Uber Sues City of Seattle To Block Landmark Driver Union Ordinance (geekwire.com) 123
Seattle's landmark law that lets drivers for ride-hailing companies decide if they want to bargain collectively was set to go into effect today, but an Uber subsidiary has sued to block key rules of the ordinance governing which drivers get to vote on unionization and other key rules. From a report: Uber subsidiary Rasier filed a petition in King County Superior Court Tuesday to block recently-published rules from Seattle's department of Finance and Administrative Services that cover issues like which drivers get a say in whether they want to unionize, working conditions subject to bargaining and how an organization gets certified to represent drivers exclusively. In court documents, Uber called the city's process flawed and asked the court to suspend the new rules. Uber wants the city to go back and tweak the rules so that they better reflect driver conditions in the ride-hailing industry. "The City failed to provide comprehensive rules and disregarded the facts and circumstances of drivers and the industry," according to Uber's petition. "Moreover, the Cityâ(TM)s rules are inconsistent with fundamental labor law principles ensuring every worker has a voice in whether to be represented by a labor organization."
Union Supporting (Score:2, Insightful)
How Democrat, and how terribly 19th century of you.
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And thanks to people being ignorant of history we are going to have to relive the 1800's all over again. All hail the new Robber Barons!
Don't realize who the robber barons are, do you? (Score:3, Insightful)
All hail the new Robber Barons!
That would be the unions of today, who steal from their members to give to themselves. Why do you think so many unions make it MANDATORY for workers to become members?
If a union was useful to a worker, workers would be eager to join instead of being forced to. Being forced to pay for an organization that provides no goods or services to you is the LITERAL DEFINITION of robbery.
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I have never known a billionaire union leader. On the other hand, just about every successful business leader today seems to be a billionaire. Who is stealing here?
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Same old misinformation. The real thieves are the CEOs
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Why do you think so many unions make it MANDATORY for workers to become members?
Because if they didn't, they'd have freeloaders who receive the benefits of union protection of their jobs without paying the dues.
And BTW, nowadays, it's a very fortunate union that can negotiate a "closed shop" (mandatory membership) contract.
If a union was useful to a worker, workers would be eager to join instead of being forced to. Being forced to pay for an organization that provides no goods or services to you is the LITERAL DEFINITION of robbery.
First of all, unions do provide goods and services to their members. You may not like what they do, or want what they provide, or be cynical about them in general. But you cannot claim that they don't provide goods and services.
I'm forced to pay taxes. I may not ag
Re:Don't realize who the robber barons are, do you (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm forced to pay taxes. I may not agree with what my government does with the money. But I don't question the fairness of paying my share of taxes.
Exactly. We don't live in a vacuum and the day of the self-sufficient "rugged individualist" is over for 99.9999% of the population. We all have to pay for things that we personally may not want, but other people are saying the exact same thing about things we do want.
We're all in this together, like it or not and just because Joe Blow doesn't want to pay for a school or a library or other service that he may not use directly doesn't mean that making him pay for it is evil or wrong- other members of the society he lives in may need it.
The fact is that we all need to share the burden in order to provide a certain standard of living for the society in which we live.
If you literally live 100% off the grid and NEVER use a road or any centrally operated service (electricity, food, water, hospitals, police, etc), then you might have a case for not paying taxes. But I don't think those people really exist anymore. Even if they do, unless they're living a 17th century lifestyle they're still using the fruits of society's labor.
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We all have to pay for things that we personally may not want, but other people are saying the exact same thing about things we do want.
Umm.. excuse me but WHAT? In a free society you only pay for the things you want, e.g. My apartment, my food, my netflix subscription, my internet etc. There is not a single thing that i pay money for that I DONT WANT. If i didn't want it i wouldn't have paid for it. Thats not the same for taxes. I pay for other kids to go to juvenile detention indoctrination centers (schools) i don't approve of them or other people sending their kids to them. I also pay for water even if i buy my own water from a commerci
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Thats not the same for taxes.
And yet taxes are exactly the thing I was referring to. I never said anyone was forcing you to pay for cable TV or or a refrigerator. But if you live within a society that provides services to the population at large, you should expect to help pay for those things. Would you prefer there to be no police or fire services, no emergency rooms, and no regulations at all on anything?
