Uber Tip-Skimming Allegations Could Spark National Class Action

curtwoodward writes "Uber has just raised a monster investment round that valued the company at some $3.5 billion. And it looks like some of that cash will have to be earmarked for more legal expenses. The startup, which offers an easy-to-use mobile app for hailing "black car" sedans and other rides, is being sued in federal court over allegations that it's illegally skimming the tips paid to drivers. The lawsuit also claims that Uber is misclassifying its drivers as contractors, rather than employees. The upshot: If the federal judge certifies this as a national class action, Uber could be facing millions of dollars in potential damages. Oh, and the lawyer behind it? She's made a career out of suing companies for exactly these kind of violations."

Comments

How is that an "upshot"?

[hsmith]

So, this woman is very successful at class action suits. So, she has made millions of dollars herself, getting back pennies on the dollar for those who were actually harmed. And Uber is the claimed crook?

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So you would rather bad companies just go completely free than compensate an attorney for his or her work? Class action suits are incredibly difficult to build, organize and execute. They are far more expensive to launch than a single suit and, often, the amount per-plaintiff is too small to justify an individual court case for each. So, instead, a lawyer or law firm foots the expense of a multi-year process in the hopes of returning a verdict that both pays them back plus profits. That seems completely reasonable to me.

For some reason people forget that our civil court is often the ONLY recourse we have against wrongdoing.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[rumpledoll]

The point is that a) Uber is stealing tips from the drivers and needs to be punitively punished and the behavior stopped and b) there is so much malfeasance by companies doing this sort of thing that one can make a career out of stopping them from shafting working people. That is the outrage. And yes, the bad actor in this case is Uber and their stealing, not the people trying to set it aright. Dimwit.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

On the one hand, I recognize the importance of holding the companies liable. On the other hand, many of the class action suits are totally ridiculous and almost seem like extortion. I wonder...how often do class action suits just get totally dismissed or lose in court? It seems like every single one I hear about is either a victory for the class action, or (more often) the company settles (usually without admitting guilt). I never hear about the losers. Not sure if that's just because they don't get publicized until they win, or because it rarely fails. If the latter, then it sounds a lot like the RIAA extortion where people (even innocent people) would just pay up the fine because they realized they'd have an uphill (and expensive) battle defending themselves, thus it was better just to give in and pay, which just encouraged more BS extortion lawsuits.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[MatthewCCNA]

The only people who "win" law suits are the lawyers; nothing to see here, move along.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[hsmith]

It is clearly better for a law firm to make loads of money and toss some scraps to the people actually harmed. Great counter point!

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[h4rr4r]

The alternative is the company is never forced to pay, so yes that is clearly better.

If you want to see class action lawsuits where the harmed party gets the majority of the settlement then you take your money and fund such cases. You can take the risk of work for no pay, you can wait years for what might be a minimal or no return. Have at it, nothing stopping you.

Until you do that, this is the system we have. The only alternatives would be to allow companies to steal so long as the amounts were small enough or greatly expand the size of our government.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[nitehawk214]

It is clearly better for a law firm to make loads of money and toss some scraps to the people actually harmed. Great counter point!

Well what is the alternative? Allow companies to abuse their customers and employees? Because that is exactly what would happen without some kind of balance of power.

is it right that the only winner in this situation are the lawyers? Of course not. But our legal system was created by lawyers so it is no surprise that it benefits lawyers most. The system needs fixed instead of abused. But until then at least there is some incentive for companies to not use abusive behavior.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Idarubicin]

How is that an "upshot"?

<PrincessBride>I do not think it means what you think it means.</PrincessBride>

The "upshot" is simply a result, key outcome, or central point. The term, by itself, does not convey a value judgement by the person using it. Describing something as the upshot does not imply endorsement or an assessment of benefit to any party or to society as a whole; it merely indicates that what follows is the most important part of the story.

So, she has made millions of dollars herself, getting back pennies on the dollar for those who were actually harmed. And Uber is the claimed crook?

Even if we grant your implied premise - that class action suits are intrinsically unethical, or that there might have been a hypothetically-plausible way for the injured parties to recover more money - that doesn't get Uber off the hook. Both lawyer and company can, simultaneously, be (different flavours of) crooks.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The word "upshot" doesn't imply that the outcome is good or bad, desirable or undesirable. It means "the final or eventual outcome or conclusion of a discussion, action, or series of events." It's like saying "TL;DR: If the federal judge certifies this as a national class action, Uber could be facing millions of dollars in potential damages."

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[rickb928]

Our Government has decreed that health insurance companies must pay out at least 85% of the premiums they collect towards their subscribers' benefits. perhaps we could reform tort law to require class-action attorneys to pay at least 85% of the settlements they negotiate to the class members?

Naw. That's just crazy talk. These lawyers are SERVING us. Their profit motive is above reproach.

Cronyism. The New Left, same as The Old left, just without the encumberances of restraint, and in league with the Old Guard Incumbent Right, who are desperate to save their current jobs.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[devman]

...and the drivers who will be reclassified properly as employees and not have there tips stolen anymore. But hey, I guess we should do away with class actions so companies can continue to rip people off just so long as the amounts are small enough not to justify a regular lawsuit by individuals.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[h4rr4r]

Then there would be no class action lawsuits. You do understand that right?

Health insurance companies are notionally in the business of providing health insurance for profit. Class action lawsuits are not designed to provide restitution to members of the class, just to punish the party being sued and to prevent similar action in the future. This is very basic.

Forget Right or Left, you are in the camp of ignorance.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[rjstanford]

The drivers who I've had using Uber really are contractors - they generally work for another service or themselves and have been using Uber to "fill in the blanks" in their far more profitable direct business. They use their own equipment and their only tie to Uber is trip sourcing.

Note that this has nothing at all to do with stealing tips, which is just bad - however, Uber includes all gratuities in their pre-negotiated rate with the passengers, and presumably has a pre-negotiated rate with the drivers, so (since I didn't RTFA) I'm not sure how this could be true other than an accounting misstep.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[IP_Troll]

You clearly do not understand how class actions work. 1000 people harmed for $100 is not worth litigating individually. Lump that together into a $100,000 suit and it is worth the time to do it. Plus most class actions are contingency lawyers get like 30%, if the plaintiffs lose they don't have to pay the attorneys.

toss some scraps $70 is better than $0.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Crimey McBiggles]

Actually, the alternative sounds pretty attractive right about now. Let the government focus more on policing companies instead of individuals. I think either threat, whether it's tougher regulation from the government or class action lawsuits, would a big enough headache that a company would rather avoid it altogether, regardless of the expense. Time is the one resource that can never be returned, and opportunity costs can be ridiculously high.

Also, for fuck's sake, cool off a bit before posting, man.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[LordLimecat]

I assume you also get paid for fixing whatever problems your profession is concerned with. You absolute MONSTER!

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[h4rr4r]

Yeah, I am just so sick of seeing these same ignorant comments about class action lawsuits.

I am convinced these are the same idiots who propose tort reform as a way to control healthcare costs even though Texas has done it and proven it does not work.

I would be fine with that alternative, if we made it criminal not civil. I want to see their CEO picking up trash on the highway if we go that route.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[LordLimecat]

If they didnt make money I imagine theyd tell you to go learn law yourself, and handle your own case.

Its not like you do your job (assuming you are employed) for free, do you? Its not like her law firm FORCES you to use them-- I imagine people user her because she is good at law, and as we DO live in an ostensibly free market society, she is free to charge whatever she wants. Dont like it, dont use her services, but dont act like shes done something evil because shes (GASP) successful at what she does.

How have we entered a world where being good at what you do and making money for it is the prime evil?

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[CastrTroy]

Except that's usually not how it works in practice. If they win, the lawyers get actual real cash money, and the people harmed by the company's actions usually end up getting coupons for use at the business, or something equally stupid. Why would they want to use the business services if they are suing the business. The people the lawyer is defending should have to get paid in the same currency as the lawyer. If the lawyer gets money, so should the plaintiffs, if the plaintiffs get coupons for store services, so should the lawyers.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Dishevel]

So you would rather bad companies just go completely free than compensate an attorney for his or her work?

These lawsuits are not about the people "harmed". They are a deal between two crooks. the crook getting sued gets protection from their bad acts and the crook doing the suit gets cash. Those that were "harmed" get a coupon for future purchases.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well duh, that's because the lawyer has done an awful lot of work contacting 1000 people, getting their stories, getting their testimony, collating all this information, and building a case. Building a legal case where you have only 1 or 2 people to talk to to figure out what was going on is hard enough, consider how much effort it needs when you need to contact thousands, and you can't use a for loop.

Add to that that these cases are generally far more risky than normal cases, as they're far easier to pick apart by the defence team, or to slowly chop away groups of people as being ineligible, and you get to a point where you see that actually, it's pretty reasonable for the lawyer to expect a decent return on their risk.

The bottom line though is that if you think that you could do this cheaper, and pass on more to the clients, and less to yourself, then you're welcome to do that. The fact that there are [b]lots[/b] of lawyers out there, and that it's a highly competitive market, yet none of them think that they can actually do that should tell you something about the situation.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[IP_Troll]

If the only thing you have received as a class action settlement is coupons, you have never been involved in a class action for grown ups.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well duh, that's because the lawyer has done an awful lot of work contacting 1000 people, getting their stories, getting their testimony, collating all this information, and building a case. Building a legal case where you have only 1 or 2 people to talk to to figure out what was going on is hard enough, consider how much effort it needs when you need to contact thousands, and you can't use a for loop.

