27 ms·

Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

459 points by jsiepkes 5y ago

pjmlp 5y ago
I love when US companies get to learn our unions and work laws are actually to be followed upon.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't post shallow provocations to HN, and especially don't take HN threads into political or (god help us) nationalistic flamewar. None of that is what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- junon 5y ago
  The US's are too, to be fair. The laws just suck to begin with, unlike most European countries'.
  - mithusingh32 5y ago
    Or if you have enough money to by pass the laws all together. Take a look at HSBC[1][2]....they got caught laundering money for Mexican cartel and helped NK/Iran circumvent the nuclear sanctions. They were given a slap on the wrist of 2 billion dollars in fines. (Can't find the source but they were also caught transferring money to known terrorist groups) If anyone is interested there is a Netflix show they covers this. I think it's called Dirty Money. [3] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Money_laundering https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Money_laundering [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#US_Senate_investigation_(2012) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#US_Senate_investigation... [3] https://www.netflix.com/title/80118100?preventIntent=true https://www.netflix.com/title/80118100?preventIntent=true
    - junon 5y ago
      Okay but they were still caught and fined. That doesn't negate my point, nor is a sample size of 1 anything to write home about.
- drstewart 5y ago
  Yeah, it's the environmental and corruption laws you get to skirt in Europe! Just ask VW, FIFA, or any bank. So much more progressive. Also: https://www.ft.com/content/5b986586-0f85-47d5-8edb-3b49398e2b08 https://www.ft.com/content/5b986586-0f85-47d5-8edb-3b49398e2...
- amelius 5y ago
  But why did it take so long?
  - yawaworht1978 5y ago
    Indeed, probably massive delays by Ubers legal team. The whitelisting principle should apply for such things, this disrupt now, ask later is just a trick to gain market share at the expense of taxpayers and employees and competition which abides by the regulations.
stuaxo 5y ago
Interesting wording of this headline, you would almost think Uber were fighting for the rights of their drivers if you read it out of context.
- sdze 5y ago
  but then again people remember how us-american gig-companies operate...
- st_goliath 5y ago
  I was thinking a similar thought. As the word for obviously doesn't really apply here, the word over offers a nice "neutral" alternative to against. Edit: the threads got merged now. At the time that I commented, the title was "Uber Loses Battle Over Drivers’ Rights in the Netherlands" and the link was going to Bloomberg.
- dncornholio 5y ago
  Ubers whole statement is letting us think they do it for the drivers.. It's terribly obscene
- dahfizz 5y ago
  The headline I see is " Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules". I don't see how you can read that any other way than the Dutch court is forcing Uber to employ its drivers.
  - fallingfrog 5y ago
    This comment was moved from a dupe that was worded differently
gargs 5y ago
“Drivers don’t want to give up their freedom to choose if, when and where to work.” Drivers might have the freedom to turn off their phones and choose not to work, but they don't have the freedom to choose which routes/destinations. Seems to me that their argument is one-sided and deceptive.
- brnt 5y ago
  If you don't have that freedom, you're an employee, which is what this conflict is about. Because if they're an employee, their employer must pay social insurance. The self-employed are exempted from this insurance (although highly encouraged, because, not surprisingly, the vast majority of self-employed people don't become lucky billionaires). Uber wanted to have it both ways, and, not surprisingly, it can't. Self-employed people do whatever they like, including choosing the rides they drive for Uber.
  - chii 5y ago
    but from what i recall, an uber driver do have the choice to accept or reject a ride. There's a penalty for rejecting too many rides - but i think that's a fair outcome. Ideally, uber also allows a driver to set the price, and allow a customer to see price comparisons between all offered drivers (and wait times etc), to truly make it a competitive market place.
    - lozenge 5y ago
      Ideally for who? According to this article drivers weren't given information on fare or destination when they were offered fares, until legally required in California. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/uber-changes-rules-drivers-adjust-strategies/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/uber-change... They won't be letting drivers set fares until legally obligated. They are a taxi service that cosplays as a "ride sharing" "marketplace" in the legal system. Uber is all about keeping maximum control of the driver while denying them the rights of employees (or in the UK, "worker" status, which is a halfway house between employee and self employed)
    - 5y ago
sktrdie 5y ago
Bit out of context but I just came back from US (living in Netherlands). Holy flipping hell that place is full of cars. Literally everywhere. I mean I understand using a car upstate New York where things are further apart and everyone has a huge isolated villa. But do you really need 4 lane roads in freaking manhattan? Seems like regulating "car stuff" in general is always a good thing if you ask me.
- jokoon 5y ago
  I'm french, I really don't know how the US are going to get out of cars, it's going to be incredibly hard or impossible. Mandatory ride sharing by taxing gas, or heavily subsidizing public transport? Uber would have an unique opportunity to group rides for small busses.
- airza 5y ago
  There is a great youtube channel called "Not just bikes" which talks about urban planning in the netherlands and how it results in much more livable cities than the US.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    This map of cyle paths in Europe tells you everything: https://imgur.com/Fkye6Nt https://imgur.com/Fkye6Nt
    - gpvos 5y ago
      That's not really about cities, more about cycle paths between them. But there's a relation of course.
  - xvector 5y ago
    Seconded, amazing channel that describes why American cities are a disaster. I've lived in a walkable area and QoL goes up immensely. No amount of money or luxury in an American suburb will compare. There is nothing like the sheer convenience of being able to get your groceries in a 3 minute walk.
elgfare 5y ago
Uber says the majority of drivers don't want this, which I'd call bs on, but has anyone heard from actual drivers what they want?
- kfk 5y ago
  I think Uber might be right here. EU labor laws protect a few but over a certain salary they are not very appealing. In Italy paying a net salary of 2,000 euros will cost the company 6000+. Things included like pension are not worth their cost, a private pension is better and cheaper, same for health services. It’s unfortunate but it’s true.
  - Loic 5y ago
    For the company it costs more money, but for the employee, you are way better being employed than contractor. This is not a surprise, this extra money is effectively bringing the employee health insurance, pension, invalidity pension, unemployment benefit, maximum number of hours to work per week, paid vacations, etc. If you need to pay it out of your pocket, it turns out to be the same. In the "old" Europe, the net salary is basically 50% of the cost for the company, sometimes a bit more, sometimes less depending of marital status, country, etc. But this is a good rule of thumb.
    - bserge 5y ago
      I can see the future: "New EU law: for every multipurpose robot in operation, the company must employ one human" :D
      - watt 5y ago
        From the strikes of train driver's unions in Germany, I think that's where it is headed. "You can automate trains if you like, but the whole current workforce still must stay employed."
      - consumer451 5y ago
        Well, maybe something more along the lines of a contribution towards UBI, or similar. This is a concept I first heard come out of the US, from Musk maybe?
988747 5y ago
> "We know that the vast majority of drivers would like to remain independent," said Maurits Schonfeld, general manager of Uber in Northern Europe That's funny, because the court's reasoning was that drivers in their daily work are almost completely dependent on Uber, which calls all the shots.
- nulbyte 5y ago
  I feel this is very disingenuous on Uber's part. Either it's just their way of distracting from the actual point, or they really don't understand what is happening. The case wasn't about what driver's prefer, but about the reality of driving for Uber. What small bit of independence drivers had in setting their own hours is not necessarily eroded by this ruling. It just means Uber will have to (gasp!) innovate to deal with a few specific things. I think Uber making cases like these out to require fundamental changes to the business model is absurd.
  - xputer 5y ago
    Yes, also it is to be expected that Uber has a large number of drivers that only do a couple of riders per week while a smaller number of drivers work full time. The larger number of drivers that only do a few rides of course would be in favor of flexibility, but this ruling is as far as I understand mainly about protecting those who work for Uber full time.
shimonabi 5y ago
Great to see that over 100 years of labour laws won by the workers' movements can't be innovated away in SOME countries.
- gpvos 5y ago
  Well, you can fool all of the people some of the time, so it was possible for many years.
  - trompetenaccoun 5y ago
