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Why would having a person classified as an employee turn it into a full time job? Like why would they hire managers and set schedules when it gives no benifit

Why would having a person classified as an employee turn it into a full time job? Like why would they hire managers and set schedules when it gives no benifit to Uber? To me this closes a loophole. As you say these people drive for Uber, uber is doing the employing. This is not like if a contracted a builder to renovate my kitchen. That is the class of employment that are real contractors.

nathanvanfleet 7y ago
The current scenario is that you can turn the app on and do work any time you want to do it. If you are an hourly-paid employee, you can't just choose the times that suit you, because it might not suit what's going on at that time. You can't just drive where you want, because it might not suit what's going on. So the only solution is going to be something like what you usually think of for employed work. Set hours and times etc.
- justinjlynn 7y ago
  Why are your requirements strictly necessary? If you try to refute your own answer, it'll likely be a much more fruitful conversation.
  - docker_up 7y ago
    Because part of the equation for Uber is having enough workers out there to fill demand by random chance. If they have to pay a full-time employee, they can schedule the employee and force them to drive to a certain location, and do a certain number of trips, otherwise they would just fire them. They can squeeze out more efficiency from a single driver rather than hope that there's enough random drivers to fulfill all the demand.
    - whyenot 7y ago
      Why "random chance"? Instead, Uber could encourage more people to be "on the clock" at high demand times by increasing hourly wages during those times. It feels like you are making mountains out of molehills.
      - docker_up 7y ago
        Why would they want to pay people who aren't actually doing work? That's the point if they are forced to take full-time employees, those employees should be working all the time, instead of at their leisure the way it currently is. There is no requirement to take a ride if you don't want to right now, but if there's surge, drivers will be encouraged to work. If they are full-time employees, they just work for a flat rate and at the places and times that the employer requires them to be, in order for them to be maximally used. Hiring people to just sit around and do nothing doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
        distances 7y ago
        > That's the point if they are forced to take full-time employees Where does it say this?
- jaaron 7y ago
  "If you are an hourly-paid employee, you can't just choose the times that suit you" Why not? Or more specifically: the law doesn't require this, so why would it have to change? The bill merely states, "hey, this flexible way you've been working, that's not independent contracting, that's employment and the employer have to abide by all these other regulations." Those regulations in no way require Uber to make workers work for specific hours, pay them hourly, or schedule their work differently. In fact, it just says, "the way you're already working, that's employment." So why do you think they'd have to change how they work?
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    The law may not state it but economics does. Even the cheapest insurance plans cost 500/mo. If you drive an hour a month and earn $100 for the month, it is not cost effective to issue a full health plan for that. There is a break even point of course. But that break even point will not allow driver flexibility.
    - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
      The real problem here is the coupling of healthcare with employment. Other than health insurance, there's very little in the way of benefits that would really need to be paid for a gig worker, I'm sure a lot of them would just prefer extra money. If the cost of healthcare was borne by the taxpayer, rather than a component of wages, then a case could be made that small shifts are feasible.
    - michaelmrose 7y ago
      If its not legal to drive uninsured and your insurance wont cover you driving commercially why is it OK for you to drive in such a way such that if you hurt someone they are screwed because you can't pay and your insurance wont? I think most of planet earth only wants to work 1 gig or at most 2 for somewhere between 20 and 40 hours. I doubt people who want to work a tiny number of hours make up a meaningful proportion of the workforce. In other words much ado about nothing.
      - 7y ago
will4274 7y ago
Uber wouldn't have to pay surge pricing to drivers if they set the drivers schedules to ensure enough supply was available.
jhanschoo 7y ago
> Why would having a person classified as an employee turn it into a full time job? I'm not too familiar with employment law, but in most governments, employees have rights and benefits that cost a company a fixed amount that a contractor doesn't.
- mrguyorama 7y ago
  Isn't that only Fulltime employees? When I worked part time for a grocery store, I did not get benefits like insurance. If somebody only drives for Uber 10 hours a week, don't they only qualify as a part time employee and only get those meager benefits?
briandear 7y ago
