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This has always been an interesting discussion morally. On one side, our free market should be able to allow any drivers to not work for any ride sharing company if they choose not to. On the other hand, the question I haven't been able to answer is if they truly have viable options or if the workers understand they are making under minimum wage. It's hard to balance between the freedom of choice and regulations to protect the people. At one point we (as in the US) decided child labor is unacceptable at the expense of household income dropping for the benefit of the future. Likewise, how much regulation are we willing to impose on the private market for the benefit of the workers and are there national growth consequences. I'm not sure how this will play out but it will be interesting to see.

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> if the workers understand they are making under minimum wage.

The Uber workers most definitely are not making minimum wage. They actually see very well how much they’re making, and are not as gullible as HN likes to imply to not notice if they were ripped off.

It is common for people here to make argument that Uber drivers make less than minimum wage, but that typically proceeds on some very dubious assumptions, which throw the numbers way off. I don’t want to elaborate too much on nuances of actual operational costs vs IRS mileage rate, depreciation, financing and all that stuff, because there is a more obvious point. Uber drivers can always rent a car from Hertz, which partners with Uber and will rent you a car for ~$250/week. This rate includes all maintenance and repair, so if drivers go this way, their only remaining significant costs are gas and insurance. At the and of the month, they can easily tally up the Hertz bill, their gas costs and their insurance payment, and compare with earnings. Suffice to say, it is above minimum wage, assuming they worked full time.

If drivers can easily do that then honestly it shouldn't be difficult for Uber to move from a ridehailing company in California to a SAAS service provider, that is to say license the technology platform to companies that manage the drivers in a traditional way. (In fact that is literally how Uber operates in some European countries where drivers are already classified as employees).

And that is a very profitable business and healthy market actually the problem is just, Uber would have to give up its world domination plans and admit it's a software company, not the future of transportation

But why Uber would want that? What benefit would they get from they middleman, who’d also want to take his cut?

Uber obviously doesn't want it which is why they oppose it. but the law in a democratic society isn't supposed to be written by and for Uber, and the goal of the legislation is guaranteeing employee rights.

The argument just simply takes the wind out of the sails of Uber's best counter-argument, that they somehow would need to cease operations in the state and deprive customers of their service. They wouldn't, they can operate just fine as a software provider, they just don't get to eat the entire value chain. (which arguably apart from taking care of the employee issue also makes some sense from a competition standpoint).

I think you’re missing the point. Adding middleman changes nothing, because whatever that middleman could do, so can Uber itself. The argument Uber makes is that the drivers the existing arrangement is beneficial to all involved parties, and if they are required to hire drivers as employees, they won’t be able to offer as many rides as they do today with current prices, so both users will lose out on rides they are no longer able to buy, but also the drivers who now provide these rides won’t be able to. Regardless of whether this argument is any good, it is clear that adding middlemen won’t help here.

"Making minimum wage" in CA means minimum wage( for the whole time you are working, not just when you have a passenger) the employer paying a share of the taxes including unemployment, 3 days of sick leave a year if you work full time, being eligible for healthcare if you work full time(that you still have to pay for), and your employer reimbursing employer related expenses like mileage.

Sure, but then again, the Uber drivers know what their getting into. You might argue that they are underpaid, but it’s hard to argue that they are getting scammed or cheated: the arrangement is clear upfront, and the earnings follow not too long after.

But laws about minimum wage and employee rights are not optional. A company can't decide to offer a job below minimum wage and argue that the arrangement is clear upfront, and therefore ok.

Even if they know what they are getting into its minimum wage, not suggested minimal wage.

Actually that is incorrect. The Hertz deal does not cover all maintenance expenses, for example if you blow a tire on a pothole, you have to pay for it. There are a lot more of those exceptions in the fine print, so be sure to read it all!

Except what all the employment hawks ignore is that 70% of ride-share drivers don’t want to be employees. Number one concern is pay. Number two is autonomy. Benefits aren’t even a consideration.

This whole thing is about lawyers and the taxi industry. It’s bullshit.

Uber is far from perfect, but let’s make sure we raise every point when arguing about it.

>70% of ride-share drivers don't want to be employees

Firstly, is that backed up by data? Secondly, what is their reason for not wanting to be employees? Is it something about immigration law, exploitative employers or truly something about freedom?