    How were they fooled? In the Netherlands, no one is forced to work anywhere. People drive Ubers out of their own volition, whether we think it's stupid or not. I'm not sure about other countries but in China where the market used to be even less regulated, both drivers and customers switched in droves from traditional taxis to ride hailing apps. For various reasons they just like it better. And it's not exactly difficult to see the advantages even if you have concerns about labor laws. There's always a case to be made that any form of employment is exploitation. Sararīman, as the corporate slave is known in Japan. The question is how much regulation do we want. And do we want it for regulation's sake, or does it actually benefit the people. There are many labor laws that hinder innovation and keep employment down.
    - paulluuk 5y ago
      > There are many labor laws that hinder innovation and keep employment down I think it's fair to say that the huge majority of labor laws actually protect laborers, and have been won through blood and sweat over many generations. To opt on "the safe side" and say "look, yes jobs at Uber are complicated, but if you work there 40 hours per week then it's a fulltime job and we should treat it as such" is quite fair.
- umvi 5y ago
  But does every single way to make money have to provide a living wage with full health benefits, etc.? Seems like you limit types of innovation that could otherwise happen. For example, say you create some kind of trash cleanup/recycling incentive app that pays out some small amount for trash/recyclables picked up and turned in. Soon: everyone is outraged that some poor person can't make a living wage picking up recyclables and they try to force you to hire all users of your app as full time employees with full health benefits, etc. That doesn't seem right.
pelorat 5y ago
Wait, I live in the Netherlands and I wasn't even aware that Uber was around. Didn't they get banned years ago, with only Uber Black being allowed?
- AndyMcConachie 5y ago
  You're forgiven. I also live in the NL and I almost never see them. The last time I saw an Uber was two years ago when a friend came from the USA and wanted to use their app to call a Uber. But then again I never take taxis either. For me it's either walk, bike or OV. It might be like that for you as well, which is why you forgot they exist.
  - thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
    Same in Finland, Baltics or central/eastern Europe. Almost everything is within walkable/bike-able distance. Public transportation has good coverage, is affordable and safe. Taking taxis is just not something people normally do. From here, Uber feels like a quintessentially American solution for a quintessentially American problem. Real world example - taking Uber to my workplace would cost me one-two hours of net pay, and I'm in the top 5% earners. Another one-two hours of net pay to go back home. For comparison - public transportation costs 3€/day regardless of usage, and only takes about 15% longer to get there.
    - wwtrv 5y ago
      ‘..Baltics’ maybe in Estonia.. in Lithuania Uber (or rather companies that are competing with it) is quite popular and that prices were very low (due to competition between different apps) until quite recently (mass transit is not that great here, though). AFAIK while not used by most people, it is also quite popular in Ukraine. Due huge income inequality the prices are very low but there is still a substantial section of the population which can afford it.
  - pelorat 5y ago
    Indeed. I don't own or travel by car. I just remember reading that the "Uber Pop" app was not allowed, but Uber Black(?) was, but it was more expensive and had licensed drivers. That was many years ago.
bserge 5y ago
Why doesn't Uber employ them and guarantee minimum wage, anything extra is a bonus? Is it just the extra employee costs on the company side?
- ianleeclark 5y ago
  If you do such a thing, then you need to start worrying about local labor laws, vacation time, healthcare in the US, sick leave, etc. The gig economy works by circumventing these things.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      They aren't hard but they do have costs. Once you start paying for them then your offering doesn't look much different to traditional taxi companies.
- aikinai 5y ago
  Then Uber would have to decide who works when and for how long. Right now it’s controlled by supply and demand through pricing algorithms.
  - bserge 5y ago
    OK, bear with me here. Same system as now, but if you make less than minimum hourly wage (calculated every month), the company covers the difference. I am pretty sure the drivers would nearly always make more than that. Or is it illegal to just have employees set their own time/targets?
    - phicoh 5y ago
      It gets expensive when drivers game the system. What happens when a driver just stops driving? You have to fire them. Which can take quite a bit of effort. What if a driver calls in sick? You have to check that. If a driver is an employee, who provides the car?
amelius 5y ago
A similar article was already submitted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509506
snidane 5y ago
It was never for the drivers. It certainly isn't a win for the customer. It is only a win for the state to collect their taxes.
- maccolgan 5y ago
  Everything is a win for the state, can't remember the last time anything happened in the employment law space that has been good for everybody...
jacquesm 5y ago
Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.
- tomp 5y ago
  Must is just as wrong as won't. The ideal solution is, drivers being given the choice. Wanna earn more (but less predictable), pay less tax, have less social security, work whenever you want to? Or do you want to earn less (but completely predictable), pay more tax, have unemployment security, work fixed hours.
  - tasubotadas 5y ago
    Not sure why this comment is down voted but it's spot on. Honestly, it's pretty annoying that some people decide what others can do or can't do with their free time and their car.
    - riffraff 5y ago
      because it ignores the reality of european society: it's not a libertarian utopia, it's a society where the states do dictate things. More specifically, it's blind to the fact that the parent comment is about existing regulation which is being abused. It's like arguing with someone saying "you can't drive at 100 km/h in a residential area" with "well I am a CAN person myself, and I don' think we should say CAN'T".
      - devcpp 5y ago
        Driving at 100km/h in a residential area harms others with a high probability. Can you say that of someone working the way they want to with transactions consented between two adults?
        5y ago
thejackgoode 5y ago
Is “undisrupt” a word already?
- grenoire 5y ago
  It's called 'regulate.'
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    but they disrupted the regulations in the first place Oh i see, we ll soon have a wave of startups who are disruptors-of-the-regulated-disruptors-of-the-regulations
- throw_m239339 5y ago
  "disruption" is basically newspeak for startups when they are weighting the ability and capacity of an administration or government to sue that startup for violating laws. It's legal arbitrage.
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
The thing that interests me here is company valuation. The base idea is that you predict the future profits of a company and NPV that down to today, and that's how much the total share price should be. This of course is tricky, but at some point all the big regulatory arbitrage plays (uber, airbnb) etc were obvious for what they were - and I am not sure they got adjusted. In other words short term competition and PR played as big a role it seems in valuation models as did "can airbnb keep renting out against local laws" I have not dug into their IPO documents but it must be in there. But once you are worth a gazillion dollars regulators have an uphill struggle. The thing is short selling is such a poor way to signal criticism of the company. Investing is a default optimistic thing. And I am not sure there is an alternative. Some kind of anti-investment?
- Iolaum 5y ago
  Maybe invest elsewhere? (Assuming qualified choices can be found.)
  - lifeisstillgood 5y ago
    But that's not the point - I mean if everyone did then the company would get the point. But look at Climate change. FOr decades its been "ignore the tree huggers" - but imagine there was an investment vehicle that was "anti-Exxon" - its hard to stand up at the AGM and say "just tree huggers" when there is a Trillion dollars of bets against you. I don't think there is any possible such vehicle. I just kind of wish there was. A way of allowing the market to take care of externalities. All we have is regulation, and as a fan of markets, that kind of annoys me. (or rather, I recognise that markets are after all dependant on the existence of government (as opposed to the right-wing style if only governments did not exist markets would take over). And am annoyed that this market has not been created.)
- t0mas88 5y ago
  > I have not dug into their IPO documents but it must be in there. Any IPO document I've seen had several pages of future risks, so I'm almost certain that Uber has put the regulatory thing somewhere in that chapter.
Proven 5y ago
Nonsense. The government has no right to decide how consenting private parties arrange their relationship.
throw_m239339 5y ago
I remember quite well some people here claiming that Uber was just about to replace all their drivers with autonomous cars. It was back in 2015... we're in 2021.
- weijoi 5y ago
  No driver - no problem. Communists will downvote this comment :D
- teekert 5y ago
  It’s happening in the year of Linux on the desktop.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    We can invent something new : The year of the Linux driver
    - shaan7 5y ago
      Or, "When Linux becomes your daily driver" ;)
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    and apple web notifications
- Cthulhu_ 5y ago
  Autonomous cars are more expensive than drivers; the only reason they dislike having real drivers is that they have a voice.
  - hmate9 5y ago
    Over the long run there is no way that autonomous cars are more expensive
    - 5y ago
hoppyhoppy2 5y ago
See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509506
LatteLazy 5y ago
