10 ms·

Seattle Considers Measure to Let Uber and Lyft Drivers Unionize

122 points by deegles 11y ago

wehadfun 11y ago
Why would a law have to be passed for the drivers to organize?
- darkstar999 11y ago
  Did you read the article? "Uber has two potential legal arguments against the measure if it passes. The first is that federal law reigns supreme when it comes to organizing, rendering a city ordinance on the subject essentially null and void. The second is that collective bargaining by independent contractors would amount to illegal price-fixing under antitrust law." and "the only way organizing by Uber drivers could be legal is under a so-called state action exemption from antitrust law."
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    Wow, so Uber is even more evil then I thought. They fight for legislation to classify their workers as independent contractors, which then ties those workers' hands in organizing, thereby forcing those workers to accept wages below the minimum wage if they have no other options available. They're the Silicon Valley equivalent of Walmart.
    - darkstar999 11y ago
      1. Nobody is forced to work for Uber. 2. Uber isn't the first company by any stretch of the imagination that employes a workforce of contractors. There is nothing "evil" about that. It's supply and demand. Everyone can drive, so why should Uber pay more wages than they have to? The law will dictate the minimums they can pay.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > Nobody is forced to work for Uber. Nobody is forced to prostitute themselves, rob or steal, etc. But heh, fuck social safety nets ya know? If they existed, both Walmart and Uber would have to pay real wages. > Uber isn't the first company by any stretch of the imagination that employes a workforce of contractors. There is nothing "evil" about that. It's supply and demand. Everyone can drive, so why should Uber pay more wages than they have to? The law will dictate the minimums they can pay. That's right, the law will. Good luck Uber.
        ryanlol 11y ago
        Nobody is forced to do any of those things, you always have to choose.
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members.
        darkstar999 11y ago
        We have social security, unemployment insurance, medicare/medicaid, and on and on. You want part-time workers to be paid full time. How is that fair for the employer? There is no good answer to the part-time work problem. If the supply of workers outpaces the demand for work, the employer will hire part time. It's simple economics.
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > We have social security, unemployment, medicare/medicaid, and on and on. None of which are sufficient compared to proper first world countries (ie anywhere developed outside of the US). > You want part-time workers to be paid full time. How is that fair for the employer? There is no good answer to the part-time work problem. A government doesn't exist for your business interests; it exists to take care of its citizens. If you can operate your business in such an environment, great. If you can't, tough. Quality of life is a more important measure than your exit strategy or next quarter results.
    - andrewflnr 11y ago
      How would Uber drivers ever be anything other than independent contractors?
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        IRS classification rules.
    - dcosson 11y ago
      From your comment below, I don't quite get your characterization of Uber and Walmart as evil. If anyone's evil, isn't it the government for not providing useful safety nets? The companies are just going along with the market rates at which their employees/contractors are willing to work.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        Half credit. There are companies that don't act in sociopathic ways attempting to maximize profits at worker expense (Costco comes to mind). At the same time, yes, its the government's fault for not increasing the minimum wage and strengthening social safety nets, which can unfortunately be influenced by corporate interests using lobbying after the Citizen's United supreme court ruling.
        prostoalex 11y ago
        Are you comparing a smaller chain that caters to upper-middle-class (and higher) sectors and relies on membership fees and bulk purchases (with high average receipts) to a large (#1 globally) chain that caters to all income levels, places its stores in lower-income neighborhoods, does not rely on membership fees, and has smaller average receipts? http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-27/why-walmart-will-never-pay-like-costco http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-27/why-walmart... By that measure I heard that Thomas Keller pays its workers an excellent wage, while McDonald's not so much. Therefore we should shut down McDonald's outlets and replace them with Thomas Keller restaurants.
- lackbeard 11y ago
