I'd have more chance reading a 100 page novella in Spanish than a 100 page document in legalese. It's not a language that ordinary people can understand.
Honestly I disagree. I think this is a defeatist attitude that lets people just give up from the start. Like, the basic Uber user agreement is like 13 pages. And "legalese" is often quite easy to read, it's just that like any technical document you have to actually read it.
I've read plenty of these documents, and not fully understood any of them. If you can understand them, I'm not doubting you, but don't assume everyone does. I find coding easy because I've been doing it 30 years, but only unempathetic coders assume this means code is actually easy and anyone who can't understand it is not trying hard enough.
The average American reads at a 7-8th grade level according to The Literacy Project and legal documents are never written at that level. While I don't think medical documentation is a shining example a lot more care is taken to ensure that it's understandable to the average american or if it's not someone will be able to help.
There's multiple issues with legal documentation including the usage of jargon, reference and case law, but even in places where the english is straight forward an understanding may not be. To use Uber's terms as an example what limitations are there on charges because by my read there are basically none as you can fit almost anything under 'applicable fees' or 'surcharges', however I'm positive a court would slap down Uber adding a random million dollar fee if they doknt have it in the upfront estimate and probably even if they do.
The same with the following:
As between you and Uber, Uber reserves the right to establish or adjust Charges for any or all services or goods obtained through the use of the Services at any time. Uber will use reasonable efforts to inform you of Charges that may apply, provided that you will be responsible for Charges incurred under your Account regardless of your awareness of such Charges or the amounts thereof.
While it states that Uber can establish or adjust charges at any time there's almost certainly a limitation on it that isn't stated. To use the absurd example again they almost certainly wouldn't be allowed to jack up rates to a million dollars a mile mid ride. In the same paragraph what is a reasonable effort? A letter in the mail, an email, a text message, a phone call? These are examples from a relatively simple document that doesn't really matter that much. Employment documents, contracts for buying a house, etc matter a lot more and tend to be huge and very dense. Expecting someone to catch every little detail that might matter is not possible for someone that can understand and read them nevermind the average American. It's even worse in some cases as it's common in employment documents to reference internal documents that you won't even have access to.
Fair point regarding the reading level of the average American, though I don't know how much any company can really do to fix that issue. Even if they provided a "this is the short version" summary for each section, that bit would never be the legally binding part, and the full language matters.
I think "reasonable effort" is something that would be defined by a court (or rather through arbitration) if you were to contest it. And, in most cases, I actually do trust that to be done reasonably. In the case of Uber, they've always provided estimates of charges prior to the ride, to include any surge pricing. But of course some people don't read those estimates, or are intoxicated, so eventually they started requiring people to type in the surge multiplier to acknowledge it. Not sure if that's still a thing. The quoted section pertains to charges from third-parties (like restaurants under UberEats), and same thing...they notify you within the app of the charges.
I've also found that in many cases when people claim to have been "bitten" by an EULA or TOS it's not so much "I didn't understand the nuanced meaning of the word hitherto in this context" or "I didn't catch some minute detail in the hundred pages of text," it's almost always a major or even headlined portion of the agreement. Like somebody not realizing they can get hit with a cleaning fee by Uber, despite that having a large-font, boldfaced header setting that section apart and drawing attention to it. Or people not understanding that weather limits their recourse if a flight is canceled, despite the contract of carriage having an actual subsection called "Cancellation - Weather." Or not understanding what a team's refund policy is for season ticketholders when a season's attendance gets canceled due to a pandemic, when there's a bold section detailing "Cancellation policy." Even skimming the terms would give you some idea as to what's up with these things. But people don't bother. Then they're stuck in Milwaukee in a blizzard like "what do you mean you aren't going to put me up in a hotel?!"
Its very hard for someone who knows a thing to write for someone who doesn't know a thing, because they no longer lack the separation from the material. I see that over and over in things like instruction booklets, where the addition of just a single word can completely transform an instruction from a 20 minute google search to being as plain as day. After enough past experience of this, most people will become unwilling to read similar things, because its just so frustrating.
I would also go so far as to say that in the linked case the issue almost certainly wasn't that the user didn't realize they were agreeing to arbitration when they opened the account, but rather that their lawyer knew they could argue that when the arbitration didn't deliver the desired result. As the story notes, a proper court may well reach the same decision regarding Uber's liability. This is a case of the user exercising every bit the technicality that the companies usually depend on. And good on them for doing it, but I don't buy for a second that this has anything to do with any bona fide misunderstanding of the terms as presented.
Its very hard for someone who knows a thing to write for someone who doesn't know a thing, because they no longer lack the separation from the material. I see that over and over in things like instruction booklets, where the addition of just a single word can completely transform an instruction from a 20 minute google search to being as plain as day. After enough past experience of this, most people will become unwilling to read similar things, because its just so frustrating.
This is definitely something I deal with in technical writing, and why I take feedback from the users of my documents very seriously. Like if they say rewriting a step or series of steps a certain way would make more sense, I don't dismiss that and nine times out of ten that's exactly what we're going to do. It's also why once instructions are drafted I'll always step through it with the user, incorporate changes, then give it to the user without my assistance to step through. Then take any notes they provide. Not everybody does this, and it definitely shows.
Still, I do think most of it is just the unwillingness part. Like I know some people are unable to read the text, but I think most people truly just don't bother, because they have other shit to deal with.