We really need to review "employment" as a legal concept. Most of these systems were set up post ww2. They worked ok when everyone was working full time as employees of single large companies, in factories where their time was directed. It no longer works in on demand economies, with variable hours and self employment and people working multiple jobs.
- gjulianm 5y ago
  > It no longer works in on demand economies, with variable hours and self employment and people working multiple jobs. Why? There are people who work variable hours, self employment and working multiple jobs. They're called freelancers. You can freelance in most countries, and it's not a problem. What is a problem is Uber and gig economy companies saying that the people that work for them are "actually freelancers" as an excuse to offload costs onto the workers, who don't get any of the advantages of being a freelance (they always work under the conditions for these companies, with no power of negotiation.
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    There are 1000s of small ways it doesnt work: * In the uk, you and your employer pay national insurance if you earn over a given limit. Thats fine for an uber driver who becomes an employee instead of self employed. * but your employer only pays if you earn over X. So employers have a big incentive to stop you earning over thst limit. You see this in the US with workers being kept at 1h less than full time to avoid paying for health insurance. So now we're limiting the income of the people we're meant to be helping!? * plus in the uk, your contributions only count if you do a full year. Thats fine if you're a full time employee, you work 52 weeks (and when you're on holiday you're paid and that includes NI contributions), and your wage is the same every week. But if an uber driver misses a pay period or has a slow month, he paid a lot of NI and gets no credit for it. Nor can he claim it back. * plus now, as an employee, your expenses are not tax deductable. Im not being anti-worker. But our current systems arent fit for purpose anymore. We need to review them. Thats benefits, workers rights and the tax code. Why dont we just charge a percentage of earnings and then base unemployment payout on that? Because in 1950 someone dreamt up this system and designed it so we could support men working full time in factories and to operate using just pen and paper but cause computers didnt exist. 70 years later, we have the same system with 101 bits of crap bolted on. And it isnt working.
weijoi 5y ago
Soviet Union also successfully required that everyone will be officially employed.
- srmarm 5y ago
  What's that supposed to mean? Dutch people can still be self-employed - this ruling applies to one particular employer that has been pretending it's staff are self-employed.
- have_faith 5y ago
  This isn't mandating that uber has to hire these people, or that these people have to have jobs, it's that if Uber wants them to work an amount of hours equivalant to a full time emlpoyee then they need to not pretend that they're not full time employees.
  - 988747 5y ago
    The amount of time worked has nothing to do with it - contractors in other industries typically work long hours. The reasoning is that contractors should retain some level of independence, like choosing their rides, and setting their own prices, for example. Uber is micromanaging all driver's daily activities, which is antithesis of being independent contractor.
SMAAART 5y ago
What we have here is a unique, unprecedented, real life experiment in Game Theory. Possible outcomes: - Uber could pull out from the Netherlands - Drivers in the Netherlands could organize themselves, but they will need a structure similar to Uber - Other countries will follow the Netherlands ruling We could see the implosion of the gig economy (doubt it) or - most probably - some places like the Netherlands will be gig-economy-free zones; and we'll see the impact on their economies.
- adwww 5y ago
  > Other countries will follow the Netherlands ruling Dozens of other jurisdictions seem to have ruled similar already, but for whatever reason, with limited change yet. I'm not sure why not. Possibly stuck in various appeals, or maybe Uber made some other small change and waited to get sued again?
- sbilstein 5y ago
  I think the competitive advantages of Uber will weaken with all these legal challenges. In NYC, as Uber prices increased dramatically after the pandemic began to wane, folks just starting catching cabs again. The cabs use ride hailing apps. I no longer care about the rating system or any of that. It is fine. In Israel, we use Gett. It's fine.
  - devcpp 5y ago
    And Gett is dependent on the taxi cartel, its excessive price, the black market of taxi medallions, etc. It's a nonsensical market and we're overdue a shared transport option. Good luck getting around on Saturday. All because it's illegal to take money to transport someone from A to B without an exorbitant license for no specific reason.
- tzs 5y ago
  Or Uber could start actually offering the service they claim to offer: providing a marketplace where independent freelance drivers can offer rides and people needing rides can buy them.
- 5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
axkdev 5y ago
I hope über goes bankrupt and we forget about all of this insanity. In Germany where I live the taxi service is amassing, at least in my city can't say for whole country. They are quick clean the drivers are professionals and not some randos who will break rules to get there faster or drive so insanely that you want to puke. They know the city by heart and don't use navigators. Due to being professionals they are compensated more fairly than in other countries and they have benefits like all other employees. Also if you like using apps you can do that with normal taxi as well. In my home country (Eastern Europe) I took übers that made me think I'm gonna die in them.
- drstewart 5y ago
  I hope all the taxi drivers in Germany go bankrupt and we forget they ever existed.
  - freemint 5y ago
    Why? Also Taxi Driver can't really go bankrupt since they are employees. Taxi companies however can.
    - Ekaros 5y ago
      Some taxi drivers in some countries are sole proprietorship, technically companies, but still I would call such driver going bankrupt for failing to pay lease a not a employee.
- bserge 5y ago
  > They know the city by heart and don't use navigators Questionable pro, but OK
  - axkdev 5y ago
    They don't waste valuable time asking how do you spell the street and so on. Also it indicates that they are working in the area for a long time, so to me it adds credibility. With uber drivers it's always a gamble. Most people are nice, but that <1% of psychopaths can really ruin your day.
Pete-Codes 5y ago
Nice one Dutchies
spywaregorilla 5y ago
Obligatory reminder that this isn't saying rideshare drivers must be employees. It is saying the specifics of uber, how it controls its drivers, and how it runs its business is an employment model per their laws. You could almost certainly build a new rideshare business that is not employment based.
Grimm1 5y ago
Legitimate question, will Uber shut down it's Dutch operations now? Will this cost them more money than it's worth to operate there, and would they shutdown to send a message to other nations about there intent should similar rulings be made? Uber's margins have always been super thin, I would imagine this makes them squarely unprofitable in the Dutch market.
- Traster 5y ago
  This is what is likely to happen to Uber almost everywhere eventually. Courts will slowly re-impose the workers rights that Uber set out to avoid, the cost of an uber ride will go up, which will shift riders back to more traditional transport - busses, trains, bicycles and cars. Leaving a much smaller, much less powerful Uber. Without the scale and the price making power, Uber will see its value massively massively drop shrinking to the value of a large taxi company (albeit one that's throwing huge amounts of money away on extremely expensive silicon valley engineers)
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    And in the background, consumers get fucked.
    - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
      Your convenience does not matter if employees are being exploited.
      - maccolgan 5y ago
        Who decides what's exploitation? Me? You? The drivers? Uber? The court system? Who may be right or wrong?
        kazen44 5y ago
        usually the legal branch of a country. You know, the legal definition of what is exploitative labour and what isn't.
hobom 5y ago
Unfortunate consequence of a legacy legal system. Uber drivers are clearly neither quite like employees nor are they entrepreneurs, and the law should come up with a fitting category that ensures they are protected from exploitation but continue to enjoy some of the freedoms associated with the gig economy.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  This is also my stance. Everyone debates whether Uber drivers and gig workers are employees or contractors: They are clearly neither. But people love a dichotomy, I guess.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  And after you define this mid-point employment classification between traditionally employed and self employed, businesses who hold the leverage will look at the segments from traditionally employed to the new mid-point as we as self-employed to the new midpoint. They'll then choose which classification gymnastics they can perform under the legal language and optimize on to minimize their labor costs. That'll take a couple years and the law change to catchup to this abusive behavior avoiding the intent of the law will take another 10-30 years, and we'll repeat the process. We need better definitions for the labor relation that make it difficult to play these optimization games created simply to optimize on labor and more significant consequences for that behavior to encourage businesses to innovate in other areas (like, I don't know, technology, new products, improved products, etc.) instead of simply extracting wealth from their own workforces. To be fair to Uber they did create new value in finding and scheduling rides/taxies and I think that is a valuable service. That infrastructure and convenience has a cost though. No longer do you need to hail a taxi and deal with trying to pass directions, miscommunication of destination and charge rates and so on. But it seems they've passed many of those costs onto the drivers themselves and probably consumers to assure a certain sort of profit margin per transaction.
