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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: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:01AM
Let me tell you a (somewhat simplified) story.
Once upon a time, Microsoft treated its contractors fairly well. Not as well as its full time employees, but pretty well. The contractors started thinking, we're treated kind of like full time time employees, but we don't get the full benefits. We should sue Microsoft to give us full benefits like the full time employees we are.
So they took Microsoft to court and they won! And Microsoft started giving them the same benefits as full time employees. The end.
Haha, just kidding! Instead, Microsoft made sure to treat its contractors as very clear second class citizens, to avoid risking them being considered employees and having to give them full benefits, so the contractors ended up getting treated even worse. This is why all contractors must be treated as second class (e.g., at Facebook, Google, and others).
If you think that this law will get Uber to treat its drivers better, you are sorely mistaken. They will just treat them even worse to make sure they aren't classified as employees.
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