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"As employees they would have to work set schedules and shifts, would not be able to work for multiple app-based companies and would have reduced earning potent

• anigbrowl 6y ago
  Yeah, they're just saying that these are the conditions they'd choose to impose and hoping people will believe they're mandated by the state. I see this kind of bait and switch a lot.
• chrisco255 6y ago
  Under federal tax law if you're an employee it means you have a schedule. And if you're getting paid by the hour by Lyft you can't double dip and also get paid by the hour by Uber.
  • tehwebguy 6y ago
    I believe you have that inverted: if your employer gives you a schedule (among other things), that makes you an employee.
    • chrisco255 6y ago
      Correct. But the point stands about being able to only work for one ride sharing app. How could they possibly cover minimum wage for folks without setting a schedule and requiring that they not be working for other apps at the same time?
      • cool_dude85 6y ago
        Hilarious stuff here. "Yes, I was wrong in my original post, I had it absolutely backwards. However, did you consider something totally unrelated?"
        • anigbrowl 6y ago
          This shouldn't have been downvoted. it's 100% accurate and the grandparent post's pivoting from one topic to another is a classic bad debate tactic.
          • jawns 6y ago
            I imagine the reason it's downvoted is not because the point isn't valid, but because of the tone. From the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
            • anigbrowl 6y ago
              We're not obliged to accommodate bullshit. The above only works when everyone is participating in good faith.
              • jawns 6y ago
                By the way, remarking about whether a comment should or should not be downvoted is also against HN guidelines: > Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.
                • anigbrowl 6y ago
                  Yes, I'm fully aware of that.
          • chrisco255 6y ago
            It's not a pivot. I literally mentioned double dipping in my parent comment. At any rate, unless you are a salaried worker, you have to have a schedule so that minimum wage can be computed.
      • wrkronmiller 6y ago
        Perhaps by having drivers commit to a single platform, an hour at a time. At the end of the hour-long "shift" the driver then picks which platform to work for in the next hour, or chooses to go home.
• ianferrel 6y ago
  I don't think it's an anti-moonlight clause, I think it's saying that you can't do what many drivers do now, which is sign on to both apps and wait for a ride to come in, then sign out of the one you're not serving. If you're an employee on the clock, you can't be on the clock for two different organizations at the same time.
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • jjeaff 6y ago
    >you can't be on the clock for two different companies at the same time I mean, I don't see why not. Would create some inefficiencies. But I don't think there is a law against that.
    • chmod600 6y ago
      Can you expand on how that would work? Would you get minimum wage from each one?
    • bhahn 6y ago
      I’m not an expert in the matter, but I imagine that as employees, Lyft and Uber could more strictly penalize them for not accepting rides, which the driver would have to do pretty often if they were driving for multiple platforms simultaneously.
    • cgriswald 6y ago
      When I was a BOFH, we had a guy working the night shift who would always be a little slow at getting processing done in time for the rest of corporate to show up and need their data. It was odd but I don’t remember anyone looking into it. Until one time there was a problem with one of the jobs (which meant other jobs could not be run) and no one had their data in the morning. He was asked why he didn’t contact one of us for help and didn’t really have an answer. The boss checked the cameras to figure out what this guy was doing. Turns out the guy came in, started as many of the jobs as could be run in parallel, then left to work his shift at another place, came back on his lunch break and fired off another round of jobs, left and finished his shift at the other place, then came back and finished his shift at our place (our shifts were 10-17 hours long). He was confronted and admitted it. I don’t recall if he was fired or if he quit.
• tehwebguy 6y ago
  Yeah I am fairly sure it's a straight up lie! Just because someone is an employee doesn't mean the employer can't give them flexible hours
  • crondung 6y ago
    if you pick your own hours and your own pickups, you are not anyone's employee -you by definition are your own boss. to be an employee, you have to have your hours and your work defined by your employer. employers tell you what work to do and when to do it. flexible hours don't work when at 4pm on tuesday dispatch yells you to pick someone up. california is forcing all rideshare contractors to be employees. that's not just a checkbox on a form.
    • stefan_ 6y ago
      And the employer is free to "assign" you the very "shift" you yourself picked. Every time. The dissonance here is amazing. Uber and Lyft literally started operating in cities and countries where rideshare was explicitly outlawed, hoping they would come around. But now that they had a year to prepare for this, all they found it in themselves to do is pick up their toys and go home? Don't fall for it.
    • jawns 6y ago
      This is incorrect. Determining whether someone is an independent contractor has always involved multiple factors. Flexibility of working hours is just one of the factors. You cannot say categorically that having the ability to choose your own hours makes you an independent contractor rather than an employee. Other factors include: * What level of control does the employer have in dictating HOW the work is done? * Is the worker performing work that is outside the usual course of the employer's business? * Is it customary for the work to be performed as an independent trade?