- kevincox 5y ago
  Possibly a better option is to remove these categories together. What would happen if we struck the whole concept of "Employment" from the law. As a person you just had the chance to get income. We can retarget all of the laws and benefits previously using Employment to be about income instead. If you make an income you can pay into a pension, pay taxes... Everyone is entitled to some number of vacations and sick days that can not be taken away from a contract. (any contract) I'm sure there are some complexities due to the weaker relationship between the two, but it seems like it would be beneficial to remove this somewhat artificial cliff between self-employed contractors or employees which is almost certainly more of a septum. (For example freelance picking up jobs posted to a public job board, to a contractor in frequent contracts with multiple companies, to a contractor working with a single company, to an employee which works with one company.)
hkt 5y ago
I don't know exactly how it works in Holland, but in the UK we're now in a funny situation whereby an Uber is almost more ethical than a taxi - once the employees get proper sick pay, PTO etc, that is.
christkv 5y ago
One thing I've noticed with food delivery companies here is the obvious fraudulent identities of the delivery people. The photo shows a completely different person than the one showing up with the delivery leading me to think there is some sort of trade of delivery accounts happening to allow undocumented workers to pretend working legally with someone taking a cut of the earnings.
akrymski 5y ago
What next? Upwork must employ it's workers? Where is the line drawn? What if Uber didn't handle the money and riders paid cash? The result is simply consumers paying the difference for more expensive taxi services. Forcing this labour market underground trading in crypto or cash. Congratulations.
nemo44x 5y ago
> FNV called the ruling a major victory for drivers' rights. No, it's a major victory for the administrative arm of the FNV trade union. Look beyond the formal argument here (workers rights) and look at what this actually is about - power. The FNV wants to get their cut so they can collect more dues paying members and further enrich the admins. The workers here will probably not benefit at all.
BLanen 5y ago
Good. Uber is a unsustainable business built employee exploitation to effectively pay them less than minimum wage while flouting "freedom" to bait the people in the worst situations. This was known from the start. Meanwhile subsidising rides with investor-cash to effectively bait-and-switch society. The recent-ish price hikes are only a start. Anyone repeating their PR should be ashamed. "gigs" are cancer or wait, this is hackernews so "Gig-economy considered harmful" is the correct nomenclature I guess.
- Jommi 5y ago
  What a terribly lopsided and blanket view on a business working over 50+ different ethical and regulatory environments/societies.
  - arrosenberg 5y ago
    More like, working around 50+ regulatory states.
  - BLanen 5y ago
    I don't care that they exist in many places. Corona is in 200+ different ethical and regulatory environments/societies, I think that that is likewise bad for society and hope we get rid of it. There's enough other comments with the typical "nuance" you can read.
    - nickff 5y ago
      >"Corona is in 200+ different ethical and regulatory environments/societies, I think that that is likewise bad for society and hope we get rid of it." COVID has killed over four and a half million people; about four million people have driven for Uber (worldwide). Do you really think that doing some driving for Uber and dying of COVID are "likewise bad"?
      - w-j-w 5y ago
        They're both bad, and the comparison points out why the parent comment had a garbage argument. Being able to swindle many sets of employment laws is not the same thing as "being good"
dncornholio 5y ago
If you're a freelancer in NL and your income comes from only one client, you're not even being seen as a freelancer AFAIR.
kwonkicker 5y ago
I am torn on this issue, maybe I don't see the whole picture. Uber was never meant to be a taxi company. It was a means for people with cars to share their gas expenses. I don't know how could they ever prevent this gig from becoming a full-time job for most drivers, but I think forcing employment is not a solution.
- villasv 5y ago
  > I don't know how could they ever prevent this gig from becoming a full-time job for most drivers Pricing (and marketing, and UX, and features) that transparently informs that offering rides it is not long-term profitable, it only makes sense as cost savings for inevitable drives, similar to BlaBlaCar or Waze Carpool. But this would have hampered their growth, so they didn’t. Ride-sharing (fake proposition) isn’t really that big of a market as urban mobility in general (target proposition)
- Ekaros 5y ago
  Was Uber ever actually ridesharing platform that is way to find someone going from near location to an other location for singular shared trip?
krickkrack 5y ago
It's interesting to me that, generally speaking, both Uber and it's drivers are fine with the way things are, entering into a mutually agreed upon contract... Only to have people who have no skin in the game tell them both what they have to do... because it's 'the right thing'.
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  That's not the whole picture, though. You can't bring a bull to a full dance club and do a rodeo, just because you and the bull mutually agree. There is collateral damage here, taxpayers paying the social expenses meant to be paid by Uber and the unemployment money and services for the taxi drivers pushed into unemployment by the Uber money burning scheme for predatory pricing practices is something that is not mutually agreed upon with the governments. Uber is dancing on a thin thread on this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0019850194900132?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001985... So the government imposed a bit of a less radical change, as predatory pricing consists of predating(done) and recoupment(not happened yet). This is the legal term for Microsoft embrace, extend, extinguish practice.
ChicagoDave 5y ago
If this ever happens in the U.S. I won't bother with driving Uber anymore and this would probably put them out of business. The Taxi industry will win back from the disruption that Uber caused. This has nothing to do with worker's rights. No one gave a crap about Taxi driver's work standards and they are/were treated worse than Uber drivers. This is all about the Taxi industry fighting back. 75% of all ride share drivers would prefer to remain independent. In Chicago, I can make $42/hour driving Uber. I still don't understand how anyone can claim I'm being mistreated.
- ChicagoDave 5y ago
  I also have never heard a proven argument against Uber. - Uber passengers LOVE the service. Way more than taxi service or public transportation. - Since Uber started, drunk driving injuries/fatalities are down 30%-35%. - Drivers can be anyone with a working car. There is no "interview". You get background checked and your car is inspected. - Drivers get to write off miles. - Drivers get discounts on service at Jiffy Lube and tire stores. Now if people are worried about employment practices, why not look at Walmart, Amazon, Target, and most retail stores. They intentionally staff people with erratic weekly hours, keeping shifts to 4 hours (no breaks or lunches required) and no one reaches 35 hours to enforce benefits. You can't compare Uber to Retail. I'm 100% liberal and support progressive worker protection, but Uber isn't actually hurting anyone. Only the Taxi industry and the cities that used to make a fortune on selling "medallions" to license taxis. In Chicago those were $400k and in NYC they were even more. So imaging you're a Taxi company with 200 medallions. Uber basically just shredded your net worth. That's who has really seen pain. Not workers.
  - aqsalose 5y ago
    >Now if people are worried about employment practices, why not look at Walmart, Amazon, Target, and most retail stores. They intentionally staff people with erratic weekly hours, keeping shifts to 4 hours (no breaks or lunches required) and no one reaches 35 hours to enforce benefits. Is there Target in the Netherlands?
    - 5y ago
akagusu 5y ago
The so called gig economy was built upon a unsustainable business model that depends of exploitation of workers. It's not just Uber. All companies in the gig economy work like this. It's not only about paying minimum wage and benefits either, it's also about shifting the costs of doing business to the workers calling them independent contractors. As independent contractors, drivers need to pay for their car, pay for gas, taxes, insurance and maintenance costs, but if they were employees from the beginning, all these costs would be getting out of the Uber's pockets.
CryptoPunk 5y ago
Ah yes, the war against the free market continues, unabated. Certain tenets of socialist ideology - like the idea that large companies exploit the masses if afforded contract liberty - are so deeply ingrained in the collective psyche, that they are never even questioned. The beliefs of fringe groups rest on a set of absurd conspiracy theories, like vaccines being harmful to public health, and pushed on the population merely to profit Big Pharma. But the beliefs of the mainstream rest on a set of equally absurd conspiracy theories, and all of them based on socialist class warfare narratives. It is in the interests of a critical mass of special interest groups, who hold political power, for people to believe in these conspiracy theories.