A big part of people not reading license agreements is a lack of options. If you disagree with a part of Uber's license agreement, (say, the binding arbitration clause) your only remedy is to not use Uber. There are only a few players in the field, and they generally have very similar agreements in place. You can't cross that bit out, initial it, and send it back to Uber for renegotiation. So, why read it? You already know you don't have a useful response if there's something bad in there.
A big part of people not reading license agreements is a lack of options. If you disagree with a part of Uber's license agreement, (say, the binding arbitration clause) your only remedy is to not use Uber. There are only a few players in the field, and they generally have very similar agreements in place. You can't cross that bit out, initial it, and send it back to Uber for renegotiation. So, why read it? You already know you don't have a useful response if there's something bad in there.
There's approximately a 0% chance that they would accept that change though so why does that matter? They didn't pick out your resume and try to recruit you, their response to you wanting any kind of special treatment will be to not even take the time to say no
A big part of people not reading license agreements is a lack of options. If you disagree with a part of Uber's license agreement, (say, the binding arbitration clause) your only remedy is to not use Uber. There are only a few players in the field, and they generally have very similar agreements in place. You can't cross that bit out, initial it, and send it back to Uber for renegotiation. So, why read it? You already know you don't have a useful response if there's something bad in there.
There's approximately a 0% chance that they would accept that change though so why does that matter? They didn't pick out your resume and try to recruit you, their response to you wanting any kind of special treatment will be to not even take the time to say no
Obviously. But this still tracks with my general assertion that for many or even most customers it's not so much an issue of "I couldn't possibly comprehend all this dense legalese" and more likely a case of "I want to use the service so I guess I'll just click Accept because fuck it these terms are all the same anyway why read them..."
The case at hand was a matter of the individual not being accommodated with a guide dog. The arbiter ruled that the drivers are independent contractors, so his claim is with them and not Uber. The court didn't take any issue with this claim, nor is that claim necessarily something that will depend on Uber's TOS...the court simply said that because they didn't actually make him click the "Accept" button for the terms, he got to go to court and not arbitration. Not because the TOS was too long, not because it was too dense, not because a normal human couldn't possibly understand it. Just that he didn't actually click that he accepted the terms explicitly.
And that court that may still likely hold that those drivers are independent contractors, and he has to sue them and not Uber.
Binding arbitration clauses should be illegal when terms are nonnegotiable. They're 100% used just to stop people being able to sue.
Though amusingly this has backfired a number of times for companies because whoops turns out the arbitrator they chose wasn't defacto on their side this time and actually did their job.
+3
MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
I'd have more chance reading a 100 page novella in Spanish than a 100 page document in legalese. It's not a language that ordinary people can understand.
Honestly I disagree. I think this is a defeatist attitude that lets people just give up from the start. Like, the basic Uber user agreement is like 13 pages. And "legalese" is often quite easy to read, it's just that like any technical document you have to actually read it. I hear the same thing about technical instructions...such as stereo instructions, instructional websites, or the procedures I write as an engineer for technicians. But 99% of the time, you simply read the words and do the thing they tell you to do. Make somebody sit and read the words aloud to you and tell you precisely which of them are unclear, and they can't. And, in fact, they'll be able to follow them easily. Because ultimately the problem was that they didn't want to read the words.
Exceptions, of course, for poorly translated stereo instructions that were clearly written in a different language. That's another issue entirely. But for the most part, it's not that hard. Like I've had to sit friends or family down who needed the old "halp with compoooter" treatment, and I just make them read the prompt. Tell me what they think it means. They're usually correct! So just do the thing it tells you to do. What do you mean you don't know? What do you think it's telling you to do? And then they'll know exactly what it's telling them to do, do it, and it works. Because ultimately the problem is, and I don't mean this term as negatively as it will sound, laziness. We have a lot going on, so when a prompt pops up that we don't want to deal with we just ask for help. Rather than read the words.
Legal language does sometimes use a few words that are not common in normal English use..."notwithstanding" being an off-the-top-of-my-head example. But six seconds to cut-and-paste that word into google solves that problem. And you only need to look it up once, you should remember it from then on. Same with the occasional nonsense latin bullshit, though in my experience EULAs/TOUs don't too often dip into that well. No, in my experience the language in an EULA/TOU/etc. will be dense, but not obscure. It's just a lot of sentences that you have to actually read and pay attention to.
As an example, here is an excerpt from Uber's Terms of Use:
5. Payment
You understand that use of the Services may result in charges to you for the services or goods you receive ("Charges"). Uber will enable your payment of the applicable Charges for services or goods obtained through your use of the Services. Charges will include applicable taxes where required by law. Charges may include other applicable fees, product return fees, cancellation fees, estimated or actual tolls, and/or surcharges. Further, you acknowledge and agree that Charges applicable in certain geographical areas may increase substantially during times of high demand or due to other marketplace factors.
All Charges and payments will be enabled by Uber using the preferred payment method designated in your Account, after which you will receive a receipt. If your primary Account payment method is determined to be expired, invalid or otherwise not able to be charged, you agree that Uber may use a secondary payment method in your Account, if available. Charges paid by you are final and non-refundable, unless otherwise determined by Uber.