Add to that that these cases are generally far more risky than normal cases, as they're far easier to pick apart by the defence team, or to slowly chop away groups of people as being ineligible, and you get to a point where you see that actually, it's pretty reasonable for the lawyer to expect a decent return on their risk.

The bottom line though is that if you think that you could do this cheaper, and pass on more to the clients, and less to yourself, then you're welcome to do that. The fact that there are [b]lots[/b] of lawyers out there, and that it's a highly competitive market, yet none of them think that they can actually do that should tell you something about the situation.

Hahaha, I wish you were joking, seriously, I've been a member of maybe 20-30 different classes over the last 30 years or so and not once have I or any other member of a class that I've known ever been contacted by a lawyer for testimony. There's a notification letter and an award letter, that's it.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

This prevents companies from stealing small amounts from lots of people as no one will ever be injured enough to sue. The alternative would be to greatly expand our government to police these offences, is that really what you want?

The last time the feds sued on my behalf I got over 300 dollars. The last time my state did so, I got over 1000 dollars. Even the 300 dollars dwarfs the combined sum of the other 20+ awards I've gotten from private firms suing on my behalf. So if the alternative is to expand the government, I'm all for it. It seems they're doing a better job in every way that matters anyway, bigger awards, cheaper cost.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[bluefoxlucid]

I'm only seeing a one-sided story with no real story in here. And what I'm seeing sounds like huge lawyer bullshit and media bait.

Try this:

This new lawsuit mirrors the central claim in the Boston case, in which cab driver David Lavitman said Uber was effectively skimming half his 20 percent tip by taking a $1 booking fee and 10 percent of the fare. Liss-Riordan is also one of the attorneys in that case.

"Effectively"? It sounds like a $1 booking fee (operational fee per booking for the service provider) plus a percent of total service provided (i.e. miles). This means you get billed for using the service to get a cab ($1), plus they get a cut of the total transit mileage (10% fare). That seems fair and normal for this sort of business--I mean hell, pizza delivery services charge a fucking delivery fee that doesn't go to the driver as a tip, because they have to idle and coordinate drivers while paying them a wage.

It also sounds like the fare belongs to the driver, so effectively the drivers are basically contractors. Or clients? I would have modeled this as that the drivers join to find passengers to get money from, and the passengers join to hail cabs.

“In some situations, they charge 20 percent gratuity to the customer and they only give 10 percent of that to the driver,” Liss-Riordan said. “In other instances, they just say the gratuity is included, but they don’t actually give the drivers a gratuity. So they’re basically lying to the customers.”

This sounds like bullshit. "Rather than having a single, standard system that would stand up to legal scrutiny and that may have explainable flaws in case of legal disputes, the company is going through the effort of actively doing multiple dumbshit things that provide greater and more expensive operational overhead and an obvious case for legal malice." ... yeah, no. It sounds more like "I only got half my tip wah wah wah!" "I never gots MAH tips!" hear-say being parroted as fact, before any real discovery. Given the timing, I would bet money discovery hasn't occurred and they're just making shit up.

But let's attack the big evil corporation. Start-ups are the new 1%!

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[bluefoxlucid]

It's all pre-discovery hearsay.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats the fucking point of class action lawsuits you ignorant cunt.

This prevents companies from stealing small amounts from lots of people as no one will ever be injured enough to sue. The alternative would be to greatly expand our government to police these offences, is that really what you want?

Oh, as if that hasn't already happened - and not helped "We the people" worth a damn.

And you called the GP poster an "ignorant cunt"?

Way to be a sexist jackass, too.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[6ULDV8]

I guess I'm in the kiddie lawsuit group. The last class action settlement I received was a voucher for $1000 off my next purchase from General Motors. Granted I didn't have to lay out any cash or expend any effort, but as others have said, I had no plans to purchase another vehicle from them. The voucher also had an expiration date, so the settlement was of no value to me. Am I glad they got sued? Not really. I was never harmed. The truck was 20 years old at the time of the settlement. I think I got fair use from the purchase. Also, as others have said, if these suits didn't exist, there would be no recourse for the average consumer.

The suits are no different from state and federal settlements where the majority of the fine goes to the agency and consumers are left on their own. I don't like either case, but I don't have a better solution that would give enough incentive for the attorneys to tackle them. I'm going to watch cartoons now.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Em Adespoton]

If the only thing you have received as a class action settlement is coupons, you have never been involved in a class action for grown ups.

That said, the payment notion has merit -- the lawyers get a percentage of the payout, not a separate deal. That way, if the payout IS coupons, the lawyers have to fence those coupons -- which provides incentive for not settling on something that costs the defendant pretty much nothing (or at least much less than the face value of the settlement).

The only adult class-action suits I've personally witnessed or been part of have been against government agencies; all the "you may be part of this suit if you used Facebook/had a starbucks coffee/etc." cases seem to me to be money grabs for the lawyers only -- usually there's a limited number of people actually harmed in any way, and no intent to harm on the business side.

It makes me think that the first step should always be to confront the business and tell them to change their practice. If they refuse, THEN go after them with a REAL class action suit. If a company has a history of such cases where they're continually being asked to shape up, and always do, but not until they're asked, this should also be grounds for class action. But the coupon-based suits smack of ambulance chasing. I guess they serve a purpose though -- sort of like dung beetles. Unfortunately that purpose is not just to keep corporations behaving well, it's also th make operating a small or medium business prohibitive in certain markets (due to how much you need to pay lawyers).

Re: How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

the irony is, of course, that it is libertarians who lead the charge against class action lawsuits because to the typical randian zealot the rights of corporations to make money is far more important than the rights of individuals. that's why I always laugh when they classroom to be about individual rights.

libertarians are the useful idiots of the oligarchs who run this country.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

That settlement was in 1993 for GM trucks sold between 1973-1987 and the vouchers were issued in 2000.
 
What would a pricey truck be in 2000? $10,000? 10% off a truck? Sounds like a significantly different deal than 10% off Halo 6

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Cabriel]

"Effectively"? It sounds like a $1 booking fee (operational fee per booking for the service provider) plus a percent of total service provided (i.e. miles). This means you get billed for using the service to get a cab ($1), plus they get a cut of the total transit mileage (10% fare). That seems fair and normal for this sort of business--I mean hell, pizza delivery services charge a fucking delivery fee that doesn't go to the driver as a tip, because they have to idle and coordinate drivers while paying them a wage.

Pizza delivery places don't take the delivery charge out of the tip. That's in addition to the tip. If Uber added the "10% of fare" and "$1 booking fee" directly to the pre-tip amount owed by the passenger, then that would be fair. Making the cab driver pay for the privilidge of having the service target his company is inappropriate.

Re: How is that an "upshot"?

[rickb928]

So lawyers require a higher gross margin than heath insurance companies?

Perhaps lawyers would negotiate fees as part of the settlement. Which is a slick ready around the 85% rule.

Lawyers, you're welcome. Glad to be of assistance.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[b4dc0d3r]

I just looked up the word in order to harangue recent usage, and found out I was wrong. we teach contextual language acquisition, because that is how people normally learn. and when it goes horribly wrong we have a completely tangential conversation about whether this is good.

I think I will return to correcting people again. except for begging the question, because we lost that one years ago

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Hatta]

perhaps we could reform tort law to require class-action attorneys to pay at least 85% of the settlements they negotiate to the class members?

Would that lead to fewer class action suits? It seems likely, if you reduce the incentive for lawyers to make those suits. If it does lead to fewer class action suits, would that reduce their deterrence of bad behavior by companies? If it does reduce the deterrence effect, could that cost consumers overall more than they lose to class action lawyers today?

I'm not disagreeing with you, it's a good idea. But good ideas sometimes have unintended consequences. It's definitely worth an experiment, but the result could go either way.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Jawnn]

So, this woman is very successful at class action suits. So, she has made millions of dollars herself, getting back pennies on the dollar for those who were actually harmed. And Uber is the claimed crook?

Yes, because Uber actually is (it appears) a crook. Your mistake is in assuming that class action lawsuits are the proper vehicle for individuals to recover damages. They are not. They are, however, a marvelously effective way for a group of those individuals, who would otherwise be unable to mount a serious legal challenge, to collectively hit back in a meaningful (expensive to the respondent) way. In other words, the successful CA lawsuit against Uber will make them treat their employees fairly, instead of cheating them out of a large portion of the money they are due.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because some group of neckbeards got together and decided that's what the definition would say.

Language/life/etc changes despite the rules. It's perfectly reasonable to think "upshot" has a positive valence to it, as "up" has a socially constructed positive valence against the implied opposite "down."

This is exactly how language interacts and evolves. Go away with your rules, man.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Class action suits are quite expensive so only those with a high likelihood of success are worth pursuing. Those of you who claim support of social justice might approve of the 1999 Florida flight attendant second hand smoke settlement which provided 300 million for a health foundation to treat sick flight attendants. I believe the plaintiffs attorneys were a religious couple who were not primarily motivated by money and I'll admit this is unusual for lawyers.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[jd.schmidt]

You forgot to include the New Right and Main Stream Libertarians, Capitalist when it helps them and Socialist when it helps them.

The truth is if you read the post, pretty much everyone is asking if there is a better way. So far I have not seen a single counter suggestion, besides maybe the implied eliminate class action lawsuits OR expand government.

