back to article Uber to drivers: You make a ton of dosh for us – but that doesn't make you employees

Uber is arguing in court that 160,000 drivers who offer people rides for money via the upstart's app are not actually its employees. The taxi-booking software startup told the California Northern District Court that its smartphone app was only a "lead generation" tool, and that drivers who operate on Uber are more akin to …

  1. wolfetone Silver badge
    Joke

    Wrong subtitle Reg

    You should have gone with:

    "Super Cali go ballistic Uber are atrocious"

    1. Sgt_Oddball

      Re: Wrong subtitle Reg

      I thought that one had already been done?

    2. bazza Silver badge

      Re: Wrong subtitle Reg

      Maybe or maybe not done before, but well worth repeating!

    3. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: Wrong subtitle Reg

      We've already done that one! See Reg passim.

      C.

      1. awfidius

        Re: Wrong subtitle Reg

        Yeah, but that one scans. This one hurts. Small mod fixes:

        Super Cali court suspicious -- Uber's hocus-pocus?

    4. TeeCee Gold badge
      Happy

      Re: Wrong subtitle Reg

      Or:

      "Super Cali court distrust of Uber hocus-pocus".

      That scans.

  2. Hollerith 1

    Not that this will make using Uber safer

    Reading about an Uber driver who hit a pedestrian (not sure it was his fault), the passengers got out to help, and the driver was expected to shoulder all the insurance claims himself --and it turns out he was driving a rented car. How will be being classed as an employee actually help the drivers or the passengers? And why is it that all these fantastic new 'horizontal' business ideas (AirBnB being another) make the owners jaw-droppingly rich, while the workers get worked over? O brave new world...

    1. Gannettt

      Re: Not that this will make using Uber safer

      "And why is it that all these fantastic new 'horizontal' business ideas (AirBnB being another) make the owners jaw-droppingly rich, while the workers get worked over?"

      That's the Sharing Economy™ in a nutshell!

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not that this will make using Uber safer

        "That's the Sharing Economy™ in a nutshell!"

        Actually it's 'Shearing' as in getting 'fleeced'

    2. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      Re: Not that this will make using Uber safer

      Nothing wrong with using a rental car, a lot of our drivers rent their cars here (non-London UK). Makes sense for three people to pool to use one car continuously over three 8-hour shifts.

      As long as the car has a taxi vehicle license, the driver has a taxi driver's license, his insurance covers him for operating as a taxi driver, and his dispatcher has a taxi operator's license, then everything is covered.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not that this will make using Uber safer

        A rental car may backfire when the authorities decide to use the Uber app to summon the drivers to the mobile impound lot.

        Six months of rentals charges can add up.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Not that this will make using Uber safer

        Can I just check these points with you:

        "As long as the car has a taxi vehicle license"

        "the driver has a taxi driver's license"

        "his insurance covers him for operating as a taxi driver"

        So he can just have social, domestic and pleasure insurance policy? I was under the impression they would at least need appropriate insurance as most SDP policies I've ever had expressly forbid operating as a taxi (racing, and just about everything else as well). In fact was chatting with a mini cab driver recently who revealed the eye watering premium he has to pay for operating a mini cab.

        Just asking because your statements on coverage don't seem to add up.

        1. Vic

          Re: Not that this will make using Uber safer

          "his insurance covers him for operating as a taxi driver"

          So he can just have social, domestic and pleasure insurance policy?

          Did you read the bit you quoted?

          It he's only got SDP insurance, it doesn't cover him for operating as a taxi driver.

          Vic.

  3. J.G.Harston Silver badge

    Correct, Uber drivers are not employees of Uber. Uber is a taxi operator, and needs a taxi operator's license. The drivers are self-employed taxi drivers, who need a taxi driver's license, driving their own vehicle, which needs a taxi vehicle license, purchasing access to the Uber taxi operator. Just like any other non-employee taxi operator. Nothing new here. Just another remote taxi booking service. They've existed since the messenger boy was invented.

    1. bazza Silver badge

      "Uber is a taxi operator, and needs a taxi operator's license."

      Doesn't have one

      "The drivers are self-employed taxi drivers, who need a taxi driver's license, driving their own vehicle, which needs a taxi vehicle license,"

      Uber don't check that they do, in fact they positively avoids doing so

      Just like any other non-employee taxi operator.

      Er, no. A local firm isn't allowed to trade without the correct licenses (or at least that's the law here in the UK). Uber escape such legal control by being an Internet based service with no real geographical presence anywhere. Didn't stop France finding someone to arrest though (and good on the French I say).

      "Just another remote taxi booking service."