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And if our government would allow roads to be built, owned, and wholly operated by private businesses I would gladly pay to use those instead of government ones.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight, because all the people that would do those things only have our best interests at heart and would be completely
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But if you live within a society that provides services to the population at large, you should expect to help pay for those things.
again, you are confusing society with government. The first definition i found online for society was 'the aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community' you can have order without government. I should not be expected to pay for anything against my will. That is the case in the US today, and its an authoritarian approach, you are free to think its good or bad, but its definitely not freedom.
Riiiiiiiiiiiiight, because all the people that would do those things only have our best interests at heart and would be completely fair about it.
never did say they would have our best interest at heart or would be completely fair about i
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again, you are confusing society with government.
No, I am not.
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never did say they would have our best interest at heart or would be completely fair about it. Its also implied that the government DOES have our best interests at heart and is completely fair about it
I'd say the government is fairer than robber barons or private commercial interests whose only interest is in the bottom line.
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Well i completely disagree, charity does work, we have lots of charitable organizations and they do great work at local, state, and national levels.
Lol, horsecrap. If charity worked there would be no need for government programs that do all the things charity doesn't. Charity is far more fickle and biased than the average government program. This has been shown to be the case again and again and again. Like Catholic "charities" that won't provide birth control services to women, or who can always find some bullshi
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Well I guess my original assessment was correct, you do have some kind of grudge against libertarians (or a few where very rude to you).
A grudge? Well if not putting up with pie-in-the-sky bullshit is a "grudge", then I guess I'm grudgy. Frankly I find most libertarians to be shallow in the depth of their understanding of the whole concept and incapable of seeing why libertarianism is unfeasible.
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I just sincerely believe in freedom and that maximization of freedom is the best policy for all issues, for I truly believe that freedom brings about prosperity for all and incentiveizes regions to pursue peace.
You know, I actually believe that that's what you believe, but I also believe that you have never bothered to dig down into the details of what a libertarian society would actually entail. For example,
1) Where do property rights come from, how are
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1) Where do property rights come from, how are they established, and in the case of disputes, how would the determination of true ownership be decided and enforced? Specifically, who would enforce them and how?
They come from god, (or if you don't believe in that sort of thing) our humanity. We are all born with a piece of property, the first property you own is your body. In Israel during the times of judges when there where disputes over who owned what property both disputing parties would go to a neutral third party that was respected amongst the community as being fair (these where the 'judges') societal norms (not laws enforced by a government) made sure that both parties would agree to arbitration, with the
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They come from god, (or if you don't believe in that sort of thing) our humanity.
That's great if you believe in magical invisible super-beings whose existence can't even be proven, but what I was asking about was actual property like real estate. Who really owns the land your home is on, and where did those ownership rights come from? Who or what gave you the right or authority to buy it, and how can you prove it's yours? Who enforces your claim of ownership if there's a dispute?
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... would go to a neutral third party that was respected amongst the community as being fair (these where the 'judges') societal norms (not laws enforced by a government)
And what if I don't agree to recognize that authority for what I believe to be good reason(s)? What then? C
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i have no problems with jury trials (so long as the jury is truly your peers from the local community) and judges elected or nominated by locally elected officials.
And what if these people are all bought off or on the take, or just don't like you and want to screw you over? What then? Who has the ultimate authority to decide and what specifically gives them the right to do so? Why does their authority outweigh yours?
This is a really good argument against the arbitrary power of government. Why is it that government officials seem to have authority that outweighs ours? Are you sure you're not a libertarian?
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This is a really good argument against the arbitrary power of government.
You know what would be a good argument? Your actually answering my questions instead of deflecting. It's almost like you have no substantive answers to the questions I posed...
1) Who really owns the land your home is on, and where did those ownership rights come from?
2) Who or what gave you the right or authority to buy it, and how can you prove it's yours?
3) Who enforces your claim of ownership if there's a dispute?
4) What if I don't agree to recognize that authority for what I believe to be good reason(s)
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Oh please, please, PLEASE implement this. It is so much easier to kill one or two people and seize everything they have than it is to avoid, overcome, or defeat an entire police force.
