Brazil Judge Rules Uber Drivers Are Employees, Deserve Benefits (reuters.com) 131
An anonymous reader shares a Reuters report: A Brazilian judge ruled that a driver using the Uber ride-hailing app is an employee of the San Francisco-based company and is entitled to workers' benefits, adding to the global debate over labor rights for drivers on the platform. Uber said on Tuesday it would appeal the decision by Judge Marcio Toledo Goncalves, who issued the ruling late Monday in a labor court in Minas Gerais state. Goncalves ordered Uber to pay one driver around 30,000 reais ($10,000) in compensation for overtime, night shifts, holidays and expenses such as gasoline, water and candy for passengers. The consequences for Uber, if the ruling is upheld, could be far greater if more drivers follow suit and if state and federal regulators and tax agencies start treating it, as the judge suggested, as a transportation company rather than a tech firm.
More likely they will pull out (Score:4, Insightful)
More likely they will pull out of any markets that dictate this. They can't remain profitable doing that.
Re:More likely they will pull out (Score:5, Insightful)
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Brazilian labor law is *designed* to catch all attempts at doing what Uber does, really.
To Brazilian law, if you do *anything* paid that looks like being employed more than X hours per week for a long enough period for the same company, you *are* employed, and they are in a very very bad position for trying to dodge labor law. Also, in labor issues, the employer is *presumed guilty* and *has to prove its innocence*. It is absolutely the *only* instance in the entire Brazilian law where this happens (in al
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I'm Brazilian too, but I don't know enough about labor law so as to figure this out, and I'm curious.
Suppose Uber changed it's system so that they charged drivers directly for use of the driver version of their app instead of charging drivers a percentage of each run. As in, I want to drive for Uber, I enter the App Store or the Play Store, and I find I can subscribe to it for, let's say, $1.000 BRL (about $300 USD) per month, with the first month free. In this scenario, Uber is literally selling an app and
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Just changing for the right to get the work list vs taking an fee from each job does not change stuff. And Changing workers for an tool needed to do the job?
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And what about setting things up so that drivers aren't charged a penny, money goes directly from the user to the driver, and the user is charged a percentage on top of what he paid to the driver?
Re:More likely they will pull out (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it really matters, it costs almost nothing to defend these cases for Uber. They're just trying to defer spinning up a big HR division between now and in five years when Uber replaces most of their human drivers with driverless cars. People keep treating Uber as if they're going to be this massive, massive employer -- they won't. Ideally in 10 years most everything will live in the cloud run by a team of 300 engineers, with local service centers to swap out batteries and electric drive units for the cars. Human drivers will only work in areas that don't have enough ride share demand to deserve a dedicated service center.
Worrying about driver's benefits is a very short sighted goal and really is a waste of everyone's time.
Re:More likely they will pull out (Score:5, Insightful)
Who cares?
Even in ten years I will still boycott uber.
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and we need to fight now before more jobs that can't be replaced with robots become fake on call jobs where people are waiting for work but not being paid for that wait time or for the next work set.
Or an call center where you only get paid for talk time and not waiting for the call time.
instacart and others had the wait at the store and schedule shifts but workers only got paid if an order came in.
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I don't think it really matters, it costs almost nothing to defend these cases for Uber. They're just trying to defer spinning up a big HR division between now and in five years when Uber replaces most of their human drivers with driverless cars.
Awaken from your dreamy state.
Uber is just trying to undercut existing competition by ignoring the rules other players are forced to abide by... And complaining bitterly when said rules are applied to them.
Even though they're getting away with this for the most part, they're still losing money hand over fist. Uber will go out of business within a few years. Seceding from the Brazilian market will be the beginning of the end (Easy Taxi is the go-to app for taxi hailing in South America).
Ignorant (Score:1, Troll)
The whole point is that taxis operate at excessive costs and poor quality precisely because of a playing field that is stupid.
Uber is playing on an entirely different field.
And if you don't want to play on it, you can go be a taxi driver.
It's completely ignorant to demand companies play on the "same playing field" when the whole point is to escape the existing one.
You're not an employee of Uber. You're a contractor. You set your own hours. If you don't like the terms, find another job.
