Are Uber Drivers Employees? Uber Faces Two Big Court Challenges (reuters.com) 104
Strider- (Slashdot reader #39,683) shares a story from Reuters:
Canada's Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a driver in a gig economy case that paves the way for a class action suit calling for Uber Technologies Inc to recognize drivers in Canada as company employees.
UberEats driver David Heller had filed a class action suit, challenged by Uber, aiming to secure a minimum wage, vacation pay and other benefits like overtime pay. Drivers are now classified as independent contractors and do not have such benefits.
A lower court had already ruled that Uber's contracts included an arbitration clause that was "invalid and unenforceable," Reuters, reports, and it was Uber's attempt to appeal of that ruling that was dismissed by Canada's Supreme Court in an 8-1 vote. Reuters notes that "The arbitration process, which must be conducted in the Netherlands where Uber has its international headquarters, costs about C$19,000 ($14,500)."
Meanwhile, CNN also reports that Uber and Lyft "could soon be forced to reclassify their drivers in California as employees or cease operating in the state as part of an escalating legal battle over a new law impacting much of the on-demand economy." California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a coalition of city attorneys intend to file for a preliminary injunction this week to force the two ride-hailing companies to comply with the new state law, according to a press release issued Wednesday...
"It's time for Uber and Lyft to own up to their responsibilities and the people who make them successful: their workers," said Becerra in a statement concerning the injunction the state is intending to file. "Misclassifying your workers as 'consultants' or 'independent contractors' simply means you want your workers or taxpayers to foot the bill for obligations you have as an employer.
UberEats driver David Heller had filed a class action suit, challenged by Uber, aiming to secure a minimum wage, vacation pay and other benefits like overtime pay. Drivers are now classified as independent contractors and do not have such benefits.
A lower court had already ruled that Uber's contracts included an arbitration clause that was "invalid and unenforceable," Reuters, reports, and it was Uber's attempt to appeal of that ruling that was dismissed by Canada's Supreme Court in an 8-1 vote. Reuters notes that "The arbitration process, which must be conducted in the Netherlands where Uber has its international headquarters, costs about C$19,000 ($14,500)."
Meanwhile, CNN also reports that Uber and Lyft "could soon be forced to reclassify their drivers in California as employees or cease operating in the state as part of an escalating legal battle over a new law impacting much of the on-demand economy." California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a coalition of city attorneys intend to file for a preliminary injunction this week to force the two ride-hailing companies to comply with the new state law, according to a press release issued Wednesday...
"It's time for Uber and Lyft to own up to their responsibilities and the people who make them successful: their workers," said Becerra in a statement concerning the injunction the state is intending to file. "Misclassifying your workers as 'consultants' or 'independent contractors' simply means you want your workers or taxpayers to foot the bill for obligations you have as an employer.
buh-bye Uber (Score:5, Insightful)
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BTW, drivers for old style taxi companies are also independent contractors.
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Yes, but Uber didn't secure their monopoly the correct way though.
You always have to pay the piper... of you have to kill them and become the piper.
You either stay under the radar or you pay to play... if you don't they eventually catch up to you.
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Don't pay the workers and they eventually catch up to you. The Czars might live opulently for quite some time - but eventually you end up with a Bolshevik movement. Maybe a Jihad or a Nazi party, depending on what ideological flavor is the hippest. Some form of civil war or violent purification is in the cards.
Looking at income inequality, it's clear the country of Uber is going that direction, not in one industry but across the board. New media began pushing it late in the 20th century, steadily increasing
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Yea, but you can usually get by with not paying the workers for longer though, but you are right. It all eventually catches up with you.
Best idea it to create businesses and then sell them before the heat gets to high.
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I believe they can negotiate the fare, unlike Uber drivers. Also don't have to travel 8,000 miles to arbitrate either.
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Old style taxis have meters in them.
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Which don't have to be turned on. I know I've negotiated a long trip before and the taxi driver decided it was better to make a little less money then none. I will admit that I'm not sure of whether it broke any rules. I believe the laws only deal with overcharging.
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Which don't have to be turned on.
In nearly all jurisdictions, taxis are legally required to use their meters.