Perhaps simplifying the legal process might empower individuals to take up their own cases more often, not that that would help in the case of class action.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[bluefoxlucid]

No, what I'm reading here is that you hail a cab and you're charged $1; they don't say, "This is a free service. You pay fare. You went 20 miles at $1/mile, that's $20" and then take a dollar from the cabbie. They're like, "You went $20 miles at $1/mile, also $1 for booking, that's $21" and then bill the cabbie $2 of his $20 from fare.

Why should I target CabCo drivers rather than CoCabber? Oh, because CabCo pays me a fee and CoCabber doesn't... I profit off them, they signed up and I maintain their information and track them and contact them. They pay for that, plus some cut of their business. Yeah, fuck you CoCabber guys, find your own riders.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[sjames]

The award to the actual members of the class should at least be non-insulting, and the lawyers should consider that when settling. A million to the lawyers and a coupon for 10% off of the next Shittee brand product for class members who clearly will never buy a Shittee brand product again is insulting. Even sending 1 dollar to each class member through the mail would be less insulting.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[AthanasiusKircher]

Class action lawsuits are not designed to provide restitution to members of the class, just to punish the party being sued and to prevent similar action in the future. This is very basic.

This is absolute nonsense. One of the primary aims of class action suits is to provide members of a class with a means to recover relatively small sums. Since the cost of any type of lawyer -- let alone depositions, sorting through evidence and paperwork, etc. -- would be prohibitively expensive even in small claims court, no one would ever try to bring a suit against a big corporation with a legal team unless they were going to win many thousands of dollars.

If the average person was only wronged by losing $10 or $50 or even $500, the cost of litigation is often prohibitively high. Class action lawsuits are certainly a means allowing such people to band together and use a collective legal team to recover damages.

Wikipedia is not the best resource for legal advice, but it gets it right here under "advantages" for class actions:

[A] class action may overcome "the problem that small recoveries do not provide the incentive for any individual to bring a solo action prosecuting his or her rights." Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 617 (1997) (quoting Mace v. Van Ru Credit Corp., 109 F.3d 388, 344 (7th Cir. 1997)). "A class action solves this problem by aggregating the relatively paltry potential recoveries into something worth someone's (usually an attorney's) labor." Amchem Prods., Inc., 521 U.S. at 617 (quoting Mace, 109 F.3d at 344). In other words, a class action ensures that a defendant who engages in widespread harm - but does so minimally against each individual plaintiff - must compensate those individuals for their injuries. For example, thousands of shareholders of a public company may have losses too small to justify separate lawsuits, but a class action can be brought efficiently on behalf of all shareholders. Perhaps even more important than compensation is that class treatment of claims may be the only way to impose the costs of wrongdoing on the wrongdoer, thus deterring future wrongdoing.

So, yes, at the end of this quotation, you see the issue that punishing the offender is important, but that doesn't mean that recovery of damages isn't actually a major goal of class action suits... as you claim.

Forget Right or Left, you are in the camp of ignorance.

Next time try knowing what you're talking about before you start calling other people names.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[MindStalker]

But how is Uber a "bad company". It sounds like they are completely sticking to their clearly laid out payment system. Shes simply arguing that their payment system is bad for 1) Taking a 10% cut of everything including tips. 2) Charging a $1 booking fee, 3) Not reimbursing for gas/maintenance.
All the drivers understand the payment system and agree to it, if it wasn't a fair deal, people wouldn't be doing it. These people certainly aren't "employees" by any stretch of the imagination.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[sjames]

Keep in mind there will be a pre-selection. The lawyers for the class will only take on the cases that they are quite likely to win since they get nothing if they don't win or settle.

That would seem like there should still be a few losses here and there. I'm not sure if that's just not reported or what.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[HornWumpus]

Any new vehicle was way more the $10K in 2000. A V8 truck was more then double that.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[davester666]

Um, history is filled with unfair deals, where "employee's" get the short end of the stick.

From kids working 16 hour days and living in the factory with looms in the 18th century to full-time Walmart employee's needing food stamps to be able to eat.

Re: How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lawyers often put millons of their own money at risk in the process.

Look at legal funds (more for MDLs than class actions), they profit better than the market at large, but don't really break the 15% threshold.

The insurance companies are not playing with their own money. My insurance company makes WAY over 15% off me.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Mr. Slippery]

The alternative is the company is never forced to pay, so yes that is clearly better.

No, there's another alternative, and you mention it: "expand the size of our government", at least in certain areas. If government is going to create a system that concentrates economic power, via the creation of "property rights" and "corporations" and the like, it has to be big enough to regulate the use of that power.

Increasing the "size" (though how do you measure that? What's the metric?) of the part of government that regulates big businesses to ensure fair dealing, while decreasing the "size" of the parts of government that criminalize private behavior (e.g., drug use) and that impose American will on foreign nations could give us a "smaller" government that is still capable of keeping powerful business interests from exploiting people.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[GryMor]

Uber charges 10% of everything the same way paypal, amazon payments or nearly any other market maker plus payment services company does.

When you pay with a credit card at a restaurant, you better believe the payment processing company is taking it's cut out of the total transaction placed on the card.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[retchdog]

Strictly speaking, `upshot' refers only to the ``final or eventual outcome or conclusion of a discussion, action, or series of events."

It does not mean that the outcome is positive; that's just an erroneous modern association with other `up'-words like `uplifting' and so on.

There is, for example, in the translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, an extended amoral dialogue about the `upshot' of raping a nun.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Solandri]

Would that lead to fewer class action suits? It seems likely, if you reduce the incentive for lawyers to make those suits. If it does lead to fewer class action suits, would that reduce their deterrence of bad behavior by companies? If it does reduce the deterrence effect, could that cost consumers overall more than they lose to class action lawyers today?

The real problem is the disconnect between actual cost to perform the work and the percentage payment. Being paid a percentage is appropriate when the work that needs to be done or the risk assumed (e.g. money invested in a start-up) scales with the money involved. When the work does not scale, being paid a percentage is inappropriate (e.g. 33% lawyer fee for class-action lawsuits, 6% realtor commission, etc).

For the class action lawsuit case in particular, the whole point of a class action lawsuit is to maintain a flat cost by lumping a bunch of similar lawsuits into one. That is, filing the case on behalf of a thousand plaintiffs costs about the same as filing it on behalf of a million of them. If the cost is going to remain flat, it is completely inappropriate to then charge a percentage fee.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[mjwalshe]

And I believe the IRS gets rather up set over treating employees as contractors as Microsoft found to its cost a few years back.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Strictly speaking, `upshot' refers only to the ``final or eventual outcome or conclusion of a discussion, action, or series of events."

It does not mean that the outcome is positive; that's just an erroneous modern association with other `up'-words like `uplifting' and so on.

There is, for example, in the translation of Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel, an extended amoral dialogue about the `upshot' of raping a nun.

Well, in all fairness there's probably far less likelihood that you'd contract an STD...

Re: How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

So much stupid shit coming out of one mouth. Incredible.

Re: How is that an "upshot"?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's free marketing. You've obviously never had to market and bring revenue into a business. It is typically a costly venture. So the cabbies want free customers and don't want to earn / pay for it. Sounds like a bunch of whiny lazy shits. Kind of like the people defending crappy class action lawsuits.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[AK Marc]

From your own quote:

Perhaps even more important than compensation is that class treatment of claims may be the only way to impose the costs of wrongdoing on the wrongdoer, thus deterring future wrongdoing.

I didn't take his words to be as absolute as you did, but your link supports him. So I'm not sure where your complaint is. You don't like the implication?

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[markjhood2003]

That's not my experience. I've been involved in two class action lawsuits, one against the old IDS investment company (now integrated into Ameriprise), and one against Smith Barney. They were basically shareholders who claimed that their brokers were ripping them off in various fees or misrepresenting their products. I didn't even know of these claims until I received letters from the lawyers. I filled out some forms and later was pleasantly surprised to receive over $600 from IDS and $500 from Smith Barney as a result of the lawyers winning their cases.

Re: How is that an "upshot"?

[LordLimecat]

Apparently the definition of "libertarian" is now "believes that there is nothing wrong with earning a living".

An interesting revision of language, to be sure.

Re:How is that an "upshot"?

[slidester]

If it doesn't work in Texas, it won't work anywhere else? Gotcha

Startup?

[Scutter]

A $3.5 billion company is a "startup"?

Re:Startup?

[RazzleFrog]

Startup isn't a measure of dollars but time. Although one could argue that after 4 years it isn't really a startup based on time either.

Re:Startup?

[CanHasDIY]

Startup isn't a measure of dollars but time.

From what I understand, the "startup" designation specifically refers to an early point in the business lifecycle, as a function of both time and funding.

Going by this example, Uber would be out of Start-up by now, and is solidly in the Growth phase.

Re:Startup?

[Hypotensive]

Not for long if Apple gets its way.

Self Driving

[stewsters]

Good thing they bought all those Google self driving cars in that article a few days back! You don't need to pay the drivers or skim their tips. Good thing that actually happened.

Re:Self Driving

[tbuddy]

That story was a hoax and a sort of late April Fool's joke. The article was even dated a decade into the future.

Re:Self Driving

[epSos-de]

Super funny how the law is resisting technology. The winners will embrace Uber and use it to max out the profit during work. The others will loose.

Re:Self Driving

[Anonymous Coward]

The winners will embrace Uber and use it to max out the profit during work. The others will loose.

The others will set free? Set WHAT free? Finish the sentence, man!