      • crondung 6y ago
        HOW the work is done is chosen by the driver. They are free to take a different route The employer's business is connecting cars to riders with software. The driver's usual job is HR, and he uses the lyft service to make extra cash on his way home. The last point is not something that determines a contractor. What you choose to do for money does not have to be a trade. It can be anything. There are no working hours. You don't get paid by lyft for hours you 'work.' You get paid for engagements you pick -the rides. Getting paid per project, not for time you put in makes you a contractor for that gig.
• crazygringo 6y ago
  With employees, you can't rely on variable supply and demand pricing to ensure the most drivers are there at peak times -- instead, you have to do it through scheduling instead. And it's not so much anti-moonlighting as not being able to work for multiple companies at the same time (hour). Right now, a driver often is waiting for both Lyft and Uber riders. If they're an hourly employee, they obviously can't do that anymore. So no, none of this is mandated, but it's the only way a business could operate.
  • jiveturkey 6y ago
    I guess you've never heard of being on-call? Tech and healthcare have very well established demand supply systems. Some mechanical service sectors as well - tow trucks, infrastructure repair.
    • JamesBarney 6y ago
      I don't know anyone who is paid to be on call at two different employers simultaneously.
      • jiveturkey 6y ago
        neither do i. all of the on-call folks I know must respond to pages; they don't have the option to pass on them. that's just the existing on-call model. it's quite easy to imagine that a service overprovisions to account for people not being required to accept a "page". that overprovisioning specifically is so that people can hold multiple on-call type jobs simultaneously.
        • JamesBarney 6y ago
          But I think if Uber and Lyft are required to pay their employees an hourly rate they would then require them to respond to every page for their scheduled shift.
          • mcguire 6y ago
• carlosdp 6y ago
  I hear this a lot, that Lyft/Uber could allow the same flexibility if they wanted to. It's not that the law dictates this shift, it's that the economics do. Requiring full employment means you can hire less drivers. If you have less drivers, you need more control over when they drive in order to make sure when customers are looking for a ride, they can find one, hence shifts.
  • lsiebert 6y ago
    Basically this. As best I can tell, most of the flexibility Uber and Lyft want is the flexibility to pay people less and give them less benefits and prevent them from being able to unionize/organize effectively.
    • mumblemumble 6y ago
      Assuming that what Lyft is saying about "4 out of 5 drivers don't support" is accurate, that would seem to imply that this is also about giving flexibility to all the people who are only driving 5 hours a week to pick up some spare pocket change. Which is the model for how this would mostly work that is invoked by the word "rideshare." I do see a potential problem here of the interests of people who do this as their job being unnecessarily put into direct conflict with the interests of people who don't do this as their job.
      • slg 6y ago
        People being taken advantage of by unfair business practices are usually still making an active choice to participate in those unfair practices. People making below minimum wage would likely rather keep that below minimum wage job than be fired because the company refuses to pay them more. That is still not a valid argument against the minimum wage. A business model that relies on unfair business practices is not a viable business model. We just need to make sure that the employees caught in this transition have a social safety net that protects them from the financial repercussions of implementing these higher standards for all employees.
      • rightbyte 6y ago
• AgloeDreams 6y ago
  This would be a positive force as it would reduce overcrowding of the local market and ensure work and pay for drivers. The Uber and Lyft driver pool is too large for reasonable pay for demand by nature. Something really important in an economy, is security of work and pay. For those who are on the schedule they can depend on their job to be able to live. For those who would not be on the schedule (due to demand) That would obviously be a massive unemployment issue but that was always the cost of regulating Uber. Uber/Lyft does not exist to help the economy or the people of the US, they exist to help themselves. Otherwise they would charge and pay a working wage.
  • nxc18 6y ago
    Yeah I don't know maybe this is your experience. Maybe you're in a crowded city or something where everyone is tripping over themselves to drive for Uber/Lyft, but where I live there are often not enough drivers to meet demand. Having been stranded far from home, both late night and in the early evening, I see Uber & Lyft as providing a valuable service. Having been taken advantage of by taxi drivers on multiple occasions (I don't think I've ever actually had a good taxi experience) I don't want to go back to the way things were. Maybe other people like being defrauded by taxi drivers? Maybe people just forget how bad the taxi system is, and that at one point people were cheering the demise of the old taxi system for a reason.
    • spaginal 6y ago
      My worst experience in any transportation was out of Newark, NJ by a taxi. Arrived late at night in the Penn station train terminal, went in the first taxi available to go to my hotel. I was privileged to a high speed race through Newark running red lights, not responding to my pleas to stop, charge meter was off the whole ride, then a huge argument over the cab fare that almost got the cops called on us once I thankfully arrived at the hotel. I’ve never been in a cab since. Uber and Lyft has always been pleasant for me.
  • tathougies 6y ago
    And yet, Uber and Lyft have reduced drunk driving rates, provided mobility to thousands of people who otherwise may not have it, and generally made life easier for millions, if not billions, of people around the world. It's almost like one can enrich themselves while helping others.
