Discussion
  • Read More
    BynumsWigJay Hathaway
    7/09/15 4:50pm

    I’m just a silly CPA that deals with subcontractor definitions all the time, so I’m clearly in the wrong. But without having seen an actual contract, they lean towards being defined as contractors.

    They work on their own schedule, supply their own equipment, paid for performing a specific task, not hours worked. They are free to accept/refuse work, have risk of loss.

    The biggest factor working against contractor classification is the price being set by Uber, but in my opinion that is offset by the ability to turn down work.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      KomradKickassBynumsWig
      7/09/15 4:52pm

      Take your thinking and shove it.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      festivusaziliBynumsWig
      7/09/15 4:58pm

      Yeah, this argument is only “ridiculous” if you’ve never seen a dispute over whether someone is an employee or a contractor before. No opinion on who is going to come out on top here, but Uber’s argument is certainly not out of line.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    garudathreeJay Hathaway
    7/09/15 4:42pm

    So eBay sellers should be considered employees of eBay?

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      JohannesClimacusgarudathree
      7/09/15 4:45pm

      Does ebay set the price of what the sellers sell and buyers buy? Are they only selling one thing, the same thing? Do people spend over 30 hours a week selling on ebay? Does ebay make a percentage of the price they get to set? Please.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      (Not That) Bill O'Reillygarudathree
      7/09/15 4:50pm

      Actually, the better analogy is to AirBnB.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    tito_swinefluJay Hathaway
    7/09/15 5:11pm

    The Uber driver turnover rate must be obscenely high. In San Francisco, it seems that one thing that Uber drivers can’t do that normal Taxi drivers seem capable of is knowing where things are. Here is a list of places I’ve asked an Uber driver to take me to, only to have them not know where it is and sometimes not even know how to plug it into their gps:

    * The Warfield

    * The Westfield Center - “I need a street address.” “It’s the Big fucking mall on the corner of 5th and Market.” “I can’t get there without a street address”

    * Embarcadero

    * SFO. Seriously, no idea where SFO was!

    Also, Uber is going to lose this argument eventually. I have a number of attorney friends working against them, and they are completely fucked. They have a fancy-ass law firm, but they probably know that they’re fucked. Too bad they’re not publicly traded so you could short them.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      ItsaDawgLifetito_swineflu
      7/09/15 5:59pm

      My roommate met someone in the Uber lawyer camp, and apparently they’re saving up millions to fight this for the next 5 years and be locked in a legal battle. Presumably so for at least 5 years, they don’t have to treat the drivers as employees.

      What I don’t understand is - if they had just paid the claims and accepted responsibility for those assaulted/raped/been in accidents with the drivers, people would hate them much less and it might never have come down to this.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      e30s2ktito_swineflu
      7/09/15 6:21pm

      Let me add to your list:

      - “I’d like to go to the Caltrain station, please”
      - “That is near the ferry building right?”
      - “No...”
      -”Well then, you have to navigate for me”

      - Leaves SF Ballet and walks 4 blocks in direction of desired travel to avert gridlock traffic and call uber. Gets in Uber, tells him where to take me, then he makes a turn and drives directly into gridlock we were trying to avoid “because that’s where the app is directing me”.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    Frankenbike666Jay Hathaway
    7/09/15 6:09pm

    Uber is a sophisticated taxi dispatch system, and they’re taking advantages of decades of weakening labor laws by the Republicans. That is, the creation of a “freelance” class that is convinced they’re working for themselves, but they do not. Every company in the US would love to just hire all their employees as contractors.

    In theory, they’re a ride sharing service. In practice, they’re a taxi company with no taxis or driver employees. And the number of rapes, assaults and robberies (for drivers and victims alike) as a result of their service keeps climbing, with them talking both sides out of their mouth on the issues. They try to maintain the illusion that this is between the customer and the driver, and they bear no responsibility for any of the consequences of their service.

    That argument didn’t work for the file sharing services like Napster. Time caught up with them and they were destroyed in all but name.

    I don’t know what will happen with the whole employee thing, but regulation is an absolute certainty. If it doesn’t hit Uber, it’ll hit their drivers directly. There was a time regular taxi drivers were like Uber today, and they didn’t just get regulated for the money it could bring into a city. Cities will require you to have a livery license to operate (not just a livery endorsement on your DL), you’ll have to pay the taxi taxes, you’ll have to be registered with taxi commissions that work with the police. They may even regulate where you can drive.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      rmric0.wedding.photographerFrankenbike666
      7/09/15 8:16pm

      The app is really kind of a paper shield that disguised the fact that the real innovations are in offloading liability and costs onto their contractors.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Frankenbike666rmric0.wedding.photographer
      7/09/15 10:06pm

      I think in the long run, this hub and spoke arrangement will be reined in as a “peer to peer” claim, with nothing in between. Pre screening drivers, customer service and controlling all sorts of things between the customer and driver, proves it is not at all like “peer to peer”. There is branding associated with this, and drivers are part of that brand. However, I’m not sure the laws have caught up with the technology yet. It’s coming.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    adsf8Jay Hathaway
    7/09/15 4:44pm

    Uhhhh sounds pretty damn logical to me. But sure, fuck Uber cuz Gawker

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      Snake Lipssynkadsf8
      7/09/15 5:06pm

      No, fuck Uber because their business model depends on them flouting regulation and spiriting publicly funded profits out of the country, which in the long term, of course, fucks the citizens of that country.

