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Last-Minute California Ruling Means Uber and Lyft Won't Shut Down Today

posted by martyb on Friday August 21 2020, @11:46AM   
from the death-by-litigation dept.

Freeman writes:

Last-minute California ruling means Uber and Lyft won't shut down today:

A California judge has granted Uber and Lyft an emergency reprieve from an order requiring them to treat their drivers as employees. The companies were facing a Thursday deadline to comply with the order. Earlier today, Lyft announced that it would be forced to shut down in the state at midnight tonight.

[...] Uber had warned that it was likely to do the same if the courts didn't delay enforcement of the law.

[...] The judge's emergency stay means that Lyft and Uber will be able to keep operating under their current model while they continue litigating whether the new law applies to them.

Previously:
California Judge Rules Uber and Lyft to Immediately Classify Drivers as Employees

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Original Submission

• Re:To bad (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 22 2020, @08:35PM

  by khallow (3766) on Saturday August 22 2020, @08:35PM (#1040517) Journal

  Virtual slavery is used to describe situations like this where people aren't literally slaves, but effectively have no other option than to continue working under oppressive conditions due to a lack of any viable alternative.

  Seems to me a bad idea to get rid of those non-oppressive jobs then. I'll note that the gig jobs which you are so disparaging of, have considerable flexibility. You work only when you like. There's no obligation to punch in at particular times or show up for 40 hours. It's not virtual slavery and actually the opposite. And if you're paying for a car already, or need a second job to work around something else (first job, education, whatever), then the ride hailing sector has something extra to offer you.

  This is the main reason that people continue to work at places paying the minimum wage with no benefits and no time off. If better jobs were as easy to get and plentiful as people like you suggest, people wouldn't be working those jobs. But, there really aren't, especially right now, and as a result, it's work those jobs that don't even pay enough to properly afford rent or starve. It's not at all wishy washy or vague, at an absolute bare minimum it describes all minimum wage jobs as only 3 counties in the entire country have rent low enough that a minimum wage worker can afford to place to live on minimum wage. Around here we even have people working full time at minimum wage that are homeless.

  This can all be explained by supply and demand. Back in 1970, the US was in a pretty good position labor-wise. But that all changed due to labor competition from Europe and the Far East (particularly Japan). From that point on to today, the global economy added something like 3 billion new workers. US (and developed world labor in general) abor naturally declined in power as a result. Virtually all labor policy since has just made the problem worse. The US would be in really bad shape now, if it weren't for the vast high tech industry, which by itself greatly increased demand for US workers (both directly and second-hand via goods and services purchased by the high tech workers).
  
  So my take here is screw living wage. It's a moving target and as a metric doesn't help people who can't earn that level of wage. Instead, do what it takes to encourage employment. That includes culling the crap that penalizes employers for employing US (and everywhere else in the world) workers.
  
  Let's do what works.

  China isn't doing better than India

  Sure. They're considerably wealthier and have more stuff.

  Parent