So your driver almost certainly broke the law.
I believe the laws only deal with overcharging.
No. That makes no sense. Uber and Lyft have clearly demonstrated that mandated taxi fares are well above market rates. If taxis could charge competitive rates, the whole racket would fall apart.
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I don't know the law here about meters and whether a taxi driver can decide to be a regular driver if he chooses and drive somebody somewhere. Looking, it does appear that the meter always has to be used when operating as a taxi.
As for taxi's overcharging, they sure don't seem to make much money and Uber seems to loose a lot of money, as well as not being able to compete with taxi's here where they have to follow the same regulations such as commercial license, insurance and regular vehicle inspection. Perh
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As for taxi's overcharging, they sure don't seem to make much money
In the pre-Uber days, taxi medallions (permits to operate a taxi) were worth more than a million dollars. They were seen as a license to mint money.
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I'm not really knowledgeable to comment but I'd guess those million dollar medallions are only in the biggest cities.
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My mother lived in Tampa, FL and had a neighbor who was a taxi driver. He and his wife worked, saved, took some inheritance money, and a loan to start their own taxi company. Within 3 years they went from him driving a single taxi to having 10 taxis all driven by contractors with dispatchers, etc. and they were living quite well.
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Interesting, it does show that the drivers themselves aren't the ones profiting, which I understand is the same with Uber.
Different jurisdictions may vary quite a bit, I'm in BC and seldom use a taxi.
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Taxi's are locally regulated but many places use zone based fare systems. I have been picked up at the airport and the airport employee told me what the fare would be to the city center since they were required to charge that fare if they work from the airport. This is to keep a driver from using the meter and taking a long route that ran up the fare to the unsuspecting passenger. Basically, the regulation using the zone system was so that the passenger knew the cost up front.
Uber and Lyft sets the fee b
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Possibly, I can't find any law about that here as it is likely more of a regulation and most of the regulations I did find seemed to be aimed against over charging or refusing service without a good reason. It was quite a while ago too so regulations may have changed.
Re: buh-bye Uber (Score:2)
In most states the taxi meter rate is set by law. It is actually illegal to go off meter.
Although I've never seen it applied to charging less than the meter. That might not be illegal based on the exact wording.
But it would be against company policy. Same thing with Uber, they are free to negotiate, just there is a chance there might be reprocusions.
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I can't find anything about being off meter here (BC), it seems that expectations are that it is always on the meter. Still, a local taxi company has been advertising for drivers and calls them contractors in the ad and I'd guess that a driver can always stop actually working and drive someone somewhere for a flat fee. May vary on the size of the community too, there's Provincial law and Municipal laws covering taxi's. A small town might have one taxi outright owned by the driver.
Re: buh-bye Uber (Score:1)
Oh right and the "legal" taxi companies who own all the driving medallions required to legally drive a cab are squeaky clean upholders of mom, baseball and Apple pie, pure as the driven snow. Sure.
Taxi companies are just as scummy as Uber. Uber just figure out how to do it more efficiently.
The whole buy-a-ride industry is corrupt and dirty as fuck. There are no good guys here.
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Oh right and the "legal" taxi companies who own all the driving medallions required to legally drive a cab are squeaky clean upholders of mom, baseball and Apple pie, pure as the driven snow. Sure.
You have just done a perfect example of whataboutism. [dictionary.com]
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You know, most of the rest of the world doesn't run on the "medallion" system that the US does, and so a blanket statement like "taxi companies are just as scummy as Uber" is only valid in quite a narrow segment of the market - America. Which seems to be a common theme for a lot of things.
In the UK, even to become a London black cab driver, anyone can apply and will be granted a license so long as they pass the medical, background and knowledge tests - the entire process costs about £1000 on first ap
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Hypothetical question: driver's co-op (Score:2)
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If a large group of drivers used some open-source software hosted in the cloud to create a Uber-like service but operated as a driver's co-op
This won't work. Uber loses money and makes up the difference by burning up investor money.
A co-op would have to break even, so the drivers would take a pay cut.
Why would anyone sign up for that?