Tip in cash

[unixcorn]

I have used Uber and find it to be a convenient service. I recognize the additional fees that go on my card and also tip the driver in cash. From what I read in the article, it sure looks like some sour grapes from the drivers. They agreed to the program and are now complaining that they aren't making enough. Seems like they should find another pimp.

Re:Tip in cash

[Anonymous Coward]

The contract thing is likely not going to fly, if the drivers own their own equipment and set their own hours, I'm pretty sure they are contractors.

Skimming tips though? If that's true then Uber should be pounded into the ground, balls first. If there's a line on the receipt that says tip and it's not a tip, then it's straight up fraud, 100%. None of this "just tip cash" bullshit, why should riders be inconvenienced because of a company lying to take their money?

Re:Tip in cash

[bberens]

I do wonder about this. It seems to me that the parent company should at least get to pay a portion of the credit card fees out of the tip. At a big company it comes down to some flat rate per charge + a percentage of the total. Does anyone happen to know whether restaurants eat the credit card fees for a server's tip?

Re:Tip in cash

[Anonymous Coward]

And why at all (the fsck) I should be paying tips? There is a price per mile, just increase it, if you are expecting a tip. Be sensible.

Re:Tip in cash

[RandomUsername99]

Why in the world are the credit card fees something that should be transferred to the individual employee when the company itself is a) purchasing the credit card processing service, and b) the primary benefactor from the transaction?

It's quite illegal for restaurants to deduct *anything* except taxes from a server's tips, and it should be. In most states, servers are getting paid approximately $2.50/hr based on the assumption that they'll make at least a certain percentage in tips (where I am, they automatically get taxed on an assumed 12% of sales, unless they claim higher, which that $2.50/hr generally barely covers. If someone stiffs them, they still pay taxes based on an assumed 12% tip, if they don't claim the other 8% of a 20% cash tip, they still pay based on that 12%) You're paying less for the food as a result (and you really are, restaurant profit margins, after all of the incurred expenses, are generally fairly small,) so the customer adjusts their pay directly, adjusting the amount for service... but the restaurant is still making the profit on the food, drinks, etc. and the server is a regular employee, not a contractor. CC processing fees aren't taken out of servers' pay for the same reason they aren't taken out of a Neiman Marcus employees' pay when they sell you a pair of shoes, even if they are making commission. That's a business expense, not a personal expense of the employee.

Uber takes a standard, per-booking fee from the drivers for the costs incurred as acting as a dispatch service, and a payment clearinghouse. The drivers can utilize that service as much as they want, when they want. Some drivers work for limo companies that collect the fee for the ride, and pay them their regular rates for paying limo drivers, still giving them the tip, as a tip. Some drivers use their own cars and for themselves, operating as one-person limo companies contracted by uber. It's completely appropriate for uber to charge the *company* they are contracting for the costs incurred in the CC processing, because it's the company that the service is being purchased from is the primary actor in, and benefactor of the transaction, not the employee. There are accepted ways for companies to allocate less money to an employee and more money to themselves, if they see fit: charge more and don't give more to employees, or reduce the employees pay. Charging the employees fees is absurd.

Re:Tip in cash

[RandomUsername99]

Absolutely. Tipping in cash is ridiculous when they're charging me for a tip on my card. That simply means that instead of the drivers being stolen from, I'm being stolen from, because they're charging me twice.

Re:Tip in cash

[HornWumpus]

Travel some, then get back to us.

e.g. there are parts of the world where waiters are paid fat salaries and don't expect tips. Service in these places uniformly sucks big wet donkey balls.

Re:Tip in cash

[GryMor]

Uber isn't the restaurant. The Uber drivers are the restaurants that contract with a centralized booking and payment processing system that is Uber. You better believe the CC processing service for a restaurant is taking it's %age out of the entire CC transaction, be it line itemed for tax, tip or food.

Re:Tip in cash

[Anonymous Coward]

I've traveled widely, including Europe, American, Canada, South America, the UK, and Asia. Those countries that do not have tipping have generally had better service than those that do.

Re:Tip in cash

[AK Marc]

It's quite illegal for restaurants to deduct *anything* except taxes from a server's tips, and it should be. In most states, servers are getting paid approximately $2.50/hr based on the assumption that they'll make at least a certain percentage in tips (where I am, they automatically get taxed on an assumed 12% of sales, unless they claim higher, which that $2.50/hr generally barely covers. If someone stiffs them, they still pay taxes based on an assumed 12% tip, if they don't claim the other 8% of a 20% cash tip, they still pay based on that 12%)

I've worked at a bad restaurant. The restaurant had to go back and cover the difference between tip-minimum and regular-minimum. That is, they can *never* be paid below the "regular" minimum wage. So if everyone stiffed the servers, they'd get paid $7.25 per hour, not $2.50 per hour by their employer. "tips" is a way of restaurants cheating on taxes and such (reducing expenses and employee payroll), and forcing the pay onto the buyers, also helping to hide the price of eating out (the $9 plate costs 11-12 dollars.

You're paying less for the food as a result (and you really are, restaurant profit margins, after all of the incurred expenses, are generally fairly small,) so the customer adjusts their pay directly, adjusting the amount for service...

I'm not responsible for paying their salary. The employer is. The employer is taking a gamble that tips+ base will exceed minimum. The employee is taking a gamble that base+tips is better than minimum. I have no responsibility to tip some level to help them satisfy their wagers. There may be some implied duty, but nothing explicit, and if everyone stopped tipping tomorrow, the prices would reset to a more predictable level, without hidden costs and such variability.

Re:Tip in cash

[AK Marc]

Skimming tips though? If that's true then Uber should be pounded into the ground, balls first. If there's a line on the receipt that says tip and it's not a tip, then it's straight up fraud, 100%.

Amex takes 3% of their tip, should the cabbie chooses to accept Amex. Visa takes 2%, if the cabbie chooses to accept Visa. So, are you going to play with Amex's balls? Good luck with that.

We need more unions / workers rights

[Joe_Dragon]

Way to many companies are misclassifying there works as contractors or pushing them off to subs and yet controlling them like employees. So they can get it both ways of the control of employees with out the costs / responsibility's of having employees.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Solving a problem by introducing more problems is never a good plan.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Nidi62]

Way to many companies are misclassifying there works as contractors or pushing them off to subs and yet controlling them like employees. So they can get it both ways of the control of employees with out the costs / responsibility's of having employees.

You think unions actually care about the employees, or even care about fairness? I work at a company that is partially union and a few years ago we had a union come in to try and unionize the job that I do. They employed every dirty trick in the book, from harassing people at home, getting the NLRB to change the rules of the election (from counting yes votes as a percentage of all eligible employees to just out of the total votes cast), and, worst of all (and this makes my previous point all the more telling) they actually tried to sue the company for tampering with the election because the company publicized to the employees when the election was. Think about that. The union actually wanted as few people as possible (ie only their supporters) to vote. I would much rather trust the CEO of a company who only cares about their company than the union boss who only cares about his union. At least companies are honest when they screw over their employees. Unions just smile to your face while they take the money out of your wallet.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[IP_Troll]

I don't see how forcing the taxi drivers to pay union dues will increase their paychecks.

Contract worker versus employee has nothing to do with the workers, it has to do with the company trying to avoid employment taxes. If you are a contract worker, the employer does not have to pay employment tax on you, and the employer cannot set your hours worked in a day.

If you are a contract employee and your employer tries to control your hours, quietly make a phone call to the state/ federal tax authorities.

OH but if they find out they will fire me. Then you have a whistle blower suit against the company.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Dogtanian]

Yet, since we have a liberal, union happy president then such laws will never happen.

I assume you're using "liberal" in the US sense, i.e. to mean "left-wing"...

The same thing can be accomplished with labor laws, and not have to resort to adding the inefficiency of a union. The last thing we need is another entity with an outstretched hand taking for employees.

...which would make it ironic that you're advocating the government-created-and-enforced solution and criticising the "free market" one of one group of self-organised-people (i.e. unions) competing for their interests against another group of self-organised people (i.e. companies).

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[CanHasDIY]

Solving a problem by introducing more problems is never a good plan.

Naysaying without offering any alternative is pretty much always a douchey thing to do.

Yea, yea, we get it, you've been instructed to hate unions. Wake me when you have something constructive to say.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[CanHasDIY]

Which union? I was a member of the Glass, Mould, and Pottery Makers Union for several years, and never saw any of these sort of tactics employed.

FWIW, my dues were $2 a paycheck, at a time when I was banking almost $2,000/wk. Not what I would consider a ripoff, especially considering that it was because of the union I made such fat-ass pay.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Which union? I was a member of the Glass, Mould, and Pottery Makers Union for several years, and ...my dues were $2 a paycheck, at a time when I was banking almost $2,000/wk. Not what I would consider a ripoff, especially considering that it was because of the union I made such fat-ass pay.

I was a Teamster (because I wanted to work at UPS unloading trucks while I went to college). We paid 25 percent of our take home pay ($100 out of the $400 a month we got starting out) for the privilege of working in a Union shop.

Some union, like yours, might be serving their members, but mine certainly seemed to be serving themself.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Nidi62]

The union was IAM, which really makes no sense considering the industry I am in. But I have seen the problems caused by other unions such as ALPA, and have had first-hand stories told to me the problems that mixed-union shops cause, with different groups getting different deals and contracts, causing hostility and an unwillingness to work together because the person is in another union. And to be quite frank, the job I was doing at the time that was trying to be unionized isn't really one that demands the type of pay you mention except of course at the high seniority level (topped out at 10.5 years is a little over 4k a month). It is unskilled labor working at a dangerous but not overly so work environment.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[bzipitidoo]

At least companies are honest when they screw over their employees.

