The point is that if drivers have to drive where Uber tells them for the money Uber wants to pay, or quit for good, then they are employees. Contractors can read a contract and refuse it if they don't like it, on a contract-by-contract basis, or negotiate more money for difficult or unpleasant contracts. If Uber drivers can't do those things and must drive the place the company wants them to go for the money the company wants to pay, they are employees by another name and deserve employee protections and rights.

> "It can’t be allowed otherwise what’s the point if drivers can pick and choose their rides?"

The point would be that the driver chooses to do work which is profitable to them and ignore work which is not. Isn't that what contractors would do with work contracts?

The fact that normal people drive other normal people around, and Uber the company extracts enough money from being the middleman in this to fund lobbying against the driver's interests, and does so, is so twisted.

The contract isn't working each job though, is it? It's a higher level contract allowing them access to a pool of jobs, one of the requirements for which is that you don't get to see certain details about a job before accepting it. If that's not something a person is willing to do they can choose not to accept the contract allowing them access to the job pool.

Then you're describing a normal job. A contract which allows me to access to a pool of company work, I don't get to see individual task details in advance, cannot pick and choose it except for an overall option to leave the job.

> A contract which allows me to access to a pool of company work, I don't get to see individual task details in advance, cannot pick and choose it except for an overall option to leave the job

The contractor working on my house has a general impression of the work he must do. But the specifics are far from ironed out.

The contractor working at your house, I assume, knew what the work was and quoted a price to you. They didn't pick the house name off a list, and were then told the work to be done, and the price they would be paid for it.

If they aren’t ironed out then you made a foolish decision. I would never let the contractor decide the materials, how things look, the color, etc.

In your case the specifics should be ironed out for your safety. In the Uber example, you are the rider and you agreed to pay to arrive somewhere but let them decide the route.. and you pay for time/distance.

That is an extremely primitive definition of employee and wouldn’t work in many or most jurisdictions.

They can elect to turn the app off whenever they want. When they want to drive then don’t have a choice. This is more flexible than taxi drivers who lease their taxi at the beginning of their shift so they start owing money to the taxi company. And they still can’t choose where to go if their customer tells them.

Having a system that is profitable only for the driver and a miserable experience for the customer is a terrible system. It won’t work. It has to be a fair compromise. Pay the driver a fair rate and have the customer choose where to go.

On the face of it, I agree with you. Customer experience suffers when drivers can cherry pick rides. That's how Uber would put it. I wasn't making a living wage so I no longer driver for them.

And that's the way it should be. But many stick it out like their life depends on it, because somehow it usually does, and getting any other job is apparently out of the question. Good on your for deciding enough is enough.

Canceling rides does destroy the system. The solution is to employ the drivers so that they have garantes and protections. Then you can tell them “you must take this ride”.

The issues with Uber is that they are trying to have it both ways. They want employees without paying for employees.

I agree, but I think the solution is that Uber should pay their drivers a liveable hourly wage.