If you like the ter
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Here in Brazil the vast majority of Uber drivers are so because the recession the country is going through destroyed the companies they worked for and they've been unemployed for several months without perspective of becoming employees again for a long time. It has literally saved many people from foreclosure and from being ejected given there's no barrier to entry: just take your car and go earn money.
If this rule sticks, guess who will be back in the queue for non-existing jobs?
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The playing field is fair. There is nothing stopping an Uber competitor (like lyft) from creating their own app and contracting their own drivers.
I think what you really mean is you want Uber to compete in a highly regulated market like taxis. But that highly regulated market is the very reason why Uber is so popular, cab companies have become a bunch of rent seekers. They artificially constrain the supply and jack up the price. If the taxi market wasn't so broken Uber would have never gotten off the groun
Re:overtime (Score:3)
How does it make any sense that Uber should pay a driver overtime pay when the driver is fully in charge of how many hours they work per day or week?
That makes no sense at all.
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Drivers may not be "independent contractors" in the same way that a programmer might be (for example, depending where you live, you might only have one ride share service you can work for), but they absolutely are not regular employees.
They have 100% control over schedules, and a very low bar to getting hired (for many places, it seems like you just download an app, fill out some info, get a rudimentary vehicle inspection and an automated background chec
more then just OT (Score:2)
It's not being prided / getting miles for on call wait time / drive to call time / drive back to base after long ride time. Paper work / other admin time.
Also maybe big time drivers can bill for the oil change time / car cleaning time / etc.
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Some countries have limits on working time, to stop employers abusing workers by paying them extremely low wages and then offering overtime to make it up. In other words, to stop exactly what Uber is doing.
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Absolutely agree with this, in OZ taxi drivers have copped a lot due to high fare costs, but at the same time the gov forced them into an amazingly expensive license system that can take years to pay off, letting Uber in here instantly devalued their licenses.
So on one hand I like the idea of Uber, but it's also extremely unfair they get a completely free ride when it comes to everything else the taxi drivers MUST adhere to, the training, insurance, licenses that cost many hundreds of thousands, etc, etc. S
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Yes you are ignorant. In OZ the taxi industry is a very heavily and tightly regulated and gov mandated monopoly that is extremely expensive to partake in. If Uber is providing the EXACT same service in this very same regulated industry, with NONE of the regulations or legal compliance, or even insurance in some cases, it is then an UNFAIR playing field, regardless of the semantics.
Take note of the "Heavily and tightly regulated" aspect of this, != simple contractor straw arguments.
No... (Score:3)
It merely shows HOW STUPID the system of corrupt government corporate interaction is, and how the government takes any thing it touches and makes cost 10x as much.
Most of my friends cannot afford a taxi. Most taxis I've ridden in are disgusting. Uber, they can afford. And the vehicles are usually pretty nice.
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You want to tell me your friends are "so poor" they can afford $5 uber driver but not a $6 taxi?
Perhaps they should drink one $5 beer less before calling for 5cents a taxi or uber driver, facepalm.
I never heared that 'poverty', real or percieved, is a reason to chose uber over a cab/taxi.
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Here in Brazil the difference can be 3 times or more. Taxi is very expensive. Uber makes it casual.
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And at what point do you think that Uber's "free market" solution will begin to adjust for congestion?
I am not interested in your knee-jerk anti-authoritarianism. Your argument is facile. Taxi regulations exist for a reason, and if you don't know what that reason is, go live in Panama City for six months. Then if you still want to import third world living conditions into the US, well, honestly you can go fuck yourself, but at least your argument would have some reference to the real world. In the mean time
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So, if Uber is the exact same service as taxis, why did the government put all these burdensome regulations on taxis? Blame the government and the rent seeking taxi drivers -- not Uber. If all that regulation resulted in a superior product, presumably many/most people (who can afford it) will pick a taxi over Uber and Uber would just be a service for the poor who will enjoy increased mobility and flexibility that they didn't have before Uber. Seems like a win-win for all.
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Problem was that unregulated taxi services became a hub for crime and so regulations and controls were brought in and they had to be paid for. This as always got exploited by a minority to enrich themselves at the expense of the majority. So what regulations are required for random pick ups, what would be considered unsafe behaviour, what if the user doesn't pay, what if the driver steal luggage, what about fake drivers, what about inept drives or intoxicated drivers, what about drivers with medical conditi
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What is Uber again?
