5 ms·

Seems like a huge gap in worker protections if its as simple as running all your delivers through third party contractors at below minimum wage.

by s0rce 3y ago

belltaco 3y ago
Does the law not affect drivers for third party services?
- tlogan 3y ago
  No. DoorDash and Uber drivers are not classified as “fast food” workers.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  Doordash, grubhub, and friends deliver bread so presumably they get the same exemption as Boudin
junofan 3y ago
Uber pays below minimum wage in California? How? Maybe their economics are better since they deliver for different types of restaurants or something?
- lmm 3y ago
  > Uber pays below minimum wage in California? How? By falsely classifying its drivers as independent contractors (and bamboozling the courts).
  - doubleg72 3y ago
    Falsely?? How about a source for that bs?
    - lmm 3y ago
      Here's an example of a sane court ruling, with a detailed explanation for why: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56123668 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56123668 . Unfortunately US courts seem to pay too much attention to the form of of their business arrangements and not enough to the substance.
      - doubleg72 3y ago
        That is in the UK.. in the US, no one considers driving for Uber or Door Dash a job. It is side income, or better known as contract work. I don’t see how going onto an app and choosing gigs for people can be confused as doing work for a company.
        lmm 3y ago
        > in the US, no one considers driving for Uber or Door Dash a job. I've seen plenty of posts to the contrary. > I don’t see how going onto an app and choosing gigs for people can be confused as doing work for a company. Well, there is a detailed explanation for why what Uber does constitutes employment in the article I linked.
        TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
        I used to use Uber a lot more than I do now, and so many drivers I met were contract drivers for various transport and delivery app as their entire source of income. More recently the ride share drivers I’ve gotten have been older folks who report that they’re just supplementing income. A lot of the delivery drivers (Uber, DoorDash, Postmates, Amazon Flex, Instacart, etc) I see are younger and seem to be doing it full time.
        s0rce 3y ago
        For one, uber drivers can't set their own rates.
      - chongli 3y ago
        That’s old news. Uber responded to that ruling by changing the specific things the Supreme Court based their decision on. They did not switch to employing people for set hours.
  - cameldrv 3y ago
    They also bamboozled the voters. In 2019 the CA legislature passed AB5 in reaction to Uber being independent contractors. AB5 applies to tons of other industries too, including software development. It's extremely difficult to write software on contract in California now. Uber then created Proposition 22 and managed to get it passed, which exempted the original target of AB5, themselves, but left all sorts of other independent contractors still covered by AB5.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      AB5 codified in statute and created exceptions to the existing case-law rule on classification, from the 2018 Dynamex v. Operations West ruling of the Supreme Court of California. It is more accurately a response to that ruling, not Uber’s status prior to the ruling.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  The $20 min wage is only for fast food workers. I’ve seen a study that showed that Uber drivers actually make below minimum wage after accounting for gas and wear and tear too.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >I’ve seen a study that showed that Uber drivers actually make below minimum wage after accounting for gas and wear and tear too. There are studies that show the opposite[1] as well, although they seem to reach different conclusions depending on the costing model. The studies that show they earn below minimum wage use a pro-rata model (eg. if you drive for uber 50% of the time, and drive personally the other 50%, then 50% of your depreciation, insurance, etc. gets subtracted against your earnings). This seems reasonable, until your realize that in many parts of the US, you need a car already, so it only makes sense to factor in the marginal cost, not the pro-rata cost. [1] https://ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/29f02c12-6727-45b4-8869-71155e592196/content https://ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/29f0...
    - eesmith 3y ago
      One limitation I see to the marginal cost model is the lack of information about how many of the part-time drivers got a more expensive car because they expected the extra income from driving to pay for itself. For example, Uber requires a 4-door car that can carry 4 passengers. Someone may waver between buying a 2-door and more expensive 4-door model, and justify buying the latter to work for Uber part-time. Similarly, it assumes one-person = one-car but there are one-car families. If one of the families decides to become a two-car family with the new vehicle used 50% for Uber, with the Uber work helping to pay for the car, then the marginal cost model also becomes more like the pro-rata model. Without driver survey information, it's hard to say how this affects the marginal cost model is. Uber also says the vehicle "cannot have any cosmetic damage, missing pieces, commercial branding or taxi paint jobs", so while plenty of people are willing to drive their own beat-up car, they need extra repair work to drive for Uber. This additional cost cannot be described as a marginal cost. Again, I don't know how big an effect this might be, only observe I couldn't find where the authors mention this point. I'm also a bit put off by this sentence: "The highest possible cost would be a driver renting a car ($290.66) and getting private personal insurance ($19.25) for $309.91 per week." The $19.25/week is based on: "We have also included additional personal insurance. Such insurance costs vary widely, but in downtown Seattle an average seems to be $77 per month or $19.25 a week, which is considerably cheaper than buying insurance through the rental car company." That number seems to be from 2021, at https://web.archive.org/web/20210613171346/https://quotewizard.com/auto-insurance/seattle-washington https://web.archive.org/web/20210613171346/https://quotewiza... which says: > In Seattle, insurance rates vary based on which neighborhood you live in. The Seattle neighborhood with the most expensive insurance rates is Columbia City, where average rates cost $90 per month. Compare that to Seattle’s cheapest neighborhood, downtown, where average rates are only $77 per month. Thing is, at the top of the page it says "On average, your neighbors pay $129 a month". This may be because "It's not a great idea to buy only legal minimum coverage. While it costs less, minimum coverage becomes more expensive if you file a claim." Thus, the sentence is wrong, as that's choosing the lowest possible private personal insurance, rather than the average for the city. Which means the $309.91/month does not reflect "the highest possible cost" because it's choosing the lowest possible location cost for the lowest possible insurance - and most Uber drivers don't live in downtown Seattle, I assume. Do they also all opt for the minimum insurance? I don't know, but surely that number is relevant. Do people who opt to drive part-time for Uber keep their existing insurance coverage, or do they get higher insurance coverage? I don't know, and I didn't see the report consider this non-marginal cost.
- Rebelgecko 3y ago
  There's a separate minimum wage for delivery services that use pseudo-contractors. It's 20% higher than standard minimum wage but only when they're actively on their way to/from a delivery

