The Uberpocalypse

Generali

As you may well have read, Uber drivers went to court this week with a class action suit in order to try to force the company to treat them as regular employees so that Uber is obliged to do such fripperies as pay payroll taxes and provide the minimum wage to drivers.

A judge recently said that Uber had a case to answer so Uber, as is normal in a country where you can buy justice, settled with the drivers for $100 million in order to make the case go away. As a result the drivers are all independent contractors now: Uber agrees, the drivers agree and the legal system agrees so all is well, right?

Ah, except one thing. How come a whole load of independent contractors all just happen to come up with the same price for a ride at the same time which just happens to be the price 'suggested' by Uber.... Yeah right! That sounds an awful lot like illegal price fixing, an illegal cartel in which Uber and the drivers are colluding to set a market price illegally. Could drivers have undercut each other? Probably not using the app as it stands.

It seems like Uber's problems are just beginning.....

More details:

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/04/uber-spends-100-million-to-save-its-business-model-but-it-may-have-just-doomed-it.html

michaels

According to this guy at ford self-driving vehicles within 'geo-fenced locations' - such as the big cities where uber operates are on the card by the end of the decade - ie the next 4 years not the next 10.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36126591

Which is either an opportunity for Uber or the end of them.

Generali

michaels wrote: »

According to this guy a ford self-driving vehicles within 'geo-fenced locations' - such as the big cities where uber operates are on the card by the end of the decade - ie the next 4 years not the next 10.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-36126591

Which is either an opportunity for Uber or the end of them.

I've read plenty quoting car company executives that all that stands between self driving cars and them being used on the public road after about 2017-8 is local laws, that technologically and economically they should be a perfectly reasonable proposition.

Conrad

Have you seen the details of what constitutes a normal employee under the new pension auto-enrolment rules?


UBER drivers as far as I can tell, would quite possibly be defined as regular normal employees and thus UBER subject to auto - enrolment

Generali

Conrad wrote: »

Have you seen the details of what constitutes a normal employee under the new pension auto-enrolment rules?


UBER drivers as far as I can tell, would quite possibly be defined as regular normal employees and thus UBER subject to auto - enrolment

Not in the UK, no. It is too far away from applying to me for it to trouble me unduly.

The thing with the settlement under US law, as it has been explained to me at least, is that the settlement means that 'employees', Uber and the legal system under the terms of the settlement all agree that Uber's 'employees' are independent contractors. As a result they can't band together to set prices as that is a cartel and illegal.

michaels

How does this apply to any potential new 'employees' - do they have to sign up to the agreement (ie sign their rights to be considered as employees away) in order to start employment?

Generali

michaels wrote: »

How does this apply to any potential new 'employees' - do they have to sign up to the agreement (ie sign their rights to be considered as employees away) in order to start employment?

I don't know, I imagine so.

I guess that under a settlement that binds all parties like this, Uber are effectively paying for their business model to be validated (I am basing this entirely on news articles, I have no idea if this is true or not). New [STRIKE]employees[/STRIKE] driver-contractors will be joining a potentially illegal cartel but not signing up as employees to Uber.

antrobus

michaels wrote: »

...Which is either an opportunity for Uber or the end of them.

I've always thought that the whole point of Uber was that ultimately the driver at the other end of the app wasn't going to be human.

mwpt

Well outside of my area of knowledge, so just some speculative questions. An Uber driver could be a ltd company, right? The ltd company could pay a licence fee to a franchise company (Uber) based on strict usage criteria of Uber's system. This would be the fee per mile in the basic case. Uber then has a contract with a company, the drivers are employees of the ltd company, so employee laws are not applicable to Uber.

Is this not how the system works?

Andy_L

Conrad wrote: »

Have you seen the details of what constitutes a normal employee under the new pension auto-enrolment rules?


UBER drivers as far as I can tell, would quite possibly be defined as regular normal employees and thus UBER subject to auto - enrolment

Although they do meet most of the HMRC tests for self-employment. Wouldn't be the first time that 2 separate pieces of legislation contradict each other

Johnsmith2016

Who cares. If your unhappy get another job