LOL, where to begin with that line? You think companies are honest about that? And you think it feels any better when a screwing is in your face rather than behind your back?

Anywhere power is concentrated, there is potential for abuse. Companies are concentrations of power that lie, cheat, and steal, and get away with it, more often than any other powerful organizations I hear about. In America, upper management gets ridiculously large compensation packages. It's so bad we even have a term for CEO severance packages: golden parachute.

What holds powerful companies in check? What are the checks and balances? Regulators? Whistleblowers? Unions? Lawyers? The Media? The Competition? Customers? None of those have had much success, certainly not in reining in the outrageous pay, nor in getting them to pay taxes, nor in the other games they play to weasel around their obligations. Doubt is their product. They've captured regulators, silenced scientists, persecuted whistleblowers, beat down unions, bought the media, fought lawyers with delay tactics and more lawyers, colluded with competitors, and gulled, brainwashed, and silenced customers. I find it tragically comic that so many people raise a ruckus over any hint of government abuse, even just the potential for abuse, but let corporations walk all over them. Bank of America, Chase, Citi, and Wells Fargo should be broken and dead for their too-big-to-fail brinksmanship with the entire world economy, yet many people still do business with these thieving megabanks.

The way minimum wage is done is a case in point. We let them get away with proposing a reasonable seeming fixed amount. Then they laugh while inflation whittles away at it. Minimum wage should at the least be indexed to inflation. But that's still not enough. I'd like to see minimum wage linked to the maximum pay packages companies put together, have it be something like that the minimum wage cannot be less than 1/20th of the maximum. Then, companies would face a choice. Either they can pay their workers more, or they can pay their CEO less.

When lawyers score wins with class action lawsuits, you should salute them. We'd all like better ways to police big, bad corporations, but this has had to do.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you have my state where every year, you have to reauthorize union dues being taken out of your check every year (you also have to reauthorize anything that is not taxes, like health benefits, 403(b), etc.). The unions are notorious for not telling people to renew their dues payments (for example, my father, brother, mother, wife, and sister are all in industries covered by different unions but none of them pay dues, despite having been members in the past). Instead, they got the idea to pass a state law that required everybody in a collective bargaining unit to have to pay dues, whether members or not. The legislation quickly died because I think the legislators would have looked like morons by passing it after a committee meeting used up what political capital remained. At said committee meeting, multiple union representatives said, under oath, that they made no effort to remind people to reauthorize their due payments. As a result, they wanted to make everyone pay dues, despite the fact that a majority of their own ACTIVE members did not pay dues.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[jd.schmidt]

Look, of course there are corrupt and poorly run Unions. There are also corrupt and poorly run companies. You really need to be involved in your Union if you have one, don't assume anyone is just always looking out for your best interests.

That said, unless you happen to be an expert at contract negotiations, typically you need a Union or something like because they can afford to have actual experts who specialize in it, and you are better off negotiating with other employees on your side, the company is certainly of one mind. We have whole schools and departments dedicated to business, there should be education for people about what a union can and can not do for you and about what makes a union successful or unsuccessful. Really, schools have a business department, why do they not have a labor department? If we educated people in this stuff, I bet our unions would be much, much better!

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[dkleinsc]

You think unions actually care about the employees, or even care about fairness?

It depends on the union, just like it depends on the company you work for. There are unions that are great to be a part of, and unions that are lousy to be a part of.

I would much rather trust the CEO of a company who only cares about their company than the union boss who only cares about his union.

So let me get this straight: You'd rather trust the CEO of your company, who has a financial incentive to screw you over with poor pay, benefits, etc, than a union boss who has to answer to you in the next election?

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Way to many companies are misclassifying there works as contractors or pushing them off to subs and yet controlling them like employees. So they can get it both ways of the control of employees with out the costs / responsibility's of having employees.

What's your native language, Joe? If it's English, sue you grammar school teachers for malpractice and go back and get that GED. If not, that should be too, their, workers, responsibilities... and that last sentence was nearly unreadable so again, keep studying, not bad for a native Japanese speaker but absolutely retarded for a native English speaker.

Writing like yours makes me discount everything you say, because if English is your first language you're woefully uneducated and can't possibly know what you're talking about.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[mjwalshe]

Liberals and democrats in the USA are not left wing Obama would be a Tory (wet/One nation) or center right politician in Europe.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Dogtanian]

Liberals and democrats in the USA are not left wing Obama would be a Tory (wet/One nation) or center right politician in Europe.

Yes, I'm well aware of that personally.

Fact remains though, that AFAICT your average Republican (in the US party political sense) or right-winger thinks- or at least claims- that Obama is a "socialist". The fact they believe this shows how laughably skewed American politics are to the right. (They wouldn't know a real socialist if they hit them with a wet fish). But judgements of "left" and "right" in that situation are implicitly relative.

The fact remains that in this case, the person I was replying to is clearly to the right of Obama and it's ironic that he berates unions as a "liberal" (read: "left wing", "socialist", "commie", "whatever") solution and advocates lawmaking, despite the former being far more free-market (for the reasons I gave) than the latter, government-centric solution he advocates.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Allowing a group of self-organized-people(unions) to influence laws that impose restrictions/rules on the rest of us is certainly NOT "free market". It's quite the opposite. It's favoritism enacted to pander to groups of voters.

Free market in this scenario means leaving government the fuck out of voluntary interaction between individuals. It's all fine and dandy to cry about how unfair it is that workers are desperate for jobs and are thus easily manipulated by employers. But then you also have to look at the culprits that are causing the inflation and unemployment that makes such workers desperate for work. Government. The very same group of corrupt individuals you use to give favors to these supposedly "competing" groups of people.

You know, sometimes I feel like I sound like a raving conspiracy-theory-loon. I just feel that so many people are led astray with all sorts of "feel-good" and "sounds-intuitive" arguments coming from people with vested interests in perpetuating government and the ills that come with it. At the very least we all need to agree that freedom(self-ownership) should be the only rule, the highest rule, and everything else should be considered irrelevant.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[mcgrew]

You think unions actually care about the employees, or even care about fairness?

The unions care about the union members because that's what they exist to do, and the union members are all employees. They're there to make sure that employees are treated fairly by management. They're there to get better pay, benefits, and working conditions for the employees.

Positions from shop steward on up are voted on democratically, as are contracts and strikes.

I would much rather trust the CEO of a company who only cares about their company than the union boss who only cares about his union.

There is strength in numbers. His union is YOU. Get it through your brainwashed head, your dues will far more than pay for themselves.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Nidi62]

The unions care about the union members because that's what they exist to do, and the union members are all employees. They're there to make sure that employees are treated fairly by management. They're there to get better pay, benefits, and working conditions for the employees.

Unions care about union members insofar as that is where the union's power lies. The member base is where the union draws it's money, and where it draws it's political power. Unions are no longer worker organizations, and haven't for some time. They are political organizations. They no longer exist to serve the workers that make up the union, they exist to keep themselves running and to gain money, power, and influence for the union. If unions were really about the workers and cared about the workers then it would not be virtually impossible to vote out a union, or mandatory shops. They have designed the rules to favor them, and when the situation changes they change the rules (as they did in my example in my first post). You cannot claim to represent me when you do not want me to even vote to let you in. Unions do not negotiate. The coerce. Look at what happened with Hostess. They refused to negotiate in any meaningful way and the company shut down. Any union that actually cared about it's members would realize that a little less pay and (at worse)slightly worse benefits are better than no pay and no benefits.

You do not realize that it is you who are brainwashed. Unions give you a lot of things, yes. But they do not create these things: they take them from other people. They take and take and take until there is nothing left, to the point where it doesn't matter, because you no longer have a job. In which case they blame the company for being unwilling to accept their demands for $40 an hour and 6 weeks paid vacation for a job that barely requires a high school diploma and no real training. Or another example: for a drug user to keep getting high they have to take more and more of the drug. For the union bosses to stay in power (which gives them money(ever meet a poor union boss?), power, and political influence), they have to keep giving their members more and more, which in turn builds the dependency of the members. But all it does is hide the fact that they don't care about you, the worker. They care about the union.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[thegarbz]

What's the difference? No really, an employment agreement is little more than a contract between a company and a person.

I say this as an employee sitting next to someone at work who quit 10 years ago and came back the next day as a contractor simply to change the conditions of his employment so he has less benefits but more cash in his pocket every month.

Both of us still work based on a contract, with the only difference is his contract has an expiry date on it and needs to be manually renewed every year.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[sFurbo]

the "free market" one of one group of self-organised-people (i.e. unions)

Unions tend to (try to) get monopolies on (certain types of) workers, so in most cases, the scare quotes around "free market" are very apt. Not that monopolies are any less "free market" than government solutions are.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Dogtanian]

Well, I agree that American unions have the potential to become just as abusive and self-serving at the expense of others. I've heard that one of the prison workers unions was pushing for stronger sentences and more jail time because it was in *their* members' interests. That's beneath contempt and every bit as evil as a company doing the same thing.

But that's my point- if one is comfortable with companies doing this sort of thing and leveraging their size and power to manipulate the government, then it's (in principle) no worse for unions to be doing it, if- as the American right seems to be- they're comfortable with the latter. That's not that I approve of it personally, but those that do shouldn't have double standards.

