I dislike Uber and Lyft's practices as much as the next guy. But I also believe AB5 is a terrible bill and will be voting in November to exempt Uber and Lyft from AB5. AB5 was written to impose a 20th century employment model to a 21st century situation. As such, the bill is distorted that it carve out hundreds of exemptions to musicians, freelancers, journalists, doctors, hair stylists and so on and so forth. A bill that has to rely primarily on exemptions is no bill at all.
A much better bill could have written that could have created a healthcare and unemployment fund of gig economy workers by taxing Gig companies, without trying box everyone into the employment model
AB5 was an absolute cop-out by the CA Legislature. They should have defined a third class of workers with protections somewhere in between Contractors and Employees.
But when it comes to the vote in November, a vote to exempt Uber/Lyft from AB5 is a vote to strip drivers of all protections. Uber and Lyft will be free to go back to exploiting drivers for <$10/hr [1]. I don't think I can tell someone else they don't deserve to earn minimum wage.
Maybe you are hoping the legislature will eventually come up with that third way once forced to, but there's a lot of momentum behind a popular vote. No US legislature has proven themselves particularly effective in the last few years. Let's not leave people out to dry while hoping some politicians will do their jobs.
> I don't think I can tell someone else they don't deserve to earn minimum wage.
On the wage issue are you talking about the specifics of how prop 22 defines the earnings floor for drivers [0]? It definitely sets a standard even. It pays some for expenses ($0.30/mile) and the 120% minimum wage while on a ride covers a bit of time spent driving between rides. I could see though how if you have high expenses and don't get many rides you will not earn the minimum wage.
> Uber and Lyft will be free to go back to exploiting drivers for <$10/hr
Exploiting? Can you please cite another industry that has the capacity to employ millions of unskilled labor people at $10/hr and ALSO allow them the freedom to set their own schedule?
It's clear you've never worked a minimum wage job before. Flexibility on hours is next-to-impossible at these jobs. If people are willing to make a few bucks an hour less for that flexibility, who are you to call it exploitation?
It's not like these companies are minting profits. The alternative is these people go back to work at McDonald's and also get no benefits while being scheduled at such bizarre hours they can't even go to school and educate themselves.
Shrinking the pool of employment choices for these people does nothing to help them actually get healthcare. My mind is still blown at how the American solution to workers not having healthcare is to attack individual businesses instead of looking across the Atlantic at how the rest of the world solved this problem.
I think that this would have been the right idea. We need similar for union protection (white collar/digital salaried) and for digital monopolies for big corps that don't quite fit the old Standard Oil mold
> AB5 was written to impose a 20th century employment model to a 21st century situation.
Why should employees give up rights just because it's the 21st century? Make no mistake, that's Uber/Lyft's entire advantage over traditional taxis: skirting hard-won employment regulation to lower costs at the expense of workers.
Most traditional taxis are independent contractors as well. It's the ridematching versus dispatch system that is the advantage, not the employment model.
It's easy to see all the folks here who don't remember having to wait an hour for a taxi to show after calling, if it ever did. Pushing a button on your phone and getting a ride five minutes later is magic in comparison.
Everyone keeps saying the substitute for Uber/Lyft is taxis. Maybe this is HN bay-area bias but it is just wrong. The substitute for Uber/Lyft in 95% of the US is driving your own car! Driving your own car has significant externalities, eg. More need for parking, more emissions, more drunk driving.
I don't live in CA but used to do a fair amount of work travel out there. If they don't have Uber/Lyft in the future, I'll just make work get me a rental car.
The LLC won't protect the company you're working with from AB5. You would need to form an S-Corp and put yourself on payroll with benefits, or work through a staffing agency on W2, or become the company's employee, or move out of CA. In other words, your only options are to become an employee of a company or leave CA.
Of course, its probably not in your best interest to mention this to the company you want to work with since they'll probably just choose to work with someone outside of CA instead. Just be glad their legal counsel (if they have any) doesn't know enough about this law to cause you more headaches.
'Ridesharing' (Which is a hilarious term for the simple fact that the ride is not being shared, the driver is not intending to go to your favorite bar. ) isn't a 21st century situation or solution.
It's not a profitable or a good force in an economy, it does not pay a reasonable wage for anyone to live on, it is not environmentally friendly unless done in large quantities of people,(which is called a bus).
Ridesharing exists to profit Uber/Lyft investors and management and is successful due to lower pricing than is sustainable. It is built on the back of loopholes in the law to use and abuse working class people and to lie about the true costs and profits.
The bill's exceptions exist to split apart reality from this subsidized artificial market (There are exemptions in most laws, purely due tot he idea that things are complex, by nature)
I see this as an attempt to make the Gig Economy pay all workers fairly in addition to healthcare costs and to put the onus on the company rather than their taxes. This would force Uber and Lyft to limit the number of drivers in an area by cost and profits, to deny those they cannot pay fairly. Uber currently may give you 100 rides a day or 1, you don't know which and you cant depend on it nor if you cant drive can get unemployment.
The hard problem is contracting work is not a known reality for most, they don't understand the costs. Dressing it up in pretty fonts and Ads makes it much like the alcohol or tobacco industries, you don't know the danger until you are very invested and nobody is there to save you.
I agree with you on one point, "ridesharing" is a silly word. I would call it something like an "Open Car Service".
The main reason I can't get on board with the rest of this line of argument is that it ultimately just comes down to paternalistic protection of the poor disenfranchised gig workers that you clearly view as being less than capable, rational adult humans. The number of gig economy workers has been growing exponentially for years? Somebody must be tricking them into taking this shit work, and confusing them about the real costs.
Gig economy workers have overwhelmingly spoken that they like this work, by continuing to sign up for it in massive numbers. Or at least that they like it more than their alternatives at the time. If it were some massive trap, don't you think the word would have gotten out by now? The ability to entirely set their own schedule and work as much or little as they choose is appealing enough to draw people in in droves, despite all of the downsides of this type of work.
Getting rid of Uber and Lyft completely throws out the baby with the bathwater here. It won't magically create alternative full time jobs that these workers will prefer to their current situation, it'll just make it much harder for many of them to have any work. Surely there are better incremental policies that could limit the downsides for many of these workers without taking away most of the positives for them too.
As with many far-leftist beliefs these days, I can't help but conclude that the driving factor for a law like AB5 is punitive anger towards successful, wealthy organizations. Just like with the NIMBYs using socialist rhetoric to justify blocking needed middle class housing, it's much more important that the organizations they see as the bad guys suffer than it is to maximize the overall, utilitarian good for the parties they claim to care about. I sincerely hope this way of thinking dies out, almost as much as I hope the current far-right way of thinking dies out.
Ridesharing created a more or less competitive market for this slice of the transportation sector. Competitive markets are the best way to allocate resources. If you don't agree with that, it will be hard to have a productive discussion.
But if you do agree with that, shouldn't we resolve inequalities by directly supporting the least fortunate (with cash) rather than force parties into arbitrary economic relationships?
In many many uber/lyft rides i have met a very few drivers who actually were doing real ride sharing. A person would get off work and turn on the app to get a fare in the direction of home.
I've yet to hear of an Uber/Lyft rep putting a gun to one of their driver's heads and forcing them to work for them. There are other sources of income out there. However, I wouldn't have a problem with the government stepping in and requiring them to set rates to guarantee a certain amount of pay per hour. Seems ridiculously low right now. It seems like we need another "type" of employee outside of the 20th century definitions of contractor and "employee". Also it seems like healthcare should be in there for those who put in significant amounts of hours.
> 'Ridesharing' (Which is a hilarious term for the simple fact that the ride is not being shared, the driver is not intending to go to your favorite bar. ) isn't a 21st century situation or solution.
Great summary for this scary situation.
> I see this as an attempt to make the Gig Economy pay all workers fairly in addition to healthcare costs and to put the onus on the company rather than their taxes.
There is a new word for this class of gig workers doing precarious labor that I've started using: the Precariat.
"In sociology and economics, the precariat (/prɪˈkɛəriət/) is a neologism for a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau obtained by merging precarious with proletariat.[1] Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labour to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labour and must undertake extensive "unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings".
Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call"). The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.[2] The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism.[3][4]"
[..]
"The British economist Guy Standing has analysed the precariat as a new emerging social class in work done for the think tank Policy Network and the World Economic Forum.[6] In his 2014 book entitled A Precariat Charter he argued that all citizens have a right to socially inherited wealth.[8][9] The latest in the series is titled The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class[2][10] where he proposed basic income as a solution for addressing the problem.
The analysis of the results of the Great British Class Survey of 2013, a collaboration between the BBC and researchers from several UK universities, contended there is a new model of class structure consisting of seven classes, ranging from the Elite at the top to the Precariat at the bottom.[11] The Precariat class was envisaged as "the most deprived British class of all with low levels of economic, cultural and social capital." This was contrasted with "the Technical Middle Class" in Great Britain in that instead of having disposable income but no interests, people of the new Precariat Class have all sorts of potential activities they like to engage in but cannot do any of them because they have no money, insecure lives, and are usually trapped in old industrial parts of the country.
