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posted by takyon on Sunday August 27 2017, @01:17AM   Printer-friendly
from the get-your-grubby-hands-off-me dept.

"This is the first case in California as to how the gig economy works," US Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Corley said during the Thursday hearing, likely the last hearing before the September 5 bench trial, which is expected to last about a week. Most of the hearing was taken up establishing procedural ground rules and wrapping up loose threads about witness availability, among other items.

This lawsuit just might provide an answer. If Grubhub must treat its drivers as employees, the employees would be entitled to all kinds of benefits, including unemployment, insurance, and reimbursement for various expenses, like gas and employee phone bills. In short, treating workers as employees could cost companies like Grubhub millions of dollars.

The case, known as Lawson v. Grubhub, which was first filed back in 2015, is one of a slew of ongoing cases filed against so-called "gig economy" firms. During the Thursday hearing, the judge said that she had only recently understood that, in this context, "gig" simply was slang for "job" or work. She seemingly was under the impression that it was related to the tech prefix "giga."

[...] "This trial is a milestone because similar cases have settled or been dismissed," Michael LeRoy, a labor law professor at the University of Illinois, e-mailed Ars. "When cases settle, the wage-and-hour laws are not applied and interpreted by courts—and therefore, it's hard to say for sure how the law is adapting to the rapid changes in gig work."

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

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Grubhub is Faking Which Restaurants It Actually Partners With 32 comments

Grubhub is faking which restaurants it actually partners with:

Grubhub has a new "growth hacking" strategy that includes creating a restaurant listing on its platform for places it doesn't even partner with. According to a new report by the San Francisco Chronicle and tweets by restaurant owner Pim Techamuanvivit, Grubhub has been allowing customers to order food from its websites from restaurants that haven't technically signed up to be on Grubhub or its subsidiaries' platforms. (Disclosure: my parents own a restaurant that partners with Grubhub.)

Techamuanvivit explains in a Twitter thread that over the weekend, she received a call from a customer claiming their order hadn't been delivered. The only problem: Techamuanvivit's restaurant, Kin Khao, doesn't offer takeout or delivery.

I told him we've never been on it, not in our entirely lifetime as @kinkhao. He sounded really confused, so we said goodbye and I hung up the phone. Then I got a little curious, so I went into the office and googled "kin khao delivery", and guess what came up.. pic.twitter.com/cptMoYtoZu

— Pim Techamuanvivit (@chezpim) January 26, 2020

Previously:
Grubhub's New Strategy Is to Be an Even Worse Partner to Restaurants
Grubhub Says its Contract Allowed It to Create Fake Restaurant Websites
Grubhub Drivers Are Contractors—Not Employees—Judge Rules
Trial to Decide Whether Ex-Grubhub Driver Should be Classified as Employee


Original Submission

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @01:43AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @01:43AM (#559674)

    How is this ignorant clown a judge?!

    • (Score: 2) by http on Sunday August 27 2017, @03:27AM (2 children)

      by http (1920) on Sunday August 27 2017, @03:27AM (#559692)

      Until extremely recently, "gig" was a term used mainly in a few specific sectors of the entertainment industry and in the long gone whaling industry.

      Without looking it up, ask yourself if you would bet the next ten years of your life on if you know the difference between per se and pro se. Then think what percentage of the population might get that one right.

      Maybe, just maybe, judges study law instead of modern slang?

      --
      I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Sunday August 27 2017, @03:32AM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday August 27 2017, @03:32AM (#559694) Journal

        It sounds like the judge did study at least one word of modern slang for this case. And will probably do the same minutes of research for other words as the need arises.

        http://www.urbandictionary.com/ [urbandictionary.com]

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @10:47AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 28 2017, @10:47AM (#560148)

        Until extremely recently, "gig" was a term used mainly in a few specific sectors of the entertainment industry and in the long gone whaling industry.

        For at least a century a (Frog) Gig has been a small trident on a stick for killing small (typically aquatic) creatures (like frogs).

