[dougabug]

I think these companies want to avoid making the drivers look any more like employees than they already do.

Frankly, it seems to me that they are in fact employees, over which Uber exerts enormous control, to the point of spying on them, monitoring what they post on social media, what they say to customers about the company, supplying talking points, directing them to disregard certain local transportation regulations.

[mathattack]

True - it benefits Uber immensely from a tax perspective (and benefits?) for them to be independent consultants. It's also harder for independent consultants to unionize.

[toomuchtodo]

Its going to be brutal on Uber (and Lyft) when the IRS recategroizes all of those drivers as employees, and both companies need to cough up the employment taxes they should've been paying. It happened to Fedex (their Ground division) [1].

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2014/08/27/fedex-misc...

[mathattack]

I'm not a lawyer - is this a done deal? With FedEx they were working full time, right? If someone is driving for both Uber and Lyft, isn't it hard to say they should be an employee of one or the other?

[toomuchtodo]

It's a done deal:

http://www.woodllp.com/Publications/Articles/pdf/AlexandervF...

Also, it wasn't the time required from contractors that put them into employee status, but the requirements they were required to follow.

[mathattack]

I meant is it a done deal for Uber and Lyft?

[toomuchtodo]

Ahh! No no, not at all. It hasn't even come up yet with a court or the IRS.