What you really want is police protection without paying for it, and perhaps some more guns. If yo
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And back to the story (Score:2)
If you don't want to be Union, don't work for a Union shop
Seattle is trying to make that impossible if you are a driver as per the original article. NOW do you see the problem with requiring Uber to support unions?
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Being forced to pay for an organization that provides no goods or services to you is the LITERAL DEFINITION of robbery.
Let me guess- you're one of those guys that complains about having to pay for schools and libraries and other services because you don't use them?
Frankly, I've never seen a union that didn't provide some sort of benefit to the members. Yes, there are abuses in the union system and I wouldn't even say they're rare, but they do provide services to the members.
In some ways I think unions have gone too far and/or become too overreaching, but in general I think we're better off with them than without them.
And in
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Do you have to train to be that ignorant, or were you just born that way?
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Do you have to train to be that ignorant, or were you just born that way ?
Intelligence Busting (Score:3)
If you hate unions so much, why didn't YOU sue to prevent drivers from unionizing? I assume that you don't employ drivers, therefore you've got exactly as much standing as a company like Uber that doesn't employ drivers.
Uber's response is pants-on-head retarded for a company that is trying to insist it has no employees. Their correct course of action would be to absolutely ignore everything this "union" does, and continue with whatever click-through agreement that drivers agree to in order to drive for Ub
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I actually agree with your approach but the problem is if Uber ignored this is would be one step closer to having the drivers classified as employees no matter what Uber thinks.
I don't dislike unions so much that I care to spend my own money against them. But it doesn't hurt to warn others of the dangers so I put forth effort to do that when I can.
Good luck... (Score:3)
You don't usually win fighting city hall...
Careful Seattle, payback is coming (Score:2)
If I were building a giant fleet of autonomous robot cars, guess which markets I would absolutely flood with them as soon as they were ready? Any markets that tried to block my human driver efforts today... after all Uber is already making lots of money from the cities where they are allowed to operate, so the quickest expansion in the future is through the most resistant places today.
If Uber really wanted to, they could absolutely destroy the entire taxi market of a handful of cities with a targeted deplo
That doesn't change anything (Score:3)
Uber is losing money
The fact that they are losing money overall says nothing about them MAKING money in any one area to begin with. It simply means they have more overhead still. I said nothing about profit.
In any case it doesn't change my main point at all. In fact it makes the point stronger, in Ubers desire to turn a profit they will want to grow as fast as possible with cars that have as little overhead as possible. They can grow much faster by pushing automated cars into a market they aren't allowed
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If they don't have a viable one which doesn't try to run over cyclist and run red lights and requires 2(!) drivers to operate
You obviously have no idea how technology improves, nor how rapidly it improves. Yes the current ones were missing some lights and sometimes did not see bikes. But that tech is rapidly improving. Today it's two drivers (really a tech and a driver) monitoring, tomorrow it's one guy sitting monitoring, the day after that it's one guy monitoring fifteen Ubers from a chair and a handfu
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Tech improves but business fundamentals never do. Or is it different this time? A whole new paradigm? With no down side?
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I was where you were before I started taking classes covering self-driving car technologies and current start of the art in neural networks and deep learning. Yes that sounds very buzzwordy but the thing is, it's working really really well now... You have no idea how fast those obstacles are being blown past. Already the tech exists to recognize very well various objects like signs and people around the car, even in extremely bad weather. I still think snow may foul up some things but with a small enough
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First, the technical problems need to be solved. Nobody seems to have an adequately self-driving car yet. Let's assume there's one available in a couple of years. Then, we get to the other problems. Self-driving cars have to be made legal on the public roadways, and that's going to take time. Once they are, I'm sure there will be problems with self-driving cabs, just because there's no human to observe anything unusual happening. It may be worthwhile in the long run, but self-driving cabs aren't anyt
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I think the legality of it is by far the tricker part, almost all of the technical challenges are very close to being solved. But the benefit is so huge to most commuters that demand will be through the roof in a way you have not ever seen before in your lifetime.
If you think about how much time most people spend commuting and the ability to turn that time for every single person into something they can do that is fun instead of stress... that is beyond huge.
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He's also pretty stupid, because Google has been pouring millions into self-driving vehicles for longer than Uber has existed as a company, and they aren't close.