The precariat class has been emerging in societies such as Japan, where it includes over 2 million so-called "freeters".[12]"
> it does not pay a reasonable wage for anyone to live on,
Why is the purpose of a wage to live on? Many uber drivers drive part time for fun or extra pocket change. The existence of thousands of uber drivers -- who in my experience, have all been quite reasonable, nice people -- seem to directly contradict your claim that it does not pay a 'reasonable wage'. Clearly, it does for those invested parties.
"As employees they would have to work set schedules and shifts, would not be able to work for multiple app-based companies and would have reduced earning potential — and many jobs would actually be eliminated." (https://prop22facts.com/lyft/)
Is that something mandated by California? As far as I know, everywhere else I've been, work-schedules and anti-moonlighting are restrictions placed by the employer, not the state.
I hear this a lot, that Lyft/Uber could allow the same flexibility if they wanted to.
It's not that the law dictates this shift, it's that the economics do. Requiring full employment means you can hire less drivers.
If you have less drivers, you need more control over when they drive in order to make sure when customers are looking for a ride, they can find one, hence shifts.
Basically this. As best I can tell, most of the flexibility Uber and Lyft want is the flexibility to pay people less and give them less benefits and prevent them from being able to unionize/organize effectively.
When they talk about "shift work" they're referring to the way the taxi industry works. The reason the taxi industry works that way is because most drivers drive company cars which are owned & maintained by the company. Drivers that own their own cars can drive whenever they want to. There are no shifts.
I drove a taxicab for more than a year back in the 90's. That's the way it worked then. Most drivers were shift because they "rented" the car from the company and shared it with other workers. A few drivers were owner-operators who got to set their own hours. This is closer to the model that Uber & Lyft operate under today.
So when Lyft claims that they would be forced to enforce shift work on their owner-operators, this is a lie. There is already a model for this type of driving that predates Uber & Lyft and they're just choosing to ignore it now because it serves their current interests.
> It's not that the law dictates this shift, it's that the economics do.
You can check their S-1 filing for the “economics” of it...Uber before going public was losing money and acknowledged the legal risk they had been misclassifying drivers as contractors and should drivers be reclassified as employees it’s an existential threat to Uber.
That’s the economics of it...Uber knew they were in the wrong, they knew the day of reckoning was coming and investors took the damn thing public for maximum profits and to cash out and leave others holding the bag.
But the reality is the whole employee/independent contractor issue is just a scapegoat for investors to point their finger at regulations and say that’s why the business failed, but the truth is even without the illegal classification of drivers Uber would never have turned a profit.
I think the ultimate sticking point is benefits and payroll taxes, and what a lot of the friction is that it's piecework that doesn't have a "conversion" to hours (which are how a lot of our benefits are normally calculated).
What really needs to happen is that conversion rate needs to be established for this kind of work. So if an average driver can do 20 fares per day, times 20 working days per month, then a "full time" uber employee drives 400 fares per month. Or figure it out on a per-mile basis - like the average fare is 4 miles (let's say) so the average driver does 1600 miles/mo.
Figure out the per-ride or per-mile fee and roll that into the fares. Done and done.
(frankly this is being generous - delivery drivers and waitresses are paid "per fare" too, and we still expect their employers to pay for their benefits.)
Really what needs to happen though is we implement government-provided universal healthcare and maybe a basic income, and then you can have all the wacky gig-economy payment schemes you want.
I don't think the economics dictate such a shift. I have had jobs where I was paid hourly, could start and stop at will, and for which I received a W2. (This was for a temp agency in CA.)
Is there anything in CA law that prevent Lyft from basically doing exactly what they had been doing but also paying payroll taxes on driver income?
I don't think it's an anti-moonlight clause, I think it's saying that you can't do what many drivers do now, which is sign on to both apps and wait for a ride to come in, then sign out of the one you're not serving.
If you're an employee on the clock, you can't be on the clock for two different organizations at the same time.
This is not the only way to employ workers, though.
We often think of "on the clock" employment in terms of shift work, where the worker has a scheduled, fixed-length shift with a single employer, and whether they're actively working during that time or waiting around for the employer to tell them what to do next, they're paid for the hours on the clock.
But it is possible for ridesharing companies to employ workers in "micro-shifts" that last the duration of a single ride.
So, Driver X has two part-time jobs: as a part-time employee of Lyft and a part-time employee of Uber. Driver X is ready to work, so checks the apps, and sees there's a Lyft assignment available. Driver X accepts the ride, and for the duration of that ride, he is working exclusively for Lyft, and Lyft pays him for the time worked. Once that ride ends, his micro-shift with Lyft ends, and he's now available to work for either of his part-time jobs again.
The idea of micro-shifts may seem, at first blush, more like a contractor relationship than an employee relationship. And in the past, gigs that used this model were more likely to involve a contractor relationship -- but they also gave the contractor much more freedom in terms of HOW they accomplished the work.
In contrast, if you look at Uber and Lyft, ignoring the micro-shift aspect, there is very little difference between how those jobs work and how other service-oriented part-time jobs work, in terms of the power the employer has to dictate HOW the work gets done.
If this is really the case (and I have my doubts) then wouldn't the two companies just create a joint employment pool by subcontracting out their workers to a third party which handled all the benefits and such and passed the necessary costs on to Uber & Lyft?
With employees, you can't rely on variable supply and demand pricing to ensure the most drivers are there at peak times -- instead, you have to do it through scheduling instead.
And it's not so much anti-moonlighting as not being able to work for multiple companies at the same time (hour). Right now, a driver often is waiting for both Lyft and Uber riders. If they're an hourly employee, they obviously can't do that anymore.
So no, none of this is mandated, but it's the only way a business could operate.
Sure, you can use demand pricing. Offer the employee minimum wage or the commissions from rides, whichever is greater.
Ah, you say, but what about them being "on the clock" while not actually being willing to drive? The same thing that happens if they turn down a Lyft ride because they're driving an Uber customer: you fire them. And possibly charge them with fraud.
From what I've read here, it seems like all of the "only way a business could operate" responses are based on Uber or Lyft propaganda.
I guess you've never heard of being on-call? Tech and healthcare have very well established demand supply systems. Some mechanical service sectors as well - tow trucks, infrastructure repair.
It doesn't need to be mandated by the state. If the employer states that you cannot work for their competitor during your shift, then that is an enforceable term of employment (and FWIW, a very reasonable one that no one would bat an eyelid for in virtually any field of employment).
For example, if you were employed by Lyft as a driver, then presumably you would be neglecting your job duties if you refused to pick up a customer on the grounds that you happen to be driving a Uber customer at the time.
I'm fairly certain that it's illegal to pay someone for less than two hours of work [1 and 2] in California, so the practice of just doing a couple rides on your way home from dropping the kids off or hitting up peak rush hour for the bonus rate would be illegal.
This would be a positive force as it would reduce overcrowding of the local market and ensure work and pay for drivers. The Uber and Lyft driver pool is too large for reasonable pay for demand by nature. Something really important in an economy, is security of work and pay. For those who are on the schedule they can depend on their job to be able to live. For those who would not be on the schedule (due to demand) That would obviously be a massive unemployment issue but that was always the cost of regulating Uber.
Uber/Lyft does not exist to help the economy or the people of the US, they exist to help themselves. Otherwise they would charge and pay a working wage.
Yeah I don't know maybe this is your experience. Maybe you're in a crowded city or something where everyone is tripping over themselves to drive for Uber/Lyft, but where I live there are often not enough drivers to meet demand.
Having been stranded far from home, both late night and in the early evening, I see Uber & Lyft as providing a valuable service.
Having been taken advantage of by taxi drivers on multiple occasions (I don't think I've ever actually had a good taxi experience) I don't want to go back to the way things were. Maybe other people like being defrauded by taxi drivers? Maybe people just forget how bad the taxi system is, and that at one point people were cheering the demise of the old taxi system for a reason.
The idea that there is a gap in the market is something that people are looking for, on Hacker News most especially, and if this is a legitimate gap that Uber and Lyft are ignoring for silly reasons, then there should be a bunch of startups to take their place pretty quickly.
And yet, Uber and Lyft have reduced drunk driving rates, provided mobility to thousands of people who otherwise may not have it, and generally made life easier for millions, if not billions, of people around the world. It's almost like one can enrich themselves while helping others.
Yeah, they're just saying that these are the conditions they'd choose to impose and hoping people will believe they're mandated by the state. I see this kind of bait and switch a lot.
Yes, by common law, you cannot work for two people at the same time. This is the key. While moonlighting is an employer restriction, working two separate jobs at the same time is a legal one.
When an employee, you are legally the agent of the employer. Anything you agree to or do while employed is a liability of the employer, not you personally. That is why an employee at a VC firm can commit to provide capital, but doesn't have to pay it directly. Or why a manager of a company can take on debt, that is then the responsibility of the company, not himself.
You cannot be an agent of two companies at the same time. If you have both uber and lyft app running in your car, waiting for a passenger, and you get into a crash, if you are an employee working, then one of the companies is responsible for covering any damages you inflict. Of course, since you're not even on any particular 'job' at the time, who is responsible?
Moreover, you cannot have two companies paying you by the hour for the same hour.