As between you and Uber, Uber reserves the right to establish or adjust Charges for any or all services or goods obtained through the use of the Services at any time. Uber will use reasonable efforts to inform you of Charges that may apply, provided that you will be responsible for Charges incurred under your Account regardless of your awareness of such Charges or the amounts thereof. Certain users may from time to time receive promotional offers and discounts that may result in different amounts charged for the same or similar services or goods obtained through the use of the Services, and you agree that such promotional offers and discounts, unless also made available to you, shall have no bearing on your use of the Services or the Charges applied to you. Promotional offers and discounts are subject to change or withdrawal at any time and without notice. You may elect to cancel your request for Services at any time prior to the commencement of such Services, in which case you may be charged a cancellation fee on a Third Party Provider’s behalf.
With respect to Third Party Providers, Charges you incur will be owed directly to Third Party Providers, and Uber will collect payment of those charges from you, on the Third Party Provider’s behalf as their limited payment collection agent, and payment of the Charges shall be considered the same as payment made directly by you to the Third Party Provider. In such cases, you retain the right to request lower Charges from a Third Party Provider for services or goods received by you from such Third Party Provider at the time you receive such services or goods, and Charges you incur will be owed to the Third Party Provider. Uber will consider in good faith any request from a Third Party Provider to modify the Charges for a particular service or good. This payment structure is intended to fully compensate a Third Party Provider, if applicable, for the services or goods obtained in connection with your use of the Services. Except for amounts provided by you through the Application as part of the “tip” feature, Uber does not designate any portion of your payment as a tip or gratuity to a Third Party Provider. You understand and agree that, while you are free to provide additional payment as a gratuity to any Third Party Provider who provides you with services or goods obtained through the Service, you are under no obligation to do so. There also may be certain Charges you incur that will be owed and paid directly to Uber or its affiliates. For the avoidance of doubt, Uber does not charge a fee for a user to access the Uber Marketplace Platform, but retains the right to charge users a fee or any other Charge for accessing Services made available through the Marketplace Platform. Even if not indicated on the Uber Marketplace Platform, you understand that the prices for product or menu items displayed through the Services may differ from the prices offered or published by Third Party Providers for the same product or menu items and/or from prices available at other third party websites/mobile applications. Prices for product or menu items displayed through the Services may not be the lowest prices at which the product or menu items are sold.
If you think a correction should be made to any Charge you incurred, you must let Uber know in writing within 30 days after the Charge took place or Uber will have no further responsibility and you waive your right to later dispute the amounts charged.
Damage, Cleaning, Lost and Found, and Violation of Terms.
Uber may charge you a fee if, during your use of the Services, you have caused damage to a vehicle or property that requires repair or cleaning (“Repair” or “Cleaning”). The amount of such fee shall be determined, in Uber’s sole discretion, based on the type of damage and the severity. Uber reserves the right to verify or otherwise require documentation of damages prior to processing a fee. In the event that a Repair or Cleaning request is verified by Uber in Uber's reasonable discretion, Uber reserves the right to facilitate payment for the reasonable cost of such Repair or Cleaning using your payment method designated in your Account. Such amounts, as well as those pertaining to lost and found goods, will be transferred by Uber to a Third Party Provider, if applicable, and are non-refundable.
Additionally, if you fail to comply with these Terms you may be responsible for Charges, including without limitation, for transactions that could not be completed properly, arising out of or in connection with your failure to comply with these Terms.
I don't wanna read that bullshit anymore than anybody else does. But I just did, start to finish, and couldn't find a single bit of it that I couldn't understand. Every single piece of it is perfectly clear English that any native English speaker should be able to comprehend, which builds into a whole that...similarly...any native English speaker should have no problem understanding. But yes, you have to read it to do so.
It is possible I am an extraordinary person, though.
Honestly, please cut and paste any part of that that specifically doesn't make sense.
The issue is that there's no point in reading it because regardless of the language what all of them actually say is "Fuck you, we're responsible for absolutely nothing, ever, but can and will charge you whatever we feel like for any reason or no reason, basically at our whim, and you have no recourse. If you don't pay up we'll fuck up your credit score as an added bonus. Again, so it's clear: fuck you. Also you can't sue us lol get wrekt scrub"
It’s not just one of these things you have to read. I probably accept an average of 1 per day as a person who does a lot of computer stuff. I read job contracts but I’m not going to scrutinize the PlasticSCM terms and conditions every time they update.
Some gig workers on DoorDash are trying to train the algorithm to increase the base pay for a delivery from $3 to $7. They are calling it #DeclineNow and are asking all DoorDash drivers to decline any order that doesn't pay at least $7
The pair noticed that when one DoorDash driver declined a delivery, the platform would offer it to another for slightly more money. As independent contractors, there was nothing obliging them to take these orders, so they figured Dashers could band together to set a de facto minimum pay rate. In a relatively small market such as the Lehigh Valley, it didn’t take many people declining low-paying jobs to make a significant difference.
I'd have more chance reading a 100 page novella in Spanish than a 100 page document in legalese. It's not a language that ordinary people can understand.
Honestly I disagree. I think this is a defeatist attitude that lets people just give up from the start. Like, the basic Uber user agreement is like 13 pages. And "legalese" is often quite easy to read, it's just that like any technical document you have to actually read it. I hear the same thing about technical instructions...such as stereo instructions, instructional websites, or the procedures I write as an engineer for technicians. But 99% of the time, you simply read the words and do the thing they tell you to do. Make somebody sit and read the words aloud to you and tell you precisely which of them are unclear, and they can't. And, in fact, they'll be able to follow them easily. Because ultimately the problem was that they didn't want to read the words.
