Why not? You could take a contract to build a shed by the end of the day and then not have time to build any others that day.
If you're a contractor hired to build a shed and it takes you 8 hours, you're there all day. But if you can build it in 2 hours, you get to go home, and you still get paid the same.
If you're a Target employee brought in to do inventory and it takes most people 8 hours but you finish in 2, you're only going home if you don't want to get paid for the other 6 hours. Otherwise you're going to be stocking shelves or sweeping floors or working a register until the clock runs out.
Driving works like the first one. If you can make a 45 minute drive take 42 minutes, you get to keep the other 3 minutes. (In theory if you can make a 45 minute drive take 15 minutes you get to keep the other 30 minutes, but good luck with that.)
The situations where a contractor relationship applies are plain and obvious. Any time you have to ask if someone is an employee you are probably exploiting the fine line to avoid having to follow the law. Kind of like if you have to ask if you are actually committing fraud you probably are. Depending on which side of the fine line a judge comes down on you may or may not be punished for it but you aren't a better person for it.
As it is, I see the preponderance of arguments on the side of it being regular employment without the expected benefits.
For what it's worth every Uber ride I've taken I would have taken at double the price, it's possible they could afford to pay their full time drivers benefits.
Let's evaluate this for a moment.
Suppose the people driving for Uber could get a job somewhere else as an employee. In this case they willingly chose the driving job with e.g. more flexible hours over the other job with employment status, so why are we second guessing their choice and trying to take it away?
Now suppose the other job isn't available to them. Job prospects for unskilled workers are pretty bad, so it's either Uber or unemployment. Then it's the same thing -- they'd rather drive for Uber as a contractor than be unemployed, so why should we take that option away from them?
The theory behind forcing them to be employees is that it's "better" for them. If they're employees they get employee benefits. But then they can't work part time anymore, because if the company is going to pay full time benefits then they're going to want full time hours. Flexible hours go away too, because if they're forced to pay benefits they can use them to attract people who don't need flexible hours and no longer have to accommodate people who do.
Then the benefits cost money, but the company's margins are pretty thin so the only place to get the money is by making rides more expensive. That hurts all the working class people who have to pay more for rides, but it also lowers demand for rides. Lower demand, fewer drivers.
So a lot of the existing drivers, and specifically the most vulnerable of them who can't find another job or need the flexible schedule, lose their jobs.
They might be better off if we don't "help" them like this.
Classifying things like unemployment insurance under that banner is silly, because anybody who wants it can go buy it with money, so it makes no sense to require it rather than letting workers and companies negotiate over whether they'd rather have that or some other thing like higher pay. Every company has to convince their workers to work there and not somewhere else, so everything like that which they don't provide requires them to provide something else instead.
Imposing those requirements hurt workers by taking their options away -- somebody who knows they're only going to be a driver for four years as they work their way through college may very well be better off to have the money that would otherwise be paid to the insurance carrier than to have the unemployment insurance, which they'll not use anyway because Uber doesn't do "layoffs" of contractors and it's very unlikely demand for rides is going to disappear in the next four years.
Who's taking it away, though? There's no law that a company can't offer employees flexible hours, and nobody's arguing that there should be. If Uber decides employee drivers can't have flexible hours, then that's on them. This argument is a non-sequitor with regard to employee/contractor status.
> Now suppose the other job isn't available to them. Job prospects for unskilled workers are pretty bad, so it's either Uber or unemployment. Then it's the same thing -- they'd rather drive for Uber as a contractor than be unemployed, so why should we take that option away from them?
Is it "Uber or unemployment", though? Are unskilled workers without a car just completely screwed? No, because those aren't the only two choices. Do you know of an actual case where a person has had no other choices than Uber and unemployment? It's a red herring.
> The theory behind forcing them to be employees is that it's "better" for them.
I can't speak to France, but in the United States the difference has a lot more to do with taxes and social security than it does with any immediate, direct benefits to the employee.
> If they're employees they get employee benefits. But then they can't work part time anymore, because if the company is going to pay full time benefits then they're going to want full time hours. Flexible hours go away too, because if they're forced to pay benefits they can use them to attract people who don't need flexible hours and no longer have to accommodate people who do.