459 points by jsiepkes 5y ago

pjmlp 5y ago

I love when US companies get to learn our unions and work laws are actually to be followed upon.

dang 5y ago
Please don't post shallow provocations to HN, and especially don't take HN threads into political or (god help us) nationalistic flamewar. None of that is what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
junon 5y ago
The US's are too, to be fair. The laws just suck to begin with, unlike most European countries'.
- mithusingh32 5y ago
  Or if you have enough money to by pass the laws all together. Take a look at HSBC[1][2]....they got caught laundering money for Mexican cartel and helped NK/Iran circumvent the nuclear sanctions. They were given a slap on the wrist of 2 billion dollars in fines. (Can't find the source but they were also caught transferring money to known terrorist groups) If anyone is interested there is a Netflix show they covers this. I think it's called Dirty Money. [3] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Money_laundering https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Money_laundering [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#US_Senate_investigation_(2012) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#US_Senate_investigation... [3] https://www.netflix.com/title/80118100?preventIntent=true https://www.netflix.com/title/80118100?preventIntent=true
  - junon 5y ago
    Okay but they were still caught and fined. That doesn't negate my point, nor is a sample size of 1 anything to write home about.
drstewart 5y ago
Yeah, it's the environmental and corruption laws you get to skirt in Europe! Just ask VW, FIFA, or any bank. So much more progressive. Also: https://www.ft.com/content/5b986586-0f85-47d5-8edb-3b49398e2b08 https://www.ft.com/content/5b986586-0f85-47d5-8edb-3b49398e2...
amelius 5y ago
But why did it take so long?
- yawaworht1978 5y ago
  Indeed, probably massive delays by Ubers legal team. The whitelisting principle should apply for such things, this disrupt now, ask later is just a trick to gain market share at the expense of taxpayers and employees and competition which abides by the regulations.

stuaxo 5y ago

Interesting wording of this headline, you would almost think Uber were fighting for the rights of their drivers if you read it out of context.

sdze 5y ago
but then again people remember how us-american gig-companies operate...
st_goliath 5y ago
I was thinking a similar thought. As the word for obviously doesn't really apply here, the word over offers a nice "neutral" alternative to against. Edit: the threads got merged now. At the time that I commented, the title was "Uber Loses Battle Over Drivers’ Rights in the Netherlands" and the link was going to Bloomberg.
dncornholio 5y ago
Ubers whole statement is letting us think they do it for the drivers.. It's terribly obscene
dahfizz 5y ago
The headline I see is " Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules". I don't see how you can read that any other way than the Dutch court is forcing Uber to employ its drivers.
- fallingfrog 5y ago
  This comment was moved from a dupe that was worded differently

gargs 5y ago

“Drivers don’t want to give up their freedom to choose if, when and where to work.” Drivers might have the freedom to turn off their phones and choose not to work, but they don't have the freedom to choose which routes/destinations. Seems to me that their argument is one-sided and deceptive.

brnt 5y ago
If you don't have that freedom, you're an employee, which is what this conflict is about. Because if they're an employee, their employer must pay social insurance. The self-employed are exempted from this insurance (although highly encouraged, because, not surprisingly, the vast majority of self-employed people don't become lucky billionaires). Uber wanted to have it both ways, and, not surprisingly, it can't. Self-employed people do whatever they like, including choosing the rides they drive for Uber.
- chii 5y ago
  but from what i recall, an uber driver do have the choice to accept or reject a ride. There's a penalty for rejecting too many rides - but i think that's a fair outcome. Ideally, uber also allows a driver to set the price, and allow a customer to see price comparisons between all offered drivers (and wait times etc), to truly make it a competitive market place.
  - lozenge 5y ago
    Ideally for who? According to this article drivers weren't given information on fare or destination when they were offered fares, until legally required in California. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/uber-changes-rules-drivers-adjust-strategies/amp https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/uber-change... They won't be letting drivers set fares until legally obligated. They are a taxi service that cosplays as a "ride sharing" "marketplace" in the legal system. Uber is all about keeping maximum control of the driver while denying them the rights of employees (or in the UK, "worker" status, which is a halfway house between employee and self employed)
  - 5y ago

sktrdie 5y ago

Bit out of context but I just came back from US (living in Netherlands). Holy flipping hell that place is full of cars. Literally everywhere. I mean I understand using a car upstate New York where things are further apart and everyone has a huge isolated villa. But do you really need 4 lane roads in freaking manhattan? Seems like regulating "car stuff" in general is always a good thing if you ask me.

jokoon 5y ago
I'm french, I really don't know how the US are going to get out of cars, it's going to be incredibly hard or impossible. Mandatory ride sharing by taxing gas, or heavily subsidizing public transport? Uber would have an unique opportunity to group rides for small busses.
airza 5y ago
There is a great youtube channel called "Not just bikes" which talks about urban planning in the netherlands and how it results in much more livable cities than the US.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  This map of cyle paths in Europe tells you everything: https://imgur.com/Fkye6Nt https://imgur.com/Fkye6Nt
  - gpvos 5y ago
    That's not really about cities, more about cycle paths between them. But there's a relation of course.
- xvector 5y ago
  Seconded, amazing channel that describes why American cities are a disaster. I've lived in a walkable area and QoL goes up immensely. No amount of money or luxury in an American suburb will compare. There is nothing like the sheer convenience of being able to get your groceries in a 3 minute walk.

elgfare 5y ago

Uber says the majority of drivers don't want this, which I'd call bs on, but has anyone heard from actual drivers what they want?

kfk 5y ago
I think Uber might be right here. EU labor laws protect a few but over a certain salary they are not very appealing. In Italy paying a net salary of 2,000 euros will cost the company 6000+. Things included like pension are not worth their cost, a private pension is better and cheaper, same for health services. It’s unfortunate but it’s true.
- Loic 5y ago
  For the company it costs more money, but for the employee, you are way better being employed than contractor. This is not a surprise, this extra money is effectively bringing the employee health insurance, pension, invalidity pension, unemployment benefit, maximum number of hours to work per week, paid vacations, etc. If you need to pay it out of your pocket, it turns out to be the same. In the "old" Europe, the net salary is basically 50% of the cost for the company, sometimes a bit more, sometimes less depending of marital status, country, etc. But this is a good rule of thumb.
  - bserge 5y ago
    I can see the future: "New EU law: for every multipurpose robot in operation, the company must employ one human" :D
    - watt 5y ago
      From the strikes of train driver's unions in Germany, I think that's where it is headed. "You can automate trains if you like, but the whole current workforce still must stay employed."
    - consumer451 5y ago
      Well, maybe something more along the lines of a contribution towards UBI, or similar. This is a concept I first heard come out of the US, from Musk maybe?

988747 5y ago

> "We know that the vast majority of drivers would like to remain independent," said Maurits Schonfeld, general manager of Uber in Northern Europe That's funny, because the court's reasoning was that drivers in their daily work are almost completely dependent on Uber, which calls all the shots.

nulbyte 5y ago
I feel this is very disingenuous on Uber's part. Either it's just their way of distracting from the actual point, or they really don't understand what is happening. The case wasn't about what driver's prefer, but about the reality of driving for Uber. What small bit of independence drivers had in setting their own hours is not necessarily eroded by this ruling. It just means Uber will have to (gasp!) innovate to deal with a few specific things. I think Uber making cases like these out to require fundamental changes to the business model is absurd.
- xputer 5y ago
  Yes, also it is to be expected that Uber has a large number of drivers that only do a couple of riders per week while a smaller number of drivers work full time. The larger number of drivers that only do a few rides of course would be in favor of flexibility, but this ruling is as far as I understand mainly about protecting those who work for Uber full time.

shimonabi 5y ago

Great to see that over 100 years of labour laws won by the workers' movements can't be innovated away in SOME countries.