Exceptions, of course, for poorly translated stereo instructions that were clearly written in a different language. That's another issue entirely. But for the most part, it's not that hard. Like I've had to sit friends or family down who needed the old "halp with compoooter" treatment, and I just make them read the prompt. Tell me what they think it means. They're usually correct! So just do the thing it tells you to do. What do you mean you don't know? What do you think it's telling you to do? And then they'll know exactly what it's telling them to do, do it, and it works. Because ultimately the problem is, and I don't mean this term as negatively as it will sound, laziness. We have a lot going on, so when a prompt pops up that we don't want to deal with we just ask for help. Rather than read the words.
Legal language does sometimes use a few words that are not common in normal English use..."notwithstanding" being an off-the-top-of-my-head example. But six seconds to cut-and-paste that word into google solves that problem. And you only need to look it up once, you should remember it from then on. Same with the occasional nonsense latin bullshit, though in my experience EULAs/TOUs don't too often dip into that well. No, in my experience the language in an EULA/TOU/etc. will be dense, but not obscure. It's just a lot of sentences that you have to actually read and pay attention to.
As an example, here is an excerpt from Uber's Terms of Use:
5. Payment
You understand that use of the Services may result in charges to you for the services or goods you receive ("Charges"). Uber will enable your payment of the applicable Charges for services or goods obtained through your use of the Services. Charges will include applicable taxes where required by law. Charges may include other applicable fees, product return fees, cancellation fees, estimated or actual tolls, and/or surcharges. Further, you acknowledge and agree that Charges applicable in certain geographical areas may increase substantially during times of high demand or due to other marketplace factors.
All Charges and payments will be enabled by Uber using the preferred payment method designated in your Account, after which you will receive a receipt. If your primary Account payment method is determined to be expired, invalid or otherwise not able to be charged, you agree that Uber may use a secondary payment method in your Account, if available. Charges paid by you are final and non-refundable, unless otherwise determined by Uber.
As between you and Uber, Uber reserves the right to establish or adjust Charges for any or all services or goods obtained through the use of the Services at any time. Uber will use reasonable efforts to inform you of Charges that may apply, provided that you will be responsible for Charges incurred under your Account regardless of your awareness of such Charges or the amounts thereof. Certain users may from time to time receive promotional offers and discounts that may result in different amounts charged for the same or similar services or goods obtained through the use of the Services, and you agree that such promotional offers and discounts, unless also made available to you, shall have no bearing on your use of the Services or the Charges applied to you. Promotional offers and discounts are subject to change or withdrawal at any time and without notice. You may elect to cancel your request for Services at any time prior to the commencement of such Services, in which case you may be charged a cancellation fee on a Third Party Provider’s behalf.
With respect to Third Party Providers, Charges you incur will be owed directly to Third Party Providers, and Uber will collect payment of those charges from you, on the Third Party Provider’s behalf as their limited payment collection agent, and payment of the Charges shall be considered the same as payment made directly by you to the Third Party Provider. In such cases, you retain the right to request lower Charges from a Third Party Provider for services or goods received by you from such Third Party Provider at the time you receive such services or goods, and Charges you incur will be owed to the Third Party Provider. Uber will consider in good faith any request from a Third Party Provider to modify the Charges for a particular service or good. This payment structure is intended to fully compensate a Third Party Provider, if applicable, for the services or goods obtained in connection with your use of the Services. Except for amounts provided by you through the Application as part of the “tip” feature, Uber does not designate any portion of your payment as a tip or gratuity to a Third Party Provider. You understand and agree that, while you are free to provide additional payment as a gratuity to any Third Party Provider who provides you with services or goods obtained through the Service, you are under no obligation to do so. There also may be certain Charges you incur that will be owed and paid directly to Uber or its affiliates. For the avoidance of doubt, Uber does not charge a fee for a user to access the Uber Marketplace Platform, but retains the right to charge users a fee or any other Charge for accessing Services made available through the Marketplace Platform. Even if not indicated on the Uber Marketplace Platform, you understand that the prices for product or menu items displayed through the Services may differ from the prices offered or published by Third Party Providers for the same product or menu items and/or from prices available at other third party websites/mobile applications. Prices for product or menu items displayed through the Services may not be the lowest prices at which the product or menu items are sold.
If you think a correction should be made to any Charge you incurred, you must let Uber know in writing within 30 days after the Charge took place or Uber will have no further responsibility and you waive your right to later dispute the amounts charged.
Damage, Cleaning, Lost and Found, and Violation of Terms.
Uber may charge you a fee if, during your use of the Services, you have caused damage to a vehicle or property that requires repair or cleaning (“Repair” or “Cleaning”). The amount of such fee shall be determined, in Uber’s sole discretion, based on the type of damage and the severity. Uber reserves the right to verify or otherwise require documentation of damages prior to processing a fee. In the event that a Repair or Cleaning request is verified by Uber in Uber's reasonable discretion, Uber reserves the right to facilitate payment for the reasonable cost of such Repair or Cleaning using your payment method designated in your Account. Such amounts, as well as those pertaining to lost and found goods, will be transferred by Uber to a Third Party Provider, if applicable, and are non-refundable.
Additionally, if you fail to comply with these Terms you may be responsible for Charges, including without limitation, for transactions that could not be completed properly, arising out of or in connection with your failure to comply with these Terms.