Moreover, the law presumes that employees owe loyalty to their employer while working. So for example, if I am employed by a car dealership, but when a customer comes in during my shift, I decide to sell him my personal used car, instead of the companies, the company can actually sue me for failing to fulfill my duty of loyalty to them. You can't have someone working for both Uber and Lyft in this model. Since Uber and Lyft are competitors, by definition, you cannot be loyal to both. If you have both apps running and pick the best customer based on price, then you have shortchanged one of the companies, and open yourself up to liability. Contractors have no presumed assumption of loyalty to anyone but themselves. That is what allows them to pick the most profitable ride.
Uber has asked for California to come up with legal structures that provide benefits to employees while allowing their business model. This seems eminently reasonable: there are clear differences between Uber and Lyft drivers and traditional employees. It is the duty of government to innovate policy-wise so that the private sector can innovate business-wise. Unfortunately, California's legislature has failed to innovate anything and has instead decided to force innovators to use an outdated model of employment.
This isn't quite right, or at least it's more nuanced than this.
One can in fact work two separate jobs at the same time without it being fraud (the only real "legal" restriction on working two jobs). You can also have two companies pay "you by the hour for the same hour" depending on the circumstances. There isn't a bright line rule that states this or anything, it comes down to whether one is committing fraud (and I agree it could be fraud in many cases, especially if done in secret).
The agent thing falls into the same category, and would depend on fraud and conflict of interest (loyalty, as you mentioned). And you can in fact be an agent of multiple companies or organizations at the same time, but things can get tricky (think of a hypothetical person being the CEO of Twitter and Square at the same time for example).
Your car example is also off the mark, or could be, because it's not a bright line rule. Loyalty to a company in Corporate Law is largely predicated on responsibility to the company via position or duties you've undertaken, and many cases have swung either way, and these can be hard or nuanced questions. Some small facts could change the whole car example, for example perhaps you only sell large vans, but the customer only wants a small convertible. In this case it might be proper for the employee to sell the person their personal Miata. It also doesn't consider higher level employees, executives for instance, and corporate opportunity. RE: "you cannot have two companies paying you by the hour for the same hour", sure you can, depending on the circumstances. Contrived example, but imagine a night security guard being paid to sit at a desk from midnight to eight am whose only responsibility is to have their butt in the seat. It might be okay for them to also be paid for a few hours of handling an online help desk for a third party employer for a couple hours, both being paid by the hour. That person is being paid by the hour by two employers simultaneously and it's not fraud or a breach of loyalty, especially for a hypothetical lower level employee who has permission.
Point is, these are not always easy questions, there is a lot of grey area, and you're really painting the agent and duty of loyalty thing as very black and white concepts when they're definitely not.
> Yes, by common law, you cannot work for two people at the same time.
Please cite something to back this up.
> Moreover, you cannot have two companies paying you by the hour for the same hour.
Why not? Again, please cite a source.
If we assume that uber et al. have a baseline staffing level, during which time you as driver might be paid to be working for them exclusively, then sure, during that period of "dedicated time" you would only be working for the one service. But then in addition to that, uber might have on-call hours to accommodate surge. During this time, you as employee driver are free to accept or pass on rides. Like voluntary overtime, by the task (piece work). In your OT/on-call hours you can also be on-call for ride service #2, since they could have the same go/no-go optional work acceptance. So why couldn't you do this? And why couldn't uber/lyft employ people this way?
Your example of being a car salesman is a bad analogy for ride service. I am not "working" for the ride service until I accept the ride, which constitutes clocking in for an on-call task. Whereas being a car salesman that sells my personal car while on-duty with my employer is a different situation.
Under federal tax law if you're an employee it means you have a schedule. And if you're getting paid by the hour by Lyft you can't double dip and also get paid by the hour by Uber.
If you are required to provide your employees benefits, then you need to hire them for a certain number of hours to amortize those benefits costs.
And if you are hiring Joe to work 40 hours as an Uber driver then you need to make sure he works 40 hours that make sense. Thus benefits require a minimum number of hours, and a minimum number of hours requires a schedule.
if you pick your own hours and your own pickups, you are not anyone's employee -you by definition are your own boss. to be an employee, you have to have your hours and your work defined by your employer. employers tell you what work to do and when to do it. flexible hours don't work when at 4pm on tuesday dispatch yells you to pick someone up.
california is forcing all rideshare contractors to be employees. that's not just a checkbox on a form.
Another group caught in the collateral damage is people in wheelchairs. Paratransit sucks in most places and where wheelchair accessible Uber/Lyft is available they provide a much better service. This is an especially vulnerable population because it's not like a wheelchair user can just find a friend with an accessible vehicle to take them to appointments, etc.
A while ago — and I have no citations for this — I read it was easier to just pay for private rides for every accessible person than to make NYC and SF's public transportation accessible. Yes, in perpetuity. Considerably cheaper, too.
Why then, go through the effort? Because they should be integrated into society like all others. I firmly believe public transportation has benefits beyond efficiency.
Something about a billionaire on the 6 train next to a restaurant worker and a wheelchair-bound piano tuner[1] strikes me as poetic and noble. Whatever the costs.
What about the wheelchair users? What do they prefer?
If it were both cheaper and best for the users (as I believe it would be) to pay for private rides, I would support that wholeheartedly. If one option were cheaper, and the other is preferred, it would seem that you'd have to engage in some type of cost-benefit analysis.
I don't see why able-bodied people should impose their view of 'social integration' on minorities at great cost, without additional justification.
Well, I don't have a wheelchair-bound piano tuner handy to ask, so I'll have to model this person based on other wheelchair users I've been acquainted with over the years.
So let's ask this imaginary person: Would you rather get free rides everywhere you need to go, or have to wait in the rain/snow/heat for the bus, feeling the stress of inconveniencing others with the ramp, and having to wheel yourself the rest of the distance to your destination?
That's if the bus arrives on time, which it won't. But keep in mind! silviogutierrez will feel better about themself if you take the bus! "poetic and noble" were the exact words.
In Sweden if you're disabled, the government will pay for taxis for you. There's limits on how often et c and they don't come as fast as a normal taxi booking and you can only bring one other person with you, but it's a great option for when public transit doesn't cut it.
> A while ago — and I have no citations for this — I read it was easier to just pay for private rides for every accessible person than to make NYC and SF's public transportation accessible. Yes, in perpetuity. Considerably cheaper, too.
1. Accessibility doesn't just benefit wheel-chair bound people. Accessibility benefits just about anyone who has temporary difficulty walking, is carrying heavy or bulky things, is out with children, is not fully sober, etc, etc, etc.
2. NYC may indeed be a special case, because of the poor design of existing subway stations, and the difficulty of rebuilding them in the middle of Manhattan. I don't think this sort of thing would generalize to other locales.
There are many different ways to be disabled. Some people get around in wheelchairs and will be fine wherever there are elevators. Other people (including all of us as we get older) need personal assistance door-to-door. There's a spectrum of inclusion, and I don't think "whatever the cost" acknowledges that.
I 100% agree, for that reason and more. But I also don't know that I see accessible public transit as being a something to set against accessible point-to-point transportation. One needs both. For the same reasons that everyone needs both.
Elsewhere in the thread someone with a wheelchair bound sister mentioned that she doesn't like taking public transit because she gets harassed and gawked at for her disability.
Also, accessible transit benefits everyone with a stroller, as well as the elderly and anyone else with a temporary injury.
In BC, Canada, Handydart is part of the public transit system. Paratranspo is part of OCTranspo under the Ottawa Transit system.
Cost would be basically the same as normal bus ride.
The municipalities could, you know, fund transit?
In the Valley, I was talking to some interns. It was a 50 minute walk, 40 minute bus ride, and 15 minute bike ride. Basically the only reason why you'd take the bus is you can't afford a bike?!?
I'm not able to drive because of epilepsy and have to rely on ride share apps when family members can't drive me. It's expensive but public transportation doesn't exist here. Around 1/100 people are epileptic and the chance of a seizure during one's life is double digits, so it's not an insignificant amount of people. Mine is "well controlled" but the consequences of accidents can be extreme. Plenty of other conditions exist which also prevent people from driving.
Unfortunately it's difficult to participate in a lot of our society unless you can drive.
In most cases, they waited additional hours, per trip, for limited spots on paratransit or depended on friends and family.
The ones affluent enough to afford it used private drivers.
A few years ago I was in a freak accident and ended up in a wheel chair for about 3 months. It's really hard to put into words how much more effort and hassle it is to get around that way, even when most of the people around you are willing to help. And I was relatively lucky, still having full use of my arms and no other health issues. But a decent rule of thumb is to take however long you think some activity should require and multiply that by three, at minimum.
A disabled friend of mine has often spent quite literally all day dealing with disabled transit issues to get across town for a single appointment someplace. We help him out when we can, but like most people he hates feeling beholden to the charity of friends.
Worse, the financially better off using the paid services allowed the public services to become more responsive to the poorer members of this demographic. So now everybody will suffer.
There are plenty of cabs that are wheelchair accessible. My wife works in surgery centers and they often call a cab for someone that needs a ride home and is in a wheelchair.