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Huh? What maid offers their (why do you assume "her"?) services to the "general public"? Maids will turn down clients because their house is too hard to clean, because they don't like the homeowner's pets (perhaps the maid is allergic to cats) or just because they think the potential client is creepy or seems like someone who would be a pain to deal with.
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they aren't profitable now; https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-loses-at-least-1-2-billion-in-first-half-of-2016 says they lost a billion or so in 6 months of 2016.
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"remain"? Uber would have to start being profitable for the word "remain" to be appropriate.
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All markets should dictate this. They are a taxi service, plain and simple. They are in no way shape or form anything else.
They should abide by any rules, laws and regulations that any taxi service has to follow. Including having the drivers as employees, they are not contractors. Any company using a large amount of "independent contractors" is simply dodging taxes and other benefits that should be paid out by them. I'm looking at you Dish and DirectTV.
I hate worker exploitation (Score:1)
There are certain expectations of an employee, like working a set number of hours per month, or performing a fixed amount of work.
An Uber "employee" can decide exactly how much work to do each month. They are completely in control. (as far as I understand it)
Also, no one told the guy to buy candy. I can buy all the candy I want and say it's for customers, but if I go to my boss to reimburse me, he will probably pay me back since he is a pretty good guy, but still. My point i
Re:I hate worker exploitation (Score:5, Interesting)
Uber (at least in the US) dictates which tools you're allowed to use on the job, which is one of the big tests in employee vs. contractor designations. Try driving for Uber if you have a coupe, or if you have a beat-up old clunker of a car. It's not going to happen, you must have a 4-door vehicle, it must be in attractive condition, etc. Employers have lost suits over this sort of thing before. Specifying "you may only use DeWalt tools on this contract" can be enough to have your contractors qualify as employees.
There's also the scenario where Uber's app won't run, or won't run properly, if you also have a competing app (Lyft etc.) open at the same time. Ergo, Uber prevents you from accepting work from other sources, another big test for employee classification.
I applaud Uber drivers who are fighting for their rights.
Re:I hate worker exploitation (Score:5, Insightful)
But a client specifying tools seems like a strange thing to determine contractor vs something else on.
A contractor produces results for a fee. If the purchaser of the service wishes to retain control over anything other than the results, then they need an employee, not a contractor.
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A contractor produces results for a fee. If the purchaser of the service wishes to retain control over anything other than the results, then they need an employee, not a contractor.
An express contract can certainly have clauses and riders that go beyond the end result. Government contracts in particular are full of them.
However, Uber's contract appears to be an adhesion contract, which is basically one side dictating terms, making it a Hobson's choice. For those kind of contracts, judges have often struck down what can be considered unreasonable, because one side was not allowed to influence the terms.
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Hob, aka Old Hob, aka The Devil.
That's a nice folk etymology, and completely wrong.
Thomas Hobson was a real guy, running a livery stable. Any customer had to pick the horse stabled closest to the door - take it or leave it.
"Old Hob" didn't appear as an expression until the mid-18th century, around 200 years after Hobson's choice was already an established term.
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Contractors are often required to use specific tools to perform their tasks as set out by their client. Go to any office where software contractors are brought in to help in projects and you'd be hard pressed to find a place that allows them to use whatever they want to complete that project. They are almost always required to use the same software as employees and in many case the company dictates/provides the hardware (computers, peripherals, etc..).
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Not seeing a distinction between that and the parents "produce results for a fee" statement. If the contracted results are a document in Microsoft Word, then naturally that would require Microsoft Word to ensure compa
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Trying to argue what the difference is between a contractor and an employee based on Brazil law, unless you speak Portuguese, is just foolhardy. Any argument will have no basis in reality ("reality" in this case meaning Brazilian law, which may or may not relate to actual reality).
First off. (Score:2)
Nearly EVERY taxi driver is a private contractor. A company owns the cabs, and the licenses. They then lease these out to the cabbies to drive. No benefits. No W2.
