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Uber Will Pay $100 Million To Settle Suits With Drivers Seeking Employee Status (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Two lawsuits posing a threat to Uber's on-demand business model have been settled. Uber has agreed to pay up to $100 million to drivers who sought to be classified as employees of the company. The initial sum paid will be $84 million, which will settle cases in California and Massachusetts to some 385,000 drivers. If the company goes public or gets purchased, Uber said it will pay drivers an additional $16 million. The company is currently valued at $62.5 billion. In addition, new policy changes will force the company to no longer be able to deactivate drivers' accounts at will. They will also stop deactivating drivers who turn down rides frequently. Appeal panels will be created to help drivers form an association so they can contest terminations. The last policy change requires Uber to clearly inform riders that tips are not included in Uber's fares. Drivers will now be able to solicit tips from passengers. "If we chose not to settle this case, we faced risks," plaintiff attorney Liss-Riordan said in a prepared statement. "We faced the risk that a jury in San Francisco (where Uber is everywhere and quite popular) may not side with the drivers over Uber." The settlement still needs to be approved by Judge Edward Chen of the District Court of Northern California, which will probably be a months-long process. The company seems to be waist-deep in legal trouble lately. Two weeks ago, Uber agreed to a settlement of $10 million for misleading advertising about the quality of its background checks for drivers. One week prior, it was reported the CEO of Uber will go to court over price fixing claims in New York.
Ignore laws, write off settlements as cost of doing business compared to revenue.
Sounds about business as usual.
Ice Cream has no bones.
It's waist-deep, not waste-deep. As in, "He was waist-deep in waste."
Really?
Valued at 62 billion? You have to be kidding me.
I bet whatever stock trader-type person figured this out wears a suit.
You take all the risk, we take all the money. Silicon Valley is bleeding America dry as its financial system collapses.
Anytime you have an organization that is truly disruptive to industry, you'll end up with problems like this. Uber and all similar companies that are disrupting their respective industries are having to fight an uphill battle with established industries, regulators and a whole host of organizations that have a vested interest in the way things currently work, such as insurance providers and licensing agencies. It's going to be messy with laws and organization eventually adapting until they become part of the establishment; usually with a compromise between the business models of the establishment and the disruptive group.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
I miss pair programming. I have no ego and it is fun to teach much stupider people to program.
driving your riders around the town? Imagine the thrill of a lifetime, assuming it's not a short one, of truly riding shotgun in an ueber car with a driver having one hand on the wheel and another wielding an uzi out the window.
So uber just gets off scott free, a million dollars is pocket change to them. Pretty disappointing, and it will make it harder for others to get fair treatment in the future. Really sad.
So now they are going to expect tips on top of the agreed upon fare? I'm running out of reasons to use them.
Yes US labor law is out of date. It is demented for health insurance to be linked to jobs. Only W2 jobs cover this. 1099 employers are not supposed to be able to dictate how people do their jobs (including if they pick up fares or not). Taxicab companies have to cover all the expenses of W2 while Uber ducks this by trying to stick them as 1099s. Uber is "transportation slavery" as a driver put it to me, who much prefers working with less exploitative ride services. They have "socialized risk" while privatizing profit. All the Uber drivers in a region should be able to strike, if they are a bargaining unit in some polygon that will be the only way they can get leverage. Working at the precariat level of the economy is a horrible experience and it can't continue. So many tech companies blow out existing players by undercutting as loss leaders, then turn it into a monopoly, then hike the prices. Walmart and Amazon have done the same thing. It is sick that no one in this realm is capable of working on healthy commercial ecosystems, it's either precariat oppression monopolies or bust.
--hongpong.com
Uber's long game isn't dealing with drivers ever. They poached a lot of CMU's robotics department. They've pre-ordered self driving Teslas.
The sooner they can get rid of the Drivers the happier they'll be. Right now they're just collecting data for where and where to do the routes. I wouldn't be shocked if they're buying up property for parking garages / charging stations along highly traveled routes.
I'm sure making it harder to remove drivers from the service for bad behavior, stop penalizing them for dropping rides, and letting them harass passengers for tips will be a big help to the Uber experience.
yes, when a company purposely violates worker rights and safety laws...*gasp*.. they have problems with the law... shocking.
A suit?!
I bet that shitweasel wears shoes.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
There's nearly no barrier to entry and plenty of competitors with more money, better technology, and a reputable brand name.
This company is garbage and won't be around in year 2020.
The $100M is conditional and depends on stock market valuation. And the $85M guaranteed is "before attorneys fees". Frankly, I'm a little surprised that Uber drivers might get ANY cash: class actions often end up as "$$ million for the attorneys, $$ thousand for the lead plaintiffs and coupons for everyone else." But I suppose offering Uber coupons to Uber drivers would just add insult to injury here.
