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> The criteria for self-employment include the possibility of building up one's own clientele, the freedom to set one's own rates, and the freedom to set the te

by m11a 7y ago

> The criteria for self-employment include the possibility of building up one's own clientele, the freedom to set one's own rates, and the freedom to set the terms and conditions for providing one's services. Immediately I'd seem to agree with this statement. I think of typical self-employment businesses; hairdressers, freelance developers, etc and this seems to apply. You can set your own rate and your own terms, even if those may kill your chance at being competitive. But if you think deeper into this, then this criteria isn't always true. Here's a scenario: I publish an ad on a handyman site asking for a new shed built for £100. People can place their interest and their proposal. The price is fixed at £100, and I may set other terms and criteria. Nobody is going to argue that the builders are employees of the exchange site. Uber isn't entirely different (it just simplifies the process). Its drivers are allowed to deny a ride, and can see the cost upfront. Really the difference in these types of self-employment seems to be that the customer approached a set of potential suppliers, rather than vice versa, and the customer set the terms and the self-employed get to accept/deny. In the typical scenario (hairdressers, etc) they set the terms to potential customers who get to accept/deny. I don't agree or disagree with the classification of Uber drivers as employees, I just don't agree with the criteria of the court in this case.

mcv 7y ago
Does the customer set the price for an Uber trip? I thought Uber did that. I agree with the judge that Uber drivers have far too little control over their situation to count as self-employed. They're entirely dependent on Uber.
alistairSH 7y ago
In your shed example, a builder could contact you and negotiate the price (perhaps the $100 price you set is completely unrealistic). That's not possible with Uber - there is no price negotiation - only declining/accepting a ride. Similar argument for changing toppings on a cake - a caterer can negotiate changes to the cake - an Uber driver has no such flexibility. Regardless, given corporate (human?) nature is to leverage any power differential to self-benefit, it seems reasonable that regulations be interpreted in the most protective (of the party with less power) manner possible.
- m11a 7y ago
  Say John make a platform right now and set the rule that there's no negotiations permitted. Builders accepting the proposal must accept at the listed price. Obviously there remains a variation in the quality of the different proposals (some builders may be more polite, or use better wood). Obviously, the key difference here is that I would be able to choose what builder I want, but the customer on Uber doesn't get to decide that. So let's place one more restriction: the platform decides which builder gets the job behind the scenes. Now, would you say that builder is employed by this website? If so, at what point did this turn from self-employment to employment? > Similar argument for changing toppings on a cake - a caterer can negotiate changes to the cake - an Uber driver has no such flexibility. If the customer wants a cake for wedding: vanilla with 3 layers and a cherry on top it seems a bit inappropriate to contact them saying "I can't make a vanilla cake but how about chocolate?" It's a limitation of the platform (limitations made to improve customer experience - imagine if you had to negotiate for every taxi ride, you don't do this for local companies). I'd argue that the hypothetical platform described can set any number of limitations, as long as the builder can hop off and get his work elsewhere at any point. Really, imo, the key here is how much control the Uber driver has to refuse tasks, and if they can seek the same work elsewhere (eg is Lyft available in the city?). You wouldn't tell your boss "eyy sorry chief, bit tired, gonna head home, give the fare to someone else, byeee!! hangs up" -- but you can on Uber.
  - alistairSH 7y ago
    I'd argue that in the builder-app, the builder has now been transformed into an employee, same as an Uber driver. To me, "setting prices" is more than just refusing/accepting prices set by an algorithm/app, but the ability to negotiate those independently. In the cake example, a baker absolutely could attempt to negotiate for chocolate. They might not "win" the negotiation, but they have the option. Edit - in the taxi driver (traditional taxi in US), I'd argue that most of them should be employees too. Sometimes they are employed directly by "Acme Cab" or whatever. But, in the case of the local airport taxi company (Washington Flyer), the company has a monopoly on airport transport, but drivers are independent contractors - this always struck me as a very lopsided and questionable arrangement. If a driver wants to pick up at Dulles, they have to contract for Wash Flyer at fixed rates, renting a company car, etc. And I'll freely admit this all can be a bit ambiguous. And that I'm not a fan of the "gig economy" in general - I'm convinced corporations are using it to reduce wages and benefits and effectively foist the cost of those lower wages/benefits on society as a whole.
asah 7y ago
The difference is that it's impractical for Uber drivers to directly solicit customers, because too few ride at predictable times and places. Handymen, cleaners, developers, hairdressers etc can (and do) establish relationships outside the "advertising platform" and can find a meaningful number of new clients (and total $) through word of mouth.
boudin 7y ago
The main differnce is that the handymem can easily look for other customers elsewhere to find an alternative job. Uber drivers don't have this choice. They can't do a counter-offer neither. Technically, as you said, they can refuse. In practice, the power that Uber has on his drivers limits those choices a lot.
- awb 7y ago
  The inability to negotiate is the key point. On the point about choice, there are areas where drivers can drive for Uber or Lyft though so some drivers do have choice.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    The inability to negotiate is the key point. On the point about choice, there are areas where drivers can drive for Uber or Lyft though so some drivers do have choice. Where I drove for Uber, there were five platforms. But Uber had 90%+ of the rides. In a year, I think I got one Lyft request, and nothing from any of the others. If there were plenty of customers on all platforms your statement might be valid, but that's not the reality.
    - Jommi 7y ago
      What's the cost of a customer switching platforms?
      - reaperducer 7y ago
        Depends on the platform, the date, the time, the location, the destination, and a dozen other factors. Generally speaking, Lyft costs more than Uber, but you get a better class of passengers and a better class of drivers.
        Jommi 7y ago
        What? There is literally no cost. You download the competitors app, and youre good to go. Prices for the ride are always changing. Uber usually has lower per mile cost, while Lyft has a bit lower minute cost. This does not affect switching costs.
danboarder 7y ago
But people I know who are trying this gig economy part-time can pick their own "clientele": Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Door Dash, etc... they work for whichever client they want, on their own schedule. As an "employee" of Uber, I doubt they will want you working for competitors.
- m11a 7y ago
  See, this is key. If Uber has to class them as employees, it should also be able to deny them from working on other platforms. It should also be able to set working hours. And deny drivers the ability to refuse rides if they wish to keep their job. It could provide a daily salary and not let drivers decide or see fares. Because this is what employment typically entails.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    If Uber has to class them as employees, it should also be able to deny them from working on other platforms. Why? In America, there are tens of millions of people who work more than one job. They're still employees; just employees of more than one company. Fred's Plastic Fork Factory can't tell me I can't moonlight at Alice's Diesel Cafe and Firing Range.
    - mattw815 7y ago
      Fred's Plastic Fork Factory can tell you that you can't moonlight and can fire you if you do.
    - incadenza 7y ago
      Such a clause is pretty common in employment contracts.
      - davengh 7y ago
        I've seen these precluding secondary employment with competitive entities, but it seems there'd be little competition between Fred's and Alice's businesses (based on name alone).
everyone 7y ago
I dont think technical distinctions really matter in this case. Uber are trying to provide a cheaper service, by simply fucking over their workers, nothing else. And that should be stopped.
hrktb 7y ago