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This is a hypothetical. I think you can take it as read that in this hypothetical, the co-op covers its costs and is not loss making.
Re: Hypothetical question: driver's co-op (Score:2)
This won't work. Uber loses money and makes up the difference by burning up investor money.
Wait wait wait. You actually believe Uber is losing money because a profit can't be made at market rates? Have you done the math? Did you factor in economies of scale? Investors are losing money on Uber because Uber is built to be an embezzlement scheme from the ground up.
Would Uber have a business w/o the drivers? (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore Uber has been known to punish drivers who refuse to take unprofitable rides by cutting back on the number of profitable rides they get. Also Uber exercises a lot of control over the drivers (type and age of of car, Star Ratings, etc, etc).
The only argument I've heard in Uber's favor is that you can driver for other services, and that they don't have set hours (though the punishment for not taking those profitable rides renders that last one moot). But when it comes to asking "Are you a Contractor or not?" the IRS and established law weighs several factors, meaning if they follow the existing guidelines there's more than enough evidence that these are employees.
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that's to me the main test. If I make widgets and hire somebody to make a fence around my widget factory then I still have a business without a fence. If Uber drivers stop driving Uber goes away. It would be like declaring my factory workers "independent contractors" at my widget factory.
Yep, and covid-19 has proven what happens when the drivers go away....
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that's to me the main test. If I make widgets and hire somebody to make a fence around my widget factory then I still have a business without a fence. If Uber drivers stop driving Uber goes away. It would be like declaring my factory workers "independent contractors" at my widget factory.
Yep, and covid-19 has proven what happens when the drivers go away....
Just like covid-19 has shown how much tax dollars are needed to keep those "job creators" going despite them receiving massive tax cuts.
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Re:Would Uber have a business w/o the drivers? (Score:4, Insightful)
meaning if they follow the existing guidelines there's more than enough evidence that these are employees.
Yes. Some are.
The problem is this: Uber, originally envisioned as a ride sharing service anticipated that most of its drivers would be earning a few extra bucks by picking up riders when they were already out driving for some other purpose. These people are contractors. But then a lot of people jumped onboard who have no other means of income and needed an Uber job as their primary and possibly only means of support. These people are employees. But here's the thing: These people are for all intents and purposes cab drivers. And many jurisdictions regulate the taxicab business, require the possession of a permit (medallion), etc.
This has been going on since before IC automobiles. Anyone with a horse and carriage who needed a income would hit the streets looking for fares. In some places, it's tuk-tuks. Or rickshaws. Here in the First World, it became such a problem with traffic congestion, competition turning violent and organized crime that governments had to step in with the aforementioned regulatory systems. Uber/Lyft were originally conceived as a way to efficiently allocate empty seats in what were vehicular trips already being made. But it rapidly became an end run around the law. Uber and Lyft own a lot of the blame for turning a bind eye to this, allowing a part time contracting gig to become a full time illicit employment program. Perhaps they cold have handled it in a different fashion.
Before Uber/Lyft, there were a few (aborted) attempts to create on line cab hailing services. New York City was instrumental in shutting these down, on the principle that they might upset current medallion owners (and possibly result in an increase in bodies found floating in the East River). So a good part of the blame should be heaped upon the regulators that fell into bed with the old school organized crime syndicates.
Want to fix the system? Create a clear distinction between ride share contractors and taxi cab employees. Encourage the adoption of new technologies on both sides of that line. Round up the crooked regulators and throw them in prison next to their buddies in the mob-run businesses and cabbie union leaders.
Uber wasn't originally envisioned as that (Score:4, Insightful)
They knew from the git-go that what they were doing was against the law and they new exactly why it was. They built systems to prevent themselves from getting caught until they were big enough to buy off the politicians.
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Uber might once have been envisioned as a ride-sharing service, but it isn't implemented as one, and AFAICT it never was. If it were then people with cars would notify the system that they are making a trip and how many seats they have available, and people without them would notify the system that they want to make a trip, and then the system would connect them. Instead, people who want to be taken somewhere notify the system that they want to make a trip, and then people driving for the system notify the
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"Uber, originally envisioned as a ride sharing service"
The proof that this was never true is the inability for someone looking for a ride to tell the driver where they are going. There has never been any capability to match someone already driving somewhere with passengers who want to go somewhere along the route. The only possible way for a driver to have ever used Uber is purely in response to where a passenger want to go.
