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posted by takyon on Sunday August 27 2017, @01:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the get-your-grubby-hands-off-me dept.

"This is the first case in California as to how the gig economy works," US Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Corley said during the Thursday hearing, likely the last hearing before the September 5 bench trial, which is expected to last about a week. Most of the hearing was taken up establishing procedural ground rules and wrapping up loose threads about witness availability, among other items.

This lawsuit just might provide an answer. If Grubhub must treat its drivers as employees, the employees would be entitled to all kinds of benefits, including unemployment, insurance, and reimbursement for various expenses, like gas and employee phone bills. In short, treating workers as employees could cost companies like Grubhub millions of dollars.

The case, known as Lawson v. Grubhub, which was first filed back in 2015, is one of a slew of ongoing cases filed against so-called "gig economy" firms. During the Thursday hearing, the judge said that she had only recently understood that, in this context, "gig" simply was slang for "job" or work. She seemingly was under the impression that it was related to the tech prefix "giga."

[...] "This trial is a milestone because similar cases have settled or been dismissed," Michael LeRoy, a labor law professor at the University of Illinois, e-mailed Ars. "When cases settle, the wage-and-hour laws are not applied and interpreted by courts—and therefore, it's hard to say for sure how the law is adapting to the rapid changes in gig work."

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:37AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:37AM (#559782)

    Not entirely true. Depends on exactly the sort of operation. Airbnb allows contractors to set their own prices. If there was a dynamic market system for something with high throughput, like Uber, it'd ultimately have very little impact. It might even result in lower prices for drivers. A "wildly successful" driver isn't worth that much more than an average driver from the perspective of a consumer. Everybody would set their filter to lowest price which is where the equilibrium would rapidly set itself. The only things that would change this would be contractor collusion or demand in excess of supply - which is not a problem even at the current moderate labor rates for most gig economy jobs.