The judgment is based on the combination of all these criteria. In your scenario, you are the craftman’s direct client, a contract will be signed between you and them, not with some wrapping entity. If you need additional work on the shed you can call that same person, renegociate a price for the additional job and continue the relationship. Same if you have claims, if you need to cancel the job for any reason for instance. And you can both agree to renegociate the contract under your own terms. That direct relation is only a part of the whole picture, but I think it’s a significant point.
gridspy 7y ago
Your shed example is not the same as the Uber example. As described by the court, the driver is not told in advance where the customer is going. They are told exactly how to drive there, and the rate is decided by Uber. It would be the same as you saying "I want you to build something on my site. Bring your hammer, tools and materials. Call me to find out where. I'll pay you about $20/hr"
- pishpash 7y ago
  If so, then the "employment relationship" would last only as long as the job. When employment is specific to one job, it's a contracted job, which is a much better criterion than whatever France came up with. There is no expectation that either side will come back for more.
  - alwayseasy 7y ago
    The French court doesn't buy your interpretation of "There is no expectation that either side will come back for more.", the mere existence of a vetting system and a rating system show Uber expected drivers to come back. The profession of driver isn't new and wasn't invented by Uber. Uber just found a way around local labour (and tax) laws and a European government, who's getting the downside of the tech company but no fiscal or technological upside, stepped in.
    - pishpash 7y ago
      What of ratings or vetting forces someone to work more? If you sell once at a fleamarket and acquire a word-of-mouth reputation for your actions, are you forced/expected to come again? It's irrelevant why a government would act, political or fiscal reasons are always part of it, and protectionism. This doesn't have bearing on whether it is making sense or being illogical.
      - alwayseasy 7y ago
        Vetting and ratings are about establishing longer term relationships and not just one trip using the app. It's only illogical in a vacuum and not based on how Uber behaved on the French market.
timwaagh 7y ago
The classification of uber drivers as employees mostly means they have to pay more tax and less money goes to drivers and uber. People will argue employees have more rights and this is good for them, but the primary benefit of someone being an employee is to the state and the benefit is financial. If too many people become self-employed, the state can't finance itself anymore. The line between 'employee' and 'self-employed' is vague and this kind of reclassification is not limited to Uber. If you try contracting as a coder for example, you are likely to get reclassified as an employee. And then you have to prove you are not. Which you aren't going to be able to, because a self-employed working through a brokerage isn't radically different from a consultant working through a consultancy. So in that case you are going to have to pay a lot of back taxes. The point is: if too many people start working for exchange sites, they will also get sued and be classified as employees, just so the state can get its dues.
- nerdponx 7y ago
  This depends heavily on the tax laws in a particular jurisdiction.
  - timwaagh 7y ago
    Yes. Some (mostly) very low tax places won't have this problem. But there are reasons for it. There is the underlying principle that government likes to incentivice new business creation over just taking a job someone else could have gotten. There is also the issue that dodging tax is easier for one man business than employees so if you want to tax them at all you have to be a bit lenient.
- aikah 7y ago
  > The classification of uber drivers as employees mostly means they have to pay more tax and less money goes to drivers and uber. You forgot to disclose the fact that they are getting many perks like properly funding their public pensions while working for Uber AND getting access to regular unemployment funds. The advantages absolutely out-weight the drawbacks in France. And they are guaranteed a minimum wage, legal contract framework which means that Uber cannot fire them on the spot and so on and so forth. The only loser here is Uber, not the driver, if Uber were to chose to continue doing business in France.
lisper 7y ago
> Here's a scenario: I publish an ad on a handyman site asking for a new shed built for £100. But that's not a good analogy to Uber either. With Uber, neither the customer nor the driver sets the price, Uber does.
ElFitz 7y ago
Except that neither the customer (the user) nor the provider (the driver) defines the price. The middle-man (Uber) does. The middle-man decides what tools (car models) the provider may use to do it's work. The middle-man unilateraly sets the Terms & Conditions for both the customers and the providers, without any room for negotiation. The middle-man decides which providers may or may not get the gig. And the middle-man can cut anyone out of the platform at any time without giving notice or justification. In your example, you fix the price. The provider (handyman) may use the tool of his choosing and, if things go well, the provider is allowed to give you his business card, and you to employ his services directly in the future. The platform really is just a medium, just like the cork panel at your local supermarket, with an extra mediation capability / service.
ijidak 7y ago
Is employee and 1099 the same? Because almost every 1099 contractor is restricted in the ways listed. For example, I was doing work for a Digital Marketing company as a software developer. I could not: 1. Take their clients 2. I had to accept their rate or just decide to not work with them 3. I accepted their terms and conditions for jobs allocated to me from them #2 and #3 seem to be more of an issue of negotiating power, rather than reflecting whether or not I am self employed. And #1 seems to be up to interpretation of "what is a client?" If I drive for Uber, Lyft, and whoever else wants my services, am I not building my clientele? Couldn't I also moonlight by offering direct driving services to other clients I source on my own? In the ride-sharing case, my clients just happen to be large publicly-traded transportation networks that I sell my services to. In my case with that digital marketing company, I was not restricted from developing for other companies simultaneously. This is where some laws confuse me. They seem open to the interpretation of the day. But perhaps that's the best that lawmakers can do...
- e40 7y ago
  > If I drive for Uber, Lyft, and whoever else wants my services, am I not building my clientele? I seriously doubt you, as a driver for Uber or Lyft, could legally make deals to drive people you find via your work for those companies, outside being assigned with the apps for those companies. Anyone know what the contract with Uber/Lyft says?
  - sixstringtheory 7y ago
    I came here to ask that very question. The only thing I could find on Uber's website is this: > Requesting a specific driver > The Uber app cannot match you with a specific driver. > When you request a ride, your app sends your request to nearby drivers to pick you up at your pickup location. https://help.uber.com/riders/article/requesting-a-specific-driver?nodeId=1aaf0913-484f-4695-9042-e61fc7613f24 https://help.uber.com/riders/article/requesting-a-specific-d...
    - e40 7y ago
      The issue isn't requesting a specific driver, the issue is a driver making a deal outside the app with passengers. I seriously doubt drivers are allowed to make side deals with passengers.
zuminator 7y ago
To me the main reason why this is not analogous to Uber is that with Uber, the bidder does not set the rate, Uber does.
- canidiarus 7y ago
  Can't drivers can deny the fare without penalty if the work offer doesn't pay what they want?
  - nulbyte 7y ago
    Declining can adversely affect the driver's rating. How it does so, and the imolications of that rating, are unilaterally decided by Uber. There is no negotiation; as a driver, you either agree or you don't drive for Uber.
    - canidiarus 7y ago
      I am not aware of Uber manipulating ratings of cancelled rides. From my understanding of the platform only riders can rate the driver. Is there a published policy that would back up either of our assertions?
      - nulbyte 7y ago
        Not cancelled, declined. The rider can't rate the ride because it was never scheduled in the first place. From the user's perspective, they're still waiting for the app to find a driver. They revised it in 2017. > Moreover, declining rides won't negatively impact drivers as much as it did before.[0] Of course, won't impact as much still means impact. [0]: https://mashable.com/2017/08/22/uber-drivers-ride-flexibility/ https://mashable.com/2017/08/22/uber-drivers-ride-flexibilit...