Edit: This was one of the main reasons against using Uber. Cabs were, I believe, legally required to provide this service, and Uber wasn't. That may have changed, but cabs were subject to that regulation, at least in Oregon, and Uber wasn't. Uber may have filled that gap, but I'm sure it was for financial benefit to them and not because it was the right thing to do.
Not sure the right word, but a lot of towns and cities have a heavily subsidized busing system for very local routes. Things like DATA Bus or Meals on Wheels.
Also my grandparents in a city always used a cab service that only serves wheelchair and has trained drivers to load and unload.
public transit agencies are obligated to provide this service, most municipalities contract it out. in recent years, it has been increasingly common for transit agencies to work directly with uber and lyft for paratransit services.
I was in an Uber rideshare once with a blind person. Had no idea they were blind until the driver pulled over and got out (which initially confused me) to help them to their house.
This is a true and an important concern. Municipalities and counties in California really need to step up their game and provide a viable and cheap to use alternative.
Everybody deserves to be able to go where they want within their community when they want to. And we should provide these without relying on private companies with questionable labor practices.
Americans spent $1 TRILLION on personal transport (cars + car insurance, mainly) in 2017 [1]. Imagine if just half that went to building local subway networks / high-speed rail across the country / expanding bus options.
You mean the same taxi-service market that Uber has been notably unprofitable and bleeding investor cash for years in? But smaller and more niche? With more legal hurdles regarding accessibility and mobility requirements? Operating with only non-gig, full-benefit workers?
I suspect that California is going to backpedal on this pretty quickly. Uber and Lyft are popular. Going back to taxis is going to be very unpopular.
IMO, if the California Republican party was smart they would make this a wedge issue in the next election. "Elect us, and we'll make it possible to use Uber again."
A couple of years ago, the Quebec government introduced additional restrictions on ridesharing companies. Uber got up on their soapbox and said they were pulling out of Quebec. The government called their bluff and basically said "Okay, bye" and Uber backpedaled. I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens here.
This happened in Sep 2017. Then, the transport minister for Quebec changed in Oct 2017, and Uber said later in Oct that they would not pull out because they saw an opportunity for constructive dialogue with the new transport minister. By the time Bill 17 was passed in 2019 and Uber became officially legal beyond its pilot project, taxi drivers were protesting the Quebec government's actions.
Maybe in normal times, but in pandemic times who knows? Most things are shut down right now, add uber/lyft to the list and see if people actually care.
The State of California doesn't care about workers, they care about the tens to hundreds of millions of dollars they want from payroll and unemployment taxes, in addition to revenue from automatic withholdings for people whom would otherwise be below the reporting limit.
I think it's reasonable for a government to crack down on businesses where the entire operational structure is designed to subvert that government's tax code and regulations.
They care about the burden these employees put on the system when they get sick or injured which costs tax money. Most people don't use Uber or Lyft, why should they have to subsidize these companies.
Drivers choose to make their living with Lyft and Uber. California is starting to feel the repercussions of their far left policies. It hurts consumers (fare prices rise), stifles innovation, pushes entrepreneurs out of the state, and the irony is it ended up hurting the drivers.
When did California eliminate private property? When did it hand over the means of production to the proletariat?
Last I checked, capitalism was alive and well in California, which is the dearly beloved home of the most successful capitalist entities and richest people on the planet.
If California's policies really were far left, all those companies would be owned and run by their workers, and no one would be richer than anyone else.
Republican party is completely dead in California. Last time they had some power they kept manufacturing crises and shutting down the government. After Trump they've gone all in on the national Republican party's white-hot hatred of the state.
In Portland, Radio Cab has an Android/iOS app. I switched to them once they modernized. In this case, Lyft/Uber caused taxis to improve infrastructure. That's a win.
Competition tends to force organizations to evolve to meet the threat. That is, unless some government intervenes in the market, distorting the effect. Then you get a distorted market with inefficient allocation of resources.
Seems to happen quite a bit in monoideological areas.
Who forced Lyft to shut down? Was it the state, or did they freely choose to cease operations? Obviously, spin will characterize this in any way that's advantageous. But nobody 'forced' Lyft to close.
Their business model is on-demand transportation. The business model doesn't work if the workforce is not also on-demand. I don't think that's spin, but maybe society decides that we don't like on-demand businesses.
The state made their business model illegal. Yes, technically that’s not the same thing as shutting them down, since they could have switched to a different business model, but it’s a distinction without a difference.
California literally paid billions in unemployment to rideshare drivers during Corona, funds that Uber and Lyft didn't contribute a cent to, but you feel it's sensible Republican policy to declare "next year, we'll do it all over again"?
Lot of my friends who work in non tech jobs use driving for Uber or Lyft as a way to either get a little extra cash, or bridge themselves across gaps in employment.
This would devastate them. Absolutely heartless move on behalf of the California government. Don’t kick the little guys while they’re down to make some political point. It’s not the time.
The interesting thing is that this may not have been a heartless move, it seems to have been, from what I can tell, a well-meaning move that is going to hurt the very people politicians were trying to help. I feel like this is a theme of the last 100 years repeating itself over and over.
> The interesting thing is that this may not have been a heartless move, it seems to have been, from what I can tell, a well-meaning move that is going to hurt the very people politicians were trying to help. I feel like this is a theme of the last 100 years repeating itself over and over.
There is a tendency to classify failed left-leaning policies as 'well-intentioned but failures' and right-leaning policies as 'heartless and also failures'. This is a ridiculous dichotomy.
The fact is that everyone knew this was going to happen. It was indeed a heartless policy. The leftist lawmakers that run california could have asked anyone and could have at least feigned interest in helping Uber and Lyft succeed in their state. Instead, they chose to essentially ban their business model with no input from the companies. It is especially egregious because the state has spent the last 50 years building an incredibly car-dependent society, and has failed in its duty to bring any kind of workable public transportation system. Uber and Lyft started to become their finally workable transit system, and the state can't even have that.
I'm done pretending that leftist policies are well-intentioned. We need to start calling them what they are -- evil.
Uber and Lyft are voluntarily suspending operations to make a political point; they are the ones kicking the little guy while they're down. The fact that these companies can spend 100 million to dismantle the outcome of the political process shows how little power the California government actually has.
Tough to call anything done as voluntary with a gun held up to the head. Their entire business model (which has not been super profitable to say the least) was just made illegal in California.
Life goes on though, probably the Taxi industry is very pleased, many of the full-time drivers will go on to work as Taxi drivers, licensed with hours and all. And I'll just lower my expectations for getting a taxi dispatched within 30 mins outside of the main city.
I was under the impression they're planning on suspending operations because it would be illegal for drivers to operate as contractors come tomorrow. Their political stance is manifested in prop 22, but the shutdown is for compliance w/ the law.
Kudos on that moral victory California. You robbed my mobility-impaired younger sister of her legs without providing any alternative. Fuck your sorry excuse of public transit filled with gawkers and requiring her to wonder whether there will be connected sidewalks for her to solve her last-two-mile trip on her chair.
"Oh, but Uber and Lyft were brought down by their own greed" Well, where is the non-greedy alternative in this market, employing legitimate full-benefit workers and serving their community while making earnest profits? If there really exists a market that is sustainable via the terms outlined by the court of California, why the hell isn't anyone competing in this market that famously yields no incumbent benefits?
If, on the other hand, if the math doesn't check out and there isn't a viable market, then what is being accomplished by this ruling? It's both shutting down an extremely useful service while taking jobs away from people who need it most, when they need it most.
This is a terrible decision that is so far removed from reality that it's almost laughable. While I admire the idealistic worldview of those who rule from above, this is a classic case of the road to hell being paved by good intentions.
HAHAHA. OMG - as one who doesn't drive, and took taxis in the Bay area (South Bay - Sunnyvale, Mountain View, Redwood City) for 7 years (2003 - 2010) - pretty much everywhere - let me tell you that taxis on the Peninsula are the most poorly managed, poorly responsive, and incredibly bad service imaginable. Fully 30-40% of taxis just never show up when you call them. That number gets even higher after 9:00 PM if you are down near Fremont. . Taxis took an absolute minimum of 30 minutes to arrive - I never understood how that was possible given they worked on a zone reservation system, and I presumed you would check into the zone you were geographically present in. The drivers were, as a class - horrible. They wouldn't last a month on Uber - neither their vehicles, nor the drivers themselves - they'd be rated out immediately.
I think the mistake that Uber and Lyft are making here is just not charging market rates that will let their drivers make a good living. If it turns out that costs 50% more than a taxi - fine. People then have a choice of Public Transit, Taxis, or Uber/Lyft. Their race to the bottom and attempt to price each other out of the market is what led us here.
Where they erred originally is trying to build a business model that didn't provide a good living to their key employees - and lets face it, Uber/Lyft drivers are employees.
Taxis, even in San Francisco, were woefully inadequate prior to Uber. Further, it not as if taxis were driver friendly. The majority of the money went the the medallion holder. The medallion holders artificially constricted service to keep rates high via a monopoly. So, there was no pre-rideshare paradise to return to.
Taxi drivers pay the company for a shift upfront and absorb the risk on not getting enough rides to break even. And they are independent contractors without benefits.
So yeah, what parent was talking about doesn't exist.