Second, why are these laws ignored? I work for a company on a government contract. We have dictated to us: where we sit, what machine we use, and when we have to be there for work.
"Specifying "you may only use DeWalt tools on this contract" can be enough to have your contractors qualify as employees."
But they're not specifying that. They're sp
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I think there is a 'huge' difference between specifying specific tools 'dewalt' only and specify the 'quality of the materials' to be used.
In the case of this service the vehicle is not a tool it is part of the materials needed to accomplish the job.
Maybe uber should put an end to the argument and require all of it's drivers to also install lyft and to give proof of another job.
Do you suppose that would make the current people trying to claim they are employees happy?
Basically if you are using uber as your
uber leasing cars / cell phone costs / etc are als (Score:2)
uber leasing cars / cell phone costs / etc are also issues.
Uber push for control with them renting out the tools needed for the job is not a good thing to have with contractors or even employees. Even said that you can rent ours or use your own is iffy. Other "contractors" have been forced to rent stuff like fedex like with there scanners.
Never Fails (Score:1)
Someone comes up with an idea that's pretty good, is designed for people to work part time to pick up some cash, minimal regulations, etc. and it's a pretty good thing for everyone all around.
Then some loser decided to do it wrong, wants free shit and the government steps in an gives it to him.
Now an innovative company, built for part time workers, is turned into just another cab company with full time employees.
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The way I see it, Uber isn't a taxi company. Uber provides a platform as a service allowing service providers (ride share drivers) to find customers (passengers). The service providers might count as independent taxi drivers and thus be taxi companies themselves.
If Uber drivers are Uber employees, then Uber is providing the taxiing service, and is a taxi company. That's a lot different.
In other words: Uber is basically a phone book and telephone rolled into one, with a listing of cabbies and their
Re:Never Fails (Score:5, Informative)
The way I see it, Uber isn't a taxi company. Uber provides a platform as a service allowing service providers (ride share drivers) to find customers (passengers). The service providers might count as independent taxi drivers and thus be taxi companies themselves.
Drivers can't set prices, can't turn down (too many) customers, can't drive whatever car they want, etc. Uber drivers aren't contractors.
BS (Score:3)
Most contractors don't set prices. They can accept the price or move on. Can't turn down too many customers. Well guess what, you can't go too many days without coding and remain a contractor either. Can't drive whatever car they want. Nope...you need to have a tool that meets a modicum of professionalism. Yes, you're a contractor...but when you go to meetings you are required to dress appropriately...or you lose the privilege of being a contractor.
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Ebay gives sells alot more room of control then uber does.
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yeah only in the perverse regions of the tech industry where they're trying to avoid employment laws and taxes. In every contact I've done there's been a price negotiation. Mostly, I asked a price and got it. One company haggled the price up for some reason I could never fathom. Whenever I've hired contractors, I say the job description, and they've always quoted a price.
YOU bs (Score:2)
If you're not negotiating for your prices, then you're not much of a contractor: a person who produces results for a fee.
What you're describing is an employee, not a contractor. If your employer is setting conditions on what
How does refusing work make you an employee? (Score:2)
If I work as a contractor through a management company and turn down projects, they're going to start paying someone else who actually wants to do the work.
And if I don't have the proper tools for the jobs, I don't get the jobs.
A 2 door car is not sufficient because the passenger is trapped until the driver lets them out.
A beat up junker isn't sufficient because passengers expect a car that will make it to the destination.
There's a very huge difference between not being available during certain hours and se
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Isn't all that secondary to the fact that they can work any hours you want, at any location they want, they provide your own tools, and they can turn down customers? I disagree with your assessment that they cannot turn down too many customers. They can turn down as many customers as they want by not signing in to the app. They can't sign-in to the app, mark that they are open for business, then turn down customers. But that's just being an jerk.
There's lots of professions where the fees are fixed. Con
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No.
Laughable.
No. That's you being a corporatist bootlicker, for a corporation that DGAF about you.
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Are users of Amazon's Mechanical Turk also Amazon employees? They can't set prices, but they can take work. In this case, the Uber Mechanical Turk allows clients to offer work (seek ride) and to provide that work (provide ride); the difference is that the client offering work (ride seeker) sets the price on Amazon's Mechanical Turk.