      Er, again no. Uber's massive mistake is to not understand what a license does and means. Does a license protect the consumer? Yes. Does it protect the company? Also yes. A taxi company doing everything by the book according to local rules can hardly be blamed (or sued) if one of their drivers commits a grievous crime.

      On the other hand an unlicensed company like Uber would be liable should something terrible happen. Ok so they're American with a lot of expensive lawyers on a retainer so they're difficult to sue on their home turf. But elsewhere in the world that doesn't count for shit. An Uber driver rapes a UK customer, Uber are going to lose in court; joint venture, or some other such entanglement. People go to jail for that kind of thing.

      As much as anything else Uber are exploiting their executives around the world. They're the ones who will carry the can in countries outside of the USA, as their French chaps are now finding out. If I were a non-US Uber officer, I'd seriously consider quitting before it's too late.

      1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

        "Uber is a taxi operator, and needs a taxi operator's license."

        "Doesn't have one"

        So they should be kicked into prison so hard their teeth fall out.

        "The drivers are self-employed taxi drivers, who need a taxi driver's license, driving their own vehicle, which needs a taxi vehicle license,"

        "Uber don't check that they do, in fact they positively avoids doing so"

        So they should be kicked into prison so hard their teeth fall out.

        "Just like any other non-employee taxi operator."

        "Er, no. A local firm isn't allowed to trade without the correct licenses"

        So they should be kicked into prison so hard their teeth fall out.

        "Just another remote taxi booking service."

        "Er, again no. Uber's massive mistake is to not understand what a license does and means."

        Yes it is. It's Just A Taxi Dispatcher. If you take bookings from customers looking for a taxi and pass them on to a taxi driver, you are a taxi dispatcher. They have been around for probably 200 years. Just because they actively refuse to understand the law and actively refuse to comply with the law does not make them not a taxi dispatcher. If you sell groceries, you are a grocer. If you ride horses you are a horse rider.

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Big Ed

      Call me a converted Fanboi

      The taxi cab cabal is a criminal run monopoly. Crappy-cramped cars, poor service, and drivers that get lost. Try to get a cab on a street in NYC. Flag an available driver and have someone up the street jump out ahead of you and steal the car. Or better yet, try standing in endless cab lines. And don't get me started on the cities that issue medallions and rip the drivers off with outrageous fees.

      Uber Black: Chauffer licensed drivers, insured-late model comfortable cars. Uber drivers use a smart phone with Nav software and don't get lost, and they get you to your destination following the most economical route. Rides are dispatched fairly. When you book, the app tells you the name of the driver, and the make and license of your car. The Uber car knows where I am by the GPS in my phone; and they pull up discretely so noone can steal the ride. Uber has my credit card, so when I reach my destination, I just hop out of the car and I'm on my way.

      I've used the Uber app in San Fran, NYC, London, Paris, Brussels, Dubai, the KSA, Toronto, Chicago, and beyond.

      Uber keeps a flat 25% of the total fare for running the infrastructure and the drivers get the rest.

      Someone please tell me why I should want to risk my life in a cab and support that criminal enterprise when Uber's out there with a dramatically better way.

      If anything, cabbies should be auctioning off their medallions on ebay, ditching their hubcapless crap cars and signing up for Uber. Seems to me that this is a case of modern day horse and buggy drivers crapping on horseless carriages.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Big Ed - Re: Call me a converted Fanboi

        Your plea warms my heart.

        However, there is a slight problem at least in the part of the world where I happen to live. Let's say today someone gets his taxi permit after paying (investing ?) close to 100000 CAD. He is now ready to work as hard as he can to try to make just enough to recover those costs and pay his bills (if he would have been rich there would be no need for him to get into this business). The next day he faces competition from a bunch of people who did not have to pay anything, just download some app on their mobile phone and pay allegiance (and a part of their earnings) to some Californian company who is just a middle man ? If you can show me some fairness in this situation then I might become a fanboy too.

        1. DavCrav

          Re: @Big Ed - Call me a converted Fanboi

          "However, there is a slight problem at least in the part of the world where I happen to live. Let's say today someone gets his taxi permit after paying (investing ?) close to 100000 CAD. He is now ready to work as hard as he can to try to make just enough to recover those costs and pay his bills (if he would have been rich there would be no need for him to get into this business). The next day he faces competition from a bunch of people who did not have to pay anything, just download some app on their mobile phone and pay allegiance (and a part of their earnings) to some Californian company who is just a middle man ? If you can show me some fairness in this situation then I might become a fanboy too."

          It isn't fair. But the solution is not to get rid of Uber, but to get rid of the 100000CAD fee to run a taxi.

