- Court documents show that ride-hailing company Uber would have owed drivers in two states as much as $730 million more had they been considered employees instead of contract workers, according to Reuters.
The figure covers the expense of things like like mileage and vehicle maintenance. It was included in newly unsealed court documents that detail a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit that covers Uber drivers in California and Massachusetts, and it provides fresh insight into the sort of reckoning the company could face if drivers across the United States were elevated to the status of full-fledged employees.
Taxis are not a viable alternative to UBER. They are more like a partial solution. The couldn't absorb the traffic of uber and they cannot provided the service/convenience and price UBER does. At least in Seattle taxies were barely better than public transportation, only time I ever used them was when the busses didn't run because they sucked so damn much.
Asserting something doesn't make it true, FYI. One of sanders' main tenets is a higher national minimum wage. Letting companies not pay the wage by designating workers as 'contractors' is a sure fire way to defeat a minimum wage in one second, the same way 'right-to-work' legislation kills unions' power. Why can't McDonald's call the fry kid a contractor, and better yet make him buy his own fryer and potatoes? Uber only works in a situation where the government can't or won't exert regulatory control. That may be ok by you, but it sure as shit is the exact opposite of socialism.
A higher minimum wage still affects contractors. Really what we should be doing is removing incentives for companies to hire people for less than a full work week. In fact we should DE-incentivize part time employment and either only allow a certain % of employees to be part time or make it mandatory for companies to have to guarantee 40 hrs of work to employees if they want it. Or we could just make part time employees no exempt from obamacare penalties that would probably be the most effective incentive. Uber drivers really are pretty classic examples of contractors though. They make their own hours, work as much and as little as they want and bring their own tools. I think many of the construction contractors have a better claim at not being contractors than uber drivers do.
Correction: a higher minimum wage should affect contractors. If the government allows companies to chronically underpay by classifying workers as contractors or any other ridiculous thing, and then only takes action by settling for pennies on the dollar, then what's the point of a minimum wage or any other disincentive? A law is only as good as its enforcement, and the Ponzi scheme that is uber only exists because we've made a collective choice not to enforce labor laws (never mind the myriad transpiration regulations).
It's gonna be great when a single mom can start earning some real money cleaning houses, maybe even more than professional maid services charge.a higher minimum wage should affect contractors
The link expired before b_b had a chance to explain how forcing a single mom to charge more for cleaning houses is going to help her out.I'm a single mom trying to make a living to provide for my three kids. My two kids goes to school until 3:30 and my little one is 9 months old. I could clean a house with my baby with me, do shopping or babysit at my home. I live in lake view trailer homes on textile and Bunton. Please give me a call if you need any other jobs you can give me.
Hardly. Basic income is inherently and fully an effort to preserve the idea of capitalism in a world where labor is no longer required for the vast majority of products, it is a stepping stone to post scarcity where we go from a world where everyone must work for society to produce and be efficient, to a world where our numbers largely exist so that we can have that 1 in 100 birth who has a great idea and is able to revolutionize and recreate an industry. Basic income is the assumption that it is impossible to expect people to have to work for their life in the future, because robots will be so diverse and common that it will be impossible to find jobs in large enough numbers to have a supported economy. Communism/socialism would demand the workers own the means of production, that workers mandate what employers can and cannot do. They would demand that the products of the machines, and the machines themselves, belong to the people so all the profits should be equally shared and distributed. Basic income states "yes, you are worthless and do not provide anything, so you only get to live a bad life of having basic human rights and little else." It states "If you want to produce something, to work, to provide for society, you get to live a better life." Ultimately, basic income is capitalism 2.0, not socialism or communism.
Right but Uber isnt the problem its the symptom. If you get rid of uber the only thing that will change will be that people barely making ends meet are now people who cant make ends meet. Victory for workers!? I think not... A lot of workers got shifted into these on demand part time jobs working 26-32 hours and having unstable schedules. This didn't happen because of Uber, it happened because of shitty laws and regulations that were put into effect and perverse incentive exists. Uber helps keep a lot of these people afloat by allowing them the chance to supplement their meager income by working Thursday/Friday/Saturday evenings and at least making enough to pay for the car loan. There are other issues with Uber mainly related to Illegal risk/ cost shifting by allowing all their drivers to accept rides without proper insurance but thats not really related to the employment issue.
I believe in some some taxi drivers were already independent contractors. See https://www.shrm.org/legalissues/stateandlocalresources/pages/cms_021187.aspx. Drivers are really no different from any other contractor in the sense that they have to provide the tools required to perform work and those tools wear out. In the same way that I might hire a guy to install some framing and hes going to put wear on his nail gun, compressor and shoes a driver will wear out the car. It sounds like you are against independent contracting in general but I don't think its that unfair since the current alternative for people is a shitty 26hour a week shift with irregular hours and being on call all the time (on and btw you still get no benefits). The only real law UBER is breaking is that are aren't buying Taxi medallions which IMO are bullshit anyway and act as an artificial monopoly. It would be like if the government deiced to put quotas on Auto mechanics, doctors and plumbers and said that no more people could be any of those professions unless they bought an existing license form someone that already had one. Its nice of the existing holders but unfair to new participants.
Isn't the whole point of Uber to be able to work as a private contractor giving rides around the area you live? I thought the whole point was to allow you to do the tasks of a basic taxi service without having the taxi license? It's not like Uber drivers didn't realize what were they were signing up for when they decided to join Uber, right? It's not like Uber actually hires these people on a personal level.
*in just two states. California and Massacusetts. Certainly high-populated states -- but imagine how much more it is if you include every state.