caconym_ 7y ago
The fact that you're suggesting a price and T&Cs on the work doesn't mean anybody has to accept them/can't negotiate (unlike "appified gig work", they can directly contact you to do so), and in your scenario the middleman is "thin", i.e. it just provides communication between labor buyers and sellers. In "appified gig work", the middleman is thick: by design it makes labor a fungible commodity, and sets prices and T&Cs that workers have no choice not to accept if they want any work at all—at most there are a handful of these middlemen in any local market, and the workers are not at all involved in setting their competitive strategies. They don't have any leverage at all unless they want to stop working altogether. A reasonable court will see this business model as what it is: a way to dodge labor laws.
dwnvoted2hell 7y ago
According to US law, generally an employee is someone you give very fined tune directions to, where a contractor is someone that does the general things you ask according to their preexisting knowledge and know-how.
xg15 7y ago
On the other hand, what criteria would you say classify someone as an employee? Your shed builder example seems like it could apply to almost any kind of job. By that logic, absolutely no one would be an employee. Or put differently, what would stop me from firing all my employees and contracting them as freelancers instead?
abdullahkhalids 7y ago
In addition to what others have said, this is not the full truth > Its drivers are allowed to deny a ride, and can see the cost upfront. Drivers can't deny too many rides (as a self-employed person can), or they are penalized by Uber.
birdyrooster 7y ago
What you should be comparing this to is HomeAdvisor. I use them for handyman services and the handyman told me he must contact customers through a proxy phone number and they don't give him any ability to negotiate pay or terms. Yet somehow he is a contractor.
MAGZine 7y ago
Aren't you removed from the platform if you reject too many rides?
sk5t 7y ago
To cast your shed-building example in the Uber model: * You submit a desire to build a shed to a market-making company that controls much of the market * The market-maker sets a price you will be billed * The market-maker alerts nearby builders of a construction project - without the location - without the project cost - without the project plans * A builder (capriciously) clicks "accept project" and travels to your building site - upon arriving the market-maker discloses to the builder the project cost and plans - if the builder declines to implement the project at the dictated cost, the market-maker might penalize the builder and/or exclude them from the market
- wccrawford 7y ago
  That formatting isn't just bad for mobile users. The end of that last sentence is cut off on desktop.
- pishpash 7y ago
  Pray tell, why does the builder capriciously click "accept project", repeatedly, knowing that some projects are more worthwhile than others, other than that they are compensated adequately for the risk? On what basis should someone presume to contradict the builder's calculus on this kind of tradeoff?
  - sk5t 7y ago
    Well, those are the terms of the sometimes-lousy arrangement they have with the market-maker, which arrangement certain jurisdictions will construe as employment, due in large part to the builder/employee's lack of true contractor-like agency to consider and set a price for assignments. That some people are willing to participate in this zany scheme doesn't mean the court necessarily ought to view them as non-employees. Were there a bidding process with a reasonable and sufficient amount of transparency to the worker--what and where exactly is the job, what does it pay?--then the scales could tilt towards contractor-dom.
    - pishpash 7y ago
      I think that's where the problem lies. A functioning market imposes certain restrictions on participants. A good regulator also adds requirements to ensure fairness, access, etc. One requirement (for instance) could be that you need to provide certain kinds of information about the work. Instead of doing this, what's the point of beating around the bush and inventing that one of the marks of employment is a "sometimes-lousy arrangement"? When did that become the defining characteristic of employment, as opposed to simply an unfavorable contract?
Youden 7y ago
> I publish an ad on a handyman site asking for a new shed built for £100. People can place their interest and their proposal. The price is fixed at £100, and I may set other terms and criteria. You have satisfied all the criteria for self employment: - The handyman can build their clientele - they are free to select whichever proposals interest them without restriction. - The handyman can set their own rate - there is a free market of offers and proposals in which the handyman can freely make bids without restriction. - The handyman is free to set terms and conditions - they can negotiate with a potential client to find a mutually agreeable situation. > Uber isn't entirely different (it just simplifies the process). It is entirely different. It "simplifies" the process by removing all of the criteria needed to be self employed: - There is no free market of proposals. Uber sets the rate and the clients and drivers are both given the choice to take it or leave it (there is no possibility for the handyman to set their own rate). Clients are not permitted to select drivers and drivers are not permitted to select clients (there is no possibility for the handyman to build their clientele). Drivers are forced to accept rides or accept harsh penalties, like bans. - Uber sets the terms and conditions. Both the driver and the rider are given a take it or leave it deal. Further, the driver isn't even aware of the full terms (destination, route) when they take the ride. For Uber to be comparable to your example, it would have to allow drivers and riders to post proposals, set their own terms and prices and freely select from available offers without penalties for refused proposals.
- MadWombat 7y ago
  > There is no free market of proposals Drivers are free to accept or decline any ride requests around them. How is that not a free market of proposals? Pretty much every driver I met used multiple applications, Uber, Lift, Juno. I don't know whether or not any Uber drivers would stop for someone just flagging a cab on the street the old fashioned way. > Uber sets the terms and conditions There are always terms and conditions. If your handyman needs to do something to your power circuitry, he had better be a licensed electrician. The catering that puts icing on your cake, better pass a health inspection. And your cab driver better have a driver's license. All of these are pretty much take it or leave it restrictions. > it would have to allow drivers and riders to post proposals, set their own terms and prices and freely select from available offers No taxi service I know of works this way. Because you want your fares to be at least somewhat predictable and your incentives are aligned very different from driver's incentives.
onion2k 7y ago
In your shed building example the customer is setting a price. In Uber's case the customer is not. This is a very significant difference, and actually a compelling reason why Uber drivers are employees who are paid a wage rather than contractors who are charging customers for a service.
pishpash 7y ago
What gig companies provide are not gigs, so much as a market for service goods, which necessarily requires some standardization of units of work and of information so as to be practicable. In any market we expect substitutable and comparable goods. The standardization is what drives the implied lack of freedom to negotiate rates, terms and conditions, etc. for each and every job. It gets tedious and ridiculous, not to mention overall inefficient for all parties. The nature of whether somebody is self-employed rather than the employee of another should be very simple. It should have nothing to do with the specific items of negotiability or having or lacking information, as long as the unit of working relationship is one job with a deliverable, the taking or refusal of which is freely chosen, and there is no expectation that either side will work together again. I simply don't see how such a relationship can be considered employment in an intellectually honest way. Now on top of that you can regulate how such marketplaces should work, like how states make Amazon and eBay collect and remit sales taxes, and have fair advertising laws, but that's a separate concern from the employment question.
netcan 7y ago
Laws are, kinda by definition, highly legible. Reality is fuzzier. Whether or not Uber drivers fall under current legal definitions of "employee," I think they obviously do fall into the common sense definition that should be regulated under labour laws. Reality doesn't fall neatly into categories, which is why laws tend to have tons of details and exceptions. Some labour is day labour, piecemeal, etc. Labor laws do deal with these, they now need to deal with "uber-like" arrangements.
