I agree that companies sometimes misclassify employees but I’m not sure this is the case here. The drivers choose when and where to work and provide their own resources to complete the jobs they choose to accept.
Within parameters set by the company with strict penalties if you don’t obey them. So no, they don’t really choose.
provide their own resources
Like with school teachers, who are also employees, that’s exploitation, not independence.
complete the jobs they choose to accept.
Again, while fulfilling mandatory quotas, meaning that there’s a high risk of having to accept fares they would prefer not to, as per the rules of their EMPLOYER Uber/Lyft.
Contractors also can hire employees to help complete a job.
Gig economies technically allow for this but the hired person has to onboard with the gig corporation. At which point they’re contractors themselves and would have no incentive to be your employee.
In other words, contractors, being specialized labor with their own equipment, are generally people running crews of employees and this is built into contractor laws.
Gig jobs only pay lip service to this requirement and use it more as a recruitment tool.
The whole thing is nuts and would have blown up into a huge class action if not for mandatory arbitration agreements built into the onboarding process.
I agree that companies sometimes misclassify employees but I’m not sure this is the case here. The drivers choose when and where to work and provide their own resources to complete the jobs they choose to accept.
Within parameters set by the company with strict penalties if you don’t obey them. So no, they don’t really choose.
Like with school teachers, who are also employees, that’s exploitation, not independence.
Again, while fulfilling mandatory quotas, meaning that there’s a high risk of having to accept fares they would prefer not to, as per the rules of their EMPLOYER Uber/Lyft.
Contractors also can hire employees to help complete a job.
Gig economies technically allow for this but the hired person has to onboard with the gig corporation. At which point they’re contractors themselves and would have no incentive to be your employee.
In other words, contractors, being specialized labor with their own equipment, are generally people running crews of employees and this is built into contractor laws.
Gig jobs only pay lip service to this requirement and use it more as a recruitment tool.
The whole thing is nuts and would have blown up into a huge class action if not for mandatory arbitration agreements built into the onboarding process.
They’ve been sued repeatedly for misclassification and they always settle out of court or take things to arbitration (mandatory due to the contract).
They do this to avoid precedent. Because they know they’re misclassifying workers.
Source: I sued instacart for it and did a lot of research on the current legal environment in regards to the gig economy.