Uber Drivers 'Employees' For Unemployment Purposes, New York Labor Board Says (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: New York City's largest taxi driver advocacy group is hailing a legal decision by the New York State Unemployment Insurance Appeal Board, which ruled last Friday that three out-of-work Uber drivers can be considered employees for the purpose of unemployment benefits. The decision was first reported Thursday by Politico. In other words, three men -- and possibly other "similarly situated" Uber drivers who had quit over low pay or who were deactivated from the Uber platform -- can get paid. "The decision means that New York Uber drivers can file for unemployment insurance and likely receive it," Veena Dubal, a labor law professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, emailed Ars. "Uber may appeal the decision to state court, but for now, it's good law."

Comments

About time

[110010001000]

It is about time someone told Uber what they really are: an illegal taxi service!

Unemployment Insurance is just that

[rsilvergun]

Insurance. Businesses usually have to pay into it. Will Uber be required to pay into it now?

In some districts businesses are not. If an ex-employee makes a claim and the business still exists then the state will come after them for the money. This has the unpleasant side effect of making it so businesses fight tooth and nail for excuses why the employee was fired and not laid off. I've witnessed employees written up 3 times in 1 day for the express purpose of firing them.

Also in a lot of places the people who decide if you were fired or laid off are arbitrators hand picked by the companies. You can imagine how well that goes. Had a legally blind buddy of mine who used to take the bus to work quit when the site moved to a place with no bus line. He was approved for unemployment but later forced by an arbitrator to pay it all back (with interest). The reasoning was there was ride sharing at the new site. It was about 6 months after we got to the new site that they announced a new ride sharing program....

Not saying I oppose unemployment, but it should be paid for by tax dollars and should apply regardless of why you were fired if you've had 90 days of continuous employment. The point isn't to protect the unemployed, it's to protect the employed from a massive number of desperate people taking jobs to eat. If you like the wages you're making now you'll understand why we need this.

One more point worth making

[rsilvergun]

there was more money lost to wage theft (e.g. when an employer doesn't pay wages earned, for example by forcing hourly workers into unpaid overtime or just plain shorting checks) than all burglaries combined.

Another good point: Texas spent $1.2 billion sending the national guard to police borders. They stopped 10,000 illegal immigrants. That's $120k per illegal immigrant. Those guys would have taken jobs paying $30k/yr tops (probably much less). We could have given $60k to every person put out of work by them and still come out ahead.

There's a line from Fred Pohl's The Space Merchant's that's appropriate here: Better to punish a 1000 innocent men than let one guilty one go free. No, that's not typo, go read the book.

You're deliberately mischaracterizing it

[rsilvergun]

a. Unemployment is not a tax on workers, it's a tax on employers. You can argue that employers will pass the cost on, but that's not exactly true since employers still have to compete for workers meaning there are other factors at play in determining how low they can set wages. It's the same false argument that says wages should never go up since workers will pay more for goods. It ignores how the economy works and how progress increases productivity and all the other impacts on an employees ages.

And one more thing, unemployment is NOT intended for the Laid off. It's intended for those still working. Specifically, it's meant to prevent a downward spiral on wages when desperate workers enter the workforce following minor economic booms. The rules have been changed over the years as part of a larger trend to disenfranchise workers and lower wages so that it's harder and harder to get unemployment, resulting in lower wages for everyone (including you).