(Disclaimer; I'm not American and don't have any plans to live there).

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Dogtanian]

Unions tend to (try to) get monopolies on (certain types of) workers, so in most cases, the scare quotes around "free market" are very apt. Not that monopolies are any less "free market" than government solutions are.

And companies tend to (try to) get monopolies on both markets and workers, so by the same token many "free markets" aren't, even if they became that way through "free" means. But my point was that someone apparently on the American right- who tend to be comfortable with the latter and still consider it a free market, can't turn around and oppose the former, which is just another grouping of people, albeit not in favour of the companies. Especially if they're arguing against that and in favour of a solution that requires more government intervention (which the US right traditionally opposes... well, until it's in their favour, that is).

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[Anonymous Coward]

Unions are a government-enforced solution.

It's not the free market when workers are denied the right to choose not to join a union or prevented from doing work in a particular place or a particular company because they are non-union. The laws that require this squelch competition and drive prices up for everyone.

UPS treated their employees great; they were paid well with decent benefits (even for part-timers), had parties, pickup football games, randomly brought in pizza or donuts to work. Something like 90+% of employees would not have chosen to strike, but the union made the decision to strike without workers ever being given a chance to vote. UPS lost something like 7% market share and basically gave FedEx (a non-union company) the shot in the arm it needed to add FedEx Ground to its services, further cutting UPS profits and market share.

Unions aren't interested in helped or protecting employees; they are interested in having power and sustaining themselves. They actively discourage the hardest workers which is damaging to the company, and reduce a company's ability to grow and hire new people. They are parasite on the economy that, today in a free market, offers no legitimate benefit to the host.

Re:We need more unions / workers rights

[mcgrew]

Unions care about union members insofar as that is where the union's power lies.

Can the propaganda.The union members ARE the union.

Unions are no longer worker organizations, and haven't for some time.

Utter bullshit. I suspect that the company you worked for you were in management. Read my previous comment. Everything the union does is voted on by the union members.

They are political organizations.

Of course they are, just as management is. They lobby for laws benefiting unions and more importantly, the union membership just as management lobbies for weaker worker protections.

Yes, the contribute to campaigns of candidates friendly to unions and the workers who ARE the unions. They campaign against union-hostile and worker-hostile politicians.

My union has a voluntary fund for political purposes rather than using dues for that purpose (YMMV). I gladly have $8 deducted from my monthly salary so my union can lobby for candidates who want to make my life as a worker better, rather than candidates who would write laws that would hold me down.

Unions do not negotiate. The coerce. Look at what happened with Hostess. They refused to negotiate in any meaningful way and the company shut down.

Ah, I see, you read FOX and nothing else. Try Wikipedia -- mismanagement killed Hostess, not the union. After they'd spent money like a drunken congresscritter they insisted on all sorts of "concessions" like slashing wages to make up for their poor management.

Also have a look at This:

Most of whatâ(TM)s written about Hostessâ(TM)s shuttering is partisan puffing that wants to blame everything on the union, or on the hedge funds, or on management. Itâ(TM)s a testament to how politically divided our writer class is, but it is not accurate. There is no way to look at the saga without concluding that, much like an instinct-less teen in a horror film, the company and its employees deserved the end they got due to roundly-shared stupidity. Hostessâ(TM)s demise collects the worst elements in modern business into one shrink-wrapped sponge cake: union short-sightedness, managerial ineptitude and avarice, and badly spent millions.

Unions give you a lot of things, yes. But they do not create these things: they take them from other people.

Yes, they take them from the company.

They take and take and take until there is nothing left, to the point where it doesn't matter, because you no longer have a job.

Then explain why my dad was in the IBEW for 40 years and retired with a nice, fat pension and why all of the electric companies he'd worked for are all still generating and delivering power? Explain why American unionized automakers compete successfully with nonunion automakers? Explain why Disney is still in business, when they've been union since the 1940s? Face it, the only time you're going to hear about a union is when it's threatening a strike or its company goes out of business.

For the union bosses to stay in power (which gives them money(ever meet a poor union boss?)

No, and I've never heard of a poor union member, either. Meanwhile McDonald's and WalMart workers have food stamps and medical cards. Ever meet a poor board member or CEO?

they have to keep giving their members more and more, which in turn builds the dependency of the members.

That's what they're there for! Yes, I'm dependent on my union, I don't WANT to be on food stamps.

BTW, I retire with a pension next year. Do you think that would happen without a union? Damned right I'm dependent. With only social security I'd be poor as a churchmouse.

My union works for ME. I'm damned glad I have it. And I'm REALLY going to enjoy that ret

Complexity of laws

[intermodal]

The complexity of laws pretty much assured that Uber would get in trouble at some point over something. The way they have to operate to avoid being considered taxicabs for legal purposes pretty much ensured that any way they profited would be an invitation to one suit or another.

Re:Complexity of laws

[h4rr4r]

Which has nothing to do with this.
They want to classify these folks as contractors but treat them like employees. That is not legal if you make donuts or widgets or have a not-taxi taxi service.

Re:Complexity of laws

[intermodal]

Yes, on this we agree. However, I'm willing to bet there's some contract angle from which the lawyers from Uber would disagree.

Re:Complexity of laws

[h4rr4r]

I am sure if they thought they could get away with it they would have a contract angle that let them sell their contractors/employees blood.

Re:Complexity of laws

[intermodal]

Yes, I'm sure they would. Or to buy and sell the contractors themselves.

Re:Complexity of laws

[MozeeToby]

Maybe they have so much difficulty skirting the laws that apply to taxi service because they are a freaking taxi service.

Re:Complexity of laws

[intermodal]

In the common definition, yes, but legally it is not necessarily true.

Whether they are a taxi service or a de-facto taxi service doesn't really matter to me, it's all semantics. To me, the fact that there is a market for their service and their competition is the real subject of interest.

I think it's more likely that we need to fix broken laws concerning running a taxi service than that we need to figure out how to better enforce what is presently on the books.

Re:Complexity of laws

[rjstanford]

They want to classify these folks as contractors but treat them like employees. That is not legal if you make donuts or widgets or have a not-taxi taxi service.

Hmm. The drivers provide their own vehicles, set their own hours, and pay their own fees (gas/tolls/etc). Yup, sure sound like employees to me...

Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[langelgjm]

I've used it twice. I thought they discouraged tips, suggesting the fee you paid was inclusive of everything? That's part of the appeal. A significant number of cabs in DC don't accept credit cards, and not long ago, it used to be a free-for-all catching cabs at Union Station after midnight, with cab drivers forcing riders to share cabs, refusing riders based on destination, etc. (all of which is illegal). Uber was great for that - call a black car, they pick you up, no waiting, no cash... home in 15 minutes. Yes, it was more expensive than a cab, but the service made it worthwhile.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[Entropius]

I had a cabbie (very nice guy) in DC yesterday tell me that the city's skimming money off of the cabbies left and right to "pay for the credit card readers". Coming from a place with a decidedly-more free enterprise mindset with the cabs, what's the deal? Shouldn't the cabs only accept credit cards if they find it in their business interests to do so, and otherwise people can just pay cash? Honestly I had no idea that any cabbies *did* take plastic.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[3.5 stripes]

Here in london they take plastic, some even have the NFC enabled card readers, so for cab rides under £20 it can be pretty damn convenient.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[langelgjm]

Well, it wouldn't surprise me. DC's cab industry is incredibly corrupt. I rarely take cabs anymore, but I recall there being an issue with the way the city set rates - it made it virtually impossible to know how much cash you might need (maybe it was the zone system, which they no longer use). Combine that with the difficulty of finding a cab in many areas, and the tendency of some drivers to refuse to take you to certain destinations, if all you had was a credit card, or not enough cash (or possibly not enough cash, given that you didn't really know how much the fare might be), it created enough of an inconvenience that some people (myself included) were willing to pay a premium for Uber simply to not have to deal with cash, among other things.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[rjstanford]

Requiring a minimum standard of service (that might, for example, include having a card reader) is a reasonable trade for the right to provide a lucrative yet limited-availability service, since nobody can just "add one" to the number of cabs in the city to compete directly.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[infinitelink]

"not long ago, it used to be a free-for-all catching cabs at Union Station after midnight, with cab drivers forcing riders to share cabs, refusing riders based on destination, etc. (all of which is illegal)."

And it shouldn't be. That government in the US treats cabbies and their operations like government property, Public Utilities, etc. (all bullshit) puts these companies (and their drivers) into binds; everywhere this is done service is artificially degraded, segregated between areas (doesn't matter if there is demand to be met--such and such company bribed us off before you did)--e.g. a cabbie drops someone off 20 miles from a location and then can't pick someone up a mile away but has to drive like 15 back into his own zone: cabbies themselves have to work for a state-approved company so get raped in the *** for fees on a cab and dictated to and oh, they're also treated like contractors when really they're controlled employees (and the States and feds involved...know and have never done anything about it: to do so would destroy their licensing/control schemes).

I say let them force sharing: if you don't like it, pay more. That's how a market of people voluntarily doing work and offering services and goods is supposed to work. Frankly, it could make it cheaper: if not, people would go elsewhere (like Uber) rather than crying "it's not what I want, I should go to my legislator to have it made illegal", right? I for one...wouldn't mind splitting fare in a cab myself.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[langelgjm]

And it shouldn't be.

Depends on what else is going to be regulated. If the city is going to dictate fares to customers (and drivers), then customers should also expect a certain standard of service in return for that fare. If there are no guarantees on what kind of service I'm going to get, why is the service provider getting a guaranteed payment?

