[Noted]

In regards to point 3, I thought one of the issues was that Uber was forcing their "contractors" to work at specific times in order to remain employed. Most of the regulations around this that I'm aware of are basically the opposite of what you're describing. The government forces companies to treat some workers as employees precisely because they're already being treated as employees rather than contractors (i.e. not having a flexible schedule).

[extrapickles]

There is are checklists[0] to determine contractor vs employee, which vary slightly from location to location, but maintain roughly the same ideas. Companies like Uber want the upsides of having employees classed as contractors, but not the downsides. They should be forced to pick one or the other, rather than trying to straddle the line.

[0]: http://art.mt.gov/artists/IRS_20pt_Checklist_%20Independent_...