U.S. Judge Gives Uber Drivers Class Action Status

I think it is safe to say we all saw this coming. Now it's just matter of whether or not Uber drivers end up being classified as employees or contractors.

A U.S. judge said on Tuesday Uber drivers are entitled to class action status in litigation over whether they are independent contractors or employees, part of a case that could have wide implications for the sharing economy.

Nasgul said:

This is what happens when people don't have an education and forget to read the fine print. I bet they (Uber drivers), don't know the difference between "registering" and "applying".

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Distinguishing between an independent contractor and employees is well established in law so it doesn't matter what Uber puts into their terms.

I just dont get it. How is this any different than any site that links buyers with sellers? If I sell something on Ebay am i an Ebay employee? They sell a service so maybe its more like Angie's List but still.

cia1413 said:

I just dont get it. How is this any different than any site that links buyers with sellers? If I sell something on Ebay am i an Ebay employee? They sell a service so maybe its more like Angie's List but still.

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You would be an Ebay employee if Ebay did various things like set your price, determined who you sold your product to, determined how your product look, Ebay was in the general business of selling the same products that you do, among other tests that are used to determine IC vs employee.

Nasgul said:

This is what happens when people don't have an education and forget to read the fine print. I bet they (Uber drivers), don't know the difference between "registering" and "applying".

Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to sue either eBay or Paypal, but whichever one of those two, I want more money.

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Just because you put something in a TOS or contract doesn't mean it waives any other legal right or remedy that may be in the law elsewhere.

Nasgul said:

This is what happens when people don't have an education and forget to read the fine print. I bet they (Uber drivers), don't know the difference between "registering" and "applying".

Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to sue either eBay or Paypal, but whichever one of those two, I want more money.

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You say this like there are jobs out there that DON'T fuck you in the fine print.

Legit independent contractors are pretty rare. Most are employees who are misclassified and being abused by their employers.

SLee said:

You would be an Ebay employee if Ebay did various things like set your price, determined who you sold your product to, determined how your product look, Ebay was in the general business of selling the same products that you do, among other tests that are used to determine IC vs employee.

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But with Uber, you can decide if you want to pick up the person or not.
The person requests a ride, and all the Uber drivers who are signed in are notified that there is a potential customer waiting.

The fact the drivers can decided when they want to work (they have no set schedule), and what fares they accept (or none for that mater), makes them a lot more independent than a typical employee.

I don't see this as any different than a company contracting out a job like an office remodel, or janitorial service. The person that accepts the job is not an employee.

nutzo said:

But with Uber, you can decide if you want to pick up the person or not.
The person requests a ride, and all the Uber drivers who are signed in are notified that there is a potential customer waiting.

The fact the drivers can decided when they want to work (they have no set schedule), and what fares they accept (or none for that mater), makes them a lot more independent than a typical employee.

I don't see this as any different than a company contracting out a job like an office remodel, or janitorial service. The person that accepts the job is not an employee.

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They are only allowed to work when Uber provides them a fare. Just because they log in does not guarantee they will be able to work. Sounds like Uber is in control of when they work to me...

nutzo said:

But with Uber, you can decide if you want to pick up the person or not.
The person requests a ride, and all the Uber drivers who are signed in are notified that there is a potential customer waiting.

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You can, for awhile. Typically Uber doesn't like it when you do it too much since experienced drivers avoid driving long and unpaid distances to pickup passengers who likely are only traveling a short distance. Eventually, the driver will get deactivated.

Kueller said:

They are only allowed to work when Uber provides them a fare. Just because they log in does not guarantee they will be able to work. Sounds like Uber is in control of when they work to me...

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Another way to look at it is an ambulance dispatch. Now I live in a rural area where 100% of the ambulances are owned by the town. Fire / EMT are both together in the same buildings. But I know other areas have dispatch that goes out to multiple companies that offer ambulance services. Whoever takes it first or gets there first gets the person or something like that I assume, don't know how it works since again I don't have that in my area. This is kind of the same. Don't some places have the same for a taxi where they reach out to multiple companies? Again don't have taxis here so wouldn't know. I have corn fields, soy beans... and well...... not much else.

Here you have multiple people that say I am able to take fees, however in this case instead of it being 4+ Ambulance companies it is 4+ drivers that are told "I have this person that needs a ride" and the first to respond gets the person. So they are just acting like a dispatch in that case.

Depending on how you look at it, I can see it going either way. Uber lets people sign up to be drivers, they inform them of fairs and the person takes them up on the offer. They are using their cars, during their time, they are not given hours to work and can select what they do and do not take as far as fares. So in that regards you are contracted by them to work and they pay you for your service. This isn't much different than when the local utility company hires somebody to come bury fiber or set poles or something like that. They are paying somebody to do a service for them. However at the same time, they are doing this only as a "service" to uber, they aren't out working for multiple companies taking jobs from them all. So they only have this transport job while working for uber. They take fares directly from uber and get paid directly from them a percentage of what they bring in from the fare. So the customer is paying Uber and they are paying the driver, not the customer paying the driver. So it is more of a employee / employer relation in that regard.

Kueller said:

They are only allowed to work when Uber provides them a fare. Just because they log in does not guarantee they will be able to work. Sounds like Uber is in control of when they work to me...

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So the real question is if this judge will side with the liberal union backed left, or the liberal bay area tech companies.

If he sides with the unions, it will kill Ubers business model, and all these Uber drivers will be out of a job.

If he sides with the tech companies, the unions will eventually push through a law outlawing this kind of business, putting Uber out of business anyways.

Either way Uber will eventually lose.

nutzo said:

So the real question is if this judge will side with the liberal union backed left, or the liberal bay area tech companies.

If he sides with the unions, it will kill Ubers business model, and all these Uber drivers will be out of a job.

If he sides with the tech companies, the unions will eventually push through a law outlawing this kind of business, putting Uber out of business anyways.

Either way Uber will eventually lose.

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It is my understanding that Uber is currently operating at a net loss. So their business model is: Run on (highly wealthy private) investor money because Apps are the new Dot Com.

The only thing a ruling would change is getting Uber drivers a bigger chunk of the (highly wealthy private) investor money pie. Actually it's bigger than a pie, it's like an all you can stuff in your pockets buffet.

Kueller said:

It is my understanding that Uber is currently operating at a net loss. So their business model is: Run on (highly wealthy private) investor money because Apps are the new Dot Com.

The only thing a ruling would change is getting Uber drivers a bigger chunk of the (highly wealthy private) investor money pie. Actually it's bigger than a pie, it's like an all you can stuff in your pockets buffet.

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Pretty much every new company in existence runs at a loss for a while. Amazon only became (barely) profitable just recently.

Grahamkracka said:

Pretty much every new company in existence runs at a loss for a while. Amazon only became (barely) profitable just recently.

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Yeah, and Amazon has huge warehouses filled with robots, significant inventory, a ton of employee-employees, AWS server farms ect ect. Amazon has a ton of capital infrastructure they've been dumping their revenues into.

Uber may or may not have employees (and massive liabilities if it does have employees), doesn't own it's own vehicles...Do they even host their own service or to they contract for the hosting? Aside from IP, I can't think of what capital Uber actually has.

Regardless, Uber's losses are operating losses. Amazon's losses were capital infrastructure investment losses.