      Reply
      <
    • Read More
      Lawyer CatSnake Lipssynk
      7/09/15 5:11pm

      Yeah, because $1,000,000 for a taxi medallion in Chicago or NYC is a system that works.

      Reply
      <
  • Read More
    FreakyHijiki Esq.Jay Hathaway
    7/09/15 5:37pm

    California Employment lawyer here:

    They’re employees. Quite frankly, it’s a minor miracle that their argument has lasted this long.

    California uses a ENORMOUSLY complex factor system to determine status as an Employee v. Independent Contractor. But overarching question is whether Uber exerts control over the terms and conditions of the drivers’ employment. Do they have to have a certain type of car? Yup. Does it have to be a certain color? You betcha. Do drivers have to use the app to collect fares and get paid? Yuh-huh. Can the company deactivate a driver if their rating falls below a certain level? You know it! Does Uber circulate best practices docs to drivers advising them to keep certain amenities available to keep their rating up? Sure do.

    Truth is that Uber controls every aspect of a driver’s employment other than when they work. So if you’re scoring at home, that’s one factor in favor of “independent contractor” and, oh, all the rest in favor of “employee.”

    Handy got their shit fucked up last year on the same question. And more will follow. The dirty secret of the on-demand services apps (and much of Silicon Valley) is that the business models are all built on some INCREDIBLY bogus assumptions about their labor costs and the long term viability of their labor practices (read: open chicanery.)

    In closing, Lol @ Uber.

    Reply
    <
    • Read More
      writingdownthisburnerkeyJay Hathaway
      7/09/15 4:46pm

      People should be complaining about U.S. employment law and not uber’s desire to use it for its own benefit. One man’s opinion.

      Edit: or I guess both. But I only ever see the one.

      Reply
      <
      • Read More
        Ashisyouwritingdownthisburnerkey
        7/09/15 5:22pm

        No. we can complain about both. The world is not binary.

        Reply
        <
    • Read More
      StopArmchairLawyeringJay Hathaway
      7/09/15 7:47pm

      Their substantive arguments about what makes drivers contractors over employees are one thing, but the notion that the argument that “drivers have little or nothing in common” is “ridiculous” is, well, pretty ridiculous. This is one of those areas where folks interpret words/phrases colloquially when those words/phrases have a different meaning legally.

      The particular lawsuit Uber is facing is a class action. In any class action (whether under CA state law or federal law), there are 2 key pretrial stages: class certification and summary judgment. Class certification comes first—that’s what this motion (an opposition to Plaintiff’s motion for class certification) pertains to. Unless the Plaintiff wins at the certification stage, they are not allowed to proceed with their case as a class and must instead proceed as an individual action, solely representing themselves and not the larger class of similarly situated individuals.

      At the class certification stage, the parties are NOT arguing the merits of the case (i.e., whether Uber drivers are contractors). Rather, they’re solely arguing about whether the harm suffered by putative class members (and the proposed remedy for that harm) is similar enough that judicial economy and fairness are served by allowing the case to proceed on a collective basis rather than an individual basis. To defeat a motion for class certification, an opposing defendant has to show, that “individual issues predominate” the common issues between putative class members, such that judicial economy/fairness is served by proceeding on an individual rather than a class basis. Uber’s argument that its drivers have little to nothing in common isn’t “ridiculous,” it’s actually exceedingly standard—it’s the legal requirement they must meet to defeat class certification; it’s what every single class action defendant argues in, quite literally, every single case. For example, in another well-known case, Dukes v. Wal-Mart, SCOTUS eventually held that the putative class of Wal-Mart employees (women alleging gender discrimination) “had little to nothing in common” and could not proceed as a class because Wal-Mart did not have a company-wide policy of gender discrimination that harmed all female employees in the same way; rather, individual store managers were the bad actors in terms of discrimination. The mere fact that all the plaintiffs were women who worked for Wal-Mart and had experienced discrimination was not enough. Even though the Wal-Mart plaintiffs lost at the class certification stage, they are still currently each pursuing individual actions against Wal-Mart for gender discrimination.

      If Uber wins at the class certification, the result will be similar—it doesn’t mean that Uber is off the hook with respect to the substantive allegations, it just means that individual drivers must pursue their misclassification lawsuits individually.

      Reply
      <
      • Read More
        Naughty0neStopArmchairLawyering
        7/11/15 7:30pm

        Perfect name for your response by the way, haha

        Reply
        <
    • Read More
      bassguitarheroJay Hathaway
      7/09/15 5:38pm

      Uber drivers are employees because they provide the basis for Uber’s entire business, Uber sets the rates, and Uber has the ability to suspend/remove them if they don’t take enough driving jobs. In addition, many Uber “promotions” require that the driver be available during certain times and work a certain amount of jobs, which is also an employment requirement.

      Reply
      <
      • Read More
        boaboaboatengtengtengJay Hathaway
        7/09/15 5:02pm

        Every day I’m happier that my city is the largest in the country that doesn’t have Uber/UberX, and is currently waging war to keep it that way.

        Sure, the STL has its own problems (race issues, lack of jobs, baseball fans that believe their own hype, Doug Armstrong not getting much in return for TJ Oshie), but just give us this. And our amazing quality/amount/variety of beer available literally everywhere.

        Reply
        <