Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules

Re:Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules by devcpp on Monday September 13, 2021 @09:32AM (#28511243)

Why aren't these payments taken from the employee then? In my country retirement and social security appear right in my paycheck. Why isn't it the same for freelancers (when they declare taxes)? If their wage is too low as you claim, this isn't something that will change when they become employees, so this solves nothing. If this is about a minimum wage, then the real solution is forcing freelancers to work a minimum of monthly hours, which treats the root problem.

This assumes the meaning of freelancers is being able to join and leave an employer when you want, and not being able to fix your own prices and refuse gigs like others are saying. I think you should be able to open a freelance provider with restrictions, as Uber is doing. I see no reason to outlaw that.

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Re:Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules by consp on Monday September 13, 2021 @12:02PM (#28513145)

> This assumes the meaning of freelancers is being able to join and leave an employer when you want, and not being able to fix your own prices and refuse gigs like others are saying.

You see it that way, but the Dutch law doesn't. If the freelancer has no real choice and cannot dictate his/her own terms they are not a freelancer but an employee without the benefits of an employee. Social programs should be displayed these days on your paycheck if you are an employee. Not every (administration) company is doing it properly though.

Forcing freelancers to work more hours for less than a sustainable minimum pay solves nothing as the minimum wage is calculated on a full workweek.

I'm sure Uber is allowed to offer freelance work, but not with the current way of doing business. As soon as they let the freelancer dictate the pay (or at least properly negotiate) it looks they will be fine.

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Re:Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules by mattmanser on Monday September 13, 2021 @01:17PM (#28514044)

Not sure what country you are, but most also have the Employer pay on top of that too.

So you might pay a 10% social security tax, and the employer might be paying an additional 15% that doesn't appear on your payslip.

That's what Amazon, etc. are talking about when they say they pay a load of employment taxes.

That's also why a lot of countries are eying the gig economy with skepticism, it's actually often just a massive tax dodge for the company to not pay employment taxes.

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Re:Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules by jhrmnn on Monday September 13, 2021 @01:59PM (#28514566)

I never understood why this distinction is made and why it’s not just obfuscation. The real numbers are the cost of an employee to the employer and the amount the employee gets, the difference is what the state took as a tax, and the way that cut is divided to different state budget chapters is inconsequential to both the employee and the employer

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Re:Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules by unnouinceput on Monday September 13, 2021 @10:06AM (#28511672)

<In my country retirement and social security appear right in my paycheck

What country is that? US, the only country that its politicians actively lobbies against universal healthcare, healthcare that is successfully implemented in every! f*ing! other! Western country?!! (and quite a few other countries that are not Western, such as my full of corruption Eastern Europe one)

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Re:Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules by umanwizard on Monday September 13, 2021 @10:24AM (#28511894)

Plenty of countries in Western Europe too have mandatory employee contributions to various social programs.

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Re:Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules by nybble41 on Tuesday September 14, 2021 @11:03AM (#28525933)

Every country that funds social programs with an income tax has mandatory employee contributions, differing only in the visibility of the cost to the employee (up-front taxes vs. a line-item in the pay stub vs. a "employer portion" which isn't reported to the employee but directly impacts the employee's wages).

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