Neither of these lets the contractor set the price.
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Minimal regulations? Nice euphemism for shamelessly breaking the law.
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Enlighten us.
Re: Never Fails (Score:3)
In many countries drivers for hire must have a professional driving licence and a professional car insurance. And don't give me the crap about the Uber insurance, it covers far less than even a private car insurance in several European countries. Feel enlightened already?
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Minimal regulations? Nice euphemism for shamelessly breaking the law.
I think by "minimal regulations" he means that it's an easy thing to get into, unlike becoming an actual cab company driver.
Re:Never Fails (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone comes up with an idea that's pretty good, is designed for people to work part time to pick up some cash, minimal regulations, etc. and it's a pretty good thing for everyone all around.
Except there are regulations around offering yourself for hire for personal transportation. Just because you own a boat doesn't mean you can take up commercial fishing part-time to make some extra cash either without following proper regulations and licensing. If you want a part-time job to make some extra cash wait some tables, tend bar, be a bag boy at a grocery store, or work swing shift in a bakery. Just wanting to make a little extra money doesn't justify ignoring local, state, or federal laws and regulations.
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Uber complies with state and federal laws. Local laws usually are silent on Uber until the Cab industry lobbies for changes.
See Austin TX. Urber was here, working quite well, people loved it. Taxi companies got one of their stooges on the city council to start passing regulations, Uber left.
THAT'S your fucking Precious Government.
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Uber's business model is to pretend ride-sharing and car-for-hire are the same thing until some government or private entity challenges that obvious falsehood in court.
What about an open-source free app that simply connects drivers with riders in a distributed, non-centralized way, where any fees are negotiated exclusively and privately between each driver and rider, where no money goes back to the app writers and where they exercise zero control/restrictions over drivers? When it's simply individuals with no business like an Uber or Lyft involved at all? Would that be OK in your opinion?
Strat
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To answer a simple question with another, would you be okay with alcoholics who have lost their license half a dozen times offering taxi rides on Craigslist, when they're driving a car with no license and no insurance? Would you expect minimum professional standards from a taxi service, or expect Joe Blow Consumer to do a full background check on Billy Bob for DUI's before getting into his car for a ride to the airport, least it be Joe's own damn fault for the ensuing car accident?
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To answer a simple question with another, would you be okay with alcoholics who have lost their license half a dozen times offering taxi rides on Craigslist, when they're driving a car with no license and no insurance? Would you expect minimum professional standards from a taxi service, or expect Joe Blow Consumer to do a full background check on Billy Bob for DUI's before getting into his car for a ride to the airport, least it be Joe's own damn fault for the ensuing car accident?
So what stops anybody from doing that now? I've seen ads on the local CL by individuals for ride-sharing in the local area before Uber/Lyft came along. With a driver-rating system that passengers can use to see what others thought of prospective drivers integrated into the OSS free app this can be mitigated greatly. Besides, Uber/Lyft are/were setting standards for drivers, but abolish them and you'll have just what you describe.
As others have pointed out, the current taxi system (at least everywhere in the
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I think you're posting in the wrong discussion - because there's considerable regulation both when it comes to hiring labor and when comes to transporting paying passengers. Regulation that Uber has consistently tried to circumvent, first with their nonsensical "ride sharing" claims, then with their equally nonsensic
Labor Laws (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm pretty sure if you're employing people in different countries you have to abide by their labor laws. You can't just push American labor laws on other countries. Cost of doing business there uber. Want to be a global multi-national company? You have to pay to play.
Or maybe we should just all agree on some global labor standards but I bet you America wouldn't like that one bit.
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While there are some Stockholm syndrome poor and middle class people who might balk, the majority of us WOULD like the health and safety regulations in place worldwide, mostly because it would be a barrier to the cost effectiveness of domestic firms outsourcing to foreign locations.
It's really those other countries who would object strenuously. In most of the developing world, the only competitive asset they have is low-cost labor. If you could legislate that away from them, they'd have nothing, no way to lift themselves economically. All of the education resources, all of the intellectual capital, all of the big markets... they're all in the rich world, especially the US and EU. We have every possible competitive advantage, including much higher per-hour productivity, the only thing
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It's sometimes difficult to grasp, but you cannot legislate prosperity. If you try to, you cause misery. Every. Single. Time.
