Uber must employ its drivers, Dutch court rules
Rightly so. The 'gig economy' is abused by quite a few companies to create employment like situations without the required trappings (social security payments, employee protection, hourly minimums and so on). This was long overdue, let's hope it has precedent effect for other companies that abuse the ZZP construct.
If this ever happens in the U.S. I won't bother with driving Uber anymore and this would probably put them out of business. The Taxi industry will win back from the disruption that Uber caused.
This has nothing to do with worker's rights. No one gave a crap about Taxi driver's work standards and they are/were treated worse than Uber drivers.
This is all about the Taxi industry fighting back.
75% of all ride share drivers would prefer to remain independent.
In Chicago, I can make $42/hour driving Uber. I still don't understand how anyone can claim I'm being mistreated.
Unfortunate consequence of a legacy legal system. Uber drivers are clearly neither quite like employees nor are they entrepreneurs, and the law should come up with a fitting category that ensures they are protected from exploitation but continue to enjoy some of the freedoms associated with the gig economy.
Good.
Uber is a unsustainable business built employee exploitation to effectively pay them less than minimum wage while flouting "freedom" to bait the people in the worst situations. This was known from the start. Meanwhile subsidising rides with investor-cash to effectively bait-and-switch society. The recent-ish price hikes are only a start.
Anyone repeating their PR should be ashamed. "gigs" are cancer or wait, this is hackernews so "Gig-economy considered harmful" is the correct nomenclature I guess.
> "We know that the vast majority of drivers would like to remain independent," said Maurits Schonfeld, general manager of Uber in Northern Europe
That's funny, because the court's reasoning was that drivers in their daily work are almost completely dependent on Uber, which calls all the shots.
I remember quite well some people here claiming that Uber was just about to replace all their drivers with autonomous cars. It was back in 2015... we're in 2021.
Great to see that over 100 years of labour laws won by the workers' movements can't be innovated away in SOME countries.
Wait, I live in the Netherlands and I wasn't even aware that Uber was around. Didn't they get banned years ago, with only Uber Black being allowed?
The so called gig economy was built upon a unsustainable business model that depends of exploitation of workers.
It's not just Uber. All companies in the gig economy work like this. It's not only about paying minimum wage and benefits either, it's also about shifting the costs of doing business to the workers calling them independent contractors.
As independent contractors, drivers need to pay for their car, pay for gas, taxes, insurance and maintenance costs, but if they were employees from the beginning, all these costs would be getting out of the Uber's pockets.
Interesting wording of this headline, you would almost think Uber were fighting for the rights of their drivers if you read it out of context.
What we have here is a unique, unprecedented, real life experiment in Game Theory.
Possible outcomes:
- Uber could pull out from the Netherlands
- Drivers in the Netherlands could organize themselves, but they will need a structure similar to Uber
- Other countries will follow the Netherlands ruling
We could see the implosion of the gig economy (doubt it) or - most probably - some places like the Netherlands will be gig-economy-free zones; and we'll see the impact on their economies.
The thing that interests me here is company valuation. The base idea is that you predict the future profits of a company and NPV that down to today, and that's how much the total share price should be.
This of course is tricky, but at some point all the big regulatory arbitrage plays (uber, airbnb) etc were obvious for what they were - and I am not sure they got adjusted. In other words short term competition and PR played as big a role it seems in valuation models as did "can airbnb keep renting out against local laws"
I have not dug into their IPO documents but it must be in there.
But once you are worth a gazillion dollars regulators have an uphill struggle.
The thing is short selling is such a poor way to signal criticism of the company. Investing is a default optimistic thing.
And I am not sure there is an alternative. Some kind of anti-investment?
A similar article was already submitted here:
One thing I've noticed with food delivery companies here is the obvious fraudulent identities of the delivery people. The photo shows a completely different person than the one showing up with the delivery leading me to think there is some sort of trade of delivery accounts happening to allow undocumented workers to pretend working legally with someone taking a cut of the earnings.
Legitimate question, will Uber shut down it's Dutch operations now? Will this cost them more money than it's worth to operate there, and would they shutdown to send a message to other nations about there intent should similar rulings be made?