• tathougies 6y ago
  Yes, by common law, you cannot work for two people at the same time. This is the key. While moonlighting is an employer restriction, working two separate jobs at the same time is a legal one. When an employee, you are legally the agent of the employer. Anything you agree to or do while employed is a liability of the employer, not you personally. That is why an employee at a VC firm can commit to provide capital, but doesn't have to pay it directly. Or why a manager of a company can take on debt, that is then the responsibility of the company, not himself. You cannot be an agent of two companies at the same time. If you have both uber and lyft app running in your car, waiting for a passenger, and you get into a crash, if you are an employee working, then one of the companies is responsible for covering any damages you inflict. Of course, since you're not even on any particular 'job' at the time, who is responsible? Moreover, you cannot have two companies paying you by the hour for the same hour. Moreover, the law presumes that employees owe loyalty to their employer while working. So for example, if I am employed by a car dealership, but when a customer comes in during my shift, I decide to sell him my personal used car, instead of the companies, the company can actually sue me for failing to fulfill my duty of loyalty to them. You can't have someone working for both Uber and Lyft in this model. Since Uber and Lyft are competitors, by definition, you cannot be loyal to both. If you have both apps running and pick the best customer based on price, then you have shortchanged one of the companies, and open yourself up to liability. Contractors have no presumed assumption of loyalty to anyone but themselves. That is what allows them to pick the most profitable ride. https://www.abacademies.org/articles/the-duty-of-loyalty-in-the-employment-relationship-legal-analysis-and-recommendations-for-employers-and-workers-1544-0044-21-3-136.pdf https://www.abacademies.org/articles/the-duty-of-loyalty-in-... Uber has asked for California to come up with legal structures that provide benefits to employees while allowing their business model. This seems eminently reasonable: there are clear differences between Uber and Lyft drivers and traditional employees. It is the duty of government to innovate policy-wise so that the private sector can innovate business-wise. Unfortunately, California's legislature has failed to innovate anything and has instead decided to force innovators to use an outdated model of employment.
  • jiveturkey 6y ago
    > Yes, by common law, you cannot work for two people at the same time. Please cite something to back this up. > Moreover, you cannot have two companies paying you by the hour for the same hour. Why not? Again, please cite a source. If we assume that uber et al. have a baseline staffing level, during which time you as driver might be paid to be working for them exclusively, then sure, during that period of "dedicated time" you would only be working for the one service. But then in addition to that, uber might have on-call hours to accommodate surge. During this time, you as employee driver are free to accept or pass on rides. Like voluntary overtime, by the task (piece work). In your OT/on-call hours you can also be on-call for ride service #2, since they could have the same go/no-go optional work acceptance. So why couldn't you do this? And why couldn't uber/lyft employ people this way? Your example of being a car salesman is a bad analogy for ride service. I am not "working" for the ride service until I accept the ride, which constitutes clocking in for an on-call task. Whereas being a car salesman that sells my personal car while on-duty with my employer is a different situation.
• lhorie 6y ago
  It doesn't need to be mandated by the state. If the employer states that you cannot work for their competitor during your shift, then that is an enforceable term of employment (and FWIW, a very reasonable one that no one would bat an eyelid for in virtually any field of employment). For example, if you were employed by Lyft as a driver, then presumably you would be neglecting your job duties if you refused to pick up a customer on the grounds that you happen to be driving a Uber customer at the time.
  • mcguire 6y ago
    Yes, and? The only way this industry can operate is if all of the drivers have to be searching for rides on all of the networks?
    • lhorie 6y ago
      Huh? I just said that would largely not be considered tolerable. Imagine working at a food court as a flex hours worker and jumping between the KFC counter and the McDonalds counter during the same shift. That might maybe sort of work if only one person does it, but that scheme is going to fall apart on the first lunch hour if all your employees are flex. What employer would allow that? Of course an employee can work at KFC and McD simultaneously if they can make arrangements to not have shift conflicts, and likewise one could hypothetically be a Uber employee in the morning and a Lyft employee at night, but why go through the trouble of working effectively full time but only getting redundant part timer benefit packages?
• mola 6y ago
  Big Corp lying to save their bottom line? No way....
• tanilama 6y ago
  The law makes their business model unprofitable so they are losing money if they keep operation Of course the next step is to stop operating.
• cjlars 6y ago
  I'm fairly certain that it's illegal to pay someone for less than two hours of work [1 and 2] in California, so the practice of just doing a couple rides on your way home from dropping the kids off or hitting up peak rush hour for the bonus rate would be illegal. 1 https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_ReportingTimePay.htm https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_ReportingTimePay.htm 2 https://blog.accuchex.com/california-labor-laws-minimum-work-hours-per-day https://blog.accuchex.com/california-labor-laws-minimum-work...