I think she still uses it when there's no alternative. I don't know much about it myself, but from what she tells me it's a fine service for when she needs to go to the library on a lazy day, but meeting a friend or having to make a schedule on a certain time? It's practically a coin flip.
moral victory? this is government overreach. people set their own hours. they are contractors not employees. the government changed the rules not because they care for you but because they collect more taxes from employers than contractors.
How is enforcing worker protection government overreach? It’s what they’re supposed to do. And there’s lots of gig workers who aren’t happy with the setup. It’s not like the government took this up on their own accord.
As someone else mentioned Uber and Lyft impose restrictions on these workers that a typical contractor would not have. The litmus test isn’t simply whether you can set your number of hours.
> If there really exists a market that is sustainable via the terms outlined by the court of California, why the hell isn't anyone competing in this market that famously yields no incumbent benefits?
There was a cheaper alternative for companies to provide up until now, so I don't think the current lack of this type of service proves that it couldn't exist. Companies will tend to provide the service that costs them the least in the absence of other incentives; that's why labor laws exist in the first place. The fact that child labor and unsafe working conditions used to be the norm wasn't due to it being impossible to make a profit without them, but due to companies having no incentive to get rid of them.
Right, except now instead of having the option of taxis and ride share companies she can only use taxis which have artificially inflated prices due to constricted supply.
Most taxi's are 1099 as well... Almost 100% outside of the major cities. So no. This is going to backfire hard on the legislature. They should have done their jobs and created a new class. But nope. They went for the headlines.
This is a bit unfair. Yes, the public transit in cali sucks, but there needs to be a minimum standard with how we treat workers. Gig work was initially framed as a side thing where somebody going to the same area as you hops in your car and you share a ride. Like on demand carpooling. That is no longer the case, its people's livelihoods due to economic inequities and lack of normal jobs available to match the demand for jobs. Gig work should NOT be how people make a living, but due to reality it is what many people have resorted to and these people deserve to be treated like employees for normal companies. I have been in many ride shares where drivers drive from hours away to drive in SF or the bay area in general and then go back at night. They do this because their local economy doesn't provide an equivalently paying job (or jobs at all). Instead of telling people "hey go drive around endlessly in SF, hours from where you live. Also, you get no benefits" we can choose to bolster those local economies or we can choose to force companies to provide benefits. Either one of those options will make their lives better. We have chosen the latter, even though we should have chosen the former but politicians don't give a crap about people who aren't in the bay area, LA, or san diego. So they're screwed and forced to take these bad jobs.
> Instead of telling people "hey go drive around endlessly in SF, hours from where you live. Also, you get no benefits" we can choose to bolster those local economies or we can choose to force companies to provide benefits. Either one of those options will make their lives better. We have chosen the latter
Well, no. Prop 22 would force companies to provide benefits, and the rideshare companies themselves are behind it. What was actually chosen was to just put drivers out of work altogether until November at the earliest, because the government deemed that the current compromise was not good enough.
1. If you think the public transit in California sucks, at least it exists.
2. There are many jobs available that don't allow the lifestyle freedoms of gig work (see the trucking industry, which as it turns out also has a long reputation for unfairly treating employees).
In my opinion, the US continues to punish employers, employees, and contractors by tying employment to healthcare. It's much easier to say: "Look at that company screwing their workers out of benefits!", than it is to say: "Look at our country screwing our citizens out of benefits!".
It is a lot of unfair. So gig workers need to be taken advantage of so the parent commenter’s sister can have a more convenient mode of transportation? Why should they bear the burden of a city that doesn’t provide people with disabilities appropriate options?
Maybe relying on the exploitation of others for vital services is a bad situation to be in in the first place?
I'm sure uber and lyft drivers are also extremely upset by this, since they are only being exploited because they are vulnerable.
The fact that these drivers cannot survive without being exploited and that your sister can't be mobile with out their exploitation is not a problem with CA law makers.
Its beyond insane that so many people on HN will jump through such tremendous intellectual hoops to justify the world that they exist and temporarily thrive in. These companies might make your live easier today, but the distance from where you are to feeling that exploitation is not as far as you think.
Why do you assume good intentions? It's more likely that this law was the result of campaign bribes from unions.
Unions want to have fewer (unionized) people employed at higher compensation. Gig workers go against that because there is higher employment at lower compensation.
We had this same thing happen in Austin when Uber and Lyft pulled out after having a hissy fit about fingerprinting and background checks and not parking in the bus lanes. As soon as they pulled out half a dozen alternatives sprung up that paid better (I always used Ride Austin, a not-for-profit). If you're a rider just take the bus, bike, or get any other cab service (seriously, they all have apps now and they maintain a fleet so drivers don't get stuck with repair bills). If you're a driver it's going to suck for a few weeks, you may have to find other opportunities, but more places will pop up and there will be better competition and better pay pretty quickly if the Austin example holds true.
TL;DR it's easy to flip out because Uber and Lyft are big names, but there are plenty of other good services, just use those instead.
This could not be further from the truth. As someone who was driving full-time in Austin when this happened, I can absolutely say this hurt both the drivers and the passengers.
The apps were extremely buggy for both drivers and passengers causing missed rides, multiple drivers showing up to the same rider, etc. Fasten paid the best, but it still would only be marginally better if not the exact same as I was making with Uber or Lyft.
As far as what happened in Austin, there were absolutely no good replacements and us drivers (at least the ones I talked to) were very happy when they returned.
This is not a good comparison because they're dismantling the whole business model with this ruling.
With the new requirements in place (e.g. actually hiring employees and providing benefits) the barrier to entry here is waaaaay higher than before. I would argue Ride Austin would have never even started (especially as a non profit) if these requirements were in place the last time Uber/Lyft shut down in Austin.
There's no objective "better" here. Some drivers may have done better with higher fares being passed onto them. On the other hand, 59% of Lyft/Uber riders ceased to use ride-hailing services.
There CSAT wasn't that great either; ride volume of competitors dropped significantly (Ride Austin lost 55% of riders within a week of Uber and Lyft returning).
The fundamental problem we have here is that pricing is being set by a heavily competitive market-place -- the clearance wage however is below what many see as a living wage. The most just thing to do may be to introduce a pricing floor (raise fares and raise driver income/benefits), but it's important to be honest about the trade-offs.
The move seems to be specifically in response to the recent court order:
> Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman ruled Monday [August 10, 2020] that Lyft and Uber's thousands of contract drivers should be given the same protections and benefits under labor law as other employees of the ride-hailing companies.
> The judge said Uber and Lyft have refused to comply with a California law passed last year that was supposed to make it harder for companies in the state to hire workers as contractors, so gig economy workers such as drivers for the ride-hailing companies would receive health insurance, workers' compensation and paid sick and family leave. As independent contractors, Uber and Lyft drivers are not provided these benefits.
Interesting how cities are being allowed to violate the same by not holding their own taxi services into account[0] that they regulate thereby letting them skirt the law. This is likely because these companies tend to put good money into local political campaigns.
This law is impacting people outside of Uber and Lyft but those two are highlighted because it thwarted the lock down many municipalities had over cab companies and they did not want to give up the side benefits of that cash into their political coffers.
Then throw in that Uber and Lyft were truly effective alternatives to unionized mass transit lines operated in many cities and you can see the entirety of the political graft that was being upended. If you want more you just jump into that this is part of undoing decades of jobs bounded up in occupational licensing which only serves to protect vested interest who again are quick to maintain their political donations.
If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it.
> Then throw in that Uber and Lyft were truly effective alternatives to unionized mass transit lines operated in many cities
No they weren't. It's called "mass transit" for a reason - replacing trains and buses with masses of individuals riding in separate cars is not an effective alternative. While Uber and Lyft are more convenient for certain trips, mass transit still has a place due to capacity constraints.
> If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it.
Such as what? Strengthening collective bargaining rights? Oh wait, you don't like unions either.
This is what I don't get about the outrage against Uber/Lyft. Where is the outrage against regular taxi companies? They were using contractors long before and still are. Not to mention the corrupt medallion systems.
Readit News
A much better bill could have written that could have created a healthcare and unemployment fund of gig economy workers by taxing Gig companies, without trying box everyone into the employment model
But when it comes to the vote in November, a vote to exempt Uber/Lyft from AB5 is a vote to strip drivers of all protections. Uber and Lyft will be free to go back to exploiting drivers for <$10/hr [1]. I don't think I can tell someone else they don't deserve to earn minimum wage.
Maybe you are hoping the legislature will eventually come up with that third way once forced to, but there's a lot of momentum behind a popular vote. No US legislature has proven themselves particularly effective in the last few years. Let's not leave people out to dry while hoping some politicians will do their jobs.
[1] https://www.vox.com/2018/10/2/17924628/uber-drivers-make-hou...
On the wage issue are you talking about the specifics of how prop 22 defines the earnings floor for drivers [0]? It definitely sets a standard even. It pays some for expenses ($0.30/mile) and the 120% minimum wage while on a ride covers a bit of time spent driving between rides. I could see though how if you have high expenses and don't get many rides you will not earn the minimum wage.
0 - https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_22,_App-Based...
