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That "flexibility" means precarity as the majority of gig employees do this full-time: >In California, the legislation will affect at least one million workers

That "flexibility" means precarity as the majority of gig employees do this full-time: >In California, the legislation will affect at least one million workers who have been on the receiving end of a decades-long trend of outsourcing and franchising work, making employer-worker relationships more arm’s-length. Many people have been pushed into contractor status with no access to basic protections like a minimum wage and unemployment insurance. Ride-hailing drivers, food-delivery couriers, janitors, nail salon workers, construction workers and franchise owners could now all be reclassified as employees. Also, classifying them as employees doesn't mean that flexibility is gone: >Uber and Lyft have repeatedly warned that they will have to start scheduling drivers in advance if they are employees, reducing drivers’ ability to work when and where they want. >Experts said that there is nothing in the bill that requires employees to work set shifts, and that Uber and Lyft are legally entitled to continue allowing drivers to make their own scheduling decisions. >In practice, Uber and Lyft might choose to limit the number of drivers who can work during slow hours or in less busy markets, where drivers may not generate enough in fares to justify their payroll costs as employees. That could lead to a reduced need for drivers over all. >But Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said it would still generally be advantageous for Uber and Lyft to rely on incentives like bonus pay to ensure they had enough drivers on the road to adjust to customer demand much more nimbly than if they scheduled drivers in advance.

miracle2k 7y ago
Of course they don't have to schedule them. But if Uber has to take them on as employees, then Uber might reasonably want to take advantage of their right as an employer to force them to work certain shifts.
- infosec4life 7y ago
  Makes sense. I agree with you
- aphextim 7y ago
  They may take a path of having employees be scheduled who opt in to have their hours/time be scheduled and get guaranteed hours/rides. If you don't opt in to be scheduled you may be lower on the priority list and not have as many rides, but your flexibility still is in your own hands. It would give incentive on the individual to want to opt in for the hours at the loss of personal freedom if that is what they want to choose.
EpicEng 7y ago
>Experts said that there is nothing in the bill that requires employees to work set shifts, and that Uber and Lyft are legally entitled to continue allowing drivers to make their own scheduling decisions. Well yeah, it doesn't force them to. Who are these "experts"? If Uber takes on 100,000 new employees and all of the costs that go along with them, why wouldn't they also manage them like... employees? You can't have it both ways.
- wjmao88 7y ago
  because then those drivers would go work for lyft or some other company that doesn't do it? I mean this is why we want competition.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Lyft would likely do the same thing, since they’re already employees...
  - username90 7y ago
    It wont be possible for any taxi company to provide minimum hourly wages without enforcing peoples schedules. I mean, a group of drivers could choose to drive only between 22-06 during weekdays and thus get paid minimum wage for basically sleeping in their car.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > It wont be possible for any taxi company to provide minimum hourly wages without enforcing peoples schedules. Sure, they have to control how many people are on-pay at any given time. That doesn't require preset schedule; you can have a combination of: (1) Minimum hourly wage, (2) Dynamic, demand-based minimum targets and maximum on-payroll quota, where additional drivers aren't permitted to come on-shift of the current quota is reached. (3) Dynamic, automatic, first-come first-served offers of above-minimum pay if current local staffing is below the minimum target. No set shifts are required.
- farisjarrah 7y ago
manfredo 7y ago
Absent that flexibility many people wouldn't be working at all. Both because their life situations don't allow them to take another job as employees, and because the companies' labor needs do not justify the cost of adding additional employees. > Uber and Lyft have repeatedly warned that they will have to start scheduling drivers in advance if they are employees, reducing drivers’ ability to work when and where they want. >Experts said that there is nothing in the bill that requires employees to work set shifts, and that Uber and Lyft are legally entitled to continue allowing drivers to make their own scheduling decisions. >In practice, Uber and Lyft might choose to limit the number of drivers who can work during slow hours or in less busy markets, where drivers may not generate enough in fares to justify their payroll costs as employees. That could lead to a reduced need for drivers over all. >But Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said it would still generally be advantageous for Uber and Lyft to rely on incentives like bonus pay to ensure they had enough drivers on the road to adjust to customer demand much more nimbly than if they scheduled drivers in advance. I think the experts cited in this article are not getting at the crux of the problem. Offering employee benefits means that each driver has an overhead cost to the rideshare company. Drivers need to generate a minimum amount of revenue for rideshare company, otherwise the driver is a net loss for the company. So Uber and Lyft are going to have to start scheduling drivers to generate a certain threshold of revenue, and if drivers don't meet that they'll be let go.
- xpe 7y ago
  If you want to encourage drivers to drive enough to offset overhead costs, there are other ways besides traditional advance time-slot based scheduling. For example: (these are not mutually exclusive) - Setup incentives (e.g. bonuses) so that drivers get paid better after they have offset the overhead costs for a month. Perhaps this could be setup as a sliding scale or threshold system. - Reward (but do not mandate) drivers for scheduling certain times/dates in advance (e.g. to optimize driver supply)
  - manfredo 7y ago
    > Setup incentives (e.g. bonuses) so that drivers get paid better after they have offset the overhead costs for a month. A bonus increases cost, meaning the drivers need to work even more hours. > Reward (but do not mandate) drivers for scheduling certain times/dates in advance (e.g. to optimize driver supply) Again, offering rewards to drivers for driving in certain scheduled times means that drivers need to bring in even more revenue to break even to offset the price of these rewards. Either that, or the overall average pay is reduced during non-peak hours to offset the cost of rewards. I think it's more likely is that this takes the form of Uber and Lyft giving drivers blocks of time during which they need to drive, and quotas to meet. Paying drivers during non-peak hours, and giving benefits to drivers that are not bringing in much money are things that ride share companies are going to have to take steps to avoid. If drivers start getting employee benefits, then it's a largely inevitable consequence that they'll lose the flexibility provided by contract work.

