Drivers 'Employees' For Unemployment Purposes, New York Labor Board Says (arstechnica.com) 54

Posted by BeauHD from the jobs-with-benefits dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: New York City's largest taxi driver advocacy group is hailing a legal decision by the New York State Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board, which ruled last Friday that three out-of-work Uber drivers can be considered employees for the purpose of unemployment benefits. The decision was first reported Thursday by Politico. In other words, three men -- and possibly other "similarly situated" Uber drivers who had quit over low pay or who were deactivated from the Uber platform -- can get paid. "The decision means that New York Uber drivers can file for unemployment insurance and likely receive it," Veena Dubal, a labor law professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, emailed Ars. "Uber may appeal the decision to state court, but for now, it's good law."
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Uber Drivers 'Employees' For Unemployment Purposes, New York Labor Board Says More

Uber Drivers 'Employees' For Unemployment Purposes, New York Labor Board Says

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  • About time (Score:2, Insightful)

    by 110010001000 ( 697113 )
    It is about time someone told Uber what they really are: an illegal taxi service!

    • Re:About time (Score:5, Interesting)

      by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Friday July 20, 2018 @05:24PM (#56982784)
      Make it difficult enough for people to engage in commerce legally and this is what you get. If government law or regulation where sufficient to direct human behavior, there'd be no war on drugs.

      Personally I don't mind if Uber wants to have independent contractors, but I think the real sticking point is letting them set their own prices. As much as Uber wants to think they're the good guys in all of this, I think they'd be much better off if they just acted as a way to connect drivers and passengers. The technology that enables Uber to begin with would make it ridiculously easy for both drivers and consumers to negotiate their own rates. This would allow drivers to earn better wages and allow customers to spend more or less as they desire.

      • That sounds like a brilliant idea. Why don't you build a platform?

        Should be simple.

        • The idea isn't anything special or that complicated, but regardless of how you wanted to determine prices, building a platform for a taxi service is hardly simple. At a minimum you'd need a mobile app for both drivers and passengers, a map platform, a back end to track all of the drivers and customers, and you'd need to build a system to handle collecting payments from customers and dispersing them to the drivers, as well as an ability to handle taxes for everything. Some of that could be done using third p

          • I'm sorry but that's not entirely true. You can leverage online services like open maps or use someone else's like googles. You can also use cloud infrastructure to do most of the heavy lifting for you. All you neee is the business license, and some programmers to build your interfaces, and a payment gateway to collect and distribute fees. Your business model has to accommodate for your costs of course, and you will need to get your code checked and approved.

            No, the hard part is critical mass. No driver is

      • this is what you get when you have regulations about how poorly a business can treat it's workers and then you do not enforce those regulations.

        We can make it _real_ easy to engage in commerce if you like. It wasn't hard at all to ship slaves in the 1800s...

        • It wasn't hard at all to ship slaves in the 1800s...

          Which, no doubt, explains why it became illegal to import slaves in 1808...

          What's that? You didn't know that that stopped that early? Why am I not surprised...

  • New York State Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board

    Have these people had the insurance premiums deducted from their pay — either explicitly, or otherwise? If not, then it is neither "insurance" nor victory for anyone, other than the rent-seeking government bureaucrats.

    • Have these people had the insurance premiums deducted from their pay — either explicitly, or otherwise?

      It doesn't matter.

      If a company doesn't deduct unemployment benefits and they fire you. The government will still go after that said company for the backpayments it hasn't paid.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by mi ( 197448 )

        The government will still go after that said company for the backpayments it hasn't paid.

        Has anybody gone after Uber? The write-up does not mention this, and TFA, which I skimped, is unclear.

        The Board has a conflict of interest, though, this is something, independent judiciary ought to decide.

      • That's not how it works. Employers and employees pay into an insurance fund, and unemployment benefits are paid from that fund. If neither the employer nor the employer paid into the unemployment insurance fund, on what basis will they be paid?

        How will their unemployment benefit be calculated? Gig economy/piece work isn't the same as an hourly wage.

        So does this mean Uber drivers will now be expected to pay for unemployment insurance?

