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Re:Rideshare operations are being suspended in California by xzel on Thursday August 20, 2020 @03:18PM (#24227489)
I've done tutoring for people in small increments like 15-30 minutes for questions before tests. That seems similar to micro-shifts though that is freelance. Lawyers have billable hours and work for multiple clients. Some firms do have compensation tied to billable hours as well. While it's not exactly the same thing the result feels similar to me.
Re:Rideshare operations are being suspended in California by function_seven on Thursday August 20, 2020 @03:23PM (#24227552)
Both of those examples aren't similar at at all.

Your freelance tutoring is not employer/employee work. You're a freelancer. You set your own hours and rates.

Lawyers do not work for multiple law firms, choosing which firm to work for as they see fit. Whereas drivers very often work for both Lyft and Uber (and Postmates or Grubhub, etc) at the same time.

Re:Rideshare operations are being suspended in California by xzel on Thursday August 20, 2020 @03:29PM (#24227642)
Yes neither of my examples were exactly the same. I'm talking about feel and results and specifically I wasn't talking about how current drivers operate, I was talking about how the resulting circumstance might exist in the future.

But to go back to the tutoring example: if I was working for a tutoring company, agreed to take clients between lets say 1-5 PM, and the rate was set by the company, would that be similar enough?

Re:Rideshare operations are being suspended in California by sushid on Thursday August 20, 2020 @04:02PM (#24228137)
No, you're a contractor in that example. There are high fixed costs to hiring an employee. You're not going to get anyone on board with these micro-shifts, period.
Re:Rideshare operations are being suspended in California by Anon1096 on Thursday August 20, 2020 @03:33PM (#24227687)
No, because tutoring companies don't give "microshifts" for this exact reason.
Re:Rideshare operations are being suspended in California by mumblemumble on Thursday August 20, 2020 @03:22PM (#24227548)
All that is true, but remember that we're operating within the realm of legal terminology here.

What the word "employee" means within the context of California labor laws is probably quite different from what we understand it to mean in everyday conversation. What one can imagine might work in an abstract sense may not be even remotely possible within California's legal framework. What is known to already happen and work well in other states isn't necessarily possible in California, either. (At least not without getting the legislature involved.)

Re:Rideshare operations are being suspended in California by smsm42 on Thursday August 20, 2020 @03:32PM (#24227672)
Lawyers that do billable hours aren't the employees of the client they bill. So you actually are proving the point opposite to what you wanted to prove.
Re:Rideshare operations are being suspended in California by xzel on Thursday August 20, 2020 @04:00PM (#24228097)
I'm not trying to prove anything, just exploring. Anyways, I'm talking about the result. I also don't know enough about CA employe law to make any claims, which I don't think I did.