I say let them force sharing: if you don't like it, pay more.

I did - that's why I used Uber. Instead of standing in a crowd for 20 minutes with cabbies yelling destinations at hundreds of people who just got off a late train, I paid more and got what I considered to be better service.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[smooth wombat]

You are correct in that it was the zone system which caused all sorts of issues with fares. As you related, it was almost impossible for a person to determine ahead of time how much a fare would be because of that system.

Here is an article discussing the switch.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[infinitelink]

For the second part you responded to, I was responding to your complaint requiring "illegal forced sharing" and that, in general, that shouldn't be a complaint: it shouldn't be illegal. Besdies that though, there should be little to no required standard of service: if the standards don't meet expectations, just don't use them, as it goes WITH ALMOST ANY OTHER BUSINESS. The only things one could say should be exceptions are life-and-death, e.g. if the card isn't even legally allowed on the road (and for real "rational bases", i.e. it's unsound and a threat to everyone else in actuality), then it shouldn't be on there.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[langelgjm]

if the standards don't meet expectations, just don't use them, as it goes WITH ALMOST ANY OTHER BUSINESS.

But taxicabs aren't like other business. With any other business, you usually have a range of price points to choose from. With taxicabs, fares are set.

My point is that if the government is going to set the price, then it also makes sense for the government to set standards for the product. If you don't want such standards, fine, but you should also do away with the set pricing.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[infinitelink]

Bullshit. It doesn't make sense for the government to set standards because it doesn't make sense for the government to set fares because the real issue is, what the fuck is the government doing in the taxicab business in the first place, besides colluding with private interests unconstitutionally and duping co-conspirators in the courts to sign-off on it? I've ridden tons of cabs and if you call the cabis directly so the company doesn't know, they give LOWER fares.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[langelgjm]

That's why I said IF the government sets the price, THEN it makes sense to set standards.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[infinitelink]

The logic is wrong. IF it makes no sense for the government to set price (which it does) THEN it still makes no sense to set standards. Just saying.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[langelgjm]

The logic is fine. The IF statement is not evaluating whether it makes sense for the government to set prices, it is evaluating whether the government does set prices. Governments in many, many countries and cities do set prices. Given that fact, it does indeed make sense for them to also set standards.

"If it makes sense for the government to set prices" is an entirely different question.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[AK Marc]

In the US, they illegally kick you out of the cab if the ride is under $20.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[AK Marc]

if the standards don't meet expectations, just don't use them, as it goes WITH ALMOST ANY OTHER BUSINESS.

Almost any other business allows competition. To become a cabbie (or for an honest person to become my cabbie) they have to join the corrupt service, buying a medalion, usually fixed in number, and transferable, so that the license is worth more than the car it's displayed in. But if my local pizza place sucks, it's not hard for me to enter the highly regulated food preparation industry. But impossible for me to start up a taxi service without paying $100,000 or more for a used license on the grey market.

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[infinitelink]

It's STILL the only way to kill-off that corruption: dry it up (then politically organize until you have enough majority to seek-out, prosecute, and kill the politicians--and judges--involved). ;)

Re:Doesn't Uber discourage tips anyway?

[infinitelink]

Notice the ;) in the above comment.

Well ...

[gstoddart]

The lawsuit also claims that Uber is misclassifying its drivers as contractors, rather than employees.

Well, are they contractors? You should now your own employment status.

Depending on what exactly the relationship between the drivers and the company will define a lot. If they're just a dispatcher for people who have signed up to be told they can pick someone up ... you may well be a contractor.

I'm fairly sure cab drivers aren't generally considered employees, so unless you've been hired by these people, and they're doing your payroll deductions and the like, why would this be different?

Skimming tips is another issue, and could indicate all kinds of douchy-ness, but whether or not you're a contractor will depend entirely on what kind of relationship you have with them.

Lawyers.

[arthurpaliden]

Lawyers. The only people who get praised for behaving like rotten kids instead of being sent to their rooms with no supper.

Scam lawsuit

[TWiTfan]

Uber has a *lot* of enemies in the established cab and limo industry. Don't take any lawsuit against them on face value. You can bet that the REAL impetus behind this lawsuit has nothing to do with tips or contracting.

Re:Scam lawsuit

[dkleinsc]

Ok, so let's say this is some plot by traditional cab and limo companies. So what? If Uber is able to offer cheaper prices than the established cab and limo industry because it is stealing from its employees, that's about as fair competition as a legitimate used car business competing with a car theft ring. If the complaint is true, that means a traditional limo company pays drivers $8 per hour plus tips plus half the FICA tax, and Uber is out there paying people at what amounts to $4 per hour as an "independent contractor" plus no tips and none of the taxes. And those "independent contractors" are in fact the victims of that policy and should be the plaintiffs in the suit.

That's why we have court systems with class-action lawsuits and discovery and public records and a judge and possibly a jury to sort this thing out.

Re:Scam lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

If payments and dispatching are handled by Uber, then their drivers are employees, period. Unless their drivers can take calls with no payments to Uber, advertise their "Uber" services with no fees to Uber, etc., they aren't contractors. "Contractor" means you are a true independent, and regularly do offer your services as such. They HAVE to be employees due to the way regulators have captured the employment and cabbie markets and turned them into arms of the State, which is the real bullshit. I despise the people here (and anywhere else) who talk as if employers actually owe anything to employees (more than basic pay) just because they're employees rather than contractors, as if that isn't all bullshit legal artifice concocted by Statist tyrants in the first place. e.g. if you want to help a friend by giving him a job but can't afford thousands in fees, paperwork, benefits, etc., just 9-10/hr and you're even going to make sure it works with the rest of his schedule...you can't. Fuck you: obey the State and its aims or let him fucking die. And yeah, I've been in this situation. I know a ton of people who have, and here in Denver a $9-10/hr job that's arranged at the convenience of the employee (so s/he could work other jobs, take care of family, go to school, or do whatever to make sure to make enough/get education to survive and even do well) is a great proposition for a lot of people. But no, you can't unless you serve Statist aims: that's called inhumane, immoral, unlawful conduct by the State: it's also unconstitutional, but the "New Deal" like policies and their enforcres that continue to nullify the Constitution and natural-rights system of "leave decent men the fuck alone" don't give a shit, they care only about their own power. If it were elsewise they'd be prosecuting the bureaucrats and authorities that continue to enforce such "laws" regardless of the founders' own proposition that /a law that infringes a right can be abrogated by a citizen with impugnity./

Re:Scam lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't cheaper. They do offer a better value though.

Re:Scam lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

If payments and dispatching are handled by Uber, then their drivers are employees, period.

I realize this example is disappearing, but what about kids doing paper routes? All my subscriber's payments went to the paper and they paid me the amount over and above the whole cost of the papers I delivered; but I don't think I was ever an employee.

http://consumerist.com/2012/09/17/newspaper-carrier-i-work-hard-to-deliver-your-grandmas-paper-and-i-exist/

Re:Scam lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

Your understanding of what distinguishes an employee vs. a contractor is wrong. Processing payments and referring dispatches doesn't automatically make Uber drivers employees instead of contractors. The key distinguishing metric will be the amount of autonomy the drivers have in dictating the details of their working conditions. Who sets their hours? Who provides the tools? To what extent does Uber dictate how the task is accomplished vs. the driver? Etc.

Without knowing much about Uber, I'd say it's going to be an uphill battle to prove their drivers are employees.

Re:Scam lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why we have court systems with class-action lawsuits and discovery and public records and a judge and possibly a jury to sort this thing out.

Justice costs money. Regardless of the merits of this suit, it's a good way to make Uber bleed.

Re:Scam lawsuit

[dkleinsc]

If a lawsuit is really frivolous, the plaintiff may have to pay the cost of defending. That's a decision a judge can make, specifically to prevent frivolous lawsuits.

Re:Scam lawsuit

[Solandri]

If the complaint is true, that means a traditional limo company pays drivers $8 per hour plus tips plus half the FICA tax, and Uber is out there paying people at what amounts to $4 per hour as an "independent contractor" plus no tips and none of the taxes. And those "independent contractors" are in fact the victims of that policy and should be the plaintiffs in the suit.

I helped run a company where we had a couple a couple graphic designers on staff who started as part-time contractors, but whose work duties and hours made them eligible to be employees IMHO. I sat them down, explained the situation and the tax ramifications of both options to them. How even though their take-home pay was higher as an independent contractor, once they paid self-employment tax it'd be the same. And the job benefits (company paid 75% health insurance) would tip the scales in favor of being an employee. Then asked them if they'd like to become employees or remain as contractors.

Both opted to remain independent contractors. I didn't understand why, still don't. Maybe they were used to contracting and wanted to stick with what was familiar to them. Maybe they wanted to retain the independence and self-direction that comes with a contracting role (one of the distinctions the IRS uses is that an employee can be told how to perform a certain task, while a contractor can do it however they like as long as the end product meets the employer's specifications). Maybe they didn't understand the tax situation and still thought they were getting more money as a contractor (I've found a lot of the artist-types have a poor grasp of math).

But not all independent contractors are "victims" of companies trying to take advantage of them. I dunno what's going on in this case, but just because you or I have a preference for being an employee, that doesn't mean any time a company classifies its workers as contractors that it's automatically doing something nefarious. Given how cab drivers operate on their own without supervision, I could see a pretty good argument for them being contractors especially if they're using their own vehicle.