Seems like a huge gap in worker protections if its as simple as running all your delivers through third party contractors at below minimum wage.

by s0rce 3y ago

Seems like a huge gap in worker protections if its as simple as running all your delivers through third party contractors at below minimum wage.

belltaco 3y ago

Does the law not affect drivers for third party services?

tlogan 3y ago
No. DoorDash and Uber drivers are not classified as “fast food” workers.
Rebelgecko 3y ago
Doordash, grubhub, and friends deliver bread so presumably they get the same exemption as Boudin

junofan 3y ago

Uber pays below minimum wage in California? How? Maybe their economics are better since they deliver for different types of restaurants or something?

lmm 3y ago
> Uber pays below minimum wage in California? How? By falsely classifying its drivers as independent contractors (and bamboozling the courts).
- doubleg72 3y ago
  Falsely?? How about a source for that bs?
  - lmm 3y ago
    Here's an example of a sane court ruling, with a detailed explanation for why: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56123668 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56123668 . Unfortunately US courts seem to pay too much attention to the form of of their business arrangements and not enough to the substance.
    - doubleg72 3y ago
      That is in the UK.. in the US, no one considers driving for Uber or Door Dash a job. It is side income, or better known as contract work. I don’t see how going onto an app and choosing gigs for people can be confused as doing work for a company.
      - lmm 3y ago
        > in the US, no one considers driving for Uber or Door Dash a job. I've seen plenty of posts to the contrary. > I don’t see how going onto an app and choosing gigs for people can be confused as doing work for a company. Well, there is a detailed explanation for why what Uber does constitutes employment in the article I linked.
        TheNewsIsHere 3y ago
        I used to use Uber a lot more than I do now, and so many drivers I met were contract drivers for various transport and delivery app as their entire source of income. More recently the ride share drivers I’ve gotten have been older folks who report that they’re just supplementing income. A lot of the delivery drivers (Uber, DoorDash, Postmates, Amazon Flex, Instacart, etc) I see are younger and seem to be doing it full time.
      - s0rce 3y ago
        For one, uber drivers can't set their own rates.
    - chongli 3y ago
      That’s old news. Uber responded to that ruling by changing the specific things the Supreme Court based their decision on. They did not switch to employing people for set hours.
- cameldrv 3y ago
  They also bamboozled the voters. In 2019 the CA legislature passed AB5 in reaction to Uber being independent contractors. AB5 applies to tons of other industries too, including software development. It's extremely difficult to write software on contract in California now. Uber then created Proposition 22 and managed to get it passed, which exempted the original target of AB5, themselves, but left all sorts of other independent contractors still covered by AB5.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    AB5 codified in statute and created exceptions to the existing case-law rule on classification, from the 2018 Dynamex v. Operations West ruling of the Supreme Court of California. It is more accurately a response to that ruling, not Uber’s status prior to the ruling.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
The $20 min wage is only for fast food workers. I’ve seen a study that showed that Uber drivers actually make below minimum wage after accounting for gas and wear and tear too.
- gruez 3y ago