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If they don't have a viable one which doesn't try to run over cyclist and run red lights and requires 2(!) drivers to operate, then they don't have one.
They used to say more or less the same thing about airplanes and safety but whaddya know, millions of people fly on planes everyday, even with the occasional crash.
Technology doesn't have to be perfect to be used. And no technology will ever be perfect, so let's just go back to riding horses in the streets, even though horses occasionally trampled people too...
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Would you get on a plane that had no human pilot aboard?
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Would you get on a plane that had no human pilot aboard?
Yes, if it had demonstrated a sufficient level of safety.
You rely on automated systems every day in various services that could cause death or injury if they don't work, but most of them aren't obvious. Nonetheless, you use them and you don't complain about them because in most cases they've demonstrated a sufficient level of safety.
Traffic lights, natural gas controllers, furnaces, elevators, etc etc...all these things rely on automated controllers that could kill you if they malfunctioned, yet we all go o
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after all Uber is already making lots of money from the cities where they are allowed to operate
No, they aren't. Unless you count "spending way more in costs than you generate in revenue" as "making money".
We are much closer than you imagine (Score:3)
Stop already. We aren't even close to real autonomous cars.
We are just years away from cars that work extremely well within a defined target area, like a city, or a narrowly defined route, like trucking - so companies like Uber will be the first to self driving cars and trucks on a wide scale.
I agree general purpose fully autonomous cars are a ways off more. But not as far off as you think, research has increased dramatically in this regard and huge leaps are being made every year now. Maybe ten years but p
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We are just years away from cars that work extremely well within a defined target area, like a city, or a narrowly defined route, like trucking - so companies like Uber will be the first to self driving cars and trucks on a wide scale.
Even with trucking it's still likely a decade or more away. Even then a lot of companies will probably employ drivers vs self-driving. Just a FYI, it's also a hell of an area to get into if you want to make pushing $90k/year or more at start and get everything from healthcare insurance to an actual pension(something that a lot of places don't even have). There is such a huge demand in the US for drivers that it's insane. Especially since so much of the business is pure JiT. Hell walmart in the US in a
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How many years away? Uber loses money at a rate of about $2 billion per year. How long can they carry that on for?
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Only if "by just years" you mean "by just 1 billion years, give or take a million".
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If I were building a giant fleet of autonomous robot cars, guess which markets I would absolutely flood with them as soon as they were ready? Any markets that tried to block my human driver efforts today...
There's a gaping hole in your logic: governments that can block your human driver efforts could (would) also block your autonomous vehicles.
Good counter-argument, but I think it won't happen (Score:2)
There's a gaping hole in your logic: governments that can block your human driver efforts could (would) also block your autonomous vehicles.
I consider that a good counter-argument, but I have thought about it and don't think that will be much of a problem... I think there would be a lot more pushback around most cities blocking self driving car technology than there is to simply extend union rules to ride sharing cars.
After all, self-driving cars should reduce cars on the road and also reduce accident rates
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A law to the extent that "no autonomous vehicle shall be used to transport passengers or cargo for hire within the limits of the city. Violators shall forfeit the vehicle and pay a $250,000 fine" still supports the autonomous car, and would make the unions happy. Most big cities are deeply blue, and deep blue areas are the places where unions still have any kind of foothold and still exercise power.
Again, I think you're just being unrealistic in your assessment of how easy it will be to displace things li
Re: Careful Seattle, payback is coming (Score:1)
If automated taxis are inevitable, then a city has nothing to lose in requiring collective bargaining today. Seattle would probably gain money from the jobs and housing prices for the tech companies that would build driverless cars.
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Whats to stop them from not allowing the self drivers? This only works IF you can operate there. If they have issues with the human driven cars, does it make sense to expect them to just allow driverless, or even autopiloted ones?
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The thing is that in not allowing self driving cars, now you aren't just affecting Uber but regular people as well. That's why it's a whole different level of political action than trying to muscle Uber into allowing union takeover of the drivers.
does it make sense to expect them to just allow driverless, or even autopiloted ones?
