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Them shutting down is a perfectly acceptable outcome. California has essentially told them "You're doing an illegal thing". They're response is essentially "Oh
by slipheen 6y ago
Them shutting down is a perfectly acceptable outcome.
California has essentially told them "You're doing an illegal thing".
They're response is essentially "Oh yeah? Well then, we'll stop doing the illegal thing!"
Thank you? That's what you were asked to do in the first place?
If they aren't interested in operating legally, then pivot or disband the company.
- elicash 6y agoReminds me of folks "boycotting" certain stores for requiring masks. Great, thank you for following the policy.
- valuearb 6y agoYes, a terrible solution for drivers and riders both. Back to the taxi monopolies.
- JKCalhoun 6y agoOr an opportunity for a new ride-share company that doesn't claim their employees are contractors.
- remote_phone 6y agoEven taxis claim their drivers as contractors.
- Slartie 6y agoAn individual taxi driver owning a cab, a license if necessary, paying for his insurance and getting the money from his passengers is an individual contractor, yes. It's just that he contracts with the individual riders, not any higher-up monopolistic business entity that sets arbitrary business-driven rules that all taxi drivers have to follow.
- valuearb 6y agoVery few drivers own their cars (or more importantly their monopoly medallion). Those are owned by investors like the presidents former lawyer, Michael Cohen. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/08/23/taxi-commission-warns-michael-cohen-they-may-revoke-his-medallions.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/08/23/tax...
- Slartie 6y agoIsn't that only the case in certain metropolitan areas? It is a huge problem indeed, but the problem there is the medallion system having degraded to become a shady get-rich-quick investment scheme. This is unrelated to the way in which the drivers are operating. They just lease their car and medallion from someone, paying that guy a fixed rate per day for that lease, but that does make them neither a contractor nor an employee of the guy who owns car and medallion. If they also were to lease the clothes they wear while working from a tailor instead of buying them, that wouldn't make the drivers in any way into contractors or employees of that tailor.
- remote_phone 6y agoAbsolutely false. Most taxi drivers don’t own the medallion, and in fact when they start their shift they owe the taxi cab company $80-100, so they need to work for a few hours just to get to break even. Your mental gymnastics to try to justify why taxi drivers aren’t employees but Uber drivers are is showing.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dragonwriter 6y ago> Even taxis claim their drivers as contractors. There has been considerable ink spilled about AB5 changing that, with the taxi industry lobbying unsuccessfully while it was in the legislature for a specific exemption; the B prong of the ABC test, which seems to be the critical and likely insurmountable one in the Uber/Lyft case, seems like it would likely apply to them in a similar way. Taxi companies are individually smaller and, for that reason alone, probably lower on the direct, self-initiated enforcement priority list for the State, but there's both private action and complaint-based state action that workers can initiate, as well.
- xeromal 6y agoHow do you handle the uber drivers that do it as a little side gig. Like less than 10 hours a week?
- schwartzworld 6y agopart time employees?
- xeromal 6y agoDo they set my hours then?
- freeone3000 6y agoUber currently has millions of part time employees in California. This ruling is a reclassification - Uber doesn't have to change a single thing about how the app works, and all the drivers are employees.
- zach_garwood 6y agoWhy is that the only alternative? Surely, Californians are capable enough to come up with another solution that falls within the law.
- a13n 6y agoI think this puts pressure on the government to find a compromise, because Californians will be pissed that Uber stops working.
- JakeTheAndroid 6y agoEither that, or in the wake of this some other company finds a way to achieve this same result in compliance with the laws and captures the market. I think both outcomes would be acceptable.
- s17n 6y agoIt's not really that hard, you just have to increase prices a bit, which in turn shrinks the market, which in turn means you aren't a $100B company. Maybe more like a $1B company or so. Obviously this would be a disaster for Uber, but that doesn't mean it's not a viable business model.
- tootie 6y agoI think this is the desired outcome from Uber. There's no way they haven't been preparing for an outcome like this for years. Mid-pandemic where revenue is already in the shitter, they may as well take another hit in the hopes of forcing the CA legislature to legalize their business to protect desperately needed jobs.
- m463 6y ago> If they aren't interested in operating legally, then pivot or disband the company. Doesn't Uber still work elsewhere? By my calculations, the world is 57,510,000 sq miles of land, california is 163,696 sq miles, and that leaves 57,346,304 (99.715%) of the world available to uber.
- remote_phone 6y agoYeah! Back to the taxi monopoly which was the epitome of employee fairness and top customer service!
- black_puppydog 6y agoYeah that seems like a decent outcome. And for those shouting now "oh we're going back to the taxi monopolies, it's horrible" I say: Yes. It's horrible. Obviously so. But at least now there's some actual room for improvement without the air already being sucked out of the market by one big player. Forcing market players to actually abide by the laws means someone (and this might well be Uber, but it's fine if it's someone else) can now come up with a solution that is both usable and follows local legislation, without being killed right out of the gates by an overfunded competitor that draws much of its market power from disregarding said legislation. Uber was a local optimum. They have a choice to keep searching, but it seems they were too comfortable with things as they were.
- ashtonkem 6y agoThis is a capital strike (as compared to a labor strike). It should be viewed in that way. Uber isn't shutting down to comply with the law, they're shutting down in CA in protest of the law.