gpvos 5y ago
Well, you can fool all of the people some of the time, so it was possible for many years.
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
  How were they fooled? In the Netherlands, no one is forced to work anywhere. People drive Ubers out of their own volition, whether we think it's stupid or not. I'm not sure about other countries but in China where the market used to be even less regulated, both drivers and customers switched in droves from traditional taxis to ride hailing apps. For various reasons they just like it better. And it's not exactly difficult to see the advantages even if you have concerns about labor laws. There's always a case to be made that any form of employment is exploitation. Sararīman, as the corporate slave is known in Japan. The question is how much regulation do we want. And do we want it for regulation's sake, or does it actually benefit the people. There are many labor laws that hinder innovation and keep employment down.
  - paulluuk 5y ago
    > There are many labor laws that hinder innovation and keep employment down I think it's fair to say that the huge majority of labor laws actually protect laborers, and have been won through blood and sweat over many generations. To opt on "the safe side" and say "look, yes jobs at Uber are complicated, but if you work there 40 hours per week then it's a fulltime job and we should treat it as such" is quite fair.
umvi 5y ago
But does every single way to make money have to provide a living wage with full health benefits, etc.? Seems like you limit types of innovation that could otherwise happen. For example, say you create some kind of trash cleanup/recycling incentive app that pays out some small amount for trash/recyclables picked up and turned in. Soon: everyone is outraged that some poor person can't make a living wage picking up recyclables and they try to force you to hire all users of your app as full time employees with full health benefits, etc. That doesn't seem right.

pelorat 5y ago

Wait, I live in the Netherlands and I wasn't even aware that Uber was around. Didn't they get banned years ago, with only Uber Black being allowed?

AndyMcConachie 5y ago
You're forgiven. I also live in the NL and I almost never see them. The last time I saw an Uber was two years ago when a friend came from the USA and wanted to use their app to call a Uber. But then again I never take taxis either. For me it's either walk, bike or OV. It might be like that for you as well, which is why you forgot they exist.
- thow-58d4e8b 5y ago
  Same in Finland, Baltics or central/eastern Europe. Almost everything is within walkable/bike-able distance. Public transportation has good coverage, is affordable and safe. Taking taxis is just not something people normally do. From here, Uber feels like a quintessentially American solution for a quintessentially American problem. Real world example - taking Uber to my workplace would cost me one-two hours of net pay, and I'm in the top 5% earners. Another one-two hours of net pay to go back home. For comparison - public transportation costs 3€/day regardless of usage, and only takes about 15% longer to get there.
  - wwtrv 5y ago
    ‘..Baltics’ maybe in Estonia.. in Lithuania Uber (or rather companies that are competing with it) is quite popular and that prices were very low (due to competition between different apps) until quite recently (mass transit is not that great here, though). AFAIK while not used by most people, it is also quite popular in Ukraine. Due huge income inequality the prices are very low but there is still a substantial section of the population which can afford it.
- pelorat 5y ago
  Indeed. I don't own or travel by car. I just remember reading that the "Uber Pop" app was not allowed, but Uber Black(?) was, but it was more expensive and had licensed drivers. That was many years ago.

bserge 5y ago

Why doesn't Uber employ them and guarantee minimum wage, anything extra is a bonus? Is it just the extra employee costs on the company side?

ianleeclark 5y ago
If you do such a thing, then you need to start worrying about local labor laws, vacation time, healthcare in the US, sick leave, etc. The gig economy works by circumventing these things.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    They aren't hard but they do have costs. Once you start paying for them then your offering doesn't look much different to traditional taxi companies.
aikinai 5y ago
Then Uber would have to decide who works when and for how long. Right now it’s controlled by supply and demand through pricing algorithms.
- bserge 5y ago
  OK, bear with me here. Same system as now, but if you make less than minimum hourly wage (calculated every month), the company covers the difference. I am pretty sure the drivers would nearly always make more than that. Or is it illegal to just have employees set their own time/targets?
  - phicoh 5y ago
    It gets expensive when drivers game the system. What happens when a driver just stops driving? You have to fire them. Which can take quite a bit of effort. What if a driver calls in sick? You have to check that. If a driver is an employee, who provides the car?

amelius 5y ago

A similar article was already submitted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509506

snidane 5y ago

It was never for the drivers. It certainly isn't a win for the customer. It is only a win for the state to collect their taxes.

maccolgan 5y ago
Everything is a win for the state, can't remember the last time anything happened in the employment law space that has been good for everybody...

jacquesm 5y ago

Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.

tomp 5y ago
Must is just as wrong as won't. The ideal solution is, drivers being given the choice. Wanna earn more (but less predictable), pay less tax, have less social security, work whenever you want to? Or do you want to earn less (but completely predictable), pay more tax, have unemployment security, work fixed hours.
- tasubotadas 5y ago
  Not sure why this comment is down voted but it's spot on. Honestly, it's pretty annoying that some people decide what others can do or can't do with their free time and their car.
  - riffraff 5y ago
    because it ignores the reality of european society: it's not a libertarian utopia, it's a society where the states do dictate things. More specifically, it's blind to the fact that the parent comment is about existing regulation which is being abused. It's like arguing with someone saying "you can't drive at 100 km/h in a residential area" with "well I am a CAN person myself, and I don' think we should say CAN'T".
    - devcpp 5y ago
      Driving at 100km/h in a residential area harms others with a high probability. Can you say that of someone working the way they want to with transactions consented between two adults?
      - 5y ago

thejackgoode 5y ago

Is “undisrupt” a word already?

grenoire 5y ago
It's called 'regulate.'
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  but they disrupted the regulations in the first place Oh i see, we ll soon have a wave of startups who are disruptors-of-the-regulated-disruptors-of-the-regulations
throw_m239339 5y ago
"disruption" is basically newspeak for startups when they are weighting the ability and capacity of an administration or government to sue that startup for violating laws. It's legal arbitrage.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago

The thing that interests me here is company valuation. The base idea is that you predict the future profits of a company and NPV that down to today, and that's how much the total share price should be. This of course is tricky, but at some point all the big regulatory arbitrage plays (uber, airbnb) etc were obvious for what they were - and I am not sure they got adjusted. In other words short term competition and PR played as big a role it seems in valuation models as did "can airbnb keep renting out against local laws" I have not dug into their IPO documents but it must be in there. But once you are worth a gazillion dollars regulators have an uphill struggle. The thing is short selling is such a poor way to signal criticism of the company. Investing is a default optimistic thing. And I am not sure there is an alternative. Some kind of anti-investment?

Iolaum 5y ago
Maybe invest elsewhere? (Assuming qualified choices can be found.)
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  But that's not the point - I mean if everyone did then the company would get the point. But look at Climate change. FOr decades its been "ignore the tree huggers" - but imagine there was an investment vehicle that was "anti-Exxon" - its hard to stand up at the AGM and say "just tree huggers" when there is a Trillion dollars of bets against you. I don't think there is any possible such vehicle. I just kind of wish there was. A way of allowing the market to take care of externalities. All we have is regulation, and as a fan of markets, that kind of annoys me. (or rather, I recognise that markets are after all dependant on the existence of government (as opposed to the right-wing style if only governments did not exist markets would take over). And am annoyed that this market has not been created.)
t0mas88 5y ago
> I have not dug into their IPO documents but it must be in there. Any IPO document I've seen had several pages of future risks, so I'm almost certain that Uber has put the regulatory thing somewhere in that chapter.