I don't wanna read that bullshit anymore than anybody else does. But I just did, start to finish, and couldn't find a single bit of it that I couldn't understand. Every single piece of it is perfectly clear English that any native English speaker should be able to comprehend, which builds into a whole that...similarly...any native English speaker should have no problem understanding. But yes, you have to read it to do so.
It is possible I am an extraordinary person, though.
Honestly, please cut and paste any part of that that specifically doesn't make sense.
"The amount of such fee shall be determined, in Uber’s sole discretion, based on the type of damage and the severity. Uber reserves the right to verify or otherwise require documentation of damages prior to processing a fee."
So Uber can charge whatever they deem necessary with no checks or even required verification and my only recourse is if Uber themselves admits their own costs are unreasonable. Yup, makes perfect sense. /s
Shares of Lyft, Uber and DoorDash dropped sharply Thursday after Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh told Reuters in an interview that gig workers should be classified as company employees.
Uber shares closed down 6%, while Lyft shed nearly 10%. DoorDash closed down 7.6%.
"We are looking at it but in a lot of cases gig workers should be classified as employees ... in some cases they are treated respectfully and in some cases they are not and I think it has to be consistent across the board," Walsh told Reuters. He said the department will be reaching out to companies that employ gig workers to make sure the workers have access to consistent wages, sick time and health care.
"These companies are making profits and revenue and I'm not (going to) begrudge anyone for that because that's what we are about in America," he added, "but we also want to make sure that success trickles down to the worker," he added.
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
you can work multiple regular jobs
people do it all the time
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
Honestly, please cut and paste any part of that that specifically doesn't make sense.
"The amount of such fee shall be determined, in Uber’s sole discretion, based on the type of damage and the severity. Uber reserves the right to verify or otherwise require documentation of damages prior to processing a fee."
So Uber can charge whatever they deem necessary with no checks or even required verification and my only recourse is if Uber themselves admits their own costs are unreasonable. Yup, makes perfect sense. /s
To be clear, in this context "make sense" means "you can read and understand the language" and not "is a reasonable policy and good customer service." You did indeed interpret the language correctly, whether or not you liked it. Which is my point. It's readable. A person of reasonable capacity can read and understand it. It's not a Spanish novella. You read the two sentences of "legalese" and were able to accurately restate the content in your own words. I feel like this kinda proves my point.
Also, the bit you quoted is followed by this portion:
In the event that a Repair or Cleaning request is verified by Uber in Uber's reasonable discretion, Uber reserves the right to facilitate payment for the reasonable cost of such Repair or Cleaning using your payment method designated in your Account.
While it's stated that the fee will be at Uber's "sole discretion," the following sentences do place the "reasonable" modifier on it. That's the part where, in binding arbitration, it's possible that you could pursue a case for excessive fees. There'd be a burden to meet, and the odds are stacked against you, but it does set some limits on what they can charge. If Uber charged you Eleventy-Billion Dollars for a spilled coffee in an '09 Prius, you would win that case because an arbiter would determine that the cost of repair/cleaning was objectively unreasonable.
However, the lines at which such a fee becomes objectively unreasonable in the eyes of a court/arbiter and where the customer will think it's flat-out bullshit are very, very different. $100 or $200 for a spilled coffee? Probably perfectly defensible.
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
I agree, I don't think this works at all. I would think that, in general, you'd be a part time employee of each...but then some states and municipalities have substantial protections for part-time employees nowadays too, so that doesn't get Uber/Lyft off the hook either.
That said, I haven't dug into that SoL actually said yet (beyond snippets like the one above). I've always maintained that the underlying idea of "driver as independent contractor" is workable. Taxi drivers were often independent contractors for a loooong time before these apps showed up. The main problem with how Uber/Lyft implement that scheme is that they exercise far too much control over how these supposedly independent contractors perform the work, in ways that make it difficult to remain profitable. Taxi drivers weren't able to charge any fee they pleased because of government regulation setting fares. But Uber/Lyft have a set fee/fare pushed on them by the company, who has no incentive to ensure it's a profitable rate for the driver, as part of a race to the bottom.
I think there are ways that these companies could change their model to allow for independent drivers. I also think those changes to the model probably don't work for the companies, which basically just says the entire business model is broken. But I'd assume what the SoL was saying is simply that the status quo isn't acceptable, meaning either they are employees or the policies enforced on them as contractors change?
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
you can work multiple regular jobs
people do it all the time
Generally not simultaneously though. And those sort of part time jobs are notorious for offering no benefits and no sick leave, so we'd need to fix that too.
It might work if part time jobs had to pay a certain amount towards an ACA plan dependent on the hours worked.
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
you can work multiple regular jobs
people do it all the time
Generally not simultaneously though. And those sort of part time jobs are notorious for offering no benefits and no sick leave, so we'd need to fix that too.
It might work if part time jobs had to pay a certain amount towards an ACA plan dependent on the hours worked.
Hey, this is just more compelling anecdata to highlight why it’s good for the secretary of labor to be talking about this!
All of that shit sucks and SecLab should be yelling at people to make it better!
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
you can work multiple regular jobs
people do it all the time
Generally not simultaneously though. And those sort of part time jobs are notorious for offering no benefits and no sick leave, so we'd need to fix that too.
It might work if part time jobs had to pay a certain amount towards an ACA plan dependent on the hours worked.