miracle2k 7y ago

Of course they don't have to schedule them. But if Uber has to take them on as employees, then Uber might reasonably want to take advantage of their right as an employer to force them to work certain shifts.

infosec4life 7y ago
Makes sense. I agree with you
aphextim 7y ago
They may take a path of having employees be scheduled who opt in to have their hours/time be scheduled and get guaranteed hours/rides. If you don't opt in to be scheduled you may be lower on the priority list and not have as many rides, but your flexibility still is in your own hands. It would give incentive on the individual to want to opt in for the hours at the loss of personal freedom if that is what they want to choose.

EpicEng 7y ago

>Experts said that there is nothing in the bill that requires employees to work set shifts, and that Uber and Lyft are legally entitled to continue allowing drivers to make their own scheduling decisions. Well yeah, it doesn't force them to. Who are these "experts"? If Uber takes on 100,000 new employees and all of the costs that go along with them, why wouldn't they also manage them like... employees? You can't have it both ways.

wjmao88 7y ago
because then those drivers would go work for lyft or some other company that doesn't do it? I mean this is why we want competition.
- chrischen 7y ago
  Lyft would likely do the same thing, since they’re already employees...
- username90 7y ago
  It wont be possible for any taxi company to provide minimum hourly wages without enforcing peoples schedules. I mean, a group of drivers could choose to drive only between 22-06 during weekdays and thus get paid minimum wage for basically sleeping in their car.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > It wont be possible for any taxi company to provide minimum hourly wages without enforcing peoples schedules. Sure, they have to control how many people are on-pay at any given time. That doesn't require preset schedule; you can have a combination of: (1) Minimum hourly wage, (2) Dynamic, demand-based minimum targets and maximum on-payroll quota, where additional drivers aren't permitted to come on-shift of the current quota is reached. (3) Dynamic, automatic, first-come first-served offers of above-minimum pay if current local staffing is below the minimum target. No set shifts are required.
farisjarrah 7y ago

manfredo 7y ago

Absent that flexibility many people wouldn't be working at all. Both because their life situations don't allow them to take another job as employees, and because the companies' labor needs do not justify the cost of adding additional employees. > Uber and Lyft have repeatedly warned that they will have to start scheduling drivers in advance if they are employees, reducing drivers’ ability to work when and where they want. >Experts said that there is nothing in the bill that requires employees to work set shifts, and that Uber and Lyft are legally entitled to continue allowing drivers to make their own scheduling decisions. >In practice, Uber and Lyft might choose to limit the number of drivers who can work during slow hours or in less busy markets, where drivers may not generate enough in fares to justify their payroll costs as employees. That could lead to a reduced need for drivers over all. >But Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said it would still generally be advantageous for Uber and Lyft to rely on incentives like bonus pay to ensure they had enough drivers on the road to adjust to customer demand much more nimbly than if they scheduled drivers in advance. I think the experts cited in this article are not getting at the crux of the problem. Offering employee benefits means that each driver has an overhead cost to the rideshare company. Drivers need to generate a minimum amount of revenue for rideshare company, otherwise the driver is a net loss for the company. So Uber and Lyft are going to have to start scheduling drivers to generate a certain threshold of revenue, and if drivers don't meet that they'll be let go.

xpe 7y ago
If you want to encourage drivers to drive enough to offset overhead costs, there are other ways besides traditional advance time-slot based scheduling. For example: (these are not mutually exclusive) - Setup incentives (e.g. bonuses) so that drivers get paid better after they have offset the overhead costs for a month. Perhaps this could be setup as a sliding scale or threshold system. - Reward (but do not mandate) drivers for scheduling certain times/dates in advance (e.g. to optimize driver supply)
- manfredo 7y ago
  > Setup incentives (e.g. bonuses) so that drivers get paid better after they have offset the overhead costs for a month. A bonus increases cost, meaning the drivers need to work even more hours. > Reward (but do not mandate) drivers for scheduling certain times/dates in advance (e.g. to optimize driver supply) Again, offering rewards to drivers for driving in certain scheduled times means that drivers need to bring in even more revenue to break even to offset the price of these rewards. Either that, or the overall average pay is reduced during non-peak hours to offset the cost of rewards. I think it's more likely is that this takes the form of Uber and Lyft giving drivers blocks of time during which they need to drive, and quotas to meet. Paying drivers during non-peak hours, and giving benefits to drivers that are not bringing in much money are things that ride share companies are going to have to take steps to avoid. If drivers start getting employee benefits, then it's a largely inevitable consequence that they'll lose the flexibility provided by contract work.