It's not really fair to frame them as employees. Their relationship with Uber is a two way street - they can work whenever they want and can drive for another service in parallel. They don't have a boss in the traditional sense, but rather they are providing services to Uber. Denying that places the entire concept of the "gig economy" at risk, and it's a shame because this mutual flexibility is the only way forward in many fields, for both the companies and individuals.

It seems clear to me that firms like Uber are arb'ing a gap in current employment law. The question isn't whether or not Uber drivers meet the FLSA and IRS definitions of an "employee". Sure, fine, whatever, they don't. But:

* Is it moral to capitalize on employee classification rules to build an enormous workforce that is denied protections and benefits that are common to other employees? And,

* Do we as a society want to maintain the classification rules that allow this to happen?

We could easily change the rules so that, for instance, protections and benefits must be extended to anyone who does more than N hours of work for you in a calendar year. Individual states could do that. Shouldn't we? Why or why not? In answering, consider that over the long term, Uber won't be the only firm taking advantage of these rules, and that in competitive marketplaces the most ruthless, least responsible companies often have an insurmountable edge. One thing we like to do with regulation is to prevent races to the bottom.

Considering that taxi companies haven't offered such benefits for decades, it seems safe to imply that it's highly unlikely that a non-premium transportation service will have the necessary volume to make its margins anywhere outside NYC, LA and SF.

A resident of SF thus might have a very different outlook on this than a resident of Ann Arbor. They won't face a loss of service as a result of new government restriction.

Time-based limits on any kind of labor also seem to hit the wall at some point, and you can see it in Bay Area. At some point a court decision mandated extending full-time benefits to contractors with employment record longer than 12 months, and if you browse contractor listings for any of the Bay Area mega-corps, they're pretty explicit the contract is for 12 months and 12 months only without a possibility of extension.

Similarly Uber app will likely just go dark after N hours of work have been reached in a given year. Do we as a society win from having the worker switch to Lyft or look for another job?

Game studios in California hire QA mostly as contractors. Because of the regulation all these contractors get a "break" of 3 months after every 12 (or 18 months?) to prevent them from becoming FTE from the point of view of the law. From what I can tell, the only people hurt by this are the QA themselves. They either need to find a new job or live off their copious savings for 90 days to return to the job they already had.

This is not "double Irish" scheme, a bright 8 y.o. could have figured this outcome, yet, this being California, people still vote for the people who bring these laws on them. Boggles my mind.

One way to deal with this (what I'd say is the right way but hardest way) is to take the burdens usually placed on employers to provide and have the state take the tab...funded by an increase in taxes.

If you're talking about property taxes, you might want to read up about Prop 13(1978) and how it fundamentally altered the tax base of California.

There are some good points that we are still fighting the after effects of this policy to this day. A good example would be how business owners encapsulate their properties to not trigger the re-assessment of the property to current values. It explains a number of the remaining low cost/slum-lord apartments still around.

After which 100% of state's private employer workforce is converted to contractor status.

are handymen on angieslist, or freelancers on upwork, or babysitters on care, musicians on craigslist, or callgirls on backpages working for angieslist upwork care craigslist backpages etc?

drivers arent working for uber, uber is an app that facilitates a connection between a service provider and a client, not all that different than the yellow pages. uber is a communication provider, the same as att.

No, I don't know, probably, no, no.

The gig economy is a way to minimize labor costs. Uber drivers can "drive for another service in parallel", but Uber is devoting all of its resources right now to destroying those rivals.

It's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it is that the gig economy allows the creation of services that were previously unthinkable. I also find it ironic that Uber drivers are discussed from a point of exploited labor, while AirBNB renters are treated like greedy landlords - both services being very much alike: a way for individuals to provide services with their underutilized resources (time, vehicles, apartments).

An evening job at a telemarketing call center is also a way for an individual to provide services with their underutilized resources. But we have no trouble recognizing that as a "job", with an "employer", and all the attendant obligations.

If the telemarketing "job" was start/stop-when-you-want, get-paid-by-the-minute, then we would certainly have trouble recognizing this as an employer/employee relationship. Especially if it was being done from home using your own phone.

See liveops. http://www.liveops.com/

They've already done this. And from their careers page (http://www.liveops.com/company/careers-jobs) they are characterizing their operators as independent contractors, if I am reading the verbiage correctly.

(Source, I interviewed there and received an offer which I declined)

Uber didn't invent sporadic hours: that's a "feature" we (rightly) criticize in retail businesses that use software to rotate staff through multiple stores on bizarre, untenable schedules. Once again, the only thing I can see that's getting Uber a free pass is that they stuck a consumer app into the mix.

Retail schedule is controlled by the employer. Gig economy schedule is controlled by the employee.

But Uber drivers are not rotated. They are free to work when and where they wish.

So? This is the hair we're down to splitting?

This is hardly a hair. This is one of the several factors that the IRS explicitly tells us determines the difference between an employee and independent contractor. There's a list.

The analogy doesn't work, because AirBnB renters aren't a labor force.

An AirBNBer renting her place out isn't precluded from renting out other places, working another job, or being absent for any other reason. An Uber driver might try to interleave runs with Lyft, but that's risky, and while actually driving someone, the driver isn't free to do anything else.

I am sure I was using taxis at least 20 years before Uber appeared. Not sure what kind of never before seen service the people gigging there are providing.

... and no one dares to claim independent taxi operators are employees. They are service providers - they own the equipment and work on their own hours, subject to regulated price. The same goes to Uber, all they did was to change dispatch.

But they also lack things because of that contractor status. If I remember right, they are in charge of their own health care and liability insurance, as well as providing and upkeeping their own vehicle, adding tremendous amounts of mileage and expense that will need to be defrayed later on. Not even sure what happens if they are assaulted on the job.

The contractor status for low skill jobs is used too much as a way to put all the costs on the employee. That's why the sharing economy sucks.

ACA takes a dim view of employer-provided healthcare. A company is under obligation to provide a health insurance policy, but it does not have to subsidize it. It has to ensure the coverage is "affordable", but considering affordability is highly subjective and since there's already a state or federal run exchange in charge of providing affordable healthcare (it's the first A in ACA), offering a healthcare plan that's equivalent to the one offered on the exchange is deemed affordable enough. Basically, the government entity with its hundreds of thousands of participants is likely to extract a better rate from insurers than Joe's Tanning Salon and Fish Bait Shop in almost all circumstances.

Not sure about the other types of insurance, since an Uber vehicle was not bought by Uber, is not maintained by an Uber mechanic, and is used for other purposes than driving for Uber, it seems unlikely that they would offer more than commercial liability insurance they already offer https://newsroom.uber.com/56463/

Bin-go...

It's pretty sad that many other companies and jobs with "independent contractor" status but continually exploitative conditions have slipped under the radar.

Newspaper carriers are a particularly good example. Typically 100 miles or more, seven days a week, with the cost of each paper deducted from their pay.

I tried a paper route last year. It's a 60-70hr/week job without overtime pay. Pays less than minimum wage after factoring in vehicular expenses.

Excuse me for dumping, I just had to laugh when quitting the job meant a contractual month's-advance notice or a $3,000 fine.