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You realize there are tons of jobs with employees that allow employees to chose their own hours. There is nothing in this ruling that prevents Uber from allowi

You realize there are tons of jobs with employees that allow employees to chose their own hours. There is nothing in this ruling that prevents Uber from allowing people to chose rides _exactly_ as they are doing it now. The changes are: 1. Uber needs to pay into unemployment insurance. 2. Uber needs to pay into workers compensation. 3. Uber needs to pay into social security. 4. Uber needs to collect payroll taxes in advance. 5. Uber cannot discriminate based on protected classes such as race or gender. 6. Uber must comply with the WARN if large scale layoffs occur. 7. Uber has to provide for heath insurance depending in accordance with local and federal laws. 8. Uber needs to verify the legal working status of their drivers 9. And many other things all other businesses pay into and rules they have to follow. We make businesses pay into this because the general public is ends up footing the bill anyway. Like right now where we’re providing Uber drivers with unemployment benefits even though Uber cheated their responsibility. And when a driver gets in an accident and we have to pick up the bill of unpaid hospital bills and disability payments. Flexibility has nothing to do with it. Paying into the system everyone else has to and following the rules everyone else needs to follow is.

rockinghigh 6y ago
Do you have examples of jobs where employees choose their own hours and can work for competitors?
- ec109685 6y ago
  Nurses, e.g. https://allnurses.com/working-two-hospitals-t591829/ https://allnurses.com/working-two-hospitals-t591829/
- momokoko 6y ago
  Do you have a link to the California law that states that an employee is not allowed to work for any other company? If anything California has specific non-compete laws and moonlighting laws that forbid a company from preventing their employees from working for another company. Hilariously, you are so far off that you don’t realize that the only legal way Uber could prevent their drivers from working for Lyft in California was if they were contractors and not employees Where did you get this information?
ehsankia 6y ago
Can they 1. Work for the competitors 2. work as much or as little as they want 3. Take as much vacation time as they want 4. Leave with zero advance notice Also, should Twitch streamers and Youtube creators also become employees? What about Etsy/Ebay sellers or AirBnB hosts?
- momokoko 6y ago
  In the US, and more specifically California? Absolutely they can. California, like almost all states in the US, is an “at-will” employment state. None of these things are required under employment law at all. Can I ask where you found this wildly false information? Do you happen to live outside the US? Nowhere in California labor law does it prevent people from taking vacations or anything else you mentioned if they are an employee.
  - ehsankia 6y ago
    > Can I ask where you found this wildly false information? Do you happen to live outside the US? I worked in California for a few years but I'm not longer there. And those were questions, they weren't meant to be stated as facts. > Nowhere in California labor law does it prevent people from taking vacations Hmm, maybe I understood my rights wrong, but from my understanding I wasn't free to take an arbitrary number of vacation days without getting fired. I know Netflix allows that but other than them, wouldn't most employers let you go if you just decided to not show up on random days? Also, again I'm not expert, but are you sure that someone can simultaneously work for Apple and Google? That doesn't sound right but again, these are mostly discussion questions, let me know if I'm missing something here.
    - pseudalopex 6y ago
      Employers are allowed to limit vacation and prohibit working for competitors. California doesn't force them to.
      - momokoko 6y ago
keenmaster 6y ago
Why don't we legislate a new category of taxation for gig economy companies like Uber? Make them pay more taxes and support a new social safety net (especially universal healthcare) without changing their business model.