        Everyone knows that. [duckduckgo.com] Stop gigging out you gigger.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday August 27 2017, @02:32AM (3 children)

    by jmorris (4844) on Sunday August 27 2017, @02:32AM (#559683)

    This is simple. Take away the Internet reality distortion field. Sprinkling a bunch of buzzwords like app, .com and cloud doesn't actually change anything except PR. So forget all that and ask the only question the court will be looking at. If you set up a similar business operation in meatspace, would it be legal? Adding "on the Internet" or "with an app" doesn't change the answer.

    Could you have thousands of "independent contractors" working for you who don't also work for anyone else or meet any of the other qualifications for a contractor listed on that mandatory poster every employer must post "in a conspicuous location visible to all employees" or face the wrath of the Dept of Labor? Obviously you can't so they can't either. Same way Uber can't actually be a taxi service in locations where the local government have granted a monopoly to the existing ones, and eventually the app/cloud fog will lift and that reality assert itself.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 27 2017, @03:25AM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday August 27 2017, @03:25AM (#559691) Journal

      Modded up. Please post more like this and less like...well, pretty much every other post you've ever made.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:35AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:35AM (#559707)

      The problem with this view is that the 'gig economy' has companies that are mostly completely tangential to the service. Uber, for instance, could be decentralized. You could have strong public record of who drives and picks up and the rides are only started once the driver/passenger quickly photo one another and a biometric analysis verifies both identities (passenger verifies driver, driver verifies passenger). I do think the companies serve a useful purpose, but that purpose is mostly tangential to the product provided. In a way they act more like a quasi-government arbiter (handling disputes, dealing with burdensome regulations, etc) than a private employer.

    • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:21PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @11:21PM (#559946)

      Could you have thousands of "independent contractors" working for you who don't also work for anyone else or meet any of the other qualifications for a contractor listed on that mandatory poster every employer must post "in a conspicuous location visible to all employees" or face the wrath of the Dept of Labor?

      Sounds like the poor saps who work as installers & technicians for the cable companies.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:32AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @04:32AM (#559705)

    Whether one is an employee or an independent contractor depends on such factors as whether the alleged employer can dictate the time and manner by which the work is done, and whether the contractor bears the financial risk

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by stretch611 on Sunday August 27 2017, @05:06AM (1 child)

      by stretch611 (6199) on Sunday August 27 2017, @05:06AM (#559716)

      If a contractor is bearing the financial risk, they should receive the financial reward. The problem is that even if wildly successful, the contractors still get crap for compensation.

      These lawsuits are coming out because people are realizing that once they put in the effort, time, and expenses (gas, phone, car maintenance) that they barely get enough money to survive let alone enough to make their investment (in time/expenses) worth it.

      --
      Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:37AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:37AM (#559782)

        Not entirely true. Depends on exactly the sort of operation. Airbnb allows contractors to set their own prices. If there was a dynamic market system for something with high throughput, like Uber, it'd ultimately have very little impact. It might even result in lower prices for drivers. A "wildly successful" driver isn't worth that much more than an average driver from the perspective of a consumer. Everybody would set their filter to lowest price which is where the equilibrium would rapidly set itself. The only things that would change this would be contractor collusion or demand in excess of supply - which is not a problem even at the current moderate labor rates for most gig economy jobs.

  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:12AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 27 2017, @10:12AM (#559772)

    (in case you didn't know)
    According to Wikipedia, it acts as an intermediary between customers and restaurants - sounds like uberfood or thuisbezorgd in this regard.

    -- FakeBeldin

    • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday September 10 2017, @10:05PM

      by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Sunday September 10 2017, @10:05PM (#566045) Homepage Journal

      Terrific idea for a business, terrible people running it! I'm talking about the CEO, Matt Maloney. Who sent a very nasty EMAIL about me. Very, very nasty. I'll tell you, he did one thing right, he deleted his Twitter. @M3aloney, I call it baloney. I hope Judge Jackie makes a good ruling on this. Because her term runs out in 2019. 🇺🇸

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