Uber's margins have always been super thin, I would imagine this makes them squarely unprofitable in the Dutch market.
I don't know exactly how it works in Holland, but in the UK we're now in a funny situation whereby an Uber is almost more ethical than a taxi - once the employees get proper sick pay, PTO etc, that is.
Bit out of context but I just came back from US (living in Netherlands). Holy flipping hell that place is full of cars. Literally everywhere. I mean I understand using a car upstate New York where things are further apart and everyone has a huge isolated villa. But do you really need 4 lane roads in freaking manhattan?
Seems like regulating "car stuff" in general is always a good thing if you ask me.
Is “undisrupt” a word already?
I am torn on this issue, maybe I don't see the whole picture. Uber was never meant to be a taxi company. It was a means for people with cars to share their gas expenses. I don't know how could they ever prevent this gig from becoming a full-time job for most drivers, but I think forcing employment is not a solution.
I hope ĂĽber goes bankrupt and we forget about all of this insanity. In Germany where I live the taxi service is amassing, at least in my city can't say for whole country. They are quick clean the drivers are professionals and not some randos who will break rules to get there faster or drive so insanely that you want to puke. They know the city by heart and don't use navigators. Due to being professionals they are compensated more fairly than in other countries and they have benefits like all other employees. Also if you like using apps you can do that with normal taxi as well.
In my home country (Eastern Europe) I took ĂĽbers that made me think I'm gonna die in them.
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Uber says the majority of drivers don't want this, which I'd call bs on, but has anyone heard from actual drivers what they want?
If you're a freelancer in NL and your income comes from only one client, you're not even being seen as a freelancer AFAIR.
We really need to review "employment" as a legal concept. Most of these systems were set up post ww2. They worked ok when everyone was working full time as employees of single large companies, in factories where their time was directed.
It no longer works in on demand economies, with variable hours and self employment and people working multiple jobs.
“Drivers don’t want to give up their freedom to choose if, when and where to work.”
Drivers might have the freedom to turn off their phones and choose not to work, but they don't have the freedom to choose which routes/destinations. Seems to me that their argument is one-sided and deceptive.
It was never for the drivers. It certainly isn't a win for the customer. It is only a win for the state to collect their taxes.
Why doesn't Uber employ them and guarantee minimum wage, anything extra is a bonus?
Is it just the extra employee costs on the company side?
Obligatory reminder that this isn't saying rideshare drivers must be employees. It is saying the specifics of uber, how it controls its drivers, and how it runs its business is an employment model per their laws. You could almost certainly build a new rideshare business that is not employment based.
I love when US companies get to learn our unions and work laws are actually to be followed upon.
Nice one Dutchies
Nonsense. The government has no right to decide how consenting private parties arrange their relationship.
Soviet Union also successfully required that everyone will be officially employed.
What next? Upwork must employ it's workers? Where is the line drawn?
What if Uber didn't handle the money and riders paid cash?
The result is simply consumers paying the difference for more expensive taxi services.
Forcing this labour market underground trading in crypto or cash. Congratulations.
It's interesting to me that, generally speaking, both Uber and it's drivers are fine with the way things are, entering into a mutually agreed upon contract...
Only to have people who have no skin in the game tell them both what they have to do... because it's 'the right thing'.
> FNV called the ruling a major victory for drivers' rights.
No, it's a major victory for the administrative arm of the FNV trade union. Look beyond the formal argument here (workers rights) and look at what this actually is about - power. The FNV wants to get their cut so they can collect more dues paying members and further enrich the admins. The workers here will probably not benefit at all.
Ah yes, the war against the free market continues, unabated. Certain tenets of socialist ideology - like the idea that large companies exploit the masses if afforded contract liberty - are so deeply ingrained in the collective psyche, that they are never even questioned.
The beliefs of fringe groups rest on a set of absurd conspiracy theories, like vaccines being harmful to public health, and pushed on the population merely to profit Big Pharma. But the beliefs of the mainstream rest on a set of equally absurd conspiracy theories, and all of them based on socialist class warfare narratives. It is in the interests of a critical mass of special interest groups, who hold political power, for people to believe in these conspiracy theories.