  • Unemployment Insurance is just that (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday July 20, 2018 @05:44PM (#56982844)
    Insurance. Businesses usually have to pay into it. Will Uber be required to pay into it now?

    In some districts businesses are not. If an ex-employee makes a claim and the business still exists then the state will come after them for the money. This has the unpleasant side effect of making it so businesses fight tooth and nail for excuses why the employee was fired and not laid off. I've witnessed employees written up 3 times in 1 day for the express purpose of firing them.

    Also in a lot of places the people who decide if you were fired or laid off are arbitrators hand picked by the companies. You can imagine how well that goes. Had a legally blind buddy of mine who used to take the bus to work quit when the site moved to a place with no bus line. He was approved for unemployment but later forced by an arbitrator to pay it all back (with interest). The reasoning was there was ride sharing at the new site. It was about 6 months after we got to the new site that they announced a new ride sharing program....

    Not saying I oppose unemployment, but it should be paid for by tax dollars and should apply regardless of why you were fired if you've had 90 days of continuous employment. The point isn't to protect the unemployed, it's to protect the employed from a massive number of desperate people taking jobs to eat. If you like the wages you're making now you'll understand why we need this.

    • "Not saying I oppose unemployment, but it should be paid for by tax dollars and should apply regardless of why you were fired if you've had 90 days of continuous employment"

      Just another social welfare program obsoleted by UBI.

    • Unemployment insurance in my state is *your* money. The company takes it from your pay and pays it to the government.

      Once you hit $11,800, you lose the excess.

      Which is odd since, you get no benefits normally unless you have a balance with the unemployment agency.

      I.e. if you use your $11,800 then get a new job and pay $1078 dollars and then lose your job, you are only eligible for $1078 dollars.

      Not sure what happens with the money over the $11,800 cap.

  • When an employee quits of their own volition or is fired with cause (say they didn't show up for their shitfs), they are not eligible for unemployment benefits. If they are laid off, they are eligible. Does the same apply here, or is quitting a gig-economy job considered an involuntary layoff? If the latter, it seems to open the door for massive abuse - people just have to quit their job in order to work for Uber, then a day later quit Uber and collect unemployment (since their original job earnings would p
    • a company can't, for example, hire you under false pretenses. They can't hire you for IT work at $80k/yr and then tell you to scrub toilets for $8/hr. They also can't hire you for 40/week and work you for 5/week twice a month.

      That said, after 40 years of right wing people in charge of this country (closest we got was a moderate in Obama) these rules are very, very poorly enforced, even in left wing states like California & NY. Sucks too. Your wages are appreciably lower as a result. Remember, unempl

    • It depends on the state. In some places, you are still eligible for the money after a penalty period.

      We have 50 (or more) sets of state unemployment rules.

  • It's not quite that easy..... (Score:3)

    by mschuyler ( 197441 ) on Friday July 20, 2018 @06:21PM (#56982998) Homepage Journal

    This is how unemployment works. There may be variations between the states, but this is the basic idea.

    1. Unemployment is funded by a tax on worker salaries, typically a percentage (like 3.5%) EVERY worker is taxed whether they get unemployment or not. The amout of tax is tied t an EXPERENCE RATING, so that an employer who frequently lays off people has a higher rate than an employer that has been very stable for years. An alternative to the tax FOR SOME EMPLOYERS (typically government) is on a reimbursable basis, i.e.: Dollar for dollar. If you get dollars from unemployment, your previous employer pays the full amount.

    2. Unemployment is calculated on a BASE YEAR which is the previous year, minus a LAG QUARTER, not including the quarter in which you filed. So if you file today, July 20, quarter THREE is your FILING QUARTER, and quarter TWO (April, May, June) is your LAG QUARTER, therefore your BASE YEAR is April, 2017 until March 31, 2018. Pay Attention because this is crucial. If you filed for unemployment three weeks ago, on June 30th, your BASE YEAR would be all of 2017. A few days can make a big difference.