          1. Big Ed

            Re: @Big Ed - Call me a converted Fanboi

            Anon, agreed; municipality run cab systems are unfair to the public, drivers, and car owners. Monopolies screw everyone except for the profitiers. When I worked in NYC, I read stories about taxi medallions selling for $1M; if true that's insane. And in all of the civilized world, NYC consistently has the crappiest cabs and the longest waits at JFK and LGA for a ride.

            Progess and technology changes hit people hard. Years ago seats on the NY Stock Exchange and Chicago Commodity Exchanges sold for millions of dollars. This week the bulk of the remaining pits at the Board of Trade were closed because they did less than 1% of the trades.

            The NY Stock Exchange goes down for hours because of a bad software upgrade. But buyers and sellers were able to do their business elsewhere because the NYSE had lost its monopoly to electronic traders. If the NYSE still had it's listing monopoly it had years ago, the headlines would have been about the billions of dollars lost and how Joe Pensioner sufferred. The mass media only knows how to publish tradgety and suffering side of any story.

            People make bad investments all the time, I worked for a technology leasing company and had a pile of my retirement invested in company stock. Shorter technology lives and tax law changes put us out of business; and now instead of retiring at 62 I will work until I'm 70. It was my bad for investing so much of my retirement in a high-flying company - and it's the price I paid for a bad investment choice.

            So yeah, technology changes have winners and losers. You feel for the little guy stuck in the middle, and perhaps the municpalities that benefited from insane medallion auction fees can refund a piece of the monies that they profitted on.

            The question society needs to answer is whether you continue to offer crappy service (especially in the large american cities) or do you figure out how to tax the new world-wide car services and move on.

            1. Angol

              Re: @Big Ed - Call me a converted Fanboi

              "It's" means "it is"; you meant "its"

        2. grthinker

          Re: @Big Ed - Call me a converted Fanboi: 'Someone' has a fact check problem!

          If what you say about the Canadian regulations, or lack of, 'someone' should have spent some of his "work as hard as he can" time to check out what he has to do to be able to do the job! Do we just roll over and let the 'nanny state' do our thinking for us?

      2. grthinker

        Re: Call me a converted Fanboi: Finally a comment that makes sense!

        I've read almost all of the comments, and yours i is the first that offers, what appears to me, to be an honest assessment of the service that Uber offers, and the reasons why drivers and passengers would like it. Yeah, if you believe the 'Nanny State' should take care of you, than go ahead a trash organizations that give an individual the chance to profit by their own initiative.

    3. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      "Uber is a taxi operator, and needs a taxi operator's license."

      No. Even Uber claim to not be a taxi service and so don't hold any taxi licenses.

      They claim to be a ride sharing service. That means if someone wants to go from A to B, Uber will try to put them in touch with a car driver who also happens to be going from A to B. That may be how it started, but now "their" drivers are often in liveried cars (or at least have a sticker on the back) and are deliberately making themselves available to drive to places they would not be going to normally. That makes them Taxis at worst and Private Hire at least, both of which require licenses, insurance and stringent car checks. They can't be all that much cheaper either since I see "traditional" Taxi and/or Private Hire with Uber logos on them and they DO have all those extra expenses to contend with. Uber fares must be high enough to make it worth their while. Unless the licensed drivers are just picking up Uber fares in slack times rather than doing nothing.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Different Levels of Service Depending on the Operating GEO

        There are many flavors of Uber; Uber Black, Uber, Uber Taxi, etc.

        An Uber driver who works for a livery service and does Uber during downtimes claims his requirements to be Uber Black are: state/municipality sanctioned Chauffeur Licensed Drivers, $1M insurance, licensed-inspected vehicle, modern, clean, minnimum sized car class, and a smart phone with GPS.

        Fees are comparable to taxis, except during high-demand periods, fees are more than the other classes of service (except Uber SUV). And more expensive that livery.

  4. CrosscutSaw

    I like Uber

    A couple of Uber experiences have been faster and better than my lifetime of trying to hail (or call for) a cab.

  5. Pliny the Whiner

    Uber has come up with about 6 different ways of describing themselves, and the most recent description I heard is, "We're just a software company." Well, yes, in the sense that Google is "just a search engine" and the Beeb is "just a content provider" and AT&T is "just a phone company," then Uber is "just a software company." The problem with changing your description every time you change your socks is, the plaintiff can pick the description most beneficial to their case and most harmful to you. That's "just dealer's choice."

    Given that Uber gets a cut from every transaction it handles (software developers wank themselves to sleep at the very notion of doing the same thing), I have a 7th description known on both sides of the Atlantic: Bookie.