Again, I don't know about France, but in the United States "employee benefits" have almost nothing to do with employee/contractor status. No company is required to provide any benefits other than wages. If Uber decides employee drivers don't get flexible hours, that's on them, not the law.
> Then the benefits cost money, but the company's margins are pretty thin so the only place to get the money is by making rides more expensive. That hurts all the working class people who have to pay more for rides, but it also lowers demand for rides. Lower demand, fewer drivers.
In the United States, the "benefits" are things like unemployment insurance, social security, income tax, and things like that, which the drivers should already be paying for themselves. In theory this is already coming out of the driver's earnings, so having the company pay it instead shouldn't make a difference to the end user's price.
The flexible hours come in exchange for contractor status. If they paid employee benefits they could attract employees who don't need flexible hours. Which means if you force them to pay employee benefits either way, they take those workers instead of the ones who need flexible hours and the ones who need flexible hours are out of work.
> Is it "Uber or unemployment", though? Are unskilled workers without a car just completely screwed? No, because those aren't the only two choices. Do you know of an actual case where a person has had no other choices than Uber and unemployment? It's a red herring.
It's one of the two possibilities. The other is that they had the option of working for someone else as an employee but willingly chose Uber, e.g. because of flexible hours. Or maybe they like driving a car better than cleaning toilets. Whatever the reason, you're taking away that option.
> I can't speak to France, but in the United States the difference has a lot more to do with taxes and social security than it does with any immediate, direct benefits to the employee.
In the US the employee and employer each pay half of social security. Contractors are "self-employed" so they pay both halves. But everybody knows this, so you have to pay a contractor that much more (or provide some other valuable consideration like flexible hours) to get them to work for you instead of somewhere they're an employee. If you make Uber drivers employees, more people want the job and by supply and demand the wages go down.
> Again, I don't know about France, but in the United States "employee benefits" have almost nothing to do with employee/contractor status.
There are a bunch of rules and incentives with respect to employer-provided health insurance, unemployment insurance etc. that apply to employees and not contractors. If there was no difference then why would anybody care about how the drivers are classified?
In general you could expect a reclassification to negatively impact everyone involved, because being an employee involves a lot more paperwork and bureaucracy but the value in any advantage from it should then get reflected in correspondingly lower compensation (or loss of employment if that level of compensation falls below minimum wage).
You keep saying that, but there's nothing backing it up. Contractors typically have more flexible hours, but companies are free to allow flexible hours if they want to. If the drivers were employees, it would be Uber's choice to give them flexible hours or not.
> If they paid employee benefits they could attract employees who don't need flexible hours. Which means if you force them to pay employee benefits either way, they take those workers instead of the ones who need flexible hours and the ones who need flexible hours are out of work.
That's all speculation, though. Maybe the displaced employees will start an Uber competitor that does give flexible hours, beat out Uber, and become the next unicorns. It could be the best thing that ever happens to them...
Really, it's a wash. One group loses a specific job option because they need flexible hours and Uber (supposedly) won't allow it , and another group gains that option because they need regularity.
> There are a bunch of rules and incentives with respect to employer-provided health insurance, unemployment insurance etc. that apply to employees and not contractors. If there was no difference then why would anybody care about how the drivers are classified?
Who is paying for the driver's insurance right now, though? If each driver pays for their own then they'll collectively save a ton of money on a corporate group plan. Employees working under 30 hours a week aren't even required to get employer provided insurance, though, so there may not be a change for people taking advantage of those flexible hours...
> In general you could expect a reclassification to negatively impact everyone involved, because being an employee involves a lot more paperwork and bureaucracy but the value in any advantage from it should then get reflected in correspondingly lower compensation (or loss of employment if that level of compensation falls below minimum wage).
There's not more paperwork and bureaucracy - the existing paperwork and bureaucracy is just concentrated into Uber's HR and finance departments, instead of being done by thousands of drivers.
The reason they give them flexible hours is in exchange for not having to do the things that come with classifying them as employees. It's what allows them to attract drivers even when they're classified as contractors. If they paid benefits then they could attract drivers without offering flexible hours -- but that doesn't help the drivers who need flexible hours and not benefits.