Proven 5y ago

Nonsense. The government has no right to decide how consenting private parties arrange their relationship.

throw_m239339 5y ago

I remember quite well some people here claiming that Uber was just about to replace all their drivers with autonomous cars. It was back in 2015... we're in 2021.

weijoi 5y ago
No driver - no problem. Communists will downvote this comment :D
teekert 5y ago
It’s happening in the year of Linux on the desktop.
- the-dude 5y ago
  We can invent something new : The year of the Linux driver
  - shaan7 5y ago
    Or, "When Linux becomes your daily driver" ;)
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  and apple web notifications
Cthulhu_ 5y ago
Autonomous cars are more expensive than drivers; the only reason they dislike having real drivers is that they have a voice.
- hmate9 5y ago
  Over the long run there is no way that autonomous cars are more expensive
  - 5y ago

hoppyhoppy2 5y ago

See also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28509506

LatteLazy 5y ago

We really need to review "employment" as a legal concept. Most of these systems were set up post ww2. They worked ok when everyone was working full time as employees of single large companies, in factories where their time was directed. It no longer works in on demand economies, with variable hours and self employment and people working multiple jobs.

gjulianm 5y ago
> It no longer works in on demand economies, with variable hours and self employment and people working multiple jobs. Why? There are people who work variable hours, self employment and working multiple jobs. They're called freelancers. You can freelance in most countries, and it's not a problem. What is a problem is Uber and gig economy companies saying that the people that work for them are "actually freelancers" as an excuse to offload costs onto the workers, who don't get any of the advantages of being a freelance (they always work under the conditions for these companies, with no power of negotiation.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  There are 1000s of small ways it doesnt work: * In the uk, you and your employer pay national insurance if you earn over a given limit. Thats fine for an uber driver who becomes an employee instead of self employed. * but your employer only pays if you earn over X. So employers have a big incentive to stop you earning over thst limit. You see this in the US with workers being kept at 1h less than full time to avoid paying for health insurance. So now we're limiting the income of the people we're meant to be helping!? * plus in the uk, your contributions only count if you do a full year. Thats fine if you're a full time employee, you work 52 weeks (and when you're on holiday you're paid and that includes NI contributions), and your wage is the same every week. But if an uber driver misses a pay period or has a slow month, he paid a lot of NI and gets no credit for it. Nor can he claim it back. * plus now, as an employee, your expenses are not tax deductable. Im not being anti-worker. But our current systems arent fit for purpose anymore. We need to review them. Thats benefits, workers rights and the tax code. Why dont we just charge a percentage of earnings and then base unemployment payout on that? Because in 1950 someone dreamt up this system and designed it so we could support men working full time in factories and to operate using just pen and paper but cause computers didnt exist. 70 years later, we have the same system with 101 bits of crap bolted on. And it isnt working.

weijoi 5y ago

Soviet Union also successfully required that everyone will be officially employed.

srmarm 5y ago
What's that supposed to mean? Dutch people can still be self-employed - this ruling applies to one particular employer that has been pretending it's staff are self-employed.
have_faith 5y ago
This isn't mandating that uber has to hire these people, or that these people have to have jobs, it's that if Uber wants them to work an amount of hours equivalant to a full time emlpoyee then they need to not pretend that they're not full time employees.
- 988747 5y ago
  The amount of time worked has nothing to do with it - contractors in other industries typically work long hours. The reasoning is that contractors should retain some level of independence, like choosing their rides, and setting their own prices, for example. Uber is micromanaging all driver's daily activities, which is antithesis of being independent contractor.

SMAAART 5y ago

What we have here is a unique, unprecedented, real life experiment in Game Theory. Possible outcomes: - Uber could pull out from the Netherlands - Drivers in the Netherlands could organize themselves, but they will need a structure similar to Uber - Other countries will follow the Netherlands ruling We could see the implosion of the gig economy (doubt it) or - most probably - some places like the Netherlands will be gig-economy-free zones; and we'll see the impact on their economies.

adwww 5y ago
> Other countries will follow the Netherlands ruling Dozens of other jurisdictions seem to have ruled similar already, but for whatever reason, with limited change yet. I'm not sure why not. Possibly stuck in various appeals, or maybe Uber made some other small change and waited to get sued again?
sbilstein 5y ago
I think the competitive advantages of Uber will weaken with all these legal challenges. In NYC, as Uber prices increased dramatically after the pandemic began to wane, folks just starting catching cabs again. The cabs use ride hailing apps. I no longer care about the rating system or any of that. It is fine. In Israel, we use Gett. It's fine.
- devcpp 5y ago
  And Gett is dependent on the taxi cartel, its excessive price, the black market of taxi medallions, etc. It's a nonsensical market and we're overdue a shared transport option. Good luck getting around on Saturday. All because it's illegal to take money to transport someone from A to B without an exorbitant license for no specific reason.
tzs 5y ago
Or Uber could start actually offering the service they claim to offer: providing a marketplace where independent freelance drivers can offer rides and people needing rides can buy them.
5y ago

deleted 5y ago

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axkdev 5y ago

I hope über goes bankrupt and we forget about all of this insanity. In Germany where I live the taxi service is amassing, at least in my city can't say for whole country. They are quick clean the drivers are professionals and not some randos who will break rules to get there faster or drive so insanely that you want to puke. They know the city by heart and don't use navigators. Due to being professionals they are compensated more fairly than in other countries and they have benefits like all other employees. Also if you like using apps you can do that with normal taxi as well. In my home country (Eastern Europe) I took übers that made me think I'm gonna die in them.

drstewart 5y ago
I hope all the taxi drivers in Germany go bankrupt and we forget they ever existed.
- freemint 5y ago
  Why? Also Taxi Driver can't really go bankrupt since they are employees. Taxi companies however can.
  - Ekaros 5y ago
    Some taxi drivers in some countries are sole proprietorship, technically companies, but still I would call such driver going bankrupt for failing to pay lease a not a employee.
bserge 5y ago
> They know the city by heart and don't use navigators Questionable pro, but OK
- axkdev 5y ago
  They don't waste valuable time asking how do you spell the street and so on. Also it indicates that they are working in the area for a long time, so to me it adds credibility. With uber drivers it's always a gamble. Most people are nice, but that <1% of psychopaths can really ruin your day.

Pete-Codes 5y ago

Nice one Dutchies

spywaregorilla 5y ago

Obligatory reminder that this isn't saying rideshare drivers must be employees. It is saying the specifics of uber, how it controls its drivers, and how it runs its business is an employment model per their laws. You could almost certainly build a new rideshare business that is not employment based.

Grimm1 5y ago

Legitimate question, will Uber shut down it's Dutch operations now? Will this cost them more money than it's worth to operate there, and would they shutdown to send a message to other nations about there intent should similar rulings be made? Uber's margins have always been super thin, I would imagine this makes them squarely unprofitable in the Dutch market.

Traster 5y ago
This is what is likely to happen to Uber almost everywhere eventually. Courts will slowly re-impose the workers rights that Uber set out to avoid, the cost of an uber ride will go up, which will shift riders back to more traditional transport - busses, trains, bicycles and cars. Leaving a much smaller, much less powerful Uber. Without the scale and the price making power, Uber will see its value massively massively drop shrinking to the value of a large taxi company (albeit one that's throwing huge amounts of money away on extremely expensive silicon valley engineers)
- maccolgan 5y ago
  And in the background, consumers get fucked.
  - isbvhodnvemrwvn 5y ago
    Your convenience does not matter if employees are being exploited.
    - maccolgan 5y ago
      Who decides what's exploitation? Me? You? The drivers? Uber? The court system? Who may be right or wrong?
      - kazen44 5y ago
        usually the legal branch of a country. You know, the legal definition of what is exploitative labour and what isn't.

hobom 5y ago

Unfortunate consequence of a legacy legal system. Uber drivers are clearly neither quite like employees nor are they entrepreneurs, and the law should come up with a fitting category that ensures they are protected from exploitation but continue to enjoy some of the freedoms associated with the gig economy.

dahfizz 5y ago
This is also my stance. Everyone debates whether Uber drivers and gig workers are employees or contractors: They are clearly neither. But people love a dichotomy, I guess.
Frost1x 5y ago
And after you define this mid-point employment classification between traditionally employed and self employed, businesses who hold the leverage will look at the segments from traditionally employed to the new mid-point as we as self-employed to the new midpoint. They'll then choose which classification gymnastics they can perform under the legal language and optimize on to minimize their labor costs. That'll take a couple years and the law change to catchup to this abusive behavior avoiding the intent of the law will take another 10-30 years, and we'll repeat the process. We need better definitions for the labor relation that make it difficult to play these optimization games created simply to optimize on labor and more significant consequences for that behavior to encourage businesses to innovate in other areas (like, I don't know, technology, new products, improved products, etc.) instead of simply extracting wealth from their own workforces. To be fair to Uber they did create new value in finding and scheduling rides/taxies and I think that is a valuable service. That infrastructure and convenience has a cost though. No longer do you need to hail a taxi and deal with trying to pass directions, miscommunication of destination and charge rates and so on. But it seems they've passed many of those costs onto the drivers themselves and probably consumers to assure a certain sort of profit margin per transaction.
kevincox 5y ago
Possibly a better option is to remove these categories together. What would happen if we struck the whole concept of "Employment" from the law. As a person you just had the chance to get income. We can retarget all of the laws and benefits previously using Employment to be about income instead. If you make an income you can pay into a pension, pay taxes... Everyone is entitled to some number of vacations and sick days that can not be taken away from a contract. (any contract) I'm sure there are some complexities due to the weaker relationship between the two, but it seems like it would be beneficial to remove this somewhat artificial cliff between self-employed contractors or employees which is almost certainly more of a septum. (For example freelance picking up jobs posted to a public job board, to a contractor in frequent contracts with multiple companies, to a contractor working with a single company, to an employee which works with one company.)