Exploiting? Can you please cite another industry that has the capacity to employ millions of unskilled labor people at $10/hr and ALSO allow them the freedom to set their own schedule?
It's clear you've never worked a minimum wage job before. Flexibility on hours is next-to-impossible at these jobs. If people are willing to make a few bucks an hour less for that flexibility, who are you to call it exploitation?
It's not like these companies are minting profits. The alternative is these people go back to work at McDonald's and also get no benefits while being scheduled at such bizarre hours they can't even go to school and educate themselves.
Shrinking the pool of employment choices for these people does nothing to help them actually get healthcare. My mind is still blown at how the American solution to workers not having healthcare is to attack individual businesses instead of looking across the Atlantic at how the rest of the world solved this problem.
Why should employees give up rights just because it's the 21st century? Make no mistake, that's Uber/Lyft's entire advantage over traditional taxis: skirting hard-won employment regulation to lower costs at the expense of workers.
It's easy to see all the folks here who don't remember having to wait an hour for a taxi to show after calling, if it ever did. Pushing a button on your phone and getting a ride five minutes later is magic in comparison.
I don't live in CA but used to do a fair amount of work travel out there. If they don't have Uber/Lyft in the future, I'll just make work get me a rental car.
Of course, its probably not in your best interest to mention this to the company you want to work with since they'll probably just choose to work with someone outside of CA instead. Just be glad their legal counsel (if they have any) doesn't know enough about this law to cause you more headaches.
Exemptions are a leading indicator of ineptness or corruption.
It's not a profitable or a good force in an economy, it does not pay a reasonable wage for anyone to live on, it is not environmentally friendly unless done in large quantities of people,(which is called a bus).
Ridesharing exists to profit Uber/Lyft investors and management and is successful due to lower pricing than is sustainable. It is built on the back of loopholes in the law to use and abuse working class people and to lie about the true costs and profits.
The bill's exceptions exist to split apart reality from this subsidized artificial market (There are exemptions in most laws, purely due tot he idea that things are complex, by nature)
I see this as an attempt to make the Gig Economy pay all workers fairly in addition to healthcare costs and to put the onus on the company rather than their taxes. This would force Uber and Lyft to limit the number of drivers in an area by cost and profits, to deny those they cannot pay fairly. Uber currently may give you 100 rides a day or 1, you don't know which and you cant depend on it nor if you cant drive can get unemployment.
The hard problem is contracting work is not a known reality for most, they don't understand the costs. Dressing it up in pretty fonts and Ads makes it much like the alcohol or tobacco industries, you don't know the danger until you are very invested and nobody is there to save you.
The main reason I can't get on board with the rest of this line of argument is that it ultimately just comes down to paternalistic protection of the poor disenfranchised gig workers that you clearly view as being less than capable, rational adult humans. The number of gig economy workers has been growing exponentially for years? Somebody must be tricking them into taking this shit work, and confusing them about the real costs.
Gig economy workers have overwhelmingly spoken that they like this work, by continuing to sign up for it in massive numbers. Or at least that they like it more than their alternatives at the time. If it were some massive trap, don't you think the word would have gotten out by now? The ability to entirely set their own schedule and work as much or little as they choose is appealing enough to draw people in in droves, despite all of the downsides of this type of work.
Getting rid of Uber and Lyft completely throws out the baby with the bathwater here. It won't magically create alternative full time jobs that these workers will prefer to their current situation, it'll just make it much harder for many of them to have any work. Surely there are better incremental policies that could limit the downsides for many of these workers without taking away most of the positives for them too.
As with many far-leftist beliefs these days, I can't help but conclude that the driving factor for a law like AB5 is punitive anger towards successful, wealthy organizations. Just like with the NIMBYs using socialist rhetoric to justify blocking needed middle class housing, it's much more important that the organizations they see as the bad guys suffer than it is to maximize the overall, utilitarian good for the parties they claim to care about. I sincerely hope this way of thinking dies out, almost as much as I hope the current far-right way of thinking dies out.
Taxis are an obsolete service, Lyft and Uber are overwhelmingly favored by customers and businesses.
But if you do agree with that, shouldn't we resolve inequalities by directly supporting the least fortunate (with cash) rather than force parties into arbitrary economic relationships?
Deleted Comment
Great summary for this scary situation.
> I see this as an attempt to make the Gig Economy pay all workers fairly in addition to healthcare costs and to put the onus on the company rather than their taxes.
There is a new word for this class of gig workers doing precarious labor that I've started using: the Precariat.
"In sociology and economics, the precariat (/prɪˈkɛəriət/) is a neologism for a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. The term is a portmanteau obtained by merging precarious with proletariat.[1] Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labour to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labour and must undertake extensive "unremunerated activities that are essential if they are to retain access to jobs and to decent earnings".
Classic examples of such unpaid activities include continually having to search for work (including preparing for and attending job interviews), as well as being expected to be perpetually responsive to calls for "gig" work (yet without being paid an actual wage for being "on call"). The hallmark of the precariat class is the condition of lack of job security, including intermittent employment or underemployment and the resultant precarious existence.[2] The emergence of this class has been ascribed to the entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism.[3][4]"
[..]
"The British economist Guy Standing has analysed the precariat as a new emerging social class in work done for the think tank Policy Network and the World Economic Forum.[6] In his 2014 book entitled A Precariat Charter he argued that all citizens have a right to socially inherited wealth.[8][9] The latest in the series is titled The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class[2][10] where he proposed basic income as a solution for addressing the problem.
The analysis of the results of the Great British Class Survey of 2013, a collaboration between the BBC and researchers from several UK universities, contended there is a new model of class structure consisting of seven classes, ranging from the Elite at the top to the Precariat at the bottom.[11] The Precariat class was envisaged as "the most deprived British class of all with low levels of economic, cultural and social capital." This was contrasted with "the Technical Middle Class" in Great Britain in that instead of having disposable income but no interests, people of the new Precariat Class have all sorts of potential activities they like to engage in but cannot do any of them because they have no money, insecure lives, and are usually trapped in old industrial parts of the country.
The precariat class has been emerging in societies such as Japan, where it includes over 2 million so-called "freeters".[12]"
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precariat
Why is the purpose of a wage to live on? Many uber drivers drive part time for fun or extra pocket change. The existence of thousands of uber drivers -- who in my experience, have all been quite reasonable, nice people -- seem to directly contradict your claim that it does not pay a 'reasonable wage'. Clearly, it does for those invested parties.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24226783
Is that something mandated by California? As far as I know, everywhere else I've been, work-schedules and anti-moonlighting are restrictions placed by the employer, not the state.
It's not that the law dictates this shift, it's that the economics do. Requiring full employment means you can hire less drivers.
If you have less drivers, you need more control over when they drive in order to make sure when customers are looking for a ride, they can find one, hence shifts.
I drove a taxicab for more than a year back in the 90's. That's the way it worked then. Most drivers were shift because they "rented" the car from the company and shared it with other workers. A few drivers were owner-operators who got to set their own hours. This is closer to the model that Uber & Lyft operate under today.
So when Lyft claims that they would be forced to enforce shift work on their owner-operators, this is a lie. There is already a model for this type of driving that predates Uber & Lyft and they're just choosing to ignore it now because it serves their current interests.
You can check their S-1 filing for the “economics” of it...Uber before going public was losing money and acknowledged the legal risk they had been misclassifying drivers as contractors and should drivers be reclassified as employees it’s an existential threat to Uber.
That’s the economics of it...Uber knew they were in the wrong, they knew the day of reckoning was coming and investors took the damn thing public for maximum profits and to cash out and leave others holding the bag.
But the reality is the whole employee/independent contractor issue is just a scapegoat for investors to point their finger at regulations and say that’s why the business failed, but the truth is even without the illegal classification of drivers Uber would never have turned a profit.
What really needs to happen is that conversion rate needs to be established for this kind of work. So if an average driver can do 20 fares per day, times 20 working days per month, then a "full time" uber employee drives 400 fares per month. Or figure it out on a per-mile basis - like the average fare is 4 miles (let's say) so the average driver does 1600 miles/mo.
Figure out the per-ride or per-mile fee and roll that into the fares. Done and done.
(frankly this is being generous - delivery drivers and waitresses are paid "per fare" too, and we still expect their employers to pay for their benefits.)
Really what needs to happen though is we implement government-provided universal healthcare and maybe a basic income, and then you can have all the wacky gig-economy payment schemes you want.
Is there anything in CA law that prevent Lyft from basically doing exactly what they had been doing but also paying payroll taxes on driver income?
If you're an employee on the clock, you can't be on the clock for two different organizations at the same time.
We often think of "on the clock" employment in terms of shift work, where the worker has a scheduled, fixed-length shift with a single employer, and whether they're actively working during that time or waiting around for the employer to tell them what to do next, they're paid for the hours on the clock.
But it is possible for ridesharing companies to employ workers in "micro-shifts" that last the duration of a single ride.
So, Driver X has two part-time jobs: as a part-time employee of Lyft and a part-time employee of Uber. Driver X is ready to work, so checks the apps, and sees there's a Lyft assignment available. Driver X accepts the ride, and for the duration of that ride, he is working exclusively for Lyft, and Lyft pays him for the time worked. Once that ride ends, his micro-shift with Lyft ends, and he's now available to work for either of his part-time jobs again.