Sick leave is state dependent and at least in CA is a function of hours worked. Regardless this would put the choice on the employee as they could choose to work full-time for an app or part time for multiple.
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
you can work multiple regular jobs
people do it all the time
Generally not simultaneously though. And those sort of part time jobs are notorious for offering no benefits and no sick leave, so we'd need to fix that too.
It might work if part time jobs had to pay a certain amount towards an ACA plan dependent on the hours worked.
The reason people work for multiple companies is that there's not enough work at one, because the companies don't need to pay for workers that don't have any work to do.
Really, Uber and the like are offering piece work, and using "independent contractor" as a magic word to keep those regulations from applying. To be clear, piece work is legal, you just need to do it correctly; this includes paying a minimum wage.
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
It's not about time worked, it's about the frame of their work. Do they need to perform their work in a specific manner such as through an app controlled by the company or can they do it on their own terms? Can they set their own prices for the service or is it entirely out of their control? Are they evaluated based on the end result of their services or through individual metrics to keep track of performance? The amount of time worked doesn't factor in at all.
I don't know how gig economy workers can be employees when they tend to divide their time between different apps. If you are an Uber driver, simultaneously a Lyft driver, and sometimes a DoorDash driver, who is your employer? Do you get 1/3 of a healthcare plan from each? Or 3 different healthcare plans?
It's not about time worked, it's about the frame of their work. Do they need to perform their work in a specific manner such as through an app controlled by the company or can they do it on their own terms? Can they set their own prices for the service or is it entirely out of their control? Are they evaluated based on the end result of their services or through individual metrics to keep track of performance? The amount of time worked doesn't factor in at all.
Yep. This is just a question of federal law saying "this is the line between employee and contractor", and it has a set of criteria to make that decision.
syndalisGetting ClassyOn the WallRegistered User, Loves Apple Productsregular
I have no idea what being on the clock for any of these apps would entail nowadays, but thinking through this...
I think it would be better to track all of them in "active on the clock", meaning with a fare, or an active delivery in the case of door dash, inclusive of any time spent going to that fare and time spent on the road in service to it... then multiply that time by 2x. Note that none of this represents pay - they are paid in fares and tips all the same, it just represents the overall time investment you make to provide value to the company.
I am leaning on active on the clock because otherwise the system is too easy to game. I could set up accounts on all of these services and simply decline all fares / delivery options. It can't be that I am "available" - I have to be active. If they hit 40 hours or more a week on this metric for 8 weeks (which would mean over 20 hours of active on the clock each week), the company should be obligated to provide benefits options, paid time off, etc. If you spend half your day waiting for the next fare and spend 8 hours a day with the app marked available, five days a week, you are full time.
Benefits; Each week should allow for the accrual of a little over an hour in paid time off, of which they would give you an allotment by default based on the number of weeks you worked full time before converting. And I think the hourly rate for PTO should represent what they, on average, earn in a day in their region by hour. This lets a committed worker earn roughly 80 hours of paid time off each year that matches what they make on the clock - matching the two weeks off most service employees get.
There should be some manner of subsidized healthcare plan that the driver can choose to participate in AT A MINIMUM. Sadly very few places get free healthcare from their employers any more, but uber is absolutely large enough to negotiate a good group policy (or twist an HR company like Insperity or ADP's arm to do so), and then uber can front at least 50% of the burden for someone to buy in.
AT A MINIMUM sick days should not count against maintaining their employment status - personally I would give a different allotment of PTO for sick days, same size as your normal PTO pool, and allow them to use it question-free for 2 days or less, or as long as they have time accrued with a doctor's note.
I am of a mind that it should be a decently high floor to achieve - 8 concurrent weeks or so - to unlock it, but it should be a bit harder to lose that status once you have it - like, move to an average instead of week to week, and allow for multiple missed weeks and a ton of notices before revoking the status.
Something shaped like this, where the benefits accrue over time and only unlock if you are serious about working for one of these gig economy companies, solves the issue of uber/lyft/etc. having to convert everyone into a w2, while also rewarding the folks who actively treat this like a full time job, of which there are many.
And finally, there would need to be oversight on these companies to not game the system to make sure drivers get less than they need to get or maintain status. Which would be fairly easy, as it is a small number of companies creating the current nightmare hellscape for millions.
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Let's play Mario Kart or something...
It will of course murder the industry, because it's structurally built on exploitation to stay competitive. I'm also fine with that.
I think even figuring out a way to simply apply a minimum wage to the delivery and ride share gig workers would probably destroy their industry at this point.
It will of course murder the industry, because it's structurally built on exploitation to stay competitive. I'm also fine with that.
I think even figuring out a way to simply apply a minimum wage to the delivery and ride share gig workers would probably destroy their industry at this point.
Which isn't so much a problem with these companies. It's the fact that having an actual human fetch you dinner or drive your ass around is expensive, and probably more expensive than most people want to pay regularly. Every time somebody bitches about how much it costs to order DoorDash via picking it up yourself, I remind them that an actual human being will spend like thirty minutes of labor, as well as mileage, getting that food from restaurant to door. It's the entire reason you ordered DoorDash, because you didn't want to drive your ass to the restaurant.
Ultimately it's the customer exploiting the driver, these app platforms just make a decent living as middlemen by offloading all the costs.
It will of course murder the industry, because it's structurally built on exploitation to stay competitive. I'm also fine with that.