hkt 5y ago

I don't know exactly how it works in Holland, but in the UK we're now in a funny situation whereby an Uber is almost more ethical than a taxi - once the employees get proper sick pay, PTO etc, that is.

christkv 5y ago

One thing I've noticed with food delivery companies here is the obvious fraudulent identities of the delivery people. The photo shows a completely different person than the one showing up with the delivery leading me to think there is some sort of trade of delivery accounts happening to allow undocumented workers to pretend working legally with someone taking a cut of the earnings.

akrymski 5y ago

What next? Upwork must employ it's workers? Where is the line drawn? What if Uber didn't handle the money and riders paid cash? The result is simply consumers paying the difference for more expensive taxi services. Forcing this labour market underground trading in crypto or cash. Congratulations.

nemo44x 5y ago

> FNV called the ruling a major victory for drivers' rights. No, it's a major victory for the administrative arm of the FNV trade union. Look beyond the formal argument here (workers rights) and look at what this actually is about - power. The FNV wants to get their cut so they can collect more dues paying members and further enrich the admins. The workers here will probably not benefit at all.

BLanen 5y ago

Good. Uber is a unsustainable business built employee exploitation to effectively pay them less than minimum wage while flouting "freedom" to bait the people in the worst situations. This was known from the start. Meanwhile subsidising rides with investor-cash to effectively bait-and-switch society. The recent-ish price hikes are only a start. Anyone repeating their PR should be ashamed. "gigs" are cancer or wait, this is hackernews so "Gig-economy considered harmful" is the correct nomenclature I guess.

Jommi 5y ago
What a terribly lopsided and blanket view on a business working over 50+ different ethical and regulatory environments/societies.
- arrosenberg 5y ago
  More like, working around 50+ regulatory states.
- BLanen 5y ago
  I don't care that they exist in many places. Corona is in 200+ different ethical and regulatory environments/societies, I think that that is likewise bad for society and hope we get rid of it. There's enough other comments with the typical "nuance" you can read.
  - nickff 5y ago
    >"Corona is in 200+ different ethical and regulatory environments/societies, I think that that is likewise bad for society and hope we get rid of it." COVID has killed over four and a half million people; about four million people have driven for Uber (worldwide). Do you really think that doing some driving for Uber and dying of COVID are "likewise bad"?
    - w-j-w 5y ago
      They're both bad, and the comparison points out why the parent comment had a garbage argument. Being able to swindle many sets of employment laws is not the same thing as "being good"

dncornholio 5y ago

If you're a freelancer in NL and your income comes from only one client, you're not even being seen as a freelancer AFAIR.

kwonkicker 5y ago

I am torn on this issue, maybe I don't see the whole picture. Uber was never meant to be a taxi company. It was a means for people with cars to share their gas expenses. I don't know how could they ever prevent this gig from becoming a full-time job for most drivers, but I think forcing employment is not a solution.

villasv 5y ago
> I don't know how could they ever prevent this gig from becoming a full-time job for most drivers Pricing (and marketing, and UX, and features) that transparently informs that offering rides it is not long-term profitable, it only makes sense as cost savings for inevitable drives, similar to BlaBlaCar or Waze Carpool. But this would have hampered their growth, so they didn’t. Ride-sharing (fake proposition) isn’t really that big of a market as urban mobility in general (target proposition)
Ekaros 5y ago
Was Uber ever actually ridesharing platform that is way to find someone going from near location to an other location for singular shared trip?

krickkrack 5y ago

It's interesting to me that, generally speaking, both Uber and it's drivers are fine with the way things are, entering into a mutually agreed upon contract... Only to have people who have no skin in the game tell them both what they have to do... because it's 'the right thing'.

yawaworht1978 5y ago
That's not the whole picture, though. You can't bring a bull to a full dance club and do a rodeo, just because you and the bull mutually agree. There is collateral damage here, taxpayers paying the social expenses meant to be paid by Uber and the unemployment money and services for the taxi drivers pushed into unemployment by the Uber money burning scheme for predatory pricing practices is something that is not mutually agreed upon with the governments. Uber is dancing on a thin thread on this https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0019850194900132?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/001985... So the government imposed a bit of a less radical change, as predatory pricing consists of predating(done) and recoupment(not happened yet). This is the legal term for Microsoft embrace, extend, extinguish practice.

ChicagoDave 5y ago

If this ever happens in the U.S. I won't bother with driving Uber anymore and this would probably put them out of business. The Taxi industry will win back from the disruption that Uber caused. This has nothing to do with worker's rights. No one gave a crap about Taxi driver's work standards and they are/were treated worse than Uber drivers. This is all about the Taxi industry fighting back. 75% of all ride share drivers would prefer to remain independent. In Chicago, I can make $42/hour driving Uber. I still don't understand how anyone can claim I'm being mistreated.

ChicagoDave 5y ago
I also have never heard a proven argument against Uber. - Uber passengers LOVE the service. Way more than taxi service or public transportation. - Since Uber started, drunk driving injuries/fatalities are down 30%-35%. - Drivers can be anyone with a working car. There is no "interview". You get background checked and your car is inspected. - Drivers get to write off miles. - Drivers get discounts on service at Jiffy Lube and tire stores. Now if people are worried about employment practices, why not look at Walmart, Amazon, Target, and most retail stores. They intentionally staff people with erratic weekly hours, keeping shifts to 4 hours (no breaks or lunches required) and no one reaches 35 hours to enforce benefits. You can't compare Uber to Retail. I'm 100% liberal and support progressive worker protection, but Uber isn't actually hurting anyone. Only the Taxi industry and the cities that used to make a fortune on selling "medallions" to license taxis. In Chicago those were $400k and in NYC they were even more. So imaging you're a Taxi company with 200 medallions. Uber basically just shredded your net worth. That's who has really seen pain. Not workers.
- aqsalose 5y ago
  >Now if people are worried about employment practices, why not look at Walmart, Amazon, Target, and most retail stores. They intentionally staff people with erratic weekly hours, keeping shifts to 4 hours (no breaks or lunches required) and no one reaches 35 hours to enforce benefits. Is there Target in the Netherlands?
  - 5y ago

akagusu 5y ago

The so called gig economy was built upon a unsustainable business model that depends of exploitation of workers. It's not just Uber. All companies in the gig economy work like this. It's not only about paying minimum wage and benefits either, it's also about shifting the costs of doing business to the workers calling them independent contractors. As independent contractors, drivers need to pay for their car, pay for gas, taxes, insurance and maintenance costs, but if they were employees from the beginning, all these costs would be getting out of the Uber's pockets.

CryptoPunk 5y ago

Ah yes, the war against the free market continues, unabated. Certain tenets of socialist ideology - like the idea that large companies exploit the masses if afforded contract liberty - are so deeply ingrained in the collective psyche, that they are never even questioned. The beliefs of fringe groups rest on a set of absurd conspiracy theories, like vaccines being harmful to public health, and pushed on the population merely to profit Big Pharma. But the beliefs of the mainstream rest on a set of equally absurd conspiracy theories, and all of them based on socialist class warfare narratives. It is in the interests of a critical mass of special interest groups, who hold political power, for people to believe in these conspiracy theories.