New Zealand Uber drivers win landmark case declaring them employees
theguardian.comThe core problem with modern employment law is that it has arbitrary categories with different tax rates, rights, etc. These sort of worked in the 70s when the rules were brought in. They haven't worked for decades. But instead of making new rules that work in a political and democratic process, we're forcing judges to decide for whole groups that they must be part of one group or the other.
There is nothing arbitrary to labour laws. You are an employee of a company and that gives you certain rights. American companies just want you doing the same job without those protections. New Zealand rejects America.
Still, as an employee there are usually certain obligations, which Uber does not ask of you.
- Coordinate your holidays with other employees.
- The employer sets your hours.
- You can switch to another employer (Lyft) without giving notice, and can come back anytime.
So, the 'gig economy' has benefits for employees as well, and some drivers claim to prefer this over traditional employment. Additionally, I think Uber drivers have a lot less downtime over 'traditional' drivers. It might make sense to update labour laws to accommodate this new type of employment, so the drivers are fairly treated, without subjecting them to the above obligations.
The arbitrary bit is who is an employee. I can do the same work as my colleague, but one of us might be a contractor and the other an employee. The cleaners who clean my office come in every day like me, but they're not employees of my company. But they are employees of A company. But when I hire the same person to do the same job in my house, they're NOT employees. Some people who want to be employees are NOT, and others who do NOT want to be ARE.
It's a huge mess. Maybe it made sense when people worked one job for life, and when risks around employment were mostly about risk of injury and not downsizing etc. It doesn't work now. It does not protect enough people AND it stops others being as flexible as they want. And instead of us deciding whether an Uber driver etc is an employee or not (or them deciding themselves), we have dumped the responsibility on judges...
FYI, I am a brit.
And what if you’re simultaneously driving for Uber, Lyft, Alto, etc. To which are you an employee?
All of them?
It is possible to have multiple jobs where you are classified as an employee.
I’ve had multiple part-time jobs before as well as part-time work in addition to full-time work simultaneously.
If they’re all treating you like an employee, then all of them
>If they’re all treating you like an employee, then all of them
But, they aren't. Any traditional employment situation would forbid working multiple jobs at the exact same hours of the day. Any traditional "hourly" employment situation it would be completely impossible to even perform 2+ jobs at the same hours of the day.
But with gig work it's not only possible, but common. I would expect that if these drivers transition from contractors to employees they will be required to sign employment contracts which will forbid them from doing other gig work during their "shift." It remains to be seen if this would be a net positive for drivers.
Ultimately I think there needs to be another category of labor for gig workers. Dependent contractors.
Before you go setting up new criteria, consider starting with the existing criteria.
It’s a terrible argument to point out some things that are different and use it as an excuse to ignore all the previous protections that were put in place.
E.g. Uber shouldn’t be allowed to hide the details of a job before the drivers accept them if they’re not employees
Agree with you that gig work isn't fully in either category.
Perhaps the concept of a work shift shrinks down to the time between accepting a rider and when you drop them off?