Entitlements (Score:2)
from the summary:
"A Brazilian judge ruled that a driver using the Uber ride-hailing app is an employee of the San Francisco-based company and is entitled to workers' benefits, adding to the global debate over labor rights for drivers on the platform...."
Did anyone notice the contradiction? The submitter reports a Brazilian judge requiring that mandatory entitlements be given to Uber drivers, then within the same sentence instead refers to "workers rights".
Entitlements are the opposite rights. An entitlement is prohibition of liberty; If the Uber driver is entitled to receive X dollars in compensation then the driver can not choose to work for less. A right is a grant of liberty; If I have the right to free speech then I can choose wha
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Entitlements are the opposite rights.
In the US. In most of the rest of the world, entitlements are part of rights.
This driver was in Brazil.
Solution... (Score:2)
If they're Uber employees. Create a benefits package for Brazil. It can be utterly crappy and include pretty much nothing but a auto insurance discount.
Then mandate all uber employees have to be available from 8am to 6pm.
Any more info available? (Score:2)
The linked article didn't say what the basis for the decision was. And it only applied to one driver. It does not say they had to reclassify all their drivers as employees.
Obviously they are employees (Score:2)
Benefits used to be...benefits (Score:2)
There was a time when benefits were optional or rare. Then price and wage controls were introduced and the only way employers could attract good talent was to offer them "benefits". Now they are mandatory. Things might be better if people got more money and chose their own health plan outside of work just like car insurance. (Along with being able to buy across state lines and tort reform but that's a story for another time.)
Here is the decision (Score:2)
For those who can read Portuguese: Sentença [conjur.com.br].
It's pretty good.
The judge says that according to Brazilian Labor Law (CLT), employee is "any natural person who provides services on a regular basis to an employer, under his or her dependence and on a salary basis", so the elements to recognize the employment relationship are: natural person (i.e. not a company - legal person), personal relation, regular nature of the relationship, onerosity (I've never seen this word in English, in this context means that
Great victory for labor unions (Score:1)
If you don't like conditions that Uber provides, don't freaking work for them!
For Gig Economy to Scale, We're All Contractors (Score:1)
To scale the sheer volumes of drivers to field the demand fares have during heavy events is not possible if everyone has to drive a black limousine and only work as a driver 30+/hours per week with bureaucratic registration regulatory license. Same thing goes for AirBnB and other gig / excess capacity platforms. So I respectfully disagree that ride share drivers should categorically be employees.
Analogy: Lots of beaches and pools have signs indicting swim at your own risk. Must all beaches provide life
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Other than the hundreds of industries that have thousands, if not millions, or independent contractors?
When I hire someone to clean my gutters, am I on the hook for their healthcare and matching their 401k?
Mess with the best (Score:2)
Eu falo português.
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But if I am the firm hiring the sub-contractors. Me saying that you have to show up to work and not be half-naked if you want to continue to be a sub-contractor is NOT outrageous. It's the norm.
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Me saying that you have to show up to work and not be half-naked if you want to continue to be a sub-contractor is NOT outrageous. It's the norm.
That's still within the boundaries of "getting it done" as a form of risk management. A worker that shows up inappropriately clothed is at risk of being arrested or being kicked off site by a helicopter mom. That's similar to a requirement for a contractor to have proper insurance. The insurance doesn't affect the result of a typical job, but is does affect the result of a job that has gone wrong.
Also, as I said earlier, there are a lot of subjective areas to contract law in almost all jurisdictions. Since
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Most contracts give the client some control over "how it get's done". The contractor is being hired to perform a specific task, if I as the client have some stipulations then that is negotiated at the time the contract is signed.
Who provides and who decides the materials used? Who decides the hours to be worked? Can the work be done offsite or on?
All of these can be dictated by the client or left up to the worker and can have various degrees of bearing on whether they are employer/employee of client/contra
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You mean how was my post relevant other than referring standard industry practices?
It may come as to a shock to the thousands of aspies on slashdot, but not every legal situations requires a formal mathematical proof in order to be supported.