Either the customers accept the strong-arm of the drivers vis-a-vis tips, or they stop being customers since drivers won't pick them up.
The value of the skill of the programmers and VCs isn't greater than the value of the actual service providers. Quality will suffer unless Uber is unionized.
to their industry. The Taxi cab companies already treat their employees like shit. Uber brought some of that out in the open, but it's not like they're changing anything. What Uber is disrupting is the Job Creator narrative. That a job, any job, is always in a person's best interest. Any fool can see the trap Uber's laying out for their drivers, customers and society at large. They're talking the cost of running a business and putting it off onto someone else. Insurance costs and the cost of paying for damage done will go to the driver and then to society at large when the under paid and under insured driver can't make good. Health Care costs will be born by the tax payer too. Or those costs will fall to the injured passenger. Vehicle maintenance, long term planing, etc all falls on the driver.
See, in America like a lot of places you're told that if you're loyal and hard working the company will take care of you. Uber is disrupting that narrative. There's a chance (however small) that people at large will realize the narrative is bullshit. If that happens we'll see socialism take root in America. Then again Uber might have their self driving cars before all that happens. We'll see.
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The reason I like Uber is that transaction is predictable, "off line" and does not require complicated social ritual of tipping. If Uber drivers begin to expect tips, we are left with a regular taxi service, except that cars are smaller and not standardized. In which case, personally, I'll opt for a taxi again.
I wonder, if Facebook's new "paid users" plan could be considered making them "employees" using this rationale.
A slippery slope indeed...
because they get put out of business the moment the local labor board points out that Uber drivers are employees in all ways and means. There's been several "It's Uber for...X!" companies that have failed. Uber has deep pockets from investor backing that allow them to keep appealing the rulings. Their plan is pretty obvious to keep appealing until self driving cars are a reality.
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So Uber could make their drivers franchisers. Franchisers are not allowed to set their own price, they have to kow-tow to corporate policy strictly. Thus Uber can dodge collusion charge. But franchisers have lots of rights too against the corporation, for example when someone buys a Subway franchise they get exclusive rights in an area and prevent corporation from setting up another franchise too close. So Uber drivers, as franchisers, would be able to limit the number of cars that are allowed in a market or in an area. So Uber might not like to give the drivers franchise rights.
I don't see how Uber can deny the drivers both employee rights and franchisers right and have the ability to price gouge during demand spikes.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
as such things usually are. It's not about deciding to be a cab driver. It's about accepting the low pay and complete lack of any financial stability. I forget who but some economist called it a 'fragile' existence. 66% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. Meaning they're 1 check away from homelessness. You would think they'd be marching in the streets demanding change. They're not. Another phrase comes to mind: Quiet desperation.
See, if you're gonna live like that you need something to keep you going. Something to let you ignore just how terrifyingly precarious your entire life is. Stupidity only goes so far. Logic won't get you out of that. If you start thinking logically you'll demand better condition. That's where the Job Creator narrative (among others) comes in. You can't sustain your blind faith in capitalism (not shared by the capitalists, who rely heavily on the gov't to bail them out every 10-15 years when they tank the economy with their gambling) without a powerful narrative that shifts your self image away from the reality of your one-major-expense-away-from-disaster life and to one of an upper middle class working man who's just a little down on his luck. I'm sure you know the Steinbeck (or was it Wright?) quote I'm hinting at .
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Uber needs to change their app to accommodate for all this. Maybe some sort of automatic bidding. I don't want to have to worry about carrying money. Maybe if you tip more by default they can get to you faster or maybe some drivers just demand higher rates like say for better cars or cargo capacity.
I order a known service for a certain price and you deliver at that price. How are you going to go above and beyond to provide a better experience? I don't want to haggle afterwards. My tip is that I don't rate you down. If your not making enough money then don't do the gig.
Having social tipping is only going to drive your standard rate lower and make the whole experience less convenient with me fiddling in my pocket for physical money. Anyone asking for a cash tip will be rated down. And I currently do tip sometimes. I having no problem tipping except when it is the standard. Tipping should only be when someone goes above and beyond the standard everyone else provides. Anything else will lower your base pay.
Standard tips are only going to lower your base pay and make it more complicated for you too. The whole thing is going to be less convenient which means fewer customers taking fewer rides.
Nope.
Facebook actually has no control over who gets what money, who posts what, etc. They will issue a 1099K to anyone who gets a "tip" from another Facebook user, not the 1099-MISC Uber drivers get.
OTOH Uber used to control which rides a driver could actually do through it's app, insist that they take them all via deactivation threat, etc.
Volume!
If their drivers are independent companies, then they are price fixing. It would be fine if they were employees. But how can they get away with telling all these completely independent companies how much to charge? That is totally price fixing.