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Uber sues California to block gig-worker law going into effect this week:
Ride-hailing service Uber filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of California, alleging a landmark gig-worker law set to go into effect is unconstitutional. The lawsuit seeks to block AB 5, which has the potential to upend gig economy companies such as Uber and Lyft.
The complaint, which also lists Postmates as a plaintiff, argues that the law unfairly targets workers and companies in the on-demand economy, treating them differently than traditional employees and threatening their flexibility.
In September, California became the first state to pass a law aimed at protecting gig worker rights, which forces Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates and other gig economy companies reclassify their workers as employees. Using independent contractors allows the companies to shift many costs to the workers.
The lawsuit says the law arbitrarily exempts dozens of occupations, including direct salespeople, travel agents, grant writers, commercial fishermen and construction truck drivers, among others.
"There is no rhyme or reason to these nonsensical exemptions, and some are so ill-defined or entirely undefined that it is impossible to discern what they include or exclude," says the complaint (see below), which was filed in a Los Angeles federal court.
Postmates and Uber v State of California on Scribd
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @06:03PM (2 children)
When we tried it in the US it gave us the greatest economic expansion the country has ever seen and one of the largest economic expansions of all time. What do you think the tax rates were like during the '50s and '60s? Here's a hint, the top rate was that high.
Secondly, I realize that you're retarded, but for god's sake, could you make it less obvious. The government isn't stealing anything, they're placing a disincentive to the ultrarich to protect against the ultrarich stealing from everybody else. Or do you honestly believe that a billionaire is several thousand times more efficient than regular workers?
Lastly, just because you choose to remain ignorant on such matters, doesn't change reality. We've had tiered taxes with much higher rates during points when the economy was doing it's best. The tax rates kick in at various income thresholds and people could avoid hitting them by planning their taxes. You make it sound like the government is just stealing from random people because they can.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:14PM
fuck you, you fucking authoritarian piece of shit. tax is theft.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:53AM
The obvious rebuttal - tax loopholes. For example, the US government has made huge shifts in the tax rate of the highest income bracket without changing taxes (and income taxes) collected as a fraction of GDP (see second and third graphs from here [mises.org]).