- waheoo 7y ago
  The amount of hang wringing in this thread to ignore this simple reality and defend their darling uber is kind of disgusting. Now id just wish law makers wake up and regulate paypal et al as banks.
  - fidelramos 7y ago
    Yes, because banking regulation works so well. coff 2008 coff coff.
    - lexs 7y ago
      You mean deregulation? Banks have famously seen less regulations starting in the 1980s
    - netcan 7y ago
      Do you genuinely think this is best answered with a simple, top-level "regulation does/doesn't work" argument? The question has no answer, and you gain almost no understanding of regulators by pondering it. Anyway, even the banking circa 2008 story is not simple. The banking "regulators" in action at the time were central basically two sets of institutions, with kinda unrelated goals. The first & primary is "central banking," which uses banking regulation and stuff to stabilise currency value (inflation targeting). The second institution is things like the SEC,"consumer" protection against fraud. The reason the currency regulator(s) get all the attention, independent authority and such is monetary history. Currencies crashed a lot, even gold & gold standard ones.^ In recent decades, this is rare. Even during the crisis, we saw very little hyperinflation around the world. Maybe they shouldn't have this mandate. Maybe different monetary policy would be better. But, I think it's hard to deny that the big-daddy financial regulators (central bankers) do the job they were built to do successfully... currencies are stable, even under very large debt loads. The job you give the regulator matters. ^yes, yes, controversial.
lapinot 7y ago
> I publish an ad on a handyman site asking for a new shed built for £100 A valid interpretation, which would be consistent with the court's decision, would be that you are the employer, the builder is you employee.
xorcist 7y ago
That parable is stretched a bit too thin. If that handyman site of yours set the price for the new shed, and also paid the workers who came to build the shed, it would be perfectly rational to call that site a "construction company". There's some tradition to it as well. This varies a lot between countries, but in many places taxi drivers have historically been self employed all the way back to horse carriages. So there's that, too. Should you pay your Uber driver directly, or should you negotiate the fare with them, the situation would be altogether different.
fabioribeiro 7y ago
Taxi drivers are very similar. They don’t have a say on price, just yes or no. And they were never considered employees, if they own their cars and work whenever they want.
jiveturkey 7y ago
> I just don't agree with the criteria of the court in this case. Well it isn't a personal opinion is it? The court presumably knows what the legal criteria for self-employment are. Unfortunately, the single page lay summary presented as TFA doesn't go into detail as to chapter and verse of the definition, but as it is the high court I think it's safe to assume they have it right. EDIT: more detail https://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/notes_explicatives_7002/relative_arret_44525.html https://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/notes_explica... To wit: ==== The criterion of the link of subordination breaks down into three elements: - the power to give instructions - the power to control the execution - the power to sanction non-compliance with the instructions given. As for self-employment, it is characterized by the following elements: the possibility of building one's own clientele, the freedom to set prices, the freedom to set the conditions for the performance of the service. ==== By these definitions, it does seem clear that the Uber-driver relationship is one of employment.
blablabla123 7y ago
In Germany the kind of work from your example is highly regulated. That said, if you put an ad to build a shed for £100, expect a low quality result. Of course you can put all kinds of criteria but at some point you will either get screwed over or nobody will answer the ad. I also doubt that there are many people working on such gigs in a sustainable manner, even if the criteria are proportionate to the price.
inkaudio 7y ago
Uber limits the amount of rides you can deny, i.e. you deny 5 rides in 30min they log you off the platform after awhile you get penalized. They want high acceptance rate.
- 205guy 7y ago
  This is the key. When the drivers lack the ability to freely decline rides every time every time without consequences, they are not contractors anymore. By the way, the take-it-or-leave-it offer with dictated pricing is a really inefficient way to reach a market price. The driver logs off because they can't decline too many times, then there are less drivers, so the rideshare app has to raise prices, but then the drivers nearby are no longer online.
p1necone 7y ago
With the handyman example there would be lots of other job offers with different price offers, there might be someone else asking for a shed for $150, or a deck for $130. With Uber prices are not decided by the customer or the employee.
maxerickson 7y ago
Don't overthink it. Uber is rather obviously a dispatch service and rather obviously not a marketplace.
bzbz 7y ago
Your example handyman can negotiate on rates, serve the same client in the future (with the possibility of a re-negotiated rate), and set their own terms and conditions for providing the service. None of that applies to drivers who can either choose to take what they're given or quit. I can't find a reason why that the court's criteria isn't sound. Can you find one?
chirau 7y ago
Even in formal employment, you do the same for the above when you negotiate an employment contract
elizabethholmes 7y ago
What is the shed made of? What color is it?
CydeWeys 7y ago
This hypothetical, dare I say strawman, scenario doesn't work in creating an equivalence between builders and Uber drivers for the simple fact that it is in fact not how price negotiation works for construction projects. In the real world, for real independent contractors, the contractor sets the rate and it's up to the buyer to accept it or not (and of course possibly negotiate). A typical process involves soliciting bids from multiple contractors and seeing which one comes in the lowest, while attempting to take into account work quality. You see this in real IT consultants too; they have a given rate that they've set that they want, or they're not doing the job. There's no method whatsoever in Uber for drivers to actually set their prices, which is a key difference.
blarglechien 7y ago
Indeed. I can see your marketplace view, But if you see 3 ads in a row that you know are a bad deal for you or are just not great in term of timing. You could still read the ads on the handyman site. In Uber world, you get banned of the site. > In addition, if the driver has declined more than three rides, Uber may temporarily disconnect the driver from its application I think you missed the part about subordination. Yes, you could have a service like Uber where you are still your own boss. ( Curb, for instance, is the response from the traditional taxi drivers ) But in the case of Uber, I tends to agree that they get away with a lot of subordination, without giving away work contract.
manmal 7y ago
In Austria, another checkbox „pseudo self employment“ has to tick in order to get recognized as such, is the fact that the freelancer only has one client. So, I think, here it would be decided on a case by case basis. Which to me still seems overzealous - as a freelancer I always have to worry to take on 2-3 clients per year to not get reinterpreted as an employee after the fact. Technically, this problem doesn’t apply to Uber in Austria because only rental car companies are allowed to provide this kind of service. The problem here rather lies with the cheap labor those rental car companies are employing (reportedly, those engagements sometimes border on modern slavery).
- koreth1 7y ago
  > as a freelancer I always have to worry to take on 2-3 clients per year to not get reinterpreted as an employee after the fact. I had a similar situation in the US when I was a contractor many years ago; during periods when one client had me working on a large project I wanted to focus on, I had to take on a couple of token tiny projects periodically to keep my clients from getting into trouble with employment agencies. I agree with the end goals of those rules but as a generously-paid technology consultant, I was in no danger of exploitation and it was just added hassle benefitting nobody.
boomlinde 7y ago
The handyman arbitrates the exchange of money, grabbing 20-25% of it on the way? Does it penalize contractors for not taking a contract? Does it hide the details of the contracts from the contractors until they accept it? The devil is in the details of how exactly Uber operates their service, not in a squinting half-baked comparison to a hypothetical handyman site.