"hit the streets looking for fares"
That is not ride sharing, that's a taxi service.
"
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There is nothing preventing ride hailing apps from working with cabs
The entrenched interests in cities like New York, for example.
https://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/nyregion/judge-temporarily-blocks-use-of-smartphone-apps-to-hail-yellow-cabs.html [nytimes.com]
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Not that entrenched I guess, since I have an app for hailing taxis in New York City on my phone.
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Meanwhile, there were actual ridesharing apps, meaning that they were for drivers to pick up passengers for routes they were already taking (Avego was an example). The financial difficulty here was that passengers and
Are Ebay sellers Ebay employees? (Score:2)
Ebay is a platform where people sell their products (basically anything).
What's the difference?
Re:Are Ebay sellers Ebay employees? (Score:4, Insightful)
On Uber, people sell their labour. That's the very definition of being an employee.
On Ebay, people sell their stuff. That's like a glorified classified ad service.
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On Uber, people sell their labour. That's the very definition of being an employee.
Just because you sell labor doesn't make you an employee of the owner of the platform. Examples: independent contractors, like photographers and painters, who sell their labor on Craigslist.
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Independent contractors negotiate what they sell their labour for. Want some photographs, make a deal with a photographer. Want an Uber ride, here's the fee decided by Uber, driver gets a cut.
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Interesting.
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"like photographers and painters"
Artisans work that way. Photographers that work at KMart/Sears/Kinkos doing family portraits and passport photos have generally been employees. Painters who make portraits are normally contractors. Painters who work in crews to paint apartments are usually employees.
Would you consider an Uber drive an artisan or more like general labor who has little to no power to negotiate terms like fees, terms of arbitration, tools (car) of the trade?
Re: Are Ebay sellers Ebay employees? (Score:2)
Define selling labour. If I hire a contractor to lanscape my lawn, or paint the fence, to haul away garbage, etc, are they selling labor? If I buy a tune up service or performance upgrade with installation on ebay, am buying labor (which according to you would make the service provider an employee of Ebay)? What is the difference between a contractor paid per hour and employee paid by the hour? Additionally, since Uber drivers don't get paid by the hour or salary, uber can easily claim that their drivers se
Re: Are Ebay sellers Ebay employees? (Score:2)
eBay doesn't restrict traffic to a seller if the seller isn't putting in enough overtime.
Re: Are Ebay sellers Ebay employees? (Score:2)
Ebay features sellers by making their product show up early in the search results, and in recommendations. If you are problematic with ebay (day refuse to ship to some customers after advertising free or fixed cost shipping), they can delist you or bury your product way down in the search results, so only people who diligently view multiple pages of stuff would find you.
The IRS already has a full list of distinctions (Score:3)
Unfortunately, those are just guidelines. The IRS doesn't define a specific set of requirements which assures an employer that someone is classified as an employee or contractor. You need to be audited, go to tax court, and have a tax judge rule on it to figure out for sure. So there's also a bunch of case law which creates its own set of rules [cpajournal.com]. If you're just coming to the party and think the drivers are "obviously" employees o
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While the Canadian courts may consider what the IRS and American courts have ruled, it really comes down to Canadian law and the CRA (except in Quebec) whether Canadian Uber drivers are contractors. Too lazy right now to read up on but a starting point is at https://www.canada.ca/en/reven... [canada.ca]
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I'm no big fan of Uber, but I think your argument is flawed. By your standard, all sellers on Ebay are Ebay employees, since without the sellers ebay has no business left. Or, is your argument here that ebay in fact should pay all their sellers minimum wage, provide benefits, vacation, sick pay, etc? Ebay is just an example, there are other businesses who match up service providers with customers, while providing related benefits such as insurance (e.g. "Ebay Money Back Guarantee).
Uber in Canada sucks... (Score:2)
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The dogs on the sled team were smelly, and the blanket on the sled was dirty and worn.