    1. Nuno

      The relation between Uber and their drivers is not much different from the relation between Apple and the developers that sell Apps in the AppStore, and nobody can honestly say that they are Apple's employees...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Nuno - Do you need a special permit

        to develop for Apple appstore ? What is the entry barrier for someone who want to sell apps via Apple ?

    2. Big Ed

      Ever Hear of Infrastructure?

      So you criticize the mareketeers at Uber for trying to hit the right marketing cord to resonate with the public? How many times do you think Old Spice to Google have changed their messaging; Old Spice... decades, Google at the speed of light.

      Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft Azure have brilliant software and a boatload of infrastructure to pay for.

      If you think Uber skims too much off the top, start your own ride service company with lower fares. That's how capitalism works.

      Or you can sit back and whine... oh wait

  6. Big Ed

    Rather than Criticize...

    I haven't seen many comments in the media from the Uber drivers...

    I have a friend who owns a car service; he and his drivers have chauffeurs licenses, licensed-inspected vehicles, insurance, and late model - comfortable cars.

    The drivers fill thier gaps in bookings with Uber rides.

    I'd bet a bunch that there are160,000 different stories out there sans the winers in Cali that took Uber up on their offer and are happy for the opportunity.

    1. SImon Hobson Bronze badge

      Re: Rather than Criticize...

      > I have a friend who owns a car service; ... The drivers fill thier gaps in bookings with Uber rides.

      OK, so you give an example of drivers who are licensed and insured. I find it, to be polite, "highly unlikely" that even a significant majority of drivers are legal.

      It's also telling that only a quick look at their website shows several causes for concern by non-USA people. Their website isn't compliant with EU law (on several counts), even after setting a UK city as the location - and their help pages are clearly USA only.

  7. jibanes

    Advice: hire lawyers

    Why: Prepare for a class action lawsuit.

  8. Elmer Phud

    Uber v's Addisson Lee

    Drivers are not employees of either of them -- dunno about Uber operatives but A.L. drivers seem to think they have an unasailable right to use bus lanes and seem to be all familiar with the archetypal driving methods of reps in Audi's.

    One bunch of dickhead drivers is enough, London doesn't have (hospital bed) space for more.

    1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

      Re: Uber v's Addisson Lee

      They probably do have an unassailable right to use bus lanes. In my city all but three bus gates are "BUS TAXI CYCLE" lanes.

      1. Hawkeye Pierce

        Re: Uber v's Addisson Lee

        Er no, Addison Lee most certainly do NOT have the right to drive in bus lanes in London, as per the ruling upheld by the European Court of Justice. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-30811886

  9. The Axe

    Cali's argument ad-absurdum

    So on the the drivers' claim that they are employees of Uber, then anyone selling on eBay (other market place website exist) is an employee of eBay.

  10. Triggerfish

    Subcontractors

    If they have diverse drivers some of whom they say subcontract, who vets the subcontracted?

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    In London AFAIK the bus lanes are available to vehicles with a Hackney Carriage Licence - which AL cars dont have. ISTR they went to court recently seeking to overturn the regulation and lost.

    Locally where I live the Cabs are regulated by local Authority licence, metered (regularly calibrated with a fare chart available in the car) and clearly liveried as a cab complete with a numbered ID plate specifying the make, colour and reg number of the car to which it applies (to prevent swapping between cars)permanently fixed to the exterior rear of the car.

    The cars are subjected to an extended MOT type examination every 6 months and of course the cars are covered by proper insurance cover both for the use of the vehicle for hire and reward (which is precisely what uber drivers do) and the wider "public liability" cover which is required by businesses and self employed in the UK.

    Id hate to be hit by an Uber driver and then discover that his commercial use of the vehicle was uninsured, or worse be involved in an injury accident as a passenger.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Just a ruse

    Uber might as well end the foolish ruse they have trying to pull as numerous countries have ruled that Uber is an employer and subject to employer laws. Uber is in for some serious reality checks.

    1. Vic

      Re: Just a ruse

      numerous countries have ruled that Uber is an employer and subject to employer laws

      It will be interesting to see what happens if one of their drivers gets hit under IR35...

      Vic.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So what Uber are saying is....

    Our service is so innovative* and disruptive**, your existing puny laws don't apply. Nice try.

    * No it isn't.

    ** Well yes, it is disruptive, but only by breaking various local laws.

  14. Planty Bronze badge
    FAIL

    If i sell on ebay using the app

    And eBay take a cut of profits. Does that make me an eBay employee????

    1. P. Lee

      Re: If i sell on ebay using the app

      >And eBay take a cut of profits. Does that make me an eBay employee????

      That was my thought, especially as they only pay you in a private corporate currency, paypal.

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