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> With the AB5 wage floor, Uber and Lyft would have had to pay a lower guaranteed rate (just minimum wage), but it would have included idle time. So in Uber/Lyf

> With the AB5 wage floor, Uber and Lyft would have had to pay a lower guaranteed rate (just minimum wage), but it would have included idle time. So in Uber/Lyft's nightmare scenario, a million people sign up to be drivers, set their phone locations to the middle of nowhere and get paid $15/hour to do nothing. Even in the scenario where drivers are employees, Uber and Lyft don't have to accept an unlimited number of driver applicants and don't have to allow them continued future hours if they pull that trick. Or they could restrict the locations where drivers can activate a shift, based on demand. Et cetera. Lots of ways they could manage their staff.

Rebelgecko 5y ago
I think, from Uber and Lyft's perspective, having to require drivers to sign up for shifts in advance (or preventing a driver from signing in to the app) is basically the death of the gig economy. Instead of doing their laissez-faire approach where the supply of drivers is (more or less) self-regulating, rideshare companies will have to tackle some nasty optimization problems. If a rural area only has 2 or 3 passengers a night, should they let a driver sign on or is it cheaper to just deny the customers? If a sporting event is ending at 7pm, should you increase the driver threshold if you're just going to force all the drivers to sign off in 30 minutes? Or is it better to increase wait times by decreasing the supply of drivers? etc etc
- jkaplowitz 5y ago
  I'm not saying they'd like to do that kind of management, but every other employer of shift workers manages the shifts they offer and accept and limits the supply of workers they agree to pay. You're not wrong about how it's the death of what they call the gig economy, but that's more the death of their current exploitative model than what was truly the gig economy - independent contracting - before they appropriated the term for their propaganda. Maybe the different "rideshare" companies should collaborate on a way for drivers to bid in a truly independent way with many apps and many pricing arrangements etc, and give some selection control to the rider as well, to make it a real and unambiguous independent contractor situation? If they do get stuck with an actual optimization problem, well, they already solve plenty of those to maximize profit under their current model. They can keep applying those skills even if the workers get a fairer deal.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    > every other employer of shift workers manages the shifts they offer and accept and limits the supply of workers they agree to pay The problem isn't that it's a burden on the employer, it's that it removes an entire category of worker flexibility. I can't be commuting or parked somewhere or sitting around in my room while also signed into uber if they have to pay minimum wage for that; they're not a charity and aren't going to pay for nothing. The rule is good for someone that goes out to do an entire shift of uber and nothing else. It's not as good for someone that wants to multitask or make their own schedule. > Maybe the different "rideshare" companies should collaborate on a way for drivers to bid in a truly independent way with many apps and many pricing arrangements etc, and give some selection control to the rider as well, to make it a real and unambiguous independent contractor situation? Is competitive bidding actually going to get drivers paid more than accept/reject? I don't know if this actually solves the right problem.
    - Applejinx 5y ago
      So, a thought: granted that you want to multitask and make your own schedule, by setting things up so you can be interrupted at any moment by your employer with demands for your attention. You don't want to work a shift, you want it looser and less defined: you are not in fact making your own schedule, you're arranging to pre-empt whatever your schedule might be for the benefit of your employer and you figure this is your competitive advantage, being able to offer this precarious willingness to drop everything and take a gig. And you could be right: to the employer, that makes you higher value. Is this not a concession, a way of competing by tempting the employer with more than they would be able to get from other employees? In essence you're not so much negotiating with the employer, but competing directly with other workers, some of whom might have stuff to do in their life that requires scheduling and predictability? And this too is fine (ish), but then the question becomes: to what extent can the employer then pressure all employees to function on YOUR terms and abandon their own? Are you defining the new normal, the fundamental expectation for this type of work going forward? Does the employer benefit at the expense of employees as a class by establishing this precarity as the expectation?

Rebelgecko 5y ago

I think, from Uber and Lyft's perspective, having to require drivers to sign up for shifts in advance (or preventing a driver from signing in to the app) is basically the death of the gig economy. Instead of doing their laissez-faire approach where the supply of drivers is (more or less) self-regulating, rideshare companies will have to tackle some nasty optimization problems. If a rural area only has 2 or 3 passengers a night, should they let a driver sign on or is it cheaper to just deny the customers? If a sporting event is ending at 7pm, should you increase the driver threshold if you're just going to force all the drivers to sign off in 30 minutes? Or is it better to increase wait times by decreasing the supply of drivers? etc etc

jkaplowitz 5y ago
I'm not saying they'd like to do that kind of management, but every other employer of shift workers manages the shifts they offer and accept and limits the supply of workers they agree to pay. You're not wrong about how it's the death of what they call the gig economy, but that's more the death of their current exploitative model than what was truly the gig economy - independent contracting - before they appropriated the term for their propaganda. Maybe the different "rideshare" companies should collaborate on a way for drivers to bid in a truly independent way with many apps and many pricing arrangements etc, and give some selection control to the rider as well, to make it a real and unambiguous independent contractor situation? If they do get stuck with an actual optimization problem, well, they already solve plenty of those to maximize profit under their current model. They can keep applying those skills even if the workers get a fairer deal.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  > every other employer of shift workers manages the shifts they offer and accept and limits the supply of workers they agree to pay The problem isn't that it's a burden on the employer, it's that it removes an entire category of worker flexibility. I can't be commuting or parked somewhere or sitting around in my room while also signed into uber if they have to pay minimum wage for that; they're not a charity and aren't going to pay for nothing. The rule is good for someone that goes out to do an entire shift of uber and nothing else. It's not as good for someone that wants to multitask or make their own schedule. > Maybe the different "rideshare" companies should collaborate on a way for drivers to bid in a truly independent way with many apps and many pricing arrangements etc, and give some selection control to the rider as well, to make it a real and unambiguous independent contractor situation? Is competitive bidding actually going to get drivers paid more than accept/reject? I don't know if this actually solves the right problem.
  - Applejinx 5y ago
    So, a thought: granted that you want to multitask and make your own schedule, by setting things up so you can be interrupted at any moment by your employer with demands for your attention. You don't want to work a shift, you want it looser and less defined: you are not in fact making your own schedule, you're arranging to pre-empt whatever your schedule might be for the benefit of your employer and you figure this is your competitive advantage, being able to offer this precarious willingness to drop everything and take a gig. And you could be right: to the employer, that makes you higher value. Is this not a concession, a way of competing by tempting the employer with more than they would be able to get from other employees? In essence you're not so much negotiating with the employer, but competing directly with other workers, some of whom might have stuff to do in their life that requires scheduling and predictability? And this too is fine (ish), but then the question becomes: to what extent can the employer then pressure all employees to function on YOUR terms and abandon their own? Are you defining the new normal, the fundamental expectation for this type of work going forward? Does the employer benefit at the expense of employees as a class by establishing this precarity as the expectation?