Canuck trivia: 65% of Canadians live south of Seattle.
Re: Uber in Canada sucks... (Score:2)
So do 65% of those from Seattle. The city is just one big Starbucks on top of an old volcanic dust deposit.
Uber (Score:2)
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If your business model relies on paying people less than a living wage, then I'm happy to see you go belly-up. The faster the better.
Re: Uber (Score:1, Flamebait)
In his example it obviously doesn't "rely" on paying less than a living wage. It's called market forces. If your skills are worth nothing you'll get paid nothing.
Why should someone pay you more than you're worth? And what's a living wage? Should every 16 year old summer intern get that? 18? 25? Part time college student?
You don't seem to understand basic economics. If you increase wages, you also increase prices. Now those wages don't pay enough again. So lets increases wages more. But oh that req
Re: Uber (Score:2)
"Worth" [Re: Uber] (Score:2)
... Why should someone pay you more than you're worth? ...
That is a faulty understanding of how markets work. You need to go back to school and take an actual course in economics.
Market forces don't care one way or another about what your work is "worth". The question should be phrased, "why should someone pay you more than the minimum amount that gets a person to take that job instead of a different job?"
The "worth" doesn't factor in.
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The OP wrote: "Uber wont be able to do business if they pay people a decent amount." That's what I was responding to.
You don't seem to understand basic economics.
Actually, you don't. If you don't pay people a living wage, they can't afford stuff and the economy suffers. You eventually end up with a polarized society with great wealth disparity and eventually civil unrest.
If companies like Uber stopper being greedy and were willing to stop rapacious business practices in an attempt to dominate thei
Re: Uber (Score:2)
If Uber isn't paying enough they won't have enough drivers and will go out of business. They are not a major factor in the job market or economy as a whole. They are trivially tiny compared to the economy as a whole.
If more money was needed to get people to drive they'd be paying it.
There are Uber drivers who have been doing it for years. If it was such a bad deal those people wouldn't still be doing it.
No one is forced to drive for Uber. You download the app, sign up, go. They don't recruit or put a g
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The wages are fine when you are driving someone around. All of this argument centers around the down time. Should you be paid minimum wage while you have the app open waiting for a ride to show up? One group says you are working during this time and deserve minimum wage. Another group says this is not work.
So answer me this one... it is 4AM and you are asleep with the Uber and Lyft open just in case a ride shows up and you can make a good profit from it. Who is supposed to be paying you minimum wage while
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. Should you be paid minimum wage while you have the app open waiting for a ride to show up?
In a manufacturing job, you get paid for down time or sent home. I do software consulting work, I absolutely DO NOT get paid for down time. I get paid PER JOB. So the problem is just a classification issue. Are UBR drivers consultants/gig workers or are the employed? Once thats answered the rest is already decided by normal jp
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Someone's off their meds.
Actually, I'm not a socialist. For 19 years, I owned my own business. I'm the very epitome of a capitalist. I had 12 employees and I paid them good wages because it was the right thing to do, and it also made business sense. Having happy employees reduced turnover. Turnover is one of the most annoying and expensive costs for a small business. Trying to maximize immediate profit at the expense of paying a living wage is shortsighted and dumb.
Now go jump to some other ridicu
Fighting over others' money (Score:2)
Do you guys get tired of fighting to divide up money other people earned? Do you really want to get money-police involved in every transaction everyone wants to make? How is it your business? How is giving car rides to people legitimately a critical activity you absolutely must police in dozens of different detailed ways?
Just let people give each other car rides. And find a way to earn some money by doing some valuable service for your fellow humans rather than interfering in everyone’s lives and
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So you're saying that the government has no interest in enforcing fair labour standards, especially where there's a power imbalance?
I reject that, as did Canada's Supreme Court.
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If it’s not fair, don’t volunteer to do it multiple times a day, every day. Just turn off the app. How hard is that?
I decide to do something voluntarily all the time, every time. And it keeps victimizing me over and over and over and over. Please help me.
And take some of my paycheck for yourself. Or take some other money.
Because you (someone, maybe not you specifically) taking someone's money was always what this was about.