    3. Unemployment is intended for people who are LAID OFF. If you are not laid off because of âoelack of work,â the onus is on the person performing the action. If you are FIRED, the onus is on the employer to prove you were fired for good cause. If you QUIT, the onus is upon you to prove you quit for good cause. âoeGood causeâ is not just because you think it is, but it can be for things you might not think. For example, if you âoefollow spouse out of areaâ because he or she got a better job or one is in the military, both which require a move, that counts as âoegood cause.â If you just stop working because you donâ(TM)t like your boss or donâ(TM)t like the hours, thatâ(TM)s not âoegood cause.â This is a bit of a murky area and you can appeal any decision. But so can an employer.

    So for a court to just say âoeUber employees get unemploymentâ is not âoegood lawâ at all. In fact, it shows ignorance of how unemployment works and ignorance on how Uber works. They typically do not âoelay offâ people; people just decide to not take any hours. Uber has NOT been paying a percentage into the unemployment fund, so the infrastructure does not exist and since Uber is not a âoereimbursable employer.â i.e.: a government entity like a library or city, they fall into a category that basically does not exist. And you can bet if Uber has any balls, they will fight this. In any case, itâ(TM)s not quite as easy as it looks.

    • You're deliberately mischaracterizing it (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday July 20, 2018 @11:51PM (#56983978)
      a. Unemployment is not a tax on workers, it's a tax on employers. You can argue that employers will pass the cost on, but that's not exactly true since employers still have to compete for workers meaning there are other factors at play in determining how low they can set wages. It's the same false argument that says wages should never go up since workers will pay more for goods. It ignores how the economy works and how progress increases productivity and all the other impacts on an employees ages.

      And one more thing, unemployment is NOT intended for the Laid off. It's intended for those still working. Specifically, it's meant to prevent a downward spiral on wages when desperate workers enter the workforce following minor economic booms. The rules have been changed over the years as part of a larger trend to disenfranchise workers and lower wages so that it's harder and harder to get unemployment, resulting in lower wages for everyone (including you).

      • It's a tax on workers, just like SS/Medicare, health insurance requirements, HR paperwork regulations, etc... Almost the entire burden of the taxes, including the supposed "employer's share" are passed on the employees in the form of lower wages.

        From the Tax Foundation [taxfoundation.org]:

        "It turns out that the supply of labor – that is, workers’ willingness to work – is much less sensitive to taxes than the demand for labor – or employers’ willingness to hire. This is because workers who need a j

        • does not make your right. These are the same guys who got behind Trumps $1 trillion dollar give away to mega corps that's currently backfiring on workers (the Fed is going to raise interest and allow massive inflation to counter balance the over-reving to the economy that giving away $1 trillion to the top 1% did, meaning you're gonna pay more for everything you buy).

          Look, you've been had. You're being manipulated (assuming you're not one of those Russian Trolls I keep reading about). Supply side econom

          • The Tax Foundation article just did a good job of explaining the economics of it and came up at the top of a Google search for payroll tax incidence. What you'd need to attempt to refute are the multiple academic studies cited (and there are plenty more), preferably with some actual evidence, not an ad hominem attack on the people doing the explaining.

            Please don't try to patronize me by telling me I've been manipulated or are a troll. I've spent 20+ years studying economics, you're going to need actual empi

  • Okay with it. (Score:3)

    by BeerMilkshake ( 699747 ) on Friday July 20, 2018 @06:32PM (#56983048)

    Fare is fare, after all.

  • Straddling the fine line of employer vs platform. If just a platform then drivers should set rates and Uber collects commissions but since Uber exerts control beyond basic quality / safety control to attempt to over power the market through subsidies from their vast capital, Uber draws such scrutiny. Other business operating in similar manner have to pay, so should Uber. I like ride hailing services since broaden transportation options as well as other social income generation but there should be level comp

  • " ... Uber drivers who had quit over low pay ..."

    I realize that laws regarding pay differ in the US, but in Canada, if you quit your job, you are automatically deemed ineligible for EI (Employment Insurance) and your claim will be rejected.

    You can still get benefits if you meet certain criteria (were harassed at work and can prove it, for example) but the bar is pretty high. You will have a long (many months) fight on your hands with no guarantee you will be successful, and you will be without income unless

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