If they really want to be thrown out of office, up to them. Any trying to back technology that cans obviously benefit the elderly or other less mobile people is going to face a ho
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They could specify things to make it apply to them only. Any of the taxi laws they don't want to follow are a good start.
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Uber can't operate their human-less fleet without first being licensed and registered by the State. You think fucking with giant metropolitan cities in those States wouldn't have serious consequences? You'd be removing a huge job sector, especially in places like New York City or Seattle, which would end up removing tax revenues. Uber could be completely destroyed if those states enacted laws that prevented human-less autonomous vehicles on their roads, along with enacting rules encouraging Uber driver unio
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The problem is that an Uber ride is fundamentally no different to any other taxi ride in terms of cost. The reason why an Uber journey is cheaper than a regular taxi journey is that the Uber journey is effectively subsidised by Uber investors and the driver/owner of the car who doesn't know his/her true costs.
Uber's business model is fundamentally flawed. They have no competitive advantage over normal taxis except the ability to bilk investors in California out of their money.
Let's say Uber perfects the dri
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Uber wants taxi advantages but not disadvantages (Score:2)
Hey, welcome to the taxi business.
What taxi advantages does Uber get? (Score:2)
Taxis still have designated taxi pickup points all over the city (and especially airports) at which they are just handed business.
The Uber driver has no such location, having to park somewhere close to where potential business may be, often taking minutes to get somewhere a taxi would just be hanging out at.
In terms of employees taxi companies are highly exploitive of workers, vastly more so than Uber. Uber drivers can choose where and when they want to work with complete freedom. How is that not giving an
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In terms of employees taxi companies are highly exploitive of workers, vastly more so than Uber. Uber drivers can choose where and when they want to work with complete freedom. How is that not giving an inherent advantage to taxi companies that can order drivers to service unpopular locations?
Taxi drivers can actually earn a living wage.
Uber drivers also earn a living wage. (Score:2)
Taxi drivers can actually earn a living wage.
So do all of the Uber drivers I have talked to. If they want to work mostly full time, they can easily make a living wage by taking advantage of surge pricing earnings (which is after all the reason surge pricing exists).
To help them out I usually tip them (even though you are not supposed to). Even with tip an Uber is less than the base fare of a "real" taxi and usually far nicer to ride around in. On a recent trip I took an uber one way, and a taxi back the
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Well there is an inherent guarantee about being on a payroll vs being possibly equally compensated if you happen to be the bloke that spoke with SuperKendall.
So, if you're not one of the drivers that hangs out with SuperKendall, you might be making close to minimum wage.
http://www.businessinsider.com... [businessinsider.com]
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Well there is an inherent guarantee about being on a payroll
AHAH HAHAHAH AHAHA AHAH AHA HAHA HA H A HA HAH A HA HA H!!
*gasp* When are you from gramps?
I haven't been on a payroll in ten years now and am wholly better for it.
So, if you're not one of the drivers that hangs out with SuperKendall...
Then you are one of the many other drivers making a decent living with great job flexibility. I have personally come to value job flexibility vastly more than money.
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Taxi drivers can actually earn a living wage.
So do all of the Uber drivers I have talked to.
I took a series of Ubers recently and I asked each of them straight out how it was working out for them in terms of making a living. All of the drivers said they were doing pretty well money-wise.
Two of them mentioned that they make a *ton* of cash from the Uber Eats service on the weekends. All of them said they liked what they were doing, liked the flexibility, and were making a good living at it. I have no reason to disbelieve them.
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Except that drivers for companies like Uber have a huge incentive to make you feel good about the transaction or else they will be fired for having not enough five-star customer ratings.
I don't think that's a credible explanation. If anything I'd expect them to tell me that it's hard work, blah blah blah so I'd feel sorry for them and give a better rating out of sympathy.
Live by the sword (Score:2)
Just what we need (Score:3, Funny)
There will be one Uber union worker to put the car in gear while another union worker supervises. The union worker who steers the car will be entitled to 20 minute breaks every 45 minutes. The union worker who presses the brake and gas pedals will only be allowed to work on certain 'certified' models of cars. And all 4 of them will retire on full benefits after 10 years.
The truckers union is not that bad. (Score:2)
The truckers union is not that bad.