by m11a 7y ago

mcv 7y ago

Does the customer set the price for an Uber trip? I thought Uber did that. I agree with the judge that Uber drivers have far too little control over their situation to count as self-employed. They're entirely dependent on Uber.

alistairSH 7y ago

In your shed example, a builder could contact you and negotiate the price (perhaps the $100 price you set is completely unrealistic). That's not possible with Uber - there is no price negotiation - only declining/accepting a ride. Similar argument for changing toppings on a cake - a caterer can negotiate changes to the cake - an Uber driver has no such flexibility. Regardless, given corporate (human?) nature is to leverage any power differential to self-benefit, it seems reasonable that regulations be interpreted in the most protective (of the party with less power) manner possible.

m11a 7y ago
Say John make a platform right now and set the rule that there's no negotiations permitted. Builders accepting the proposal must accept at the listed price. Obviously there remains a variation in the quality of the different proposals (some builders may be more polite, or use better wood). Obviously, the key difference here is that I would be able to choose what builder I want, but the customer on Uber doesn't get to decide that. So let's place one more restriction: the platform decides which builder gets the job behind the scenes. Now, would you say that builder is employed by this website? If so, at what point did this turn from self-employment to employment? > Similar argument for changing toppings on a cake - a caterer can negotiate changes to the cake - an Uber driver has no such flexibility. If the customer wants a cake for wedding: vanilla with 3 layers and a cherry on top it seems a bit inappropriate to contact them saying "I can't make a vanilla cake but how about chocolate?" It's a limitation of the platform (limitations made to improve customer experience - imagine if you had to negotiate for every taxi ride, you don't do this for local companies). I'd argue that the hypothetical platform described can set any number of limitations, as long as the builder can hop off and get his work elsewhere at any point. Really, imo, the key here is how much control the Uber driver has to refuse tasks, and if they can seek the same work elsewhere (eg is Lyft available in the city?). You wouldn't tell your boss "eyy sorry chief, bit tired, gonna head home, give the fare to someone else, byeee!! hangs up" -- but you can on Uber.
- alistairSH 7y ago
  I'd argue that in the builder-app, the builder has now been transformed into an employee, same as an Uber driver. To me, "setting prices" is more than just refusing/accepting prices set by an algorithm/app, but the ability to negotiate those independently. In the cake example, a baker absolutely could attempt to negotiate for chocolate. They might not "win" the negotiation, but they have the option. Edit - in the taxi driver (traditional taxi in US), I'd argue that most of them should be employees too. Sometimes they are employed directly by "Acme Cab" or whatever. But, in the case of the local airport taxi company (Washington Flyer), the company has a monopoly on airport transport, but drivers are independent contractors - this always struck me as a very lopsided and questionable arrangement. If a driver wants to pick up at Dulles, they have to contract for Wash Flyer at fixed rates, renting a company car, etc. And I'll freely admit this all can be a bit ambiguous. And that I'm not a fan of the "gig economy" in general - I'm convinced corporations are using it to reduce wages and benefits and effectively foist the cost of those lower wages/benefits on society as a whole.

asah 7y ago

The difference is that it's impractical for Uber drivers to directly solicit customers, because too few ride at predictable times and places. Handymen, cleaners, developers, hairdressers etc can (and do) establish relationships outside the "advertising platform" and can find a meaningful number of new clients (and total $) through word of mouth.

boudin 7y ago

The main differnce is that the handymem can easily look for other customers elsewhere to find an alternative job. Uber drivers don't have this choice. They can't do a counter-offer neither. Technically, as you said, they can refuse. In practice, the power that Uber has on his drivers limits those choices a lot.

awb 7y ago
The inability to negotiate is the key point. On the point about choice, there are areas where drivers can drive for Uber or Lyft though so some drivers do have choice.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  The inability to negotiate is the key point. On the point about choice, there are areas where drivers can drive for Uber or Lyft though so some drivers do have choice. Where I drove for Uber, there were five platforms. But Uber had 90%+ of the rides. In a year, I think I got one Lyft request, and nothing from any of the others. If there were plenty of customers on all platforms your statement might be valid, but that's not the reality.
  - Jommi 7y ago
    What's the cost of a customer switching platforms?
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      Depends on the platform, the date, the time, the location, the destination, and a dozen other factors. Generally speaking, Lyft costs more than Uber, but you get a better class of passengers and a better class of drivers.
      - Jommi 7y ago
        What? There is literally no cost. You download the competitors app, and youre good to go. Prices for the ride are always changing. Uber usually has lower per mile cost, while Lyft has a bit lower minute cost. This does not affect switching costs.

danboarder 7y ago

But people I know who are trying this gig economy part-time can pick their own "clientele": Uber, Lyft, Postmates, Door Dash, etc... they work for whichever client they want, on their own schedule. As an "employee" of Uber, I doubt they will want you working for competitors.

m11a 7y ago
See, this is key. If Uber has to class them as employees, it should also be able to deny them from working on other platforms. It should also be able to set working hours. And deny drivers the ability to refuse rides if they wish to keep their job. It could provide a daily salary and not let drivers decide or see fares. Because this is what employment typically entails.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  If Uber has to class them as employees, it should also be able to deny them from working on other platforms. Why? In America, there are tens of millions of people who work more than one job. They're still employees; just employees of more than one company. Fred's Plastic Fork Factory can't tell me I can't moonlight at Alice's Diesel Cafe and Firing Range.
  - mattw815 7y ago
    Fred's Plastic Fork Factory can tell you that you can't moonlight and can fire you if you do.
  - incadenza 7y ago
    Such a clause is pretty common in employment contracts.
    - davengh 7y ago
      I've seen these precluding secondary employment with competitive entities, but it seems there'd be little competition between Fred's and Alice's businesses (based on name alone).

everyone 7y ago

I dont think technical distinctions really matter in this case. Uber are trying to provide a cheaper service, by simply fucking over their workers, nothing else. And that should be stopped.

hrktb 7y ago

The judgment is based on the combination of all these criteria. In your scenario, you are the craftman’s direct client, a contract will be signed between you and them, not with some wrapping entity. If you need additional work on the shed you can call that same person, renegociate a price for the additional job and continue the relationship. Same if you have claims, if you need to cancel the job for any reason for instance. And you can both agree to renegociate the contract under your own terms. That direct relation is only a part of the whole picture, but I think it’s a significant point.

