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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 becaus

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.
  - xpe 7y ago
    Re: "I think it's more likely is that..." I'm struck by how many times you refer to rather blunt instruments (e.g. "scheduling drivers in advance" / "blocks of time in which they need to drive" / "quotas to meet"). There is a much wider canvas of tools available to guide and shape behavior, as I would guess you understand. (You seem to use language like an economist or business analyst, so you likely know about various incentive structures.) Given how cutting-edge and innovative the ride-sharing companies claim to be, I don't think they can also authentically claim that they cannot find smart, incentive-based ways to work within slight adjustments to the business and regulatory environment. Market-making and matching algorithms are powerful, interesting, and applicable here, in a wide variety of regulatory configurations. In my view, the "ride-sharing" companies (after all, the driver is "sharing" her car with the passenger... right!) should leverage their people and infrastructure as a competitive advantage and, well, innovate.
- tick_tock_tick 7y ago
  They are employees now they don't like the shift they get fired.
  - xpe 7y ago
    Well, that's one (unnecessarily rigid) way to structure it, one that (in the language of economics), is inefficient, meaning that it misses out on possibilities for gains for both sides. To be clear, I don't necessarily advocate for classical libertarian views of economics. [1] I also think in terms of balancing economic power (i.e. leverage) with goals of promoting human prosperity. Just because a company finds market success (temporarily [2]) in no way gives them moral or political authority to define ethical concerns. They exist in a broader context of social expectations, which must include norms around how people are treated. [1] I like the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." To put a point on it, don't blindly follow the tenants of an overly simplistic theory of economics (libertarianism) when it clearly doesn't ring true to your own conscience. [2] I say "temporarily" because let's remember that most businesses only last a small number of years relative to the length of written history.

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.
- xpe 7y ago
  Re: "I think it's more likely is that..." I'm struck by how many times you refer to rather blunt instruments (e.g. "scheduling drivers in advance" / "blocks of time in which they need to drive" / "quotas to meet"). There is a much wider canvas of tools available to guide and shape behavior, as I would guess you understand. (You seem to use language like an economist or business analyst, so you likely know about various incentive structures.) Given how cutting-edge and innovative the ride-sharing companies claim to be, I don't think they can also authentically claim that they cannot find smart, incentive-based ways to work within slight adjustments to the business and regulatory environment. Market-making and matching algorithms are powerful, interesting, and applicable here, in a wide variety of regulatory configurations. In my view, the "ride-sharing" companies (after all, the driver is "sharing" her car with the passenger... right!) should leverage their people and infrastructure as a competitive advantage and, well, innovate.
tick_tock_tick 7y ago
They are employees now they don't like the shift they get fired.
- xpe 7y ago
  Well, that's one (unnecessarily rigid) way to structure it, one that (in the language of economics), is inefficient, meaning that it misses out on possibilities for gains for both sides. To be clear, I don't necessarily advocate for classical libertarian views of economics. [1] I also think in terms of balancing economic power (i.e. leverage) with goals of promoting human prosperity. Just because a company finds market success (temporarily [2]) in no way gives them moral or political authority to define ethical concerns. They exist in a broader context of social expectations, which must include norms around how people are treated. [1] I like the quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines." To put a point on it, don't blindly follow the tenants of an overly simplistic theory of economics (libertarianism) when it clearly doesn't ring true to your own conscience. [2] I say "temporarily" because let's remember that most businesses only last a small number of years relative to the length of written history.