  >I’ve seen a study that showed that Uber drivers actually make below minimum wage after accounting for gas and wear and tear too. There are studies that show the opposite[1] as well, although they seem to reach different conclusions depending on the costing model. The studies that show they earn below minimum wage use a pro-rata model (eg. if you drive for uber 50% of the time, and drive personally the other 50%, then 50% of your depreciation, insurance, etc. gets subtracted against your earnings). This seems reasonable, until your realize that in many parts of the US, you need a car already, so it only makes sense to factor in the marginal cost, not the pro-rata cost. [1] https://ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/29f02c12-6727-45b4-8869-71155e592196/content https://ecommons.cornell.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/29f0...
  - eesmith 3y ago
    One limitation I see to the marginal cost model is the lack of information about how many of the part-time drivers got a more expensive car because they expected the extra income from driving to pay for itself. For example, Uber requires a 4-door car that can carry 4 passengers. Someone may waver between buying a 2-door and more expensive 4-door model, and justify buying the latter to work for Uber part-time. Similarly, it assumes one-person = one-car but there are one-car families. If one of the families decides to become a two-car family with the new vehicle used 50% for Uber, with the Uber work helping to pay for the car, then the marginal cost model also becomes more like the pro-rata model. Without driver survey information, it's hard to say how this affects the marginal cost model is. Uber also says the vehicle "cannot have any cosmetic damage, missing pieces, commercial branding or taxi paint jobs", so while plenty of people are willing to drive their own beat-up car, they need extra repair work to drive for Uber. This additional cost cannot be described as a marginal cost. Again, I don't know how big an effect this might be, only observe I couldn't find where the authors mention this point. I'm also a bit put off by this sentence: "The highest possible cost would be a driver renting a car ($290.66) and getting private personal insurance ($19.25) for $309.91 per week." The $19.25/week is based on: "We have also included additional personal insurance. Such insurance costs vary widely, but in downtown Seattle an average seems to be $77 per month or $19.25 a week, which is considerably cheaper than buying insurance through the rental car company." That number seems to be from 2021, at https://web.archive.org/web/20210613171346/https://quotewizard.com/auto-insurance/seattle-washington https://web.archive.org/web/20210613171346/https://quotewiza... which says: > In Seattle, insurance rates vary based on which neighborhood you live in. The Seattle neighborhood with the most expensive insurance rates is Columbia City, where average rates cost $90 per month. Compare that to Seattle’s cheapest neighborhood, downtown, where average rates are only $77 per month. Thing is, at the top of the page it says "On average, your neighbors pay $129 a month". This may be because "It's not a great idea to buy only legal minimum coverage. While it costs less, minimum coverage becomes more expensive if you file a claim." Thus, the sentence is wrong, as that's choosing the lowest possible private personal insurance, rather than the average for the city. Which means the $309.91/month does not reflect "the highest possible cost" because it's choosing the lowest possible location cost for the lowest possible insurance - and most Uber drivers don't live in downtown Seattle, I assume. Do they also all opt for the minimum insurance? I don't know, but surely that number is relevant. Do people who opt to drive part-time for Uber keep their existing insurance coverage, or do they get higher insurance coverage? I don't know, and I didn't see the report consider this non-marginal cost.
Rebelgecko 3y ago
There's a separate minimum wage for delivery services that use pseudo-contractors. It's 20% higher than standard minimum wage but only when they're actively on their way to/from a delivery