I think even figuring out a way to simply apply a minimum wage to the delivery and ride share gig workers would probably destroy their industry at this point.
Which isn't so much a problem with these companies. It's the fact that having an actual human fetch you dinner or drive your ass around is expensive, and probably more expensive than most people want to pay regularly. Every time somebody bitches about how much it costs to order DoorDash via picking it up yourself, I remind them that an actual human being will spend like thirty minutes of labor, as well as mileage, getting that food from restaurant to door. It's the entire reason you ordered DoorDash, because you didn't want to drive your ass to the restaurant.
Ultimately it's the customer exploiting the driver, these app platforms just make a decent living as middlemen by offloading all the costs.
Pizza delivery existed long before DoorDash. If DoorDash and the like leveraged economies of scale and stuff I would think that they could extend the delivery focused business model of places like Domino's to other restaurants and chains that don't want to have to develop their own delivery infrastructure.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
Companies like Doordash and Grubhub squat on restaurant ordering systems and charge over the normal menu prices to skim extra profit.
A local vietnamese restaurant that has its own delivery and web based ordering system is halfway down a google search results list.
Making people think Pho is $14 when it's $9.95 and charging $6 for delivery when they offer it much cheaper using their own hourly employees.
It's just a terminally corrupt business model that harms everyone including restaurants.
Edit:
Yes if they ethically leveraged the idea of a fleet of appropriately compensated restaurants and drivers it could be great for everyone. That ethical part seems beyond the capacity of the barely ahead of the law capitalism we have right now though.
Disrupt isn't a good thing. I'm tired of 'Move fast, break things.' Because the thing that's broken is usually the law.
I remember the days before apps and the way of dealing with taxi companies and food delivery was very annoying. Half the time taxis didn't turn up because they went to the wrong street, you weren't there, and they didn't know how to contact you. If I wanted to go to the airport early I needed to book the previous day. And ordering food was a pain in the ass because dealing with English as a second language over a scratchy line made it very hard to get what you wanted.
However apps don't need to skim such a huge percentage just for existing.
The problem with all these business models is that there's often not actually any place to make a profit for them. So they can only function by going into the hole, raising prices and then skimming off the top, avoiding regulations and/or screwing over their employees in various ways.
I want to talk about one of the reasons people sign up for apps. Basically, one of the strengths of the gig economy is that it accepts almost anyone, and has no real minimum on hours worked. This is an important upside, that can both help with understanding why people sign up for gigs, and why there will be downsides to eliminating them. People who sign up for gigs might be people who have lost their job and are having trouble finding a new one, people who's main job doesn't quite pay the rent but doesn't offer steady enough hours to allow for a second real job, disabled people who don't know if they'll be able to work on any particular day, and so on. These gigs generally don't pay enough to live on, but they're still the best source of income for many people, and allow for working any number of hours without a real schedule.
My point here is less that we shouldn't fix the gig economy, and more that people sign up for these things for a reason, and we shouldn't screw them over in an attempt to help them.
I want to talk about one of the reasons people sign up for apps. Basically, one of the strengths of the gig economy is that it accepts almost anyone, and has no real minimum on hours worked. This is an important upside, that can both help with understanding why people sign up for gigs, and why there will be downsides to eliminating them. People who sign up for gigs might be people who have lost their job and are having trouble finding a new one, people who's main job doesn't quite pay the rent but doesn't offer steady enough hours to allow for a second real job, disabled people who don't know if they'll be able to work on any particular day, and so on. These gigs generally don't pay enough to live on, but they're still the best source of income for many people, and allow for working any number of hours without a real schedule.
My point here is less that we shouldn't fix the gig economy, and more that people sign up for these things for a reason, and we shouldn't screw them over in an attempt to help them.
None of the proposed regulations would require any changes to the above. Piece work has been around for a long time - there is nothing new about the gig economy other than the techie sheen.
It will of course murder the industry, because it's structurally built on exploitation to stay competitive. I'm also fine with that.
I think even figuring out a way to simply apply a minimum wage to the delivery and ride share gig workers would probably destroy their industry at this point.
Which isn't so much a problem with these companies. It's the fact that having an actual human fetch you dinner or drive your ass around is expensive, and probably more expensive than most people want to pay regularly. Every time somebody bitches about how much it costs to order DoorDash via picking it up yourself, I remind them that an actual human being will spend like thirty minutes of labor, as well as mileage, getting that food from restaurant to door. It's the entire reason you ordered DoorDash, because you didn't want to drive your ass to the restaurant.
Ultimately it's the customer exploiting the driver, these app platforms just make a decent living as middlemen by offloading all the costs.
Pizza delivery existed long before DoorDash. If DoorDash and the like leveraged economies of scale and stuff I would think that they could extend the delivery focused business model of places like Domino's to other restaurants and chains that don't want to have to develop their own delivery infrastructure.
Back before DoorDash in many areas the only things that delivered were pizza and Chinese. Basically food types where it doesn't matter if they sit for a bit, they still taste fine. And pizza slowly moved to a model where chains ran exclusively on delivery, without even maintaining a dining room. And delivery was cheaper back then, because they'd load up a driver with multiple orders and have him run a route. Nowadays it's usually like 1-2 orders tops, from my understanding.