Uber is a marketing company. The Uber business model is nearly identical to the taxi business model it is replacing — except taxi drivers don’t have to lease or rent cars from Uber as they did with the taxi company. You also don’t have mobster-controlled “Medallions” as a means to artificially constrict supply. I think a lot of people have no idea how the old taxi business worked.. it was far worse than Uber — it was more of a monopoly as well because you were required to drive a specifically-branded car purchased or leased from the taxi company. You couldn’t use the same car to drive for other companies. Damage had to be repaired at the specifically designated repair shop (owned by the taxi company of course,) and you had to pay for insurance from the specific taxi company “vendor” (also owned by the taxi company.) And.. you were an independent contractor; you were the customer of the taxi company. You got to pay your own self-employment taxes, but your own health insurance and if you got sick, you still had to pay the taxi company the lease fee for the car. While you did collect your own cash fares, you had to pay a very high percentage (8-10%) on credit card fares and you were paid those fares weekly. If you lost the charge slip paper, you lost the fare, however the taxi company still had the swipe, so they’d still collect the money but just not pay any of it to you. The taxi business is and was an incredibly corrupt and nasty business. There is a reason that job was popular with fresh off the boat immigrants — anyone who had done the job more than a minute knew how much of a rip-off it was (unless you were willing to sleep in your car and drive 16+ hour days in order to save up money to start your own limo business or convenience store which was a common goal among many of the south Asian immigrants I drove with.) The kids hating on Uber really have no idea what they are talking about. Unless someone has actually worked in the towing, taxi, limousine, hot shot, or trucking businesses (all extremely nasty and tough businesses,) it’s pretty hard to have much credibility when complaining about the gig economy, Uber, etc. Uber/Lift/Doordash is a dream compared to the bad old days. You can have one car and pretty much drive and deliver as much as you want and make money proportional to how hard you are willing to work. It isn’t easy-street, but nobody plans on being a career Uber driver — it’s a stopgap, a transition, or a supplement. Anyone thinking that this is some kind of full time career is either of low-IQ and has no prospects of doing anything better, or just lacks ambition. Being a McDonald’s cashier ought not be a career either, but there are people working in that position for 15+ years. At that point, that failure is on them. We shouldn’t be optimizing society around making low wage service jobs into some kind of permanent career. Even a high school kid gets promoted at McDonalds if they stick around for more than a few minutes, yet there are literally people who have been making minimum wage for years. At some point people ought to be treated as adults and not like exploited children. A person chooses to drive for Uber/a taxi/whatever. They aren’t Shanghaied or otherwise indentured. If people don’t want to do those jobs, then that ought to motivate them to find something slightly better — or start at the bottom washing dishes somewhere and move up through a restaurant’s ranks. But that requires hard work and dedication— traits in very short supply in an era where people that literally sweep floors think that work is worth $15 per hour. Source: I drove for Yellow Cab Houston in the summer of 2001. I also drove hot shot deliveries in Houston in 2008 and a good friend of mine owned a bike courier business. I also worked a string of shitty restaurant and bar jobs, lived on the street a short time and now I work as a software engineering project manager for one of those FANG companies.
PunksATawnyFill 7y ago
No. Uber has presented work for which they will pay a particular rate. Individuals can accept that rate and submit themselves as candidates for the job, or do something else with their time. If someone posts a classified ad for a handyman to fix their stairs and offers $50, I can take it or not. But taking it and then whining that I didn't get benefits... and being abetted in that whining by clueless politicians... is disgraceful.
- walshemj 7y ago
  Only up to a point there is a lot of legal case law that defines what an employee is and uber is on the wrong side of this.
dwild 7y ago
> Like why would they hire managers and set schedules Most probably it would be machine learning that would decide that > when it gives no benifit to Uber? An employee works for an hourly rates. It would benefit them in the sense that they wouldn't have to pay someone for an hour where he does nothing. Why do your job give you a schedule? > This is not like if a contracted a builder to renovate my kitchen. I don't know for where you live, but here in Quebec you would usually contract a general contractor for that. Would that means that guy is now employing people and he should pay them benefits too and pay their taxes for them? Uber is between you and the contractor, sure, but he is still a contractor, he is contracted for a single job (taking you to your destination) and the amount paid cover that job. The contractor is free to decide when, where and for how much he works.

