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California Sues Uber and Lyft, Alleging Drivers are Misclassified

posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 06 2020, @06:06PM   Printer-friendly
from the misclassification dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

The state of California is suing Uber and Lyft. Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a lawsuit against the two ride-hailing companies on Tuesday alleging they've "exploited hundreds of thousands of California workers" by classifying their drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

[...] The lawsuit alleges Uber and Lyft violated a California state law called AB 5, which aims to ensure workers have adequate labor protections by classifying them as employees. The suit was filed in San Francisco County Superior Court by the Attorney General's Office in conjunction with the city attorneys from San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.

[...] Gig workers are considered essential workers, meaning they can continue to work as the virus spreads. Because they're still out there, delivering food to people in quarantine and transporting medical workers to and from hospitals, they can be more at risk of contracting COVID-19. Thousands of Uber and Lyft drivers have been infected with or exposed to the coronavirus, according to the companies, and at least five drivers have died from the disease.

An Uber spokesman said the company plans to fight the lawsuit. "At a time when California's economy is in crisis with 4 million people out of work, we need to make it easier, not harder, for people to quickly start earning," he said.

A Lyft spokesman said the company will work with state lawmakers "to bring all the benefits of California's innovation economy to as many workers as possible."

[...] The lawsuit seeks to fine the companies up to $2,500 for each violation under California law. If a court rules in favor of the state, Uber and Lyft could end up owing hundreds of millions of dollars in those civil penalties and in back wages to drivers.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 06 2020, @10:56PM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 06 2020, @10:56PM (#991188) Journal

    What *should* be done is to create a new category for gig workers that is in between independent contractor and employee, and regulate that new category appropriately.

    If that is required. I have yet to hear of anything from gig economy detractors that would justify a change in treatment over existing contractors. And I don't think this is mere lack of attention on my part. For we have had stories on this subject before (such as here [soylentnews.org]). Repeatedly, detractors will spill boilerplate complaints like:

    This law fixes the exploitation of drivers. If you total up all the expenses of driving for these companies and subtract that from what they're paying, you're talking about making only a few dollars an hour, at best. When they started out, they didn't even have insurance, meaning that if something happened, your insurance would be the only one covering bills and even then only if they felt like it as it wasn't necessarily their responsibility.

    From what I've read, Uber has poured (is still pouring?) their huge pile of venture capital into unsustainable fares. This is a traditional monopolist play--kill the competition by undercutting it. Once the competition has folded (as have many local taxi companies around the USA) those low rates will be ancient history. At that point there won't be any competition left to "let capitalism work its magic" and the fat cats will have the taxi market to themselves.

    Anyway there's a big difference in economic behavior between a highly skilled professional craftsman industry and a grunt manual labor equivalent like unlicensed taxi driving. The economy and people in it will be just fine if AC's computer dude doesn't work for Boeing or Google, but "the system" is pretty F'd if any random moron can GTA3-style play taxi driver with no training or oversight.

    So anyway, still have yet to hear why gig economy ride hailing is supposed to be a bad idea.