  They don't want to just organize. The city has laws which protect employees from being fired for attempting to unionize, but those laws don't apply to contractors. They want the law to be changed to cover contractors so they can have that protection. That's my understanding of the situation, which is tenuous. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. It's mind-blowing, the amount of words written about this, yet there is no clear explanation of what exactly is going on.
- jessriedel 11y ago
  The same reason it's currently illegal for doctors to form a union and set prices.
  - kefka 11y ago
    So, that solution is to keep the pricing hidden, and then give you a "Surprise" bill after the fact. Sure flies against the idea of "Informed Consent". "Else I'd not have done that procedure...." Edit: From the downvotes, I assume that people have issues with knowing medical pricing? That seems really backwards.
- xsmasher 11y ago
  Labor law generally outlaws discrimination, spying on, or termination of employees based on union membership. Seattle seems to be using its authority to regulate transportation services to extend these protections to drivers regardless of whether they are employees or contractors.
- dheera 11y ago
  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 11y ago
    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#First_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#F...
    - dheera 11y ago
      I see. This is a helpful explanation. Thanks!
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
jngreenlee 11y ago
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.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > It's just the unintended consequences and manipulation of the move to unionize that are interesting. Which is caused by the wage levels of Uber drivers to be tantamount to indentured servitude. EDIT: A very small percentage of Uber drivers are coming out ahead after you account for their time, the wear and tear on their vehicle, and required commercial vehicle insurance (unless they're operating illegally on their own car insurance).
  - pc86 11y ago
    EDIT: It appears I was wrong. Original comment: Uber is by definition a side gig. Nobody is doing Uber on the side in their 1989 LeBaron. You need a nice car, and you can't get a nice car if you only income is from Uber.
    - darkstar999 11y ago
      Not that I'm defending the comment you replied to, but your comment is simply untrue. Uber even partners with auto loan companies to provide leases to their drivers. You can absolutely survive 100% on just Uber income. Many do.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        What percentage of Uber drivers are able to support themselves above the federal poverty line driving for Uber alone?
nostromo 11y ago
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 11y ago
  > or truck drivers I assume you've never heard of the Teamsters union?
  - nostromo 11y ago
    A quick Google search says that only 5% of truck drivers are unionized.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      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 11y ago
        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 11y ago
        The full text of the proposed bill is here: http://seattle.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Text&GID=393&ID=2296991&GUID=A1841B13-CF4F-4E5A-9409-A613DC6B2B15&Title=Legislation+Text http://seattle.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Text&GID=3... 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.
dustingetz 11y ago
Uber operates at global scale, will they just exit seattle market?
- darkstar999 11y ago
  I imagine that they wouldn't want to set that precedent. Uber is very aggressive. They will fight this tooth and nail.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - __jal 11y ago
    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.)
- pc86 11y ago
  There are some legal options here that I'm not qualified to comment on (anti-trust, etc), but I imagine that's what they would do if everything else fails.
ksenzee 11y ago
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 11y ago
  When they are the ones whose business model is being disrupted...
outlace 11y ago
Well once self-driving cars take over none of this will matter
- atwebb 11y ago
  Is there a "law" about people mentioning self-driving cars in anything even tangentially related to autos?
  - darkstar999 11y ago
    Can you rephrase that? I'm not making sense of that question.
    - tlrobinson 11y ago
      atwebb is observing that whenever there is any sort of discussion about automobiles on Hacker News someone inevitably brings up self-driving cars.
    - ars 11y ago
      There are people who think we should never fix or make any improvement to cars because self driving cars will make any improvement unnecessary.
- ars 11y ago
  And what's your plan for the next 30 years?
- vkou 11y ago
  Uber will never be interested in taking on the capex of owning a full fleet of self-driving cars.
  - intopieces 11y ago