nathanvanfleet 7y ago

The current scenario is that you can turn the app on and do work any time you want to do it. If you are an hourly-paid employee, you can't just choose the times that suit you, because it might not suit what's going on at that time. You can't just drive where you want, because it might not suit what's going on. So the only solution is going to be something like what you usually think of for employed work. Set hours and times etc.

justinjlynn 7y ago
Why are your requirements strictly necessary? If you try to refute your own answer, it'll likely be a much more fruitful conversation.
- docker_up 7y ago
  Because part of the equation for Uber is having enough workers out there to fill demand by random chance. If they have to pay a full-time employee, they can schedule the employee and force them to drive to a certain location, and do a certain number of trips, otherwise they would just fire them. They can squeeze out more efficiency from a single driver rather than hope that there's enough random drivers to fulfill all the demand.
  - whyenot 7y ago
    Why "random chance"? Instead, Uber could encourage more people to be "on the clock" at high demand times by increasing hourly wages during those times. It feels like you are making mountains out of molehills.
    - docker_up 7y ago
      Why would they want to pay people who aren't actually doing work? That's the point if they are forced to take full-time employees, those employees should be working all the time, instead of at their leisure the way it currently is. There is no requirement to take a ride if you don't want to right now, but if there's surge, drivers will be encouraged to work. If they are full-time employees, they just work for a flat rate and at the places and times that the employer requires them to be, in order for them to be maximally used. Hiring people to just sit around and do nothing doesn't make any sense whatsoever.
      - distances 7y ago
        > That's the point if they are forced to take full-time employees Where does it say this?
jaaron 7y ago
"If you are an hourly-paid employee, you can't just choose the times that suit you" Why not? Or more specifically: the law doesn't require this, so why would it have to change? The bill merely states, "hey, this flexible way you've been working, that's not independent contracting, that's employment and the employer have to abide by all these other regulations." Those regulations in no way require Uber to make workers work for specific hours, pay them hourly, or schedule their work differently. In fact, it just says, "the way you're already working, that's employment." So why do you think they'd have to change how they work?
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  The law may not state it but economics does. Even the cheapest insurance plans cost 500/mo. If you drive an hour a month and earn $100 for the month, it is not cost effective to issue a full health plan for that. There is a break even point of course. But that break even point will not allow driver flexibility.
  - SturgeonsLaw 7y ago
    The real problem here is the coupling of healthcare with employment. Other than health insurance, there's very little in the way of benefits that would really need to be paid for a gig worker, I'm sure a lot of them would just prefer extra money. If the cost of healthcare was borne by the taxpayer, rather than a component of wages, then a case could be made that small shifts are feasible.
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    If its not legal to drive uninsured and your insurance wont cover you driving commercially why is it OK for you to drive in such a way such that if you hurt someone they are screwed because you can't pay and your insurance wont? I think most of planet earth only wants to work 1 gig or at most 2 for somewhere between 20 and 40 hours. I doubt people who want to work a tiny number of hours make up a meaningful proportion of the workforce. In other words much ado about nothing.
    - 7y ago

will4274 7y ago

Uber wouldn't have to pay surge pricing to drivers if they set the drivers schedules to ensure enough supply was available.

jhanschoo 7y ago

> Why would having a person classified as an employee turn it into a full time job? I'm not too familiar with employment law, but in most governments, employees have rights and benefits that cost a company a fixed amount that a contractor doesn't.

mrguyorama 7y ago
Isn't that only Fulltime employees? When I worked part time for a grocery store, I did not get benefits like insurance. If somebody only drives for Uber 10 hours a week, don't they only qualify as a part time employee and only get those meager benefits?