Not only that, they would be less able to offer flexible hours. When they're hiring contractors, they don't have to care what hours people want to work. If you're an employee, 30 hours is not an option, because if you're working enough to require benefits then they're going to want to make the most of it by having you work 40 hours. But 60 hours is out too, because as an employee you're not going to be approved for overtime. Choosing your own schedule is also out, because for contractors they'll take anyone at any time they're willing to work, but if they're paying benefits and need you to work a specific number of hours a week then they'll want to schedule those hours at times that maximize the number of rides rather than whenever is easiest for you.
Saying that they could still allow flexible hours in a theoretical sense doesn't help anybody when reclassification as employees gives them all these incentives not to.
> That's all speculation, though. Maybe the displaced employees will start an Uber competitor that does give flexible hours, beat out Uber, and become the next unicorns. It could be the best thing that ever happens to them...
Maybe they'll win the lottery five times in a row and then get elected President of the United States. That's speculation.
It's not speculation to say that if Uber pays benefits, it makes it easier for them to attract employees, which allows them to do other things that are less attractive to employees and still find workers. The thing they choose to claw back may be the flexible hours or it may be something else, but it'll be something the drivers currently have which Uber will no longer have to offer because their job would be competitive without it if they paid benefits.
> Really, it's a wash. One group loses a specific job option because they need flexible hours and Uber (supposedly) won't allow it , and another group gains that option because they need regularity.
Work with flexible hours is a lot more scarce than shift work, so making it unavailable in exchange for much more common shift work is not a wash. It's a huge problem for people who need flexible hours.
Also, regularity is a subset of flexible hours. If you want to work 9-5, a job with flexible hours allows that. So you're not adding an option, you're only taking one off the table which was hard to find to begin with.
> Who is paying for the driver's insurance right now, though? If each driver pays for their own then they'll collectively save a ton of money on a corporate group plan.
For a normal corporate group plan, maybe, but think about the context here. You have a group which is inherently at high risk of medical bills due to car accidents. Then this is a job where they accept anyone with a valid driver's license. First thing that happens to that corporate group plan is that everyone without health insurance who gets diagnosed with cancer or cardiovascular disease or diabetes signs up as a driver and uses the "new job" condition to immediately take the insurance.
That group plan would cost more than what you could get on the exchanges.
> Employees working under 30 hours a week aren't even required to get employer provided insurance, though, so there may not be a change for people taking advantage of those flexible hours...
The people taking advantage of flexible hours aren't necessarily the people working less than 30 hours. If you want to work 5 hours while your kids are at school at 2 hours after they go to bed, you'll have a hard time negotiating that schedule at Target, but it's still 35 hours a week.
The people who work under 30 hours may not see much of a difference, but "this change may have no real effect on a particular subgroup of people" is not actually an argument that it is benefiting them.
> There's not more paperwork and bureaucracy - the existing paperwork and bureaucracy is just concentrated into Uber's HR and finance departments, instead of being done by thousands of drivers.
In other words, there is more paperwork and bureaucracy. Because there are still thousands of drivers, but now there is an extraneous middle man between the drivers and their insurance carrier, making choices on their behalf that they might not prefer and processing paperwork that the insurance carrier will only have to process again.
I would have taken a ride at double the price. But, for example, on the rare occasions I've used a ride-share from my house to the airport for personal travel, it's purely been because of price. Were it double the price, I'd just book a private car like I do for business travel.
So only rich people should have opportunities?
And 'normal employment' means 'unemployment' for a lot of people in France these years.
France should encourage more companies to enter and contest the market that Uber is in.
See https://www.idiosyncraticwhisk.com/2019/05/uber-and-wages-in... for how when Uber and eg Lyft are both operating in the same market, the result is almost a textbook case of perfect competition.
They don't know they can do both and went with what they believed to be the most popular. These are usually uber only drivers.
They had a bad experience with too many customers on one platform. These are usually Lyft drivers that are actually using the platform for the occasional side money instead of a full on job.
It's much more analogous to a contractor working for a general contractor -- if I'm a plumber I can take gigs from multiple general contractors, and my ability to negotiate with the customer directly is very limited; instead I'm usually left negotiating with the general contractor, often just with a take it or leave it price. The general contractor is not the employer in this case.