gridspy 7y ago

Your shed example is not the same as the Uber example. As described by the court, the driver is not told in advance where the customer is going. They are told exactly how to drive there, and the rate is decided by Uber. It would be the same as you saying "I want you to build something on my site. Bring your hammer, tools and materials. Call me to find out where. I'll pay you about $20/hr"

pishpash 7y ago
If so, then the "employment relationship" would last only as long as the job. When employment is specific to one job, it's a contracted job, which is a much better criterion than whatever France came up with. There is no expectation that either side will come back for more.
- alwayseasy 7y ago
  The French court doesn't buy your interpretation of "There is no expectation that either side will come back for more.", the mere existence of a vetting system and a rating system show Uber expected drivers to come back. The profession of driver isn't new and wasn't invented by Uber. Uber just found a way around local labour (and tax) laws and a European government, who's getting the downside of the tech company but no fiscal or technological upside, stepped in.
  - pishpash 7y ago
    What of ratings or vetting forces someone to work more? If you sell once at a fleamarket and acquire a word-of-mouth reputation for your actions, are you forced/expected to come again? It's irrelevant why a government would act, political or fiscal reasons are always part of it, and protectionism. This doesn't have bearing on whether it is making sense or being illogical.
    - alwayseasy 7y ago
      Vetting and ratings are about establishing longer term relationships and not just one trip using the app. It's only illogical in a vacuum and not based on how Uber behaved on the French market.

timwaagh 7y ago

The classification of uber drivers as employees mostly means they have to pay more tax and less money goes to drivers and uber. People will argue employees have more rights and this is good for them, but the primary benefit of someone being an employee is to the state and the benefit is financial. If too many people become self-employed, the state can't finance itself anymore. The line between 'employee' and 'self-employed' is vague and this kind of reclassification is not limited to Uber. If you try contracting as a coder for example, you are likely to get reclassified as an employee. And then you have to prove you are not. Which you aren't going to be able to, because a self-employed working through a brokerage isn't radically different from a consultant working through a consultancy. So in that case you are going to have to pay a lot of back taxes. The point is: if too many people start working for exchange sites, they will also get sued and be classified as employees, just so the state can get its dues.

nerdponx 7y ago
This depends heavily on the tax laws in a particular jurisdiction.
- timwaagh 7y ago
  Yes. Some (mostly) very low tax places won't have this problem. But there are reasons for it. There is the underlying principle that government likes to incentivice new business creation over just taking a job someone else could have gotten. There is also the issue that dodging tax is easier for one man business than employees so if you want to tax them at all you have to be a bit lenient.
aikah 7y ago
> The classification of uber drivers as employees mostly means they have to pay more tax and less money goes to drivers and uber. You forgot to disclose the fact that they are getting many perks like properly funding their public pensions while working for Uber AND getting access to regular unemployment funds. The advantages absolutely out-weight the drawbacks in France. And they are guaranteed a minimum wage, legal contract framework which means that Uber cannot fire them on the spot and so on and so forth. The only loser here is Uber, not the driver, if Uber were to chose to continue doing business in France.

lisper 7y ago

> Here's a scenario: I publish an ad on a handyman site asking for a new shed built for £100. But that's not a good analogy to Uber either. With Uber, neither the customer nor the driver sets the price, Uber does.

ElFitz 7y ago

Except that neither the customer (the user) nor the provider (the driver) defines the price. The middle-man (Uber) does. The middle-man decides what tools (car models) the provider may use to do it's work. The middle-man unilateraly sets the Terms & Conditions for both the customers and the providers, without any room for negotiation. The middle-man decides which providers may or may not get the gig. And the middle-man can cut anyone out of the platform at any time without giving notice or justification. In your example, you fix the price. The provider (handyman) may use the tool of his choosing and, if things go well, the provider is allowed to give you his business card, and you to employ his services directly in the future. The platform really is just a medium, just like the cork panel at your local supermarket, with an extra mediation capability / service.

ijidak 7y ago

Is employee and 1099 the same? Because almost every 1099 contractor is restricted in the ways listed. For example, I was doing work for a Digital Marketing company as a software developer. I could not: 1. Take their clients 2. I had to accept their rate or just decide to not work with them 3. I accepted their terms and conditions for jobs allocated to me from them #2 and #3 seem to be more of an issue of negotiating power, rather than reflecting whether or not I am self employed. And #1 seems to be up to interpretation of "what is a client?" If I drive for Uber, Lyft, and whoever else wants my services, am I not building my clientele? Couldn't I also moonlight by offering direct driving services to other clients I source on my own? In the ride-sharing case, my clients just happen to be large publicly-traded transportation networks that I sell my services to. In my case with that digital marketing company, I was not restricted from developing for other companies simultaneously. This is where some laws confuse me. They seem open to the interpretation of the day. But perhaps that's the best that lawmakers can do...

e40 7y ago
> If I drive for Uber, Lyft, and whoever else wants my services, am I not building my clientele? I seriously doubt you, as a driver for Uber or Lyft, could legally make deals to drive people you find via your work for those companies, outside being assigned with the apps for those companies. Anyone know what the contract with Uber/Lyft says?
- sixstringtheory 7y ago
  I came here to ask that very question. The only thing I could find on Uber's website is this: > Requesting a specific driver > The Uber app cannot match you with a specific driver. > When you request a ride, your app sends your request to nearby drivers to pick you up at your pickup location. https://help.uber.com/riders/article/requesting-a-specific-driver?nodeId=1aaf0913-484f-4695-9042-e61fc7613f24 https://help.uber.com/riders/article/requesting-a-specific-d...
  - e40 7y ago
    The issue isn't requesting a specific driver, the issue is a driver making a deal outside the app with passengers. I seriously doubt drivers are allowed to make side deals with passengers.

zuminator 7y ago

To me the main reason why this is not analogous to Uber is that with Uber, the bidder does not set the rate, Uber does.

canidiarus 7y ago
Can't drivers can deny the fare without penalty if the work offer doesn't pay what they want?
- nulbyte 7y ago
  Declining can adversely affect the driver's rating. How it does so, and the imolications of that rating, are unilaterally decided by Uber. There is no negotiation; as a driver, you either agree or you don't drive for Uber.
  - canidiarus 7y ago
    I am not aware of Uber manipulating ratings of cancelled rides. From my understanding of the platform only riders can rate the driver. Is there a published policy that would back up either of our assertions?
    - nulbyte 7y ago
      Not cancelled, declined. The rider can't rate the ride because it was never scheduled in the first place. From the user's perspective, they're still waiting for the app to find a driver. They revised it in 2017. > Moreover, declining rides won't negatively impact drivers as much as it did before.[0] Of course, won't impact as much still means impact. [0]: https://mashable.com/2017/08/22/uber-drivers-ride-flexibility/ https://mashable.com/2017/08/22/uber-drivers-ride-flexibilit...