Re:Scam lawsuit

[AK Marc]

If payments and dispatching are handled by Uber, then their drivers are employees, period.

They set their own hours, handle their own permits and taxes. Uber provides no equipment for the cabbie's use. The cabbies are most likely contractors (based on the IRS definition).

Unless their drivers can take calls with no payments to Uber, advertise their "Uber" services with no fees to Uber, etc., they aren't contractors.

The cabbie can walk away from Uber at any time and continue operating. They don't pay fees to Uber if independently hired by a hotel or called by someone directly.

"Contractor" means you are a true independent, and regularly do offer your services as such. They HAVE to be employees due to the way regulators have captured the employment and cabbie markets and turned them into arms of the State, which is the real bullshit.

Ah, you don't think they are employees, but claim such to help bolster your insane anti-government ramblings.

I Still Don't Understand...

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't understand how/why the taxi business is so thoroughly convoluted and corrupt, at all levels.

Upshot?

[LeRaldo]

This is the second time in two days I've seen "upshot" incorrectly used in an article summary. Why is this happening? Stop it.

Re:Upshot?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems to be used correctly. It's very briefly summarizing the potential consequences for Uber.
What exactly is your complaint here?

Re:Upshot?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the second time in two days I've seen "upshot" incorrectly used in an article summary. Why is this happening? Stop it.

What is really ironic is that the upshot of your post was entirely expected!

Did taxicab drivers...

[Anonymous Coward]

really need an elance for taxi's, lol.

Status Quo

[neghvar1]

This is a tactic being pushed by traditional cab companies to put Uber out of business and maintain the status quo. Unwilling to adapt and compete with new technologies. Same tactic as big business sending SLAPP suits or pressuring governmental entities to pass ordinances and laws that would hinder or outlaw the new technology or business practice.

How is Uber different from Gypsy cabs?

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have trouble understanding how Uber is any different than the illegal Gypsy cabs other than they are organized by a parent company. Don't they need to be regulated like any normal cab company?

Re:How is Uber different from Gypsy cabs?

[rjstanford]

They're registered as private "limos" (size unspecified in regulation) that are not unregulated like gypsy cabs but rather "differently regulated". For example, you can't hail a black car on the street. Uber just made it even easier to reserve one with very little notice than it is to hail a cab - that's the disruption they brought to the market.

Kneel and get my permission

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Licensing, if it is to exist at all in a free societ, should be about competence and not restricting entry to a profession. Otherwise it becomes the age old tool of corruption where you know people and give kickbacks to get a license.

i.e. kleptocracy business-as-usual.

It's more than resistitution

[plopez]

Others have pointed out the punishment aspect of the fines and settlements. But it goes beyond that. Even if the person harmed gets 0.10 USD per 1 USD of settlement, there are other factors as well. Some examples include the psychological aspect of a person knowing somethings done on their behalf to stick to those that stuck it to them and the company being forced to disclose the suit on their financial reports; which impacts their potential to get good loans, attract investors, and form business partnerships. Yes getting 10 pct. of the settlement is disappointing. But the companies illegal, immoral, and/or unethical behavior must be punished

Unions saved my wife's life and career

[Anonymous Coward]

She's a scientist, and took a job at a research institution where the bosses were verbally abusive and actively sabotaging her work. Things got so bad, she was faced with the prospect of "going down with the grant". If it wasn't for the union contract, and a rep that was available to explain both the terms of her contract and have enough leverage, in the form of attorneys and the knowledge that they would actually sue, she would have been at the helm of multi-million dollar research project that produced no research.

Being forced to fail would have damaged her professional prospects, but beyond that, it put incredible stress on her psychological well-being. Union representation meant that after a spate of disgusting emails (I read them, they were appalling) and a series of requests for her to do lab-tech busywork outside of her contract, she was able to force management to let her out of the job without serious damage to her reputation. She found a better-paying job at another institution, where she busts her ass and produces excellent results, and honestly, it probably saved our marriage.

Her new workplace is great, but it isn't unionized (unions are a rarity in the sciences) and she's haunted by the prospect of finding herself victimized again. Gripe about unions all you want, when you need to go up against management, they've got lawyers, money, and your job (and possibly future prospects) on their side. It helps to have lawyers, money, and big menacing fuckers on your side. We are a union household.

Lawyer scum.

[RightSaidFred99]

The driver knows the terms of the agreement, if they don't like it don't use the service. And saying they are employees is like saying I'm an employee of Craigslist or Ebay if I sell something, or I'm an employee of Google if I sell android apps on their Play store. It's fucking risible.

And nobody is skimming tips. I can't wait to see the convoluted logic claiming they are.

minor payments -- give to the govt

[Jeff1946]

For small payments to many people, split the money between the law firm and the govt. in a reasonable manner. Saves a lot of admin costs and we all as tax payers benefit.

Re:Unions almost cost my mom hers

[Nidi62]

My mom works for the same company I do, and back around 10 years ago unions almost drove it out of business because everyone else had to give and give while the union would only take and take while the company was having financial trouble. It took a bankruptcy and a lot of layoffs/pay cuts to survive it, and my mom only kept her job because they forced someone into retirement/partial contracting and she took that person's job.

How to support Uber ??

[Anonymous Coward]

So what can each individual do to support Uber, if they want to?

Should we opt out of the lawsuit, would that cost the suing lawyers money (both reduced award due to less cases and money to process opt out)?

What other actions could users do?

Ask driver if they are an indenpendent contractor and submit that to judge?

Re:Unions almost cost my mom hers

[Anonymous Coward]

This one governments killed a bunch of people, so all governments must be bad.

This one cop shot an innocent citizen, so all cops must be bad.

This one restaurant's burgers tasted really bad, so all restaurants must be bad.

All those sound pretty damn ridiculous. Yes, some unions are bad. But it's the member's responsibility to keep them from being bad. Getting rid of unions is no more the answer than getting rid of governments, cops, or restaurants.

Re:Unions almost cost my mom hers

[jd.schmidt]

Well, obviously I don't know the details of this case but let me throw out a few things.

First, maybe she really was in a bad Union, bad Unions, bad workers and bad management can all make a business go out of business. Film at 11. In fact I want to start educating workers about this exactly this, what makes a good union vs. a bad one, what they can legitimately expect a union to do for them vs. what they should not expect.

But how certain are you that it was the Union, and only the Union, that caused all the problems? Was this company really making just as much profit as every other company in the industry did, and it was only the salaries of Unions members that ate up that profit and put them in the red? Did management ever try to lead the way by taking a pay cut themselves to demonstrate loyalty to the business?

Of course when a business is failing the owner looks at all his costs, wrings his hands, and says "If only my labor costs were lower, if only my capital costs were lower, etc...". But at the end of the day, when a business is going down, everyone suffers. I understand it is called creative destruction now.

But look at it this way, if a company is unsuccessful such that the only way to keep it on life support is for everyone to cut their pay, why do I want to keep working there or sacrifice to keep the company on life support? In fact, is not such behavior socialist and counter to the tenants of survival of the fittest? How is a worker subsidy to a failing business any different than a government one to keep it limping along? I do not care if I work for Ford or Toyota, I care about my paycheck!

Workers are factually getting the smallest percent of U.S. profits in recent history and the trend is down. Greedy workers are in no logical way what is wrong with the U.S. economy, in fact there is good reason to suspect the opposite. I believe worker salaries are lower than what the free market would otherwise dictate because the business community and politicians have been systematically suppressing the ability of workers to negotiate in a fair manner (Michigan laws excellent example). And if no one has money to buy chairs, no one will be working to produce chairs. Economic bubbles mean underlying demand was insufficient to support the capital investments, in other word the ill of our country was too much money in the hands of investors and not enough in the hands of consumers!

Re:Unions almost cost my mom hers

[Nidi62]

She wasn't union. There were 2 parts of the company that were union, the rest of the company wasn't. The non-union employees kept having to give up things while the union screamed "unfair" every time they were asked to give up anything. And for the record, the whole industry was struggling at the time, it wasn't just our company. The bankruptcy allowed a restructuring that even let the company merge with a competitor and now it is strong and stable.

This is not the Tip you are looking for.

[freeschwag]

What tips? Am I doing it wrong or mistaken? I was under the impression Uber is an all inclusive, slick googlemap enabled app to summon a black car, autobilled to CC, jump in , get to destination, get out. No tip requested or required.

Re:Unions almost cost my mom hers

[jd.schmidt]

OK, so revenue problems were industry wide, and they way the company restructured was to merge. So on the face of it, looks like there was simply over growth in the companies followed by basically downsizing. No one likes it but it happens union or not.

So who fared better from your observations, Union members or non-Union members? Also did salaries go back up after the restructure? How is the ratio of company profits to salary today vs. in the past?

Re:Unions almost cost my mom hers

[Nidi62]

So who fared better from your observations, Union members or non-Union members? Also did salaries go back up after the restructure? How is the ratio of company profits to salary today vs. in the past?

Unions. Salaries for many positions were cut, as were the total number of paid vacations (from 5 weeks down to 4). Healthcare is looking to take a hit as well next year, but that is more due to the ACA, and they are offering ways to offset that loss for next year. Don't know the ratio of profits to salary, but last year's profit sharing was the highest they ever paid out, and this year is on track to beat that profit. However, industry profits as a whole are growing as well. And the merger actually came about after the bankruptcy, and our company ended up buying out a competitor that was actually more heavily unionized than we were.