    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-partners-with-hertz-shell-to-gain-edge-over-uber.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/09/ride-hailing-company-lyft-par...
sandworm101 11y ago
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.
eloff 11y ago
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.
- gertef 11y ago
  Your second paragraph answers your first. In the world, the simple textbook theoretical solutions do not apply. The entire structure of government and law is about a group of people asserting their rules over others, to maintain a balance of power.
- moheeb 11y ago
  "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 11y ago
    It's a good point that unions are about more than just getting higher wages.
lvspiff 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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).
  - Elepsis 11y ago
    I'm not aware of lead generators in other businesses (with the exception of mostly-unsuccessful Uber-for-x startups like Homejoy) that set the pricing for the services to be provided. Do you have any examples?
    - prostoalex 11y ago
      You're right, my experience stems from Homejoy-like services. The ones I had in mind were 1-800-DENTIST and similar, but looks like they steer away from specific pricing, and so do Amazon and RedBeacon. Franchise owners are independent businesses, which doesn't prevent McDonald's and KFC from advertising $5 special and requiring franchisees to accept that rate. Large trucking companies are attracting independent owners/operators at advertised mileage rates with a "take-it-or-leave-it" implication. The owner/operator stays independent while accepting a truck load at a pre-determined rate. On a broader scale though, nothing prevents me from posting a Craigslist ad "Looking for a ride to the airport this Saturday, my budget is $40". It does not constitute an employer-employee relationship, and an argument could be had that Uber/Lyft are just proxies for posting and fulfilling such requests. Extend that to moving, plumbing, etc. Or am I completely off?
mrfusion 11y ago
What currently stops them from unionizing? (I hope it's not a dumb question)
gertef 11y ago
Here's a quick primer on unions in the US. https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employerunion-rights-and-obligations https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employerunion-rights-...
gertef 11y ago
Here's a quick primer on unions in the US. https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employerunion-rights-and-obligations https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/employerunion-rights-...
macu 11y ago
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.
LordHumungous 11y ago
>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.
ThomPete 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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.
  - ThomPete 11y ago
    "If so, it sounds as though it was his own actions that led to his financial predicament." Yes which is the very essence of the discussion here and why it makes sense to protect people trying to organize in some situations. Unless you think it's fair that he got released from his contract from trying to do that. In that case it just means we are politically in disagreement about what is fair and what isn't. These weren't long haul drives, these where day to day deliveries very hard to do physically and got harder and harder as the company asked them to cover more and more on less and less time and for less and less pay. And sure he found other work it just never paid enough to cover the expenses of having a family and a house to pay. He worked at times 3 different jobs a day just to cover.
  - 11y ago
sebringj 11y ago
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.
blisterpeanuts 11y ago
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?
- wmt 11y ago
  If the business model cannot survive an even bargaining table (i.e. where both parties have equal power instead), maybe it's not as sustainable and profitable as the traditional businesses which make a profit with unionised labor. I personally don't think that Uber is that much worse than the old taxi companies, and it should continue making a steady profit despite losing its luxury of unilaterally dictating their terms and wages to the drivers.
- studentrob 11y ago
  What do you mean outsourcing has hollowed out programming? You're not able to make a living programming? It's unfair to share the work with other countries? How could Uber be outsourced? Without looking at the facts of wages and cost of living, could we not make the same case about the opposers (some investors) of unionization? They are just after $$ right?
- biocomputation 11y ago
  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.
shawnee_ 11y ago
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 11y ago
  Very, very dangerous things happen when you allow the state to determine what fair means to whom.