caconym_ 7y ago

The fact that you're suggesting a price and T&Cs on the work doesn't mean anybody has to accept them/can't negotiate (unlike "appified gig work", they can directly contact you to do so), and in your scenario the middleman is "thin", i.e. it just provides communication between labor buyers and sellers. In "appified gig work", the middleman is thick: by design it makes labor a fungible commodity, and sets prices and T&Cs that workers have no choice not to accept if they want any work at all—at most there are a handful of these middlemen in any local market, and the workers are not at all involved in setting their competitive strategies. They don't have any leverage at all unless they want to stop working altogether. A reasonable court will see this business model as what it is: a way to dodge labor laws.

dwnvoted2hell 7y ago

According to US law, generally an employee is someone you give very fined tune directions to, where a contractor is someone that does the general things you ask according to their preexisting knowledge and know-how.

xg15 7y ago

On the other hand, what criteria would you say classify someone as an employee? Your shed builder example seems like it could apply to almost any kind of job. By that logic, absolutely no one would be an employee. Or put differently, what would stop me from firing all my employees and contracting them as freelancers instead?

abdullahkhalids 7y ago

In addition to what others have said, this is not the full truth > Its drivers are allowed to deny a ride, and can see the cost upfront. Drivers can't deny too many rides (as a self-employed person can), or they are penalized by Uber.

birdyrooster 7y ago

What you should be comparing this to is HomeAdvisor. I use them for handyman services and the handyman told me he must contact customers through a proxy phone number and they don't give him any ability to negotiate pay or terms. Yet somehow he is a contractor.

MAGZine 7y ago

Aren't you removed from the platform if you reject too many rides?

sk5t 7y ago

To cast your shed-building example in the Uber model: * You submit a desire to build a shed to a market-making company that controls much of the market * The market-maker sets a price you will be billed * The market-maker alerts nearby builders of a construction project - without the location - without the project cost - without the project plans * A builder (capriciously) clicks "accept project" and travels to your building site - upon arriving the market-maker discloses to the builder the project cost and plans - if the builder declines to implement the project at the dictated cost, the market-maker might penalize the builder and/or exclude them from the market

wccrawford 7y ago
That formatting isn't just bad for mobile users. The end of that last sentence is cut off on desktop.
pishpash 7y ago
Pray tell, why does the builder capriciously click "accept project", repeatedly, knowing that some projects are more worthwhile than others, other than that they are compensated adequately for the risk? On what basis should someone presume to contradict the builder's calculus on this kind of tradeoff?
- sk5t 7y ago
  Well, those are the terms of the sometimes-lousy arrangement they have with the market-maker, which arrangement certain jurisdictions will construe as employment, due in large part to the builder/employee's lack of true contractor-like agency to consider and set a price for assignments. That some people are willing to participate in this zany scheme doesn't mean the court necessarily ought to view them as non-employees. Were there a bidding process with a reasonable and sufficient amount of transparency to the worker--what and where exactly is the job, what does it pay?--then the scales could tilt towards contractor-dom.
  - pishpash 7y ago
    I think that's where the problem lies. A functioning market imposes certain restrictions on participants. A good regulator also adds requirements to ensure fairness, access, etc. One requirement (for instance) could be that you need to provide certain kinds of information about the work. Instead of doing this, what's the point of beating around the bush and inventing that one of the marks of employment is a "sometimes-lousy arrangement"? When did that become the defining characteristic of employment, as opposed to simply an unfavorable contract?

Youden 7y ago

> I publish an ad on a handyman site asking for a new shed built for £100. People can place their interest and their proposal. The price is fixed at £100, and I may set other terms and criteria. You have satisfied all the criteria for self employment: - The handyman can build their clientele - they are free to select whichever proposals interest them without restriction. - The handyman can set their own rate - there is a free market of offers and proposals in which the handyman can freely make bids without restriction. - The handyman is free to set terms and conditions - they can negotiate with a potential client to find a mutually agreeable situation. > Uber isn't entirely different (it just simplifies the process). It is entirely different. It "simplifies" the process by removing all of the criteria needed to be self employed: - There is no free market of proposals. Uber sets the rate and the clients and drivers are both given the choice to take it or leave it (there is no possibility for the handyman to set their own rate). Clients are not permitted to select drivers and drivers are not permitted to select clients (there is no possibility for the handyman to build their clientele). Drivers are forced to accept rides or accept harsh penalties, like bans. - Uber sets the terms and conditions. Both the driver and the rider are given a take it or leave it deal. Further, the driver isn't even aware of the full terms (destination, route) when they take the ride. For Uber to be comparable to your example, it would have to allow drivers and riders to post proposals, set their own terms and prices and freely select from available offers without penalties for refused proposals.

MadWombat 7y ago
> There is no free market of proposals Drivers are free to accept or decline any ride requests around them. How is that not a free market of proposals? Pretty much every driver I met used multiple applications, Uber, Lift, Juno. I don't know whether or not any Uber drivers would stop for someone just flagging a cab on the street the old fashioned way. > Uber sets the terms and conditions There are always terms and conditions. If your handyman needs to do something to your power circuitry, he had better be a licensed electrician. The catering that puts icing on your cake, better pass a health inspection. And your cab driver better have a driver's license. All of these are pretty much take it or leave it restrictions. > it would have to allow drivers and riders to post proposals, set their own terms and prices and freely select from available offers No taxi service I know of works this way. Because you want your fares to be at least somewhat predictable and your incentives are aligned very different from driver's incentives.

onion2k 7y ago

In your shed building example the customer is setting a price. In Uber's case the customer is not. This is a very significant difference, and actually a compelling reason why Uber drivers are employees who are paid a wage rather than contractors who are charging customers for a service.

pishpash 7y ago

What gig companies provide are not gigs, so much as a market for service goods, which necessarily requires some standardization of units of work and of information so as to be practicable. In any market we expect substitutable and comparable goods. The standardization is what drives the implied lack of freedom to negotiate rates, terms and conditions, etc. for each and every job. It gets tedious and ridiculous, not to mention overall inefficient for all parties. The nature of whether somebody is self-employed rather than the employee of another should be very simple. It should have nothing to do with the specific items of negotiability or having or lacking information, as long as the unit of working relationship is one job with a deliverable, the taking or refusal of which is freely chosen, and there is no expectation that either side will work together again. I simply don't see how such a relationship can be considered employment in an intellectually honest way. Now on top of that you can regulate how such marketplaces should work, like how states make Amazon and eBay collect and remit sales taxes, and have fair advertising laws, but that's a separate concern from the employment question.

netcan 7y ago

Laws are, kinda by definition, highly legible. Reality is fuzzier. Whether or not Uber drivers fall under current legal definitions of "employee," I think they obviously do fall into the common sense definition that should be regulated under labour laws. Reality doesn't fall neatly into categories, which is why laws tend to have tons of details and exceptions. Some labour is day labour, piecemeal, etc. Labor laws do deal with these, they now need to deal with "uber-like" arrangements.