The idea of micro-shifts may seem, at first blush, more like a contractor relationship than an employee relationship. And in the past, gigs that used this model were more likely to involve a contractor relationship -- but they also gave the contractor much more freedom in terms of HOW they accomplished the work.
In contrast, if you look at Uber and Lyft, ignoring the micro-shift aspect, there is very little difference between how those jobs work and how other service-oriented part-time jobs work, in terms of the power the employer has to dictate HOW the work gets done.
I mean, I don't see why not. Would create some inefficiencies. But I don't think there is a law against that.
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I don't see why that would not be possible.
And it's not so much anti-moonlighting as not being able to work for multiple companies at the same time (hour). Right now, a driver often is waiting for both Lyft and Uber riders. If they're an hourly employee, they obviously can't do that anymore.
So no, none of this is mandated, but it's the only way a business could operate.
Ah, you say, but what about them being "on the clock" while not actually being willing to drive? The same thing that happens if they turn down a Lyft ride because they're driving an Uber customer: you fire them. And possibly charge them with fraud.
From what I've read here, it seems like all of the "only way a business could operate" responses are based on Uber or Lyft propaganda.
For example, if you were employed by Lyft as a driver, then presumably you would be neglecting your job duties if you refused to pick up a customer on the grounds that you happen to be driving a Uber customer at the time.
The only way this industry can operate is if all of the drivers have to be searching for rides on all of the networks?
1 https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_ReportingTimePay.htm
2 https://blog.accuchex.com/california-labor-laws-minimum-work...
Uber/Lyft does not exist to help the economy or the people of the US, they exist to help themselves. Otherwise they would charge and pay a working wage.
Having been stranded far from home, both late night and in the early evening, I see Uber & Lyft as providing a valuable service.
Having been taken advantage of by taxi drivers on multiple occasions (I don't think I've ever actually had a good taxi experience) I don't want to go back to the way things were. Maybe other people like being defrauded by taxi drivers? Maybe people just forget how bad the taxi system is, and that at one point people were cheering the demise of the old taxi system for a reason.
The idea that there is a gap in the market is something that people are looking for, on Hacker News most especially, and if this is a legitimate gap that Uber and Lyft are ignoring for silly reasons, then there should be a bunch of startups to take their place pretty quickly.
Of course the next step is to stop operating.
When an employee, you are legally the agent of the employer. Anything you agree to or do while employed is a liability of the employer, not you personally. That is why an employee at a VC firm can commit to provide capital, but doesn't have to pay it directly. Or why a manager of a company can take on debt, that is then the responsibility of the company, not himself.
You cannot be an agent of two companies at the same time. If you have both uber and lyft app running in your car, waiting for a passenger, and you get into a crash, if you are an employee working, then one of the companies is responsible for covering any damages you inflict. Of course, since you're not even on any particular 'job' at the time, who is responsible?
Moreover, you cannot have two companies paying you by the hour for the same hour.
Moreover, the law presumes that employees owe loyalty to their employer while working. So for example, if I am employed by a car dealership, but when a customer comes in during my shift, I decide to sell him my personal used car, instead of the companies, the company can actually sue me for failing to fulfill my duty of loyalty to them. You can't have someone working for both Uber and Lyft in this model. Since Uber and Lyft are competitors, by definition, you cannot be loyal to both. If you have both apps running and pick the best customer based on price, then you have shortchanged one of the companies, and open yourself up to liability. Contractors have no presumed assumption of loyalty to anyone but themselves. That is what allows them to pick the most profitable ride.
https://www.abacademies.org/articles/the-duty-of-loyalty-in-...
Uber has asked for California to come up with legal structures that provide benefits to employees while allowing their business model. This seems eminently reasonable: there are clear differences between Uber and Lyft drivers and traditional employees. It is the duty of government to innovate policy-wise so that the private sector can innovate business-wise. Unfortunately, California's legislature has failed to innovate anything and has instead decided to force innovators to use an outdated model of employment.
One can in fact work two separate jobs at the same time without it being fraud (the only real "legal" restriction on working two jobs). You can also have two companies pay "you by the hour for the same hour" depending on the circumstances. There isn't a bright line rule that states this or anything, it comes down to whether one is committing fraud (and I agree it could be fraud in many cases, especially if done in secret).
The agent thing falls into the same category, and would depend on fraud and conflict of interest (loyalty, as you mentioned). And you can in fact be an agent of multiple companies or organizations at the same time, but things can get tricky (think of a hypothetical person being the CEO of Twitter and Square at the same time for example).
Your car example is also off the mark, or could be, because it's not a bright line rule. Loyalty to a company in Corporate Law is largely predicated on responsibility to the company via position or duties you've undertaken, and many cases have swung either way, and these can be hard or nuanced questions. Some small facts could change the whole car example, for example perhaps you only sell large vans, but the customer only wants a small convertible. In this case it might be proper for the employee to sell the person their personal Miata. It also doesn't consider higher level employees, executives for instance, and corporate opportunity. RE: "you cannot have two companies paying you by the hour for the same hour", sure you can, depending on the circumstances. Contrived example, but imagine a night security guard being paid to sit at a desk from midnight to eight am whose only responsibility is to have their butt in the seat. It might be okay for them to also be paid for a few hours of handling an online help desk for a third party employer for a couple hours, both being paid by the hour. That person is being paid by the hour by two employers simultaneously and it's not fraud or a breach of loyalty, especially for a hypothetical lower level employee who has permission.
Point is, these are not always easy questions, there is a lot of grey area, and you're really painting the agent and duty of loyalty thing as very black and white concepts when they're definitely not.
Please cite something to back this up.
> Moreover, you cannot have two companies paying you by the hour for the same hour.
Why not? Again, please cite a source.
If we assume that uber et al. have a baseline staffing level, during which time you as driver might be paid to be working for them exclusively, then sure, during that period of "dedicated time" you would only be working for the one service. But then in addition to that, uber might have on-call hours to accommodate surge. During this time, you as employee driver are free to accept or pass on rides. Like voluntary overtime, by the task (piece work). In your OT/on-call hours you can also be on-call for ride service #2, since they could have the same go/no-go optional work acceptance. So why couldn't you do this? And why couldn't uber/lyft employ people this way?
Your example of being a car salesman is a bad analogy for ride service. I am not "working" for the ride service until I accept the ride, which constitutes clocking in for an on-call task. Whereas being a car salesman that sells my personal car while on-duty with my employer is a different situation.
Just because someone is an employee doesn't mean the employer can't give them flexible hours
And if you are hiring Joe to work 40 hours as an Uber driver then you need to make sure he works 40 hours that make sense. Thus benefits require a minimum number of hours, and a minimum number of hours requires a schedule.
california is forcing all rideshare contractors to be employees. that's not just a checkbox on a form.
Why then, go through the effort? Because they should be integrated into society like all others. I firmly believe public transportation has benefits beyond efficiency.
Something about a billionaire on the 6 train next to a restaurant worker and a wheelchair-bound piano tuner[1] strikes me as poetic and noble. Whatever the costs.
[1] Headed to my place.
If it were both cheaper and best for the users (as I believe it would be) to pay for private rides, I would support that wholeheartedly. If one option were cheaper, and the other is preferred, it would seem that you'd have to engage in some type of cost-benefit analysis.
I don't see why able-bodied people should impose their view of 'social integration' on minorities at great cost, without additional justification.
So let's ask this imaginary person: Would you rather get free rides everywhere you need to go, or have to wait in the rain/snow/heat for the bus, feeling the stress of inconveniencing others with the ramp, and having to wheel yourself the rest of the distance to your destination?
That's if the bus arrives on time, which it won't. But keep in mind! silviogutierrez will feel better about themself if you take the bus! "poetic and noble" were the exact words.
i know cost is just a number to you but that’s other people’s money you’re spending
1. Accessibility doesn't just benefit wheel-chair bound people. Accessibility benefits just about anyone who has temporary difficulty walking, is carrying heavy or bulky things, is out with children, is not fully sober, etc, etc, etc.
2. NYC may indeed be a special case, because of the poor design of existing subway stations, and the difficulty of rebuilding them in the middle of Manhattan. I don't think this sort of thing would generalize to other locales.
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Also, accessible transit benefits everyone with a stroller, as well as the elderly and anyone else with a temporary injury.
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Cost would be basically the same as normal bus ride.
The municipalities could, you know, fund transit?
In the Valley, I was talking to some interns. It was a 50 minute walk, 40 minute bus ride, and 15 minute bike ride. Basically the only reason why you'd take the bus is you can't afford a bike?!?
I wish Uber and Lyft had focused on sustainability vs monopoly and not foisted so much of their costs off onto their drivers, but here we are.
Unfortunately it's difficult to participate in a lot of our society unless you can drive.
The ones affluent enough to afford it used private drivers.
A few years ago I was in a freak accident and ended up in a wheel chair for about 3 months. It's really hard to put into words how much more effort and hassle it is to get around that way, even when most of the people around you are willing to help. And I was relatively lucky, still having full use of my arms and no other health issues. But a decent rule of thumb is to take however long you think some activity should require and multiply that by three, at minimum.