122 points by deegles 11y ago

wehadfun 11y ago

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

darkstar999 11y ago
Did you read the article? "Uber has two potential legal arguments against the measure if it passes. The first is that federal law reigns supreme when it comes to organizing, rendering a city ordinance on the subject essentially null and void. The second is that collective bargaining by independent contractors would amount to illegal price-fixing under antitrust law." and "the only way organizing by Uber drivers could be legal is under a so-called state action exemption from antitrust law."
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Wow, so Uber is even more evil then I thought. They fight for legislation to classify their workers as independent contractors, which then ties those workers' hands in organizing, thereby forcing those workers to accept wages below the minimum wage if they have no other options available. They're the Silicon Valley equivalent of Walmart.
  - darkstar999 11y ago
    1. Nobody is forced to work for Uber. 2. Uber isn't the first company by any stretch of the imagination that employes a workforce of contractors. There is nothing "evil" about that. It's supply and demand. Everyone can drive, so why should Uber pay more wages than they have to? The law will dictate the minimums they can pay.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > Nobody is forced to work for Uber. Nobody is forced to prostitute themselves, rob or steal, etc. But heh, fuck social safety nets ya know? If they existed, both Walmart and Uber would have to pay real wages. > Uber isn't the first company by any stretch of the imagination that employes a workforce of contractors. There is nothing "evil" about that. It's supply and demand. Everyone can drive, so why should Uber pay more wages than they have to? The law will dictate the minimums they can pay. That's right, the law will. Good luck Uber.
      - ryanlol 11y ago
        Nobody is forced to do any of those things, you always have to choose.
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members.
        darkstar999 11y ago
        We have social security, unemployment insurance, medicare/medicaid, and on and on. You want part-time workers to be paid full time. How is that fair for the employer? There is no good answer to the part-time work problem. If the supply of workers outpaces the demand for work, the employer will hire part time. It's simple economics.
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > We have social security, unemployment, medicare/medicaid, and on and on. None of which are sufficient compared to proper first world countries (ie anywhere developed outside of the US). > You want part-time workers to be paid full time. How is that fair for the employer? There is no good answer to the part-time work problem. A government doesn't exist for your business interests; it exists to take care of its citizens. If you can operate your business in such an environment, great. If you can't, tough. Quality of life is a more important measure than your exit strategy or next quarter results.
  - andrewflnr 11y ago
    How would Uber drivers ever be anything other than independent contractors?
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      IRS classification rules.
  - dcosson 11y ago
    From your comment below, I don't quite get your characterization of Uber and Walmart as evil. If anyone's evil, isn't it the government for not providing useful safety nets? The companies are just going along with the market rates at which their employees/contractors are willing to work.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      Half credit. There are companies that don't act in sociopathic ways attempting to maximize profits at worker expense (Costco comes to mind). At the same time, yes, its the government's fault for not increasing the minimum wage and strengthening social safety nets, which can unfortunately be influenced by corporate interests using lobbying after the Citizen's United supreme court ruling.
      - prostoalex 11y ago
        Are you comparing a smaller chain that caters to upper-middle-class (and higher) sectors and relies on membership fees and bulk purchases (with high average receipts) to a large (#1 globally) chain that caters to all income levels, places its stores in lower-income neighborhoods, does not rely on membership fees, and has smaller average receipts? http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-27/why-walmart-will-never-pay-like-costco http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2013-08-27/why-walmart... By that measure I heard that Thomas Keller pays its workers an excellent wage, while McDonald's not so much. Therefore we should shut down McDonald's outlets and replace them with Thomas Keller restaurants.
lackbeard 11y ago
They don't want to just organize. The city has laws which protect employees from being fired for attempting to unionize, but those laws don't apply to contractors. They want the law to be changed to cover contractors so they can have that protection. That's my understanding of the situation, which is tenuous. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong. It's mind-blowing, the amount of words written about this, yet there is no clear explanation of what exactly is going on.
jessriedel 11y ago
The same reason it's currently illegal for doctors to form a union and set prices.
- kefka 11y ago
  So, that solution is to keep the pricing hidden, and then give you a "Surprise" bill after the fact. Sure flies against the idea of "Informed Consent". "Else I'd not have done that procedure...." Edit: From the downvotes, I assume that people have issues with knowing medical pricing? That seems really backwards.
xsmasher 11y ago
Labor law generally outlaws discrimination, spying on, or termination of employees based on union membership. Seattle seems to be using its authority to regulate transportation services to extend these protections to drivers regardless of whether they are employees or contractors.
dheera 11y ago
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 11y ago
  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#First_Amendment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#F...
  - dheera 11y ago
    I see. This is a helpful explanation. Thanks!
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]

jngreenlee 11y ago

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.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> It's just the unintended consequences and manipulation of the move to unionize that are interesting. Which is caused by the wage levels of Uber drivers to be tantamount to indentured servitude. EDIT: A very small percentage of Uber drivers are coming out ahead after you account for their time, the wear and tear on their vehicle, and required commercial vehicle insurance (unless they're operating illegally on their own car insurance).
- pc86 11y ago
  EDIT: It appears I was wrong. Original comment: Uber is by definition a side gig. Nobody is doing Uber on the side in their 1989 LeBaron. You need a nice car, and you can't get a nice car if you only income is from Uber.
  - darkstar999 11y ago
    Not that I'm defending the comment you replied to, but your comment is simply untrue. Uber even partners with auto loan companies to provide leases to their drivers. You can absolutely survive 100% on just Uber income. Many do.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      What percentage of Uber drivers are able to support themselves above the federal poverty line driving for Uber alone?

nostromo 11y ago

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 11y ago
> or truck drivers I assume you've never heard of the Teamsters union?
- nostromo 11y ago
  A quick Google search says that only 5% of truck drivers are unionized.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    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 11y ago
      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 11y ago
        The full text of the proposed bill is here: http://seattle.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Text&GID=393&ID=2296991&GUID=A1841B13-CF4F-4E5A-9409-A613DC6B2B15&Title=Legislation+Text http://seattle.legistar.com/ViewReport.ashx?M=R&N=Text&GID=3... 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.