waheoo 7y ago
The amount of hang wringing in this thread to ignore this simple reality and defend their darling uber is kind of disgusting. Now id just wish law makers wake up and regulate paypal et al as banks.
- fidelramos 7y ago
  Yes, because banking regulation works so well. coff 2008 coff coff.
  - lexs 7y ago
    You mean deregulation? Banks have famously seen less regulations starting in the 1980s
  - netcan 7y ago
    Do you genuinely think this is best answered with a simple, top-level "regulation does/doesn't work" argument? The question has no answer, and you gain almost no understanding of regulators by pondering it. Anyway, even the banking circa 2008 story is not simple. The banking "regulators" in action at the time were central basically two sets of institutions, with kinda unrelated goals. The first & primary is "central banking," which uses banking regulation and stuff to stabilise currency value (inflation targeting). The second institution is things like the SEC,"consumer" protection against fraud. The reason the currency regulator(s) get all the attention, independent authority and such is monetary history. Currencies crashed a lot, even gold & gold standard ones.^ In recent decades, this is rare. Even during the crisis, we saw very little hyperinflation around the world. Maybe they shouldn't have this mandate. Maybe different monetary policy would be better. But, I think it's hard to deny that the big-daddy financial regulators (central bankers) do the job they were built to do successfully... currencies are stable, even under very large debt loads. The job you give the regulator matters. ^yes, yes, controversial.

lapinot 7y ago

> I publish an ad on a handyman site asking for a new shed built for £100 A valid interpretation, which would be consistent with the court's decision, would be that you are the employer, the builder is you employee.

xorcist 7y ago

That parable is stretched a bit too thin. If that handyman site of yours set the price for the new shed, and also paid the workers who came to build the shed, it would be perfectly rational to call that site a "construction company". There's some tradition to it as well. This varies a lot between countries, but in many places taxi drivers have historically been self employed all the way back to horse carriages. So there's that, too. Should you pay your Uber driver directly, or should you negotiate the fare with them, the situation would be altogether different.

fabioribeiro 7y ago

Taxi drivers are very similar. They don’t have a say on price, just yes or no. And they were never considered employees, if they own their cars and work whenever they want.

jiveturkey 7y ago

> I just don't agree with the criteria of the court in this case. Well it isn't a personal opinion is it? The court presumably knows what the legal criteria for self-employment are. Unfortunately, the single page lay summary presented as TFA doesn't go into detail as to chapter and verse of the definition, but as it is the high court I think it's safe to assume they have it right. EDIT: more detail https://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/notes_explicatives_7002/relative_arret_44525.html https://www.courdecassation.fr/jurisprudence_2/notes_explica... To wit: ==== The criterion of the link of subordination breaks down into three elements: - the power to give instructions - the power to control the execution - the power to sanction non-compliance with the instructions given. As for self-employment, it is characterized by the following elements: the possibility of building one's own clientele, the freedom to set prices, the freedom to set the conditions for the performance of the service. ==== By these definitions, it does seem clear that the Uber-driver relationship is one of employment.

blablabla123 7y ago

In Germany the kind of work from your example is highly regulated. That said, if you put an ad to build a shed for £100, expect a low quality result. Of course you can put all kinds of criteria but at some point you will either get screwed over or nobody will answer the ad. I also doubt that there are many people working on such gigs in a sustainable manner, even if the criteria are proportionate to the price.

inkaudio 7y ago

Uber limits the amount of rides you can deny, i.e. you deny 5 rides in 30min they log you off the platform after awhile you get penalized. They want high acceptance rate.

205guy 7y ago
This is the key. When the drivers lack the ability to freely decline rides every time every time without consequences, they are not contractors anymore. By the way, the take-it-or-leave-it offer with dictated pricing is a really inefficient way to reach a market price. The driver logs off because they can't decline too many times, then there are less drivers, so the rideshare app has to raise prices, but then the drivers nearby are no longer online.

p1necone 7y ago

With the handyman example there would be lots of other job offers with different price offers, there might be someone else asking for a shed for $150, or a deck for $130. With Uber prices are not decided by the customer or the employee.

maxerickson 7y ago

Don't overthink it. Uber is rather obviously a dispatch service and rather obviously not a marketplace.

bzbz 7y ago

Your example handyman can negotiate on rates, serve the same client in the future (with the possibility of a re-negotiated rate), and set their own terms and conditions for providing the service. None of that applies to drivers who can either choose to take what they're given or quit. I can't find a reason why that the court's criteria isn't sound. Can you find one?

chirau 7y ago

Even in formal employment, you do the same for the above when you negotiate an employment contract

elizabethholmes 7y ago

What is the shed made of? What color is it?

CydeWeys 7y ago

This hypothetical, dare I say strawman, scenario doesn't work in creating an equivalence between builders and Uber drivers for the simple fact that it is in fact not how price negotiation works for construction projects. In the real world, for real independent contractors, the contractor sets the rate and it's up to the buyer to accept it or not (and of course possibly negotiate). A typical process involves soliciting bids from multiple contractors and seeing which one comes in the lowest, while attempting to take into account work quality. You see this in real IT consultants too; they have a given rate that they've set that they want, or they're not doing the job. There's no method whatsoever in Uber for drivers to actually set their prices, which is a key difference.

blarglechien 7y ago

Indeed. I can see your marketplace view, But if you see 3 ads in a row that you know are a bad deal for you or are just not great in term of timing. You could still read the ads on the handyman site. In Uber world, you get banned of the site. > In addition, if the driver has declined more than three rides, Uber may temporarily disconnect the driver from its application I think you missed the part about subordination. Yes, you could have a service like Uber where you are still your own boss. ( Curb, for instance, is the response from the traditional taxi drivers ) But in the case of Uber, I tends to agree that they get away with a lot of subordination, without giving away work contract.

manmal 7y ago

In Austria, another checkbox „pseudo self employment“ has to tick in order to get recognized as such, is the fact that the freelancer only has one client. So, I think, here it would be decided on a case by case basis. Which to me still seems overzealous - as a freelancer I always have to worry to take on 2-3 clients per year to not get reinterpreted as an employee after the fact. Technically, this problem doesn’t apply to Uber in Austria because only rental car companies are allowed to provide this kind of service. The problem here rather lies with the cheap labor those rental car companies are employing (reportedly, those engagements sometimes border on modern slavery).

koreth1 7y ago
> as a freelancer I always have to worry to take on 2-3 clients per year to not get reinterpreted as an employee after the fact. I had a similar situation in the US when I was a contractor many years ago; during periods when one client had me working on a large project I wanted to focus on, I had to take on a couple of token tiny projects periodically to keep my clients from getting into trouble with employment agencies. I agree with the end goals of those rules but as a generously-paid technology consultant, I was in no danger of exploitation and it was just added hassle benefitting nobody.

boomlinde 7y ago

The handyman arbitrates the exchange of money, grabbing 20-25% of it on the way? Does it penalize contractors for not taking a contract? Does it hide the details of the contracts from the contractors until they accept it? The devil is in the details of how exactly Uber operates their service, not in a squinting half-baked comparison to a hypothetical handyman site.