Yeah, in your case it would make perfect sense to consider you an independent contractor instead of an employee.

I guess the issue arises when we got people working full-time hours but still being classified as an independent contractor.

> I guess the issue arises when we got people working full-time hours but still being classified as an independent contractor.

Why though? There's plenty of contractors in other industries that work exclusively for a single client, often for 40+ hours per week. In technology in particular it's more common than having multiple concurrent clients (per person, not per consultancy).

And some of those probably should be classified as employees.

In some countries there are limits on how long a company can employ a contractor. I can't find it at the moment but I think that here (Norway) it is something like four years. After that the contractor is supposed to be either let go or offered permanent employment. Perhaps someone more familiar with the rules could chip in, I've only been contracting for a short period.

I think the situation is somewhat similar in the US except that instead of a legal maximum the contract must specify an explicit end date after which there must be a break in employment.

Why not just provide both options to drivers? They can choose to be full-time employees, with whatever conditions that demands (e.g. exclusivity, hours, wages), or they can choose to take the independent contractor route, choosing their own hours, having control but being subject to whatever fares Uber wants to levy.

There is very little downside for the employee to be classified as such rather than as a contractor. The vast majority of the downside is for the employer.

I'm a W-2 employee at the company I work for, and they don't dictate my hours.

That's because your employer is choosing not to dictate your hours on their own volition. But an employer has every right to exercise that and that's the talking point.

Don’t forget the “exempt” vs “non-exempt” status for W-2 workers though.

That impacts whether you're eligible for overtime pay. Given that contractors are never mandated to receive overtime pay, a contractor position can never be superior in this regard.

Exempt status also impacts whether your hours are fixed or not. If they tell you that you must be in the office from 9AM to 5 PM, then you aren’t exempt.

> If they tell you that you must be in the office from 9AM to 5 PM, then you aren’t exempt.

That's not correct; the difference is that failure to fulfill such a requirement is a discipline issue (which can be dealt with by discipline up to an including termination), but not a pay issue based on hours worked as it would be for a non-exempt hourly employee.

https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1b7b6851-8415...

They can have “core business hours” though - but they can’t dock your salary if you don’t comply with those hours.

If you decide to not work for 2 months without telling anyone do you think you would still be employed? Because neither Uber nor Lyft would stop you from doing that.

The bill is intended to protect people for whom driving is one of their primary sources of income. Not to be callous, but most people aren't particularly worried about how this affects those who drive for Uber on occasion when they're "a little bored and looking for something to do".

90% are not full time .

I’m not sure what your point is? Part time employment is a thing.

Genuine question: Why would classification as employee automatically mean an end to the flexible work times?

To my knowledge, there are numerous business areas where it's possible to negotiate flexible work hours, so wouldn't this be here possible as well?

It wouldn't be an end to flexible work times, but due to per-employee overhead costs, the cost/benefit to the employer from the number of hours an employee works clearly spikes at a few different points due to overheads. At 0hrs/week, there is no overhead. At 20hrs, this is another ideal point since while you do have to give your labor a lot of rights, you don't need to offer certain benefits (vacation, sick pay, disability, health insurance) in many states (notably this works differently in california). At 40hrs, this is another good point since you don't have to pay overtime rates (but at least this cost isn't a big spike).

Basically there's a bunch of laws that spike certain expensive costs for employees if they work different amounts. Therefore its not very profitable to allow completely flexible work times. Otherwise many of their Hawaii drivers would drive for 21 hours for benefits, and the labor costs would be higher than if you were required to either drive for 20 hours or 40 hours.

I think ideally employees wouldn't be mandated to provide any expensive benefits to full-time employees and benefits would be centralized and funded through more taxation instead.

But mostly, uber is complaining because labor laws are complex

Not to nitpick in your post, but for CA this would be at 30 hours for the benefit of healthcare. CA Industrial Relations still classifies 40 as full-time, so unclear on what benefits are tied to that

Mandated wage guarantees and the costs of benefits would force Uber/Lyft to implement supply controls, which would result it a large fraction of drivers not being allowed to go online and drive.

The thing is, I would rather you are more restricted or stop driving for Uber, and full-time drivers get decent terms, then you get to keep your (seemingly) unnecessary side money and full-time people, for whom it is the main job, have substandard conditions and rights.

Ideally there wouldn't be a tradeoff, but in practice it seems like there is one.

A majority of drivers are part-timers (80% in this study [1]) would lose their ability to work for side money...

Who are we really subsidizing here?

[1] https://www.vox.com/2018/10/2/17924628/uber-drivers-make-hou... (FWIW, I don't agree with all the math on their earnings, but there are a lot of other reports out there on that)

The more important group that loses without flexible hours are people who get by on a combination of part time jobs, or are training/educating themselves and need extra money to support themselves.

Being employed and having flexible working hours are not exclusive.

What's wrong with being a temp employee with flex hours?

You raise a good point that labor law has an ugly bimodality regarding employee and independent contractor, where it might be better to refactor the law so that different protections apply based on some particulars of the arrangement. Working <10hrs/wk vs >20hrs/wk is one good place to draw a distinction.

I have considered driving for Uber very casually, but a few things keep me from doing it. First, I cannot drive the car I would prefer to drive (a two-seat sports car). Second, I would have to file a bunch of extra paperwork at tax time. Third, Uber doesn't allow drivers any control over the areas they wish to serve (so I could ensure that I'm just making short trips, etc). And, I guess the final nail in the coffin is that I wouldn't have much control at all over my preferred service area (say I wanted to just do a quick trip that ends no more than 5 miles from my house).

A right to employment for those relying on Uber for income wouldn’t mean you or Uber would be prohibited of working like you are today.

Edit: Removed my comment as it conflicted with the guidelines

This is against Hacker News guidelines:

"Please don't make insinuations about astroturfing. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried, email us and we'll look at the data."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Thanks, I'm new to commenting here, I don't see a delete but so I just edited my comment away.

Do you think the author is fake? Go read his comment history: https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=npmaile

The question is simply posed but unfortunately is rather difficult to answer because it depends what you mean by fake.

Accounts with a history are very valuable to companies in the business of "creating organic public support".

Also an author can be part of a community bit have a motivation to drive a discussion in a certain direction.

In either case it doesn't mean the post, the author, or the history are "fake" but it can mean there is some level of astroturfing going on.

Anyway I've been informed the guidelines prohibit such insinuations and I can understand why as they are an easy accusation but don't lend towards evidence based or productive discussions so I've removed my comment.

Certainly it's an annoying trait to claim that a statement you disagree with is disingenuous/insincere.