briandear 7y ago

Uber is a marketing company. The Uber business model is nearly identical to the taxi business model it is replacing — except taxi drivers don’t have to lease or rent cars from Uber as they did with the taxi company. You also don’t have mobster-controlled “Medallions” as a means to artificially constrict supply. I think a lot of people have no idea how the old taxi business worked.. it was far worse than Uber — it was more of a monopoly as well because you were required to drive a specifically-branded car purchased or leased from the taxi company. You couldn’t use the same car to drive for other companies. Damage had to be repaired at the specifically designated repair shop (owned by the taxi company of course,) and you had to pay for insurance from the specific taxi company “vendor” (also owned by the taxi company.) And.. you were an independent contractor; you were the customer of the taxi company. You got to pay your own self-employment taxes, but your own health insurance and if you got sick, you still had to pay the taxi company the lease fee for the car. While you did collect your own cash fares, you had to pay a very high percentage (8-10%) on credit card fares and you were paid those fares weekly. If you lost the charge slip paper, you lost the fare, however the taxi company still had the swipe, so they’d still collect the money but just not pay any of it to you. The taxi business is and was an incredibly corrupt and nasty business. There is a reason that job was popular with fresh off the boat immigrants — anyone who had done the job more than a minute knew how much of a rip-off it was (unless you were willing to sleep in your car and drive 16+ hour days in order to save up money to start your own limo business or convenience store which was a common goal among many of the south Asian immigrants I drove with.) The kids hating on Uber really have no idea what they are talking about. Unless someone has actually worked in the towing, taxi, limousine, hot shot, or trucking businesses (all extremely nasty and tough businesses,) it’s pretty hard to have much credibility when complaining about the gig economy, Uber, etc. Uber/Lift/Doordash is a dream compared to the bad old days. You can have one car and pretty much drive and deliver as much as you want and make money proportional to how hard you are willing to work. It isn’t easy-street, but nobody plans on being a career Uber driver — it’s a stopgap, a transition, or a supplement. Anyone thinking that this is some kind of full time career is either of low-IQ and has no prospects of doing anything better, or just lacks ambition. Being a McDonald’s cashier ought not be a career either, but there are people working in that position for 15+ years. At that point, that failure is on them. We shouldn’t be optimizing society around making low wage service jobs into some kind of permanent career. Even a high school kid gets promoted at McDonalds if they stick around for more than a few minutes, yet there are literally people who have been making minimum wage for years. At some point people ought to be treated as adults and not like exploited children. A person chooses to drive for Uber/a taxi/whatever. They aren’t Shanghaied or otherwise indentured. If people don’t want to do those jobs, then that ought to motivate them to find something slightly better — or start at the bottom washing dishes somewhere and move up through a restaurant’s ranks. But that requires hard work and dedication— traits in very short supply in an era where people that literally sweep floors think that work is worth $15 per hour. Source: I drove for Yellow Cab Houston in the summer of 2001. I also drove hot shot deliveries in Houston in 2008 and a good friend of mine owned a bike courier business. I also worked a string of shitty restaurant and bar jobs, lived on the street a short time and now I work as a software engineering project manager for one of those FANG companies.

PunksATawnyFill 7y ago

No. Uber has presented work for which they will pay a particular rate. Individuals can accept that rate and submit themselves as candidates for the job, or do something else with their time. If someone posts a classified ad for a handyman to fix their stairs and offers $50, I can take it or not. But taking it and then whining that I didn't get benefits... and being abetted in that whining by clueless politicians... is disgraceful.

walshemj 7y ago
Only up to a point there is a lot of legal case law that defines what an employee is and uber is on the wrong side of this.

dwild 7y ago

> Like why would they hire managers and set schedules Most probably it would be machine learning that would decide that > when it gives no benifit to Uber? An employee works for an hourly rates. It would benefit them in the sense that they wouldn't have to pay someone for an hour where he does nothing. Why do your job give you a schedule? > This is not like if a contracted a builder to renovate my kitchen. I don't know for where you live, but here in Quebec you would usually contract a general contractor for that. Would that means that guy is now employing people and he should pay them benefits too and pay their taxes for them? Uber is between you and the contractor, sure, but he is still a contractor, he is contracted for a single job (taking you to your destination) and the amount paid cover that job. The contractor is free to decide when, where and for how much he works.