Yep.

https://therideshareguy.com/uber-driver-survey/

Why is it so hard to believe drivers enjoy their freedom? They get to control their schedule. Turn the app on and off. Quit after two rides or drive for ten hours because the hits keep coming.

This is not exploitation. There’s a small number of drivers taking advantage of free lawyers backed by the taxi industry.

But more than anything. If you don’t like ride share don’t drive for ride share. Find a different job. Who said anyone has a right to demand a job to be created their way? Ride share works as it is. If you want a full-time with benefits go get a trucking job. There are a ton of those.

> Other ethnicities like Hispanic/Latino reported just 7.1% compared to the national average of 17.8%

Disclosure. I am not in the United States, I am no expert. But the over-representation of some groups may be what is wrong with that data. It could be that those people that were missed by the survey feel more exploited?

Across the pond in the UK it is not drivers welfare that is driving me to think they should be employees, but tax. In the UK being employed means your boss pays national insurance (a kind of tax). Secondly VAT (sales tax) is only charged by entities with sales over £85k ie not one driver on their own (making them much cheaper). However if they were employees the sales would be by Uber and subject to 20%VAT. HMRC finally got around to demanding this from Uber this week.

https://goodlawproject.org/update/hmrc-to-collect-1-5bn-uber...

But Uber/Lyft/Doordash etc can give them autonomy, they can make them true contractors.

I also doubt that the law forces companies to have a work schedule for their employees. From what I understand it just says that benefits are provided if employee works for more than certain amount of hours.

So to me it seems like it's all about exploiting their drivers (treating drivers like employees without providing advantages that employees have)

While it's true that the law doesn't force companies to assign shifts to employees, in practice, it's always the case.

The reason is because ultimately, scheduling shifts is going to be both easier to manage and more cost efficient than letting employees choose their own schedule.

Uber has a good idea of how many drivers they need at any given time. This ideal distribution of supply will never align perfectly with the supply pool's natural scheduling preferences. You can try to use economic incentives to force these two distributions to overlap, or you can just exert control (that you rightfully have over employees) and force your employees to work when you need them.

If scheduling shifts were better for Uber and Lyft, they would have done it already.

You can't legally schedule shifts for independent contractors.

Are you sure about that? Because I worked with other contractors and they also had a schedule like me. The main difference was that they didn't get any benefits and could be let go immediately.

but you're saying shifts are scheduled because it is easier for companies. And that's actually true, if people work at the same time, it's easier to cooperate if a manager likes to micromanage it is also easier look at their screen making sure they are working.

The thing is that Uber et al prefers if there is no schedule and law actually doesn't stand in the way of that.

> But Uber/Lyft/Doordash etc can give them autonomy, they can make them true contractors.

How? As far as I understand, this is literally impossible with AB5, unless they get an exemption like all the other contractor-based industries.

They could make drivers independent, allow them receive payments directly (if they chose so) and instead charge them for using their apps. Kind of like it is normally done.

I am generally skeptical about the “market-ness” of the labor market. There are many situations in which people are not as free to switch jobs as a free-market proponent might want them to be. There is the obvious example of slavery, historical and modern, but many other groups are not able to experience any real free market for labor. One that comes to mind is miners, who often develop highly-specialized skills and live in areas with few other opportunities (I can highly recommend Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Henry Caudill if you’re interested in the details). I’m not sure if gig economy workers are in exactly the same boat, but be skeptical of free market claims when it comes to labor.

> I’m not sure if gig economy workers are in exactly the same boat, but be skeptical of free market claims when it comes to labor.

Gig economy workers have the freest movement of labor possible. If they get a better job tomorrow, they just take it...they don't even have to tell Uber. That's the whole point of the "gig" in Gig Economy.

Moreover, many people literally drive for Uber and for Lyft at the same time, to the extent that it's an issue in determining how company-sponsored accident insurance should be applied.

I don't think that's an issue of freedom: drivers can drive for the company they like, just not as a wage slave.

His point is that they're not "wage slaves". They can freely move to another minimum wage job. The fact that they don't indicates that Uber is a better deal.

For now. If Uber gets away with it, all taxi companies will follow, and the situation changes.

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