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Well the court decided it is unfair to force someone to travel 3000-8000 miles to arbitrate. This is good as otherwise all employers will do the same thing, got a problem, file the paperwork at our office in Antarctica. And when the vast majority of companies do the same thing, the workers don't have much choice.
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You really should move to Canada. We have free medical care, and it seems like you could use some psychological care...
Swearing at anyone who disagrees with you and calling them "lefties" does not contribute the the conversation. Hint: I'm a strong capitalist and owned my own business for 19 years; employed 12 people in good jobs. What have you accomplished?
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fair labour standards,
Fair is what both parties agree on voluntary. I would say that Uber drivers think its fair since they take the job. If warehouse work pays better, take it, but they dont.
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Make up a problem. Or hype up a small problem to make it seem big. Then "solve" it by threatening and policing everyone involved and take money for your "services".
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Make up a problem. Or hype up a small problem to make it seem big. Then "solve" it by threatening and policing everyone involved and take money for your "services".
Congratulations! You have just invented politics.
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Why do people keep falling for it? They aren't getting a cut of the loot.
Re: Fighting over others' money (Score:1)
Ok give them a 1 pager on how to do basic math. If they're incapable of that then they're doomed no matter what they do.
And whose fault is it these people can't add up a short column of numbers? The government run public schools.
So since we didn't teach them basic check book balancing-like skills and basic logic and common sense, let's force someone else to over pay them.
Life is hard. It is full of lessons. If the harshest lesson any of these people learn is they had less money after diving for a week t
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I'm fairly libertarian and normally all for what you're proposing. The problem here however is that there are lots of stupid people.
Strike "stupid". Substitute "desperate".
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The problem here however is that there are lots of stupid people. Ok, maybe that's too harsh. There are lots of uneducated people, who don't know how to construct a cost vs revenue report to create a budget.
And, those are the same people who want to get paid $15.00 an hour to flip burgers. You are not making a credible argument. "They should be employees because they are too stupid" only tells me that I wouldn't want to hire most of them as employees and would pay them as little possible because there is a vast number of people who can do the work.
But never forget that a fundamental assumption behind [free market] is that all the actors are informed and rational.
No, that is not quite true. The free market works best when all the actors are informed and rational. But, who is responsible for the actors being informed? Why, the
Re: Fighting over others' money (Score:2)
If people kept what they earned, those in the slums would be millionaires, the 1%ers would be in homeless shelters along with the Bundys and their gunslinging friends.
Libertarians and Survivalists would have left America, because they'd never be able to support themselves.
The fact is, those who advocate such a system are the ones who don't want it the most.
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Who actually earns the money when a product is sold? Is it:
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How is giving car rides to people legitimately a critical activity you absolutely must police in dozens of different detailed ways?
Another form of economics. By increasing regulation, you create government jobs and bring in fee money and now people have to lobby.
1099 vs w2 (Score:2)
Are they stupid or something? (Score:2)
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that's nice, Uber doesn't allow its drivers to do a long list of things that a contractor could.
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Eating, drinking, texting, etc. while driving? That is a safety issue
Owning an old, shitty car? Contractors are often required to appropriate tools and an old, dirty, unsafe, breakdown prone vehicle is not appropriate.
Abuse the customer? That is basic business.
Be a smelly, dirty, creep? That is basic business. No one wants to be trapped in a small space with a guy who hasn't showered in 3 days.
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can't control prices nor expand customer base through marketing
can't build earnings as experience gained, unlike other contracting business
can't reject customers
can't choose how to deliver service as Uber can penalize for picking what it deems are inefficient routes
supervised by automated system that can "deativate" them based on metrics
Uber charges fixed rate but pays driver based on miles / time
Wages don't mirror those of independent contractors
Suit won't win in Canada (Score:1)
One of the definitive distinctions between a contractor and an employee in Canada is that an employee uses the employer's equipment and does not need to bring significant tools/equipment to the job. Uber drivers supply all the on-site equipment - the vehicle and the tablet/phone.
I'm no fan of Uber, but there's no getting around that.
No, they are not. (Score:2)
have France just mail them the transcript (Score:1)