And do they cook one food order at a restaurant they work for, then 15 minutes later walk across the street and cook for a competing restaurant for 30 minutes, and then immediately walk back across the street and cook a food order for the other restaurant? No, of course that's not normal.
This will ultimately accelerate the ability of the strongest companies to destroy their competition and potential competition. If Uber doesn't bleed to death financially first, that will be Uber due to their global scale.
Uber may not realize it because they're stupid, but this bolsters survival of the strongest in the segment. They can easily kill off competition using this by eating the labor supply. Someone that would have previously worked for multiple companies - trivially flipping between services as it was most ideal for the driver to grab a fare - will no longer be available for multiple companies at the same time. They'll now largely hold a normal job and will not want to work for multiple companies, pulling two shifts per day. Sure, there may be exceptions of drivers that want to pull a weekend job with another service or work two jobs per day, but exceptions is all they'll be. This will narrow the market winners dramatically and quickly.
Monopolize the market, consume the labor supply, raise passenger fees, lean in to killing off the competition. It's super simple.
If I were Uber I'd abuse the stock market for funding to pay artificially high wages to the labor supply (get all the best drivers), and I'd hire more drivers than I absolutely need (deprive the competition), and begin this killing process immediately. I'd go one market to the next, using Uber's market cap as the funding base to monopolize each market. This type of ruling makes labor supply a competitive advantage to whichever company can acquire the most and best drivers. A global ride hailing app will be advantaged over the smaller local/regional competition accordingly.
The next ride hailing app in the market that wants to get started will find no available labor supply to compete with. Welcome to competition stagnation.
And of course then the moronic regulators will come back around, having created a monster, and they'll have to pursue anti-trust (or the equivalent) against the market winner they helped to cause.
As a former Lyft/uber driver this is absolutely correct. It gets even hairier: suppose you are sitting on both apps (or even more) waiting for a ride. Do you get to double-bill two companies for minimum wage hours?
I think what is going happen is if Uber and Lyft are forced to recategorize as employees, they get to do something like "compel drivers to wear a uniform", so like a polo with the brand on it, and prohibit wearing of competitors logo. Or prohibit displaying competitor logo on the car (displaying is a legal requirement in many jurisdictions). In the end the take-home for the driver is going to be worse.
I'm quite frankly surprised that Uber didn't preempt the legislation by creating a class of driver that is an employee, putting these sorts of onerous restrictions on the driver, plus other ones like "you must start and end at central processing center, drive an uber-owned car", "requiring shifts on ADA-compliant vehicles", "being required to comply with an uber-generated shift schedule", in exchange for bare minimum wage and benefits.
Here in the UK Uber drivers have Uber stickers on their cars. I rarely get picked up by a driver without them.
What imaginary other company are they working for that would tolerate that?
It might not be the case in America, but over here it certainly seems most drivers are working for one company.
IMO this is a no-brainer, the answer is yes, double-bill. The same applies if you get two remote jobs, you bill both.
That's definitely illegal.
Maybe fraud and breach of contract if, in the full-time contract, it says "you affirm you do not have another full-time job that will interfere with this job".
Again, I don't do it because I can't handle the stress of two jobs, but I don't begrudge those who can
Additionally, it's a pretty obvious opening to a lawsuit in at least most jurisdictions for breach of fiduciary duty (under the duty of loyalty -- Google this + your own jurisdiction for more details on what it covers where you are) and breach of contract.
Now, the employer probably won't sue or prosecute in most circumstances, so you may get away with it. But that's some high-stakes roulette, especially since you're not going to get UI if you get fired for gross misconduct and you're not going to get a good recommendation.
I'm not at all sure they can. You haven't really explained here why Uber is apparently capable of hiring all drivers and starving the labor pool, yet Applebees can't use the same strategy for cooks, or Amazon the same strategy for warehouse workers or software engineers.
Calling them "moronic regulators" without explaining why the same model that works in other markets can't work in this one isn't all that compelling.
Right now, I would be willing to bet that a large majority of Lyft drivers also drive for Uber. Uber is so much larger that there is no real alternative. If the law makes it so that drivers can choose only one rideshare app, they will all choose Uber because its bigger.
The idea that Uber would pay drivers so much to have extra drivers just sitting around doing nothing is absurd. The idea that there would be no suitable drivers left to other firms to hire is absurd.
If any of this claim made sence, then this would have happened 50 years ago, we've had drivers around for a while.
Yet it does not happen in haulage where drivers are actual professionals, it does not happen for solicitors where labour supply is way more constrained. What do you have to backup your claim?
This _has_ been the case in major cities around the world before Uber took over. NYC has the yellow cab monopoly. London had the black cab monopoly. These companies grew large enough to buy up all available labor (this was made easier by the medallion system).
Uber is no different. It _already_ has a dominant market position. Other rideshare companies _already_ share their drivers. The amount of drivers who drive for Lyft only is vanishingly small. If you force all those drivers to choose, they will choose Uber and Lyft will die.
Exactly, legislative monopoly - they didn't run out of people with cars willing to drive. You are talking about labour shortage, that's a completely different argument
It's a number of companies, and a huge number of individual operators, competing with dozens of private hire companies.
So I don't think painting "London's black cabs" as a monopoly holds water.
What does "lean in to killing off the competition" mean? I don't understand what you mean by lean in.
That's a pretty bad test on it's own. Plenty of people working in restaurants work for multiple companies, they're still employees.