23
votes
California legislators approved a landmark bill on Tuesday that requires companies like Uber and Lyft to treat contract workers as employees
Link information
This data is scraped automatically and may be incorrect.
- Title
- California Passes Landmark Bill to Remake Gig Economy
- Published
- Sep 11 2019
- Word count
- 1340 words
Good. It's in line with reasonable distinctions for employees and contractors elsewhere, and gig companies have mostly been skating by on lax enforcement. I'm glad to see that it's changing and that the law has some teeth to it.
Here's Uber's statement: https://www.uber.com/newsroom/ab5-update/
This is world-class corporate doublespeak bullshit. Print that out, frame it, and hang it on the wall in schools that teach these sort of PR tactics.
It's very telling that they're calling it an "offer". The California legislature wants to regulate the gig economy. Uber doesn't get to propose an "offer" of how they'd like to be regulated instead.
So Uber, which is most well known for ridesharing, wants to take the position that drivers aren't part of their core business? That's...an interesting argument, and I look forward to hearing a judge laugh them out of court for making it.
The rest of the statement seems to boil down to "we think passing this law would be a bad idea...but also, we claim it wouldn't affect us at all. But still, despite that, we're against passing it, because it would be bad."
Yes, they do. "Offer" might not be the right word but, as an interested party, Uber absolutely is allowed to put forward suggestions for legislation which concerns them. Public consultation with interested parties is an important part of drafting legislation.
Of course, it's ultimately up to the legislature to decide which suggestions to put into their law. But that doesn't prevent parties from submitting proposals (or "offers").
Here in Australia, when someone took Uber to the Fair Work Commission, Uber's argument was that they're not a transport company. They're not in the business of providing transportation to customers. They're just an app provider: they provide an app which connects people who happen to want to hire a driver with people who happen to want to hire themselves out as a driver.
Interesting. This same argument was exactly the reason that the Australian Fair Work Ombudsman ruled that the drivers using Uber's app are not employees of Uber. Let's hope the Californians fare better.
They also used it in a UK employment tribunal last year where judges decided the drivers are entitled to employee protections. Part of the drivers' argument in that one centered on the fact that truly independent contractors would be able to choose their own routes and pricing, but it was also helped by the fact that Uber itself has to be registered as a private hire company to operate in London, which legally undermined the "we're just an app company" argument.
How does this work? Traditional contract workers still have to put in 40 hours a week. Are the drivers that don't put in a full work week just not included?
If I'm understanding your question correctly, it's a deeper issue than full time vs part time benefits. The employee/independent contractor issue affects things as fundamental whether they are eligible for minimum wage, for example.