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from the employee-rules-for-contractor-pay dept.
Uber remains unprofitable at the same time its drivers work 80-hour weeks for less than minimum wage and without health care packages. They must also cover vehicle costs including fuel, maintenance, and insurance.
The ride-hailing company Uber has made its long-awaited debut as a publicly traded stock, but investor demand for the May 10 initial public offering (IPO) fell short of the company's hopes. Part of the reason is a lingering question about its workforce: Does the still-unprofitable firm deliver low-cost rides for passengers at the expense of decent treatment for drivers, and could the resulting discontent undermine Uber's business model?
The issue over whether Uber drivers are employees (entitled to company benefits such as sick pay and retirement) or contractors (entitled to nothing) has been at the center of the labor controversy since the company launched a decade ago. It is still largely unresolved.
Earlier on SN:
New Research Confirms That Ride-Hailing Companies Are Causing a Ton of Traffic Congestion (2019)
Uber and Lyft Drivers to go on Strike (2019)
Uber Posts $1 Billion Loss in Quarter as Growth in Bookings Slows (2018)
and quite a few more...
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday May 22 2019, @06:17AM (3 children)
In the big picture, Uber has achieved exactly one thing: it has made taxis popular again. Looking at old TV shows, it was once trendy to "hop a taxi". Now it's trendy to call Uber or Lyft. No one ever got rich being a taxi driver, though. And just because Uber is "doing it with a computer" doesn't make Uber worth more than any other equivalent taxi dispatch service. It's nice to see the stock market slowly realizing this...
As far as the employee question, I don't think it's relevant. That's just people realizing that they actually aren't earning much money, and looking for some way to get more from Uber. They could also just go do something else, but it's the "sunk cost fallacy": they have started with Uber and want to somehow make that investment of time and effort pay off.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @06:46AM
Right you are, it's not.
You're right for the wrong reasons.
The actual reason for irrelevance is in TFT: the founders cashed in, the rest should be happy they received a life lesson for their money.
A pity they just could recall the 'a fool and his money' saying and keep their pocket closed; even more a pity if the fool is the retirement funds which has your money.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @07:30AM (1 child)
Kind of like being adjunct faculty at a mediocre tech school as a expat American spy, eh? You could do better, bradle13, in the "hot" areas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 22 2019, @02:57PM
Adjunct pay may not be so miserable in Europe.