But for an uber union driver it can be paid hourly with an time clock that where drivers who are waiting and ready for an ride are on the clock, returning to the main pickup zone from an long fair on the clock, waiting in the airport line on the clock, with all miles paid at least the IRS rate + all tolls covered or driving cars owned by uber at no cost to the driver.
If uber wants an lot of drivers ready for fairs then they should be paid and not only paid if they get an f
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Uber drivers can already deduct all milage driving while they are listed as active even when not carrying a fare.
If uber wants an lot of drivers ready for fairs then they should be paid
Why if the drivers are willing to just wait for a fare? One Uber diver I talked to in Long Beach was a writer, and simply worked on writing while he was between fares. There are a lot of people like that, who may as well be killing time sitting in car as at home. If there were a shortage of such people then yes, Uber would
Re:Just what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck this made up anti union crap already. For every (likely made up) story you have about how your father's uncle's brother's first cousin's roommate had a union job and it was full of lazy people there are about 100 well documented stories of management and owners acting like the slime most of them are. Yet we allow capital to organize (corporations) complete with special legal protections and far too many here would be just fine if we deny labor the same thing. Somehow your heads don't explode from the sheer cognitive dissonance of it--but reflecting on that one actually has to think to have cognitive dissonance.
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For every (likely made up) story you have about how your father's uncle's brother's first cousin's roommate had a union job and it was full of lazy people
I had a student job with a community college while I went there only about a decade ago, while I uh, pivoted. And what I saw in the IT department was tragic. The primary system upon which the school depended was a HP-SUX quad Alpha, because that's what their software runs on. Then they replaced it with some ridiculously expensive many-way itanic box because that's what the vendor told them to do. On the old system, I got paid to implement ssh tunneling (with putty, naturally) to stop them from sending SSNs
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Why yes, your unsubstantiated anecdote is compelling evidence for your thesis! Unlike in every other argument ever.
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It's too bad you don't have the balls to just come out and call me a liar, son. Then you'd really have something.
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You know who doesn't have unions? Machines.
If you are an Uber driver and your primary concern is unionization, you can't see the forest for the trees. You should be worried that you're going to be automated out of a job within 3-5 years.
Re:Oregon is NOT a right-to-work state (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Oregon is NOT a right-to-work state (Score:4)
Second, Unions, like most organized groups of humans, can be good or bad, depending on who is running them, and how accountable the membership holds them. There are many unions whose members are quite pleased with them, because they believe they gain more in terms of improved wages and benefits than they pay in terms of union dues.
And more importantly, this does not impose a union on these drivers - it merely grants them the choice of whether or not they want one.
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> And more importantly, this does not impose a union on these drivers - it merely grants them the choice of whether or not they want one.
And why should Uber want to go to court to deny workers the CHOICE of whether or not they can unionize?
That stinks.
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I got four hours of sleep last night. Apologies. I suspect Seattle would object to being moved to Oregon.
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Uber picked the wrong city to fight with (Score:2)
We took on the WTO and we won.
Bears of little brain.
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We took on the WTO and we won.
Yeah! Down with globalization! Make America great again!
Er .... Um .... Wait a minute.
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Standing? (Score:5, Insightful)
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How can Uber have standing in a court case about regulations for employees, when the swear blind that the drivers they are employing are not employees?
That seems quite consistent. If you have a bunch of contractors collude together to demand price increases that is just that, collusion.
I mean fuck Uber for their labour abuse, but if they every actually get their "they are just contractors" point properly through the courts then I imagine they have grounds to take their own contractors to court for anti-competitive behaviour if they attempt to unionise.
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There are laws around "just contractors", and Uber seems to ride fairly close to the edge. The problem with getting their point properly through the courts is the law, not any problem with the court system. The fact that they often clearly defy the law means that courts are less likely to cut them any slack.
Also, I don't think there's any problem with contractors forming a union and bargaining collectively. There's plenty of unions and professional organizations that represent people who aren't typica
Why should corporations only collective bargain? (Score:3)
They set wage levels and even collude to drive down wages[*]. When they set pay levels for a company they are collective bargaining, for management and the stock holders, as much as a union does. Why shouldn't human beings be allowed to do so as well? Or are they not people too?
[*] see the Apple, Google, HP wage collusion case.
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