[mgraczyk]

I'm confused. Don't Uber drivers decide to work for Uber voluntarily? Does Uber have a monopsony in California? How are the drivers being exploited when they choose to leave their current employment to work at Uber?

I would be willing to entertain your premise if Uber had put Taxi companies out of business before drivers had left Taxis to work at Uber in droves, but that's not what happened.

[rubbingalcohol]

The fundament behind "at will employment" is that people decide to work for their employers voluntarily. That doesn't mean they forfeit the protections afforded by law to workers. The point of this case is that Uber controlled their workers to the point where their relationship with the company should be considered an employer / employee relationship, and thus the workers are entitled to benefits they did not receive. Your comparison to taxi companies is not relevant, especially since Uber swears they're not a taxi service.

[mgraczyk]

The comparison to taxi companies is relevant to show that Uber does not have a labor monopsony. These legal protections are supposed to be used to prevent companies from exploiting monopsony power in labor markets. Uber does not have monopsony power in the driver labor market except by virtue of offering better working conditions and better pay. The government's role as a regulator should be to prevent Uber from abusing its power in the labor market. In this case, I do not believe Uber has enough power in the labor market to warrant government intervention.

[rubbingalcohol]

Uber's role in the labor market at large and Uber's relationship with their workers are two separate issues. The lawsuit only deals with the latter. Your analogies to taxi services relate to the former and are irrelevant to the issue at hand.

To clarify, the labor protections I speak of relate to giving employees the proper benefits, not to overall labor market protections. The lawsuit (which is the topic for this discussion) alleges that Uber miscategorized their workers as contractors to avoid paying these benefits.

[dragonwriter]

> Don't Uber drivers decide to work for Uber voluntarily?

I would expect that, to the extent that is true, they largely do so in a context in which Uber's adherence in that employment relationship to applicable labor law is presumed in that decision.

[pfisch]

If mcdonalds or walmart started paying below minimum wage would that be exploitative?

[mgraczyk]

Walmart has a labor monopsony in much of the rural United States. It would be exploitative for them to pay below a reasonable wage because their employees have no other options for employment.

That is not the case for Uber in California and will likely not be the case in the future. Uber mainly operates in heavily populated areas where alternative employment is available. Additionally, Uber drivers are not geographically restricted in their employment by the nature of the job. They have a car and drive all over town for Uber, so they would be able to find a job "driving distance" away from where they live.

[bro-stick]

Exactly. People might agree to work for peanuts but it's not going to sustain them.

[s73v3r]

None of that matters if Uber is not adhering to labor laws.