dustingetz 11y ago

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

darkstar999 11y ago
I imagine that they wouldn't want to set that precedent. Uber is very aggressive. They will fight this tooth and nail.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- __jal 11y ago
  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.)
pc86 11y ago
There are some legal options here that I'm not qualified to comment on (anti-trust, etc), but I imagine that's what they would do if everything else fails.

ksenzee 11y ago

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 11y ago
When they are the ones whose business model is being disrupted...

outlace 11y ago

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

atwebb 11y ago
Is there a "law" about people mentioning self-driving cars in anything even tangentially related to autos?
- darkstar999 11y ago
  Can you rephrase that? I'm not making sense of that question.
  - tlrobinson 11y ago
    atwebb is observing that whenever there is any sort of discussion about automobiles on Hacker News someone inevitably brings up self-driving cars.
  - ars 11y ago
    There are people who think we should never fix or make any improvement to cars because self driving cars will make any improvement unnecessary.
ars 11y ago
And what's your plan for the next 30 years?
vkou 11y ago
Uber will never be interested in taking on the capex of owning a full fleet of self-driving cars.
- intopieces 11y ago
  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-partners-with-hertz-shell-to-gain-edge-over-uber.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/10/09/ride-hailing-company-lyft-par...

sandworm101 11y ago

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.

eloff 11y ago

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.

gertef 11y ago
Your second paragraph answers your first. In the world, the simple textbook theoretical solutions do not apply. The entire structure of government and law is about a group of people asserting their rules over others, to maintain a balance of power.
moheeb 11y ago
"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 11y ago
  It's a good point that unions are about more than just getting higher wages.

lvspiff 11y ago

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 11y ago
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).
- Elepsis 11y ago
  I'm not aware of lead generators in other businesses (with the exception of mostly-unsuccessful Uber-for-x startups like Homejoy) that set the pricing for the services to be provided. Do you have any examples?
  - prostoalex 11y ago
    You're right, my experience stems from Homejoy-like services. The ones I had in mind were 1-800-DENTIST and similar, but looks like they steer away from specific pricing, and so do Amazon and RedBeacon. Franchise owners are independent businesses, which doesn't prevent McDonald's and KFC from advertising $5 special and requiring franchisees to accept that rate. Large trucking companies are attracting independent owners/operators at advertised mileage rates with a "take-it-or-leave-it" implication. The owner/operator stays independent while accepting a truck load at a pre-determined rate. On a broader scale though, nothing prevents me from posting a Craigslist ad "Looking for a ride to the airport this Saturday, my budget is $40". It does not constitute an employer-employee relationship, and an argument could be had that Uber/Lyft are just proxies for posting and fulfilling such requests. Extend that to moving, plumbing, etc. Or am I completely off?

mrfusion 11y ago

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

gertef 11y ago

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

gertef 11y ago

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

macu 11y ago

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.

LordHumungous 11y ago

>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.

ThomPete 11y ago

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 11y ago
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.
- ThomPete 11y ago
  "If so, it sounds as though it was his own actions that led to his financial predicament." Yes which is the very essence of the discussion here and why it makes sense to protect people trying to organize in some situations. Unless you think it's fair that he got released from his contract from trying to do that. In that case it just means we are politically in disagreement about what is fair and what isn't. These weren't long haul drives, these where day to day deliveries very hard to do physically and got harder and harder as the company asked them to cover more and more on less and less time and for less and less pay. And sure he found other work it just never paid enough to cover the expenses of having a family and a house to pay. He worked at times 3 different jobs a day just to cover.
- 11y ago

sebringj 11y ago

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.

blisterpeanuts 11y ago

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?

wmt 11y ago
If the business model cannot survive an even bargaining table (i.e. where both parties have equal power instead), maybe it's not as sustainable and profitable as the traditional businesses which make a profit with unionised labor. I personally don't think that Uber is that much worse than the old taxi companies, and it should continue making a steady profit despite losing its luxury of unilaterally dictating their terms and wages to the drivers.
studentrob 11y ago
What do you mean outsourcing has hollowed out programming? You're not able to make a living programming? It's unfair to share the work with other countries? How could Uber be outsourced? Without looking at the facts of wages and cost of living, could we not make the same case about the opposers (some investors) of unionization? They are just after $$ right?
biocomputation 11y ago
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.

shawnee_ 11y ago

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 11y ago
Very, very dangerous things happen when you allow the state to determine what fair means to whom.