Oakland mayor fires warning letter to Uber: Welcome to our city. Now behave

The Mayor of Oakland in California has warned taxi-ordering app Uber that it needs to behave when it moves into a new office complex in the heart of the city's downtown. In her keynote at the Code for America Summit Wednesday morning, Libby Schaaf noted that the city of Oakland has "mad love for disruptors," but told attendees …

[Your alien overlord - fear me]

Is that 3,000 'real' employees or are they self employed who just so happen to reside in one building?

[J.G.Harston]

Uber needs to decide: is it a private hire fleet operator, or is it a radio control dispatcher? There's nothing to stop it being both, of course, but a private hire driver buying the services of a radio control dispatcher doesn't make that driver an employee of the dispatcher. In a way, it actually makes the dispatcher an employee of the driver.

And it's not the business of Uber to be doing background checks on "its" drivers, that's the job of the licensing authorities. Presentation of your private hire license to your fleet employee/dispatcher is a declaration that you have been background-checked - by the licensing authorities. However, if Uber fails to check that its drivers/its dispatch clients have a private hire license, then *that* is failure of duty, just as much as a dental practice failing to ask a new partner to see their DDS qualifications.

Uber is nothing special. They are Just Another Dispatch Service, or Just Another Fleet Operator. There are existing laws to protect the travelling public, those laws should^W must be enforced, not ignored, there is no need for new laws.

[raving angry loony]

Black marketeer

Actively organizing black market activities is hardly "behaving".

Actively encouraging people to break the law and take huge risks with their insurance and licenses is not "behaving'.

Actively engaging in fraud by denoting employees as "independent contractors" when the so-called "contractors" have zero control over their work is not "behaving".

Either lobby to get the laws changed, or obey the existing laws. They shouldn't get a free pass on breaking the law or encouraging others to break the law for profit. They aren't a tech disruptor, they're just another type of thug.

[chivo243]

I prefer the 1970's

Stick out your thumb!

Gas, ass or grass nobody rides for free!

[Buster]

Re: I prefer the 1970's

Yet call your gig digital or label it disruptive and you get to do an end run around the regulations when all you are doing is adding a layer of profit taking while saddling the people who do the grunt work with lower wages and more liability.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I prefer the 1970's

"with lower wages "

Compared with whom? London cabbies?

LTDA drivers? Badly paid?

Next you'll be claiming tube drivers are underpaid at 50k a year for a 35hr week ...

[chuckcotton]

Oakland's disgrace

Uber's move to Oakland is a disgrace to the citizens. This company refuses to comply with Federal, State, and city ordinances anywhere in the world. They operate unregulated in a regulated industry. Uber's co-founder, Travis Kalanick's modus operandi is this: " I don't care about your laws, I have my own laws. I don't need no stinking regulations."

What Uber and even its copycats, Sidecar and Lyft, are concerted criminal conspiracies that has swept California, and much of the US and world cities. Soon this corruption will be stopped. It all will end up in Oakland which will be a huge image problem. They certainly will not obey local ordinances or pay local taxes here either. San Francisco is quietly telling them to get out of town. The SF District Attorney has filed litigation on them for unfair trade practices plus said in the Chronicle their driver insurance is fraudulent.

Oaklan can not stop them from moving in, but city government will monitor Uber closely.