- ramshorns 6y ago
  The term "dependent contractor" is sometimes used for this idea of a third category. Whether it actually provides workers with the benefits and protections that employees with similar working arrangements are entitled to remains to be seen.
- missedthecue 6y ago
  Why not just raise taxes because either way, it's the consumer paying. Not Uber. It would take much less effort
  - keenmaster 6y ago
    Up to a certain point, corporate taxes do have a marginal benefit to society as a separate source of taxation. Generally speaking you want to spread your sources of tax revenue to minimize distortions and maximize revenue. This advice breaks down for small tax haven countries of course, and I think that larger countries should mitigate their most disruptive schemes. Citizens of large countries should not be deprived of a great avenue for taxation because of financial acrobatics devised by smaller countries. That all being said, I also think that income taxes should be increased at the higher end to support a greater safety net.
    - eru 6y ago
      If you want a fair taxation scheme that's hard to evade, take Land Value Taxes. Economists of all stripes like them. However, they are extremely unpopular politically. Especially in California, where they seem to hate all kinds of real estate taxation.
  - mleo 6y ago
    It's the consumers using the services that pay extra costs associated with these services. Socializing the costs through general taxes across the greater public that does not use gig economy services is not good.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
Current employment law really isn't well suited for cases where someone can be an "employee" of 4 or 5 companies at a time, and stop and start on a whim as they see fit. I mean, just look at unemployment insurance. When the nature of the job is essentially a bid out to people willing to do the work, what does it mean for someone to be unemployed in the first place if there is just less work to go around? Flexibility DOES have a lot to do with it: I'm fine with the company not guaranteeing me a set number of hours per week if I can just choose to not work a particular week if that's what I want. I agree with some other posters, I think a new categorization for "gig" workers is necessary, as I think a lot of your other points (e.g. paying workers comp) make sense.
- mleo 6y ago
  I wonder if a model, more like the SAG-AFTRA union would be possible. Register with the union and workers can operate on as many platforms as possible. Common reporting on hours could prevent worker overlapping across platforms against a minimum wage. Health insurance is available through union with companies paying portions in. Workers can choose platforms that maximize the worker's wages while platforms would need to minimize costs for customers. The more efficient the platform gets, the better position they would be in vs competitors.
  - eru 6y ago
    > I wonder if a model, more like the SAG-AFTRA union would be possible. Possible in what sense? Legally possible, or do you mean economically feasible?
- heavyset_go 6y ago
  > Current employment law really isn't well suited for cases where someone can be an "employee" of 4 or 5 companies at a time There are plenty of people working more than one job in the US where they're classified as an employee at all of them.
- pjc50 6y ago
  > what does it mean for someone to be unemployed in the first place if there is just less work to go around? As we've seen with the pandemic, unemployment can mean withdrawal of healthcare and eviction. Really the question here is risk. Who takes the risk that employees can get sick? Who takes the risk that levels of work coming in can vary? Should it be the individual employees, who generally have a couple month's income saved or less, or should it $50 billion market cap company? Which is better able to absorb risk? Or should the risk instead be handled by the state or federal government?
jkinudsjknds 6y ago
This is the best stated argument I've seen on the issue. In general society suffers from workers. Even if health insurance were covered by the state and not the employer (removing the bulk of the burden from having employees), I would still want many of these points to be addressed.