A disabled friend of mine has often spent quite literally all day dealing with disabled transit issues to get across town for a single appointment someplace. We help him out when we can, but like most people he hates feeling beholden to the charity of friends.
Worse, the financially better off using the paid services allowed the public services to become more responsive to the poorer members of this demographic. So now everybody will suffer.
Edit: This was one of the main reasons against using Uber. Cabs were, I believe, legally required to provide this service, and Uber wasn't. That may have changed, but cabs were subject to that regulation, at least in Oregon, and Uber wasn't. Uber may have filled that gap, but I'm sure it was for financial benefit to them and not because it was the right thing to do.
Also my grandparents in a city always used a cab service that only serves wheelchair and has trained drivers to load and unload.
Everybody deserves to be able to go where they want within their community when they want to. And we should provide these without relying on private companies with questionable labor practices.
[1]: https://www.itdp.org/2019/05/23/high-cost-transportation-uni...
Yeah, sounds like a market ripe for picking.
IMO, if the California Republican party was smart they would make this a wedge issue in the next election. "Elect us, and we'll make it possible to use Uber again."
https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/uber-is-officially-allowed-in-qu...
I wouldn't describe what happened in Quebec as a loss for Uber.
This is a transparent ploy by Lyft and Uber to try and extort the state into changing the law by holding their drivers' livelihoods ransom.
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When did California eliminate private property? When did it hand over the means of production to the proletariat?
Last I checked, capitalism was alive and well in California, which is the dearly beloved home of the most successful capitalist entities and richest people on the planet.
If California's policies really were far left, all those companies would be owned and run by their workers, and no one would be richer than anyone else.
But that's not California, is it?
Seems to happen quite a bit in monoideological areas.
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This would devastate them. Absolutely heartless move on behalf of the California government. Don’t kick the little guys while they’re down to make some political point. It’s not the time.
The road to hell...
There is a tendency to classify failed left-leaning policies as 'well-intentioned but failures' and right-leaning policies as 'heartless and also failures'. This is a ridiculous dichotomy.
The fact is that everyone knew this was going to happen. It was indeed a heartless policy. The leftist lawmakers that run california could have asked anyone and could have at least feigned interest in helping Uber and Lyft succeed in their state. Instead, they chose to essentially ban their business model with no input from the companies. It is especially egregious because the state has spent the last 50 years building an incredibly car-dependent society, and has failed in its duty to bring any kind of workable public transportation system. Uber and Lyft started to become their finally workable transit system, and the state can't even have that.
I'm done pretending that leftist policies are well-intentioned. We need to start calling them what they are -- evil.
"That those who know what's best for us Must rise and save us from ourselves"
It was on a playlist I was listening to last week walking my dog. Seems quite apropos here.
[1] https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rush/witchhunt.html
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Life goes on though, probably the Taxi industry is very pleased, many of the full-time drivers will go on to work as Taxi drivers, licensed with hours and all. And I'll just lower my expectations for getting a taxi dispatched within 30 mins outside of the main city.
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"Oh, but Uber and Lyft were brought down by their own greed" Well, where is the non-greedy alternative in this market, employing legitimate full-benefit workers and serving their community while making earnest profits? If there really exists a market that is sustainable via the terms outlined by the court of California, why the hell isn't anyone competing in this market that famously yields no incumbent benefits?
If, on the other hand, if the math doesn't check out and there isn't a viable market, then what is being accomplished by this ruling? It's both shutting down an extremely useful service while taking jobs away from people who need it most, when they need it most.
This is a terrible decision that is so far removed from reality that it's almost laughable. While I admire the idealistic worldview of those who rule from above, this is a classic case of the road to hell being paved by good intentions.
Taxis still exist.
Given the history of Uber and Lyft drivers denying access to riders with wheelchairs, decrying the loss of their services seems weird.
I think the mistake that Uber and Lyft are making here is just not charging market rates that will let their drivers make a good living. If it turns out that costs 50% more than a taxi - fine. People then have a choice of Public Transit, Taxis, or Uber/Lyft. Their race to the bottom and attempt to price each other out of the market is what led us here.
Where they erred originally is trying to build a business model that didn't provide a good living to their key employees - and lets face it, Uber/Lyft drivers are employees.
Taxis have not gotten better since then.
So yeah, what parent was talking about doesn't exist.
As someone else mentioned Uber and Lyft impose restrictions on these workers that a typical contractor would not have. The litmus test isn’t simply whether you can set your number of hours.
Millions of employees in the US have flexible schedules and work part-time.
There was a cheaper alternative for companies to provide up until now, so I don't think the current lack of this type of service proves that it couldn't exist. Companies will tend to provide the service that costs them the least in the absence of other incentives; that's why labor laws exist in the first place. The fact that child labor and unsafe working conditions used to be the norm wasn't due to it being impossible to make a profit without them, but due to companies having no incentive to get rid of them.
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I don't think I understand this. Why not? Seems like more options besides a traditional 9-5 is a good thing.
Well, no. Prop 22 would force companies to provide benefits, and the rideshare companies themselves are behind it. What was actually chosen was to just put drivers out of work altogether until November at the earliest, because the government deemed that the current compromise was not good enough.
2. There are many jobs available that don't allow the lifestyle freedoms of gig work (see the trucking industry, which as it turns out also has a long reputation for unfairly treating employees).
In my opinion, the US continues to punish employers, employees, and contractors by tying employment to healthcare. It's much easier to say: "Look at that company screwing their workers out of benefits!", than it is to say: "Look at our country screwing our citizens out of benefits!".
If California's jobs suck, move. Yes, it's hard but it beats the alternative of destroying more jobs through misguided regulations.
There's a huge difference between 'People should not be forced to' vs. 'people should not be'. I think your case is the latter.
The parent post (from Lyft) looks hilarious in hindsight.
Edit: Added context
I'm sure uber and lyft drivers are also extremely upset by this, since they are only being exploited because they are vulnerable.
The fact that these drivers cannot survive without being exploited and that your sister can't be mobile with out their exploitation is not a problem with CA law makers.
Its beyond insane that so many people on HN will jump through such tremendous intellectual hoops to justify the world that they exist and temporarily thrive in. These companies might make your live easier today, but the distance from where you are to feeling that exploitation is not as far as you think.
Unions want to have fewer (unionized) people employed at higher compensation. Gig workers go against that because there is higher employment at lower compensation.
TL;DR it's easy to flip out because Uber and Lyft are big names, but there are plenty of other good services, just use those instead.
The apps were extremely buggy for both drivers and passengers causing missed rides, multiple drivers showing up to the same rider, etc. Fasten paid the best, but it still would only be marginally better if not the exact same as I was making with Uber or Lyft.
As far as what happened in Austin, there were absolutely no good replacements and us drivers (at least the ones I talked to) were very happy when they returned.
[1] https://communityimpact.com/austin/central-austin/impacts/20....
With the new requirements in place (e.g. actually hiring employees and providing benefits) the barrier to entry here is waaaaay higher than before. I would argue Ride Austin would have never even started (especially as a non profit) if these requirements were in place the last time Uber/Lyft shut down in Austin.
There's no objective "better" here. Some drivers may have done better with higher fares being passed onto them. On the other hand, 59% of Lyft/Uber riders ceased to use ride-hailing services.
There CSAT wasn't that great either; ride volume of competitors dropped significantly (Ride Austin lost 55% of riders within a week of Uber and Lyft returning).
The fundamental problem we have here is that pricing is being set by a heavily competitive market-place -- the clearance wage however is below what many see as a living wage. The most just thing to do may be to introduce a pricing floor (raise fares and raise driver income/benefits), but it's important to be honest about the trade-offs.
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> Superior Court Judge Ethan Schulman ruled Monday [August 10, 2020] that Lyft and Uber's thousands of contract drivers should be given the same protections and benefits under labor law as other employees of the ride-hailing companies.
> The judge said Uber and Lyft have refused to comply with a California law passed last year that was supposed to make it harder for companies in the state to hire workers as contractors, so gig economy workers such as drivers for the ride-hailing companies would receive health insurance, workers' compensation and paid sick and family leave. As independent contractors, Uber and Lyft drivers are not provided these benefits.
https://www.npr.org/2020/08/10/901099643/california-judge-or...
This law is impacting people outside of Uber and Lyft but those two are highlighted because it thwarted the lock down many municipalities had over cab companies and they did not want to give up the side benefits of that cash into their political coffers.
Then throw in that Uber and Lyft were truly effective alternatives to unionized mass transit lines operated in many cities and you can see the entirety of the political graft that was being upended. If you want more you just jump into that this is part of undoing decades of jobs bounded up in occupational licensing which only serves to protect vested interest who again are quick to maintain their political donations.
If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it.
[0]https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/California-s-gi...
No they weren't. It's called "mass transit" for a reason - replacing trains and buses with masses of individuals riding in separate cars is not an effective alternative. While Uber and Lyft are more convenient for certain trips, mass transit still has a place due to capacity constraints.
> If they were out to protect workers they had many more ways to do it.
Such as what? Strengthening collective bargaining rights? Oh wait, you don't like unions either.