rockinghigh 6y ago

Do you have examples of jobs where employees choose their own hours and can work for competitors?

ec109685 6y ago
Nurses, e.g. https://allnurses.com/working-two-hospitals-t591829/ https://allnurses.com/working-two-hospitals-t591829/
momokoko 6y ago
Do you have a link to the California law that states that an employee is not allowed to work for any other company? If anything California has specific non-compete laws and moonlighting laws that forbid a company from preventing their employees from working for another company. Hilariously, you are so far off that you don’t realize that the only legal way Uber could prevent their drivers from working for Lyft in California was if they were contractors and not employees Where did you get this information?

ehsankia 6y ago

Can they 1. Work for the competitors 2. work as much or as little as they want 3. Take as much vacation time as they want 4. Leave with zero advance notice Also, should Twitch streamers and Youtube creators also become employees? What about Etsy/Ebay sellers or AirBnB hosts?

momokoko 6y ago
In the US, and more specifically California? Absolutely they can. California, like almost all states in the US, is an “at-will” employment state. None of these things are required under employment law at all. Can I ask where you found this wildly false information? Do you happen to live outside the US? Nowhere in California labor law does it prevent people from taking vacations or anything else you mentioned if they are an employee.
- ehsankia 6y ago
  > Can I ask where you found this wildly false information? Do you happen to live outside the US? I worked in California for a few years but I'm not longer there. And those were questions, they weren't meant to be stated as facts. > Nowhere in California labor law does it prevent people from taking vacations Hmm, maybe I understood my rights wrong, but from my understanding I wasn't free to take an arbitrary number of vacation days without getting fired. I know Netflix allows that but other than them, wouldn't most employers let you go if you just decided to not show up on random days? Also, again I'm not expert, but are you sure that someone can simultaneously work for Apple and Google? That doesn't sound right but again, these are mostly discussion questions, let me know if I'm missing something here.
  - pseudalopex 6y ago
    Employers are allowed to limit vacation and prohibit working for competitors. California doesn't force them to.
    - momokoko 6y ago

keenmaster 6y ago

Why don't we legislate a new category of taxation for gig economy companies like Uber? Make them pay more taxes and support a new social safety net (especially universal healthcare) without changing their business model.

ramshorns 6y ago
The term "dependent contractor" is sometimes used for this idea of a third category. Whether it actually provides workers with the benefits and protections that employees with similar working arrangements are entitled to remains to be seen.
missedthecue 6y ago
Why not just raise taxes because either way, it's the consumer paying. Not Uber. It would take much less effort
- keenmaster 6y ago
  Up to a certain point, corporate taxes do have a marginal benefit to society as a separate source of taxation. Generally speaking you want to spread your sources of tax revenue to minimize distortions and maximize revenue. This advice breaks down for small tax haven countries of course, and I think that larger countries should mitigate their most disruptive schemes. Citizens of large countries should not be deprived of a great avenue for taxation because of financial acrobatics devised by smaller countries. That all being said, I also think that income taxes should be increased at the higher end to support a greater safety net.
  - eru 6y ago
    If you want a fair taxation scheme that's hard to evade, take Land Value Taxes. Economists of all stripes like them. However, they are extremely unpopular politically. Especially in California, where they seem to hate all kinds of real estate taxation.
- mleo 6y ago
  It's the consumers using the services that pay extra costs associated with these services. Socializing the costs through general taxes across the greater public that does not use gig economy services is not good.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

Current employment law really isn't well suited for cases where someone can be an "employee" of 4 or 5 companies at a time, and stop and start on a whim as they see fit. I mean, just look at unemployment insurance. When the nature of the job is essentially a bid out to people willing to do the work, what does it mean for someone to be unemployed in the first place if there is just less work to go around? Flexibility DOES have a lot to do with it: I'm fine with the company not guaranteeing me a set number of hours per week if I can just choose to not work a particular week if that's what I want. I agree with some other posters, I think a new categorization for "gig" workers is necessary, as I think a lot of your other points (e.g. paying workers comp) make sense.

mleo 6y ago
I wonder if a model, more like the SAG-AFTRA union would be possible. Register with the union and workers can operate on as many platforms as possible. Common reporting on hours could prevent worker overlapping across platforms against a minimum wage. Health insurance is available through union with companies paying portions in. Workers can choose platforms that maximize the worker's wages while platforms would need to minimize costs for customers. The more efficient the platform gets, the better position they would be in vs competitors.
- eru 6y ago
  > I wonder if a model, more like the SAG-AFTRA union would be possible. Possible in what sense? Legally possible, or do you mean economically feasible?
heavyset_go 6y ago
> Current employment law really isn't well suited for cases where someone can be an "employee" of 4 or 5 companies at a time There are plenty of people working more than one job in the US where they're classified as an employee at all of them.
pjc50 6y ago
> what does it mean for someone to be unemployed in the first place if there is just less work to go around? As we've seen with the pandemic, unemployment can mean withdrawal of healthcare and eviction. Really the question here is risk. Who takes the risk that employees can get sick? Who takes the risk that levels of work coming in can vary? Should it be the individual employees, who generally have a couple month's income saved or less, or should it $50 billion market cap company? Which is better able to absorb risk? Or should the risk instead be handled by the state or federal government?

jkinudsjknds 6y ago

This is the best stated argument I've seen on the issue. In general society suffers from workers. Even if health insurance were covered by the state and not the employer (removing the bulk of the burden from having employees), I would still want many of these points to be addressed.