Which, of course, is why it costs like $11 on top of the menu price to have a pizza delivered now, between the $6 fee and the $5 tip. Oh, and ever notice how many specials are "carry-out" only? There's a reason. They're basically doing the DoorDash model, where they bake all the extra cost into the delivery items, tack on a charge, and "encourage" customers to tip so the driver makes a living.
The amusing thing is that lots of other countries (primarily with lower cost of labor I suspect) have had deliveries for MANY types of food for a long time. Where I live ANY kind of fast food already delivered, and back when they started their own variation of doordash/etc, this even included full size sit down restaurants. One of the things is it REALLY does not require a car to deliver. Basically, just a big box to hold the food on the back of a motorcycle. There are both first party and third party delivery places (McDonalds for instance I can order direct via McD's or use my ubereats equivalent service. It helps that tipping is not a thing (well, I mean, it IS, but it's prebuilt into the bill, and always 10%) so I basically pay a couple bucks delivery fee and food shows up.
The mechanical side of this could be brought over to the US, but the labor costs are probably still going to be problematic.
The amusing thing is that lots of other countries (primarily with lower cost of labor I suspect) have had deliveries for MANY types of food for a long time. Where I live ANY kind of fast food already delivered, and back when they started their own variation of doordash/etc, this even included full size sit down restaurants. One of the things is it REALLY does not require a car to deliver. Basically, just a big box to hold the food on the back of a motorcycle. There are both first party and third party delivery places (McDonalds for instance I can order direct via McD's or use my ubereats equivalent service. It helps that tipping is not a thing (well, I mean, it IS, but it's prebuilt into the bill, and always 10%) so I basically pay a couple bucks delivery fee and food shows up.
The mechanical side of this could be brought over to the US, but the labor costs are probably still going to be problematic.
In the summer sure but for a large part of the country for a large part of the year motorcycles aren't really an option.
It will of course murder the industry, because it's structurally built on exploitation to stay competitive. I'm also fine with that.
I think even figuring out a way to simply apply a minimum wage to the delivery and ride share gig workers would probably destroy their industry at this point.
Which isn't so much a problem with these companies. It's the fact that having an actual human fetch you dinner or drive your ass around is expensive, and probably more expensive than most people want to pay regularly. Every time somebody bitches about how much it costs to order DoorDash via picking it up yourself, I remind them that an actual human being will spend like thirty minutes of labor, as well as mileage, getting that food from restaurant to door. It's the entire reason you ordered DoorDash, because you didn't want to drive your ass to the restaurant.
Ultimately it's the customer exploiting the driver, these app platforms just make a decent living as middlemen by offloading all the costs.
Pizza delivery existed long before DoorDash. If DoorDash and the like leveraged economies of scale and stuff I would think that they could extend the delivery focused business model of places like Domino's to other restaurants and chains that don't want to have to develop their own delivery infrastructure.
Back before DoorDash in many areas the only things that delivered were pizza and Chinese. Basically food types where it doesn't matter if they sit for a bit, they still taste fine. And pizza slowly moved to a model where chains ran exclusively on delivery, without even maintaining a dining room. And delivery was cheaper back then, because they'd load up a driver with multiple orders and have him run a route. Nowadays it's usually like 1-2 orders tops, from my understanding.
That seems like a flaw in the system that could be improved, maybe even by having a more stable pool of drivers who are actually employees? Like, it seems a more efficient alternative to the current way these apps work would be to have drivers basically making laps through an area and doing pickups and drop-offs as they go.
The expectation that it should be possible has created a demand, technology has allowed orders to be combined easily in a central clearinghouse in a way that wasn't possible back when you ordered things by actually calling the restaurant, and people have shown that they will pay a premium for the service. Regulations need to ensure prices reflect the actual costs and that labor standards are met and all that, but free market competition will eventually stabilize some food delivery service that can operate at a price point that enough people will accept to run profitably.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
The amusing thing is that lots of other countries (primarily with lower cost of labor I suspect) have had deliveries for MANY types of food for a long time. Where I live ANY kind of fast food already delivered, and back when they started their own variation of doordash/etc, this even included full size sit down restaurants. One of the things is it REALLY does not require a car to deliver. Basically, just a big box to hold the food on the back of a motorcycle. There are both first party and third party delivery places (McDonalds for instance I can order direct via McD's or use my ubereats equivalent service. It helps that tipping is not a thing (well, I mean, it IS, but it's prebuilt into the bill, and always 10%) so I basically pay a couple bucks delivery fee and food shows up.
The mechanical side of this could be brought over to the US, but the labor costs are probably still going to be problematic.
I mean, yeah. There's never been some sort of technological problem that you had to get around to make any of these services work. It's always just been purely an issue of the cost of labour. Like so so many other industries.
It is not that logistically or technologically difficult to set up a food delivery service. The question is how much people are willing to pay and how little you can get away with paying the people doing the actual legwork.
The amusing thing is that lots of other countries (primarily with lower cost of labor I suspect) have had deliveries for MANY types of food for a long time. Where I live ANY kind of fast food already delivered, and back when they started their own variation of doordash/etc, this even included full size sit down restaurants. One of the things is it REALLY does not require a car to deliver. Basically, just a big box to hold the food on the back of a motorcycle. There are both first party and third party delivery places (McDonalds for instance I can order direct via McD's or use my ubereats equivalent service. It helps that tipping is not a thing (well, I mean, it IS, but it's prebuilt into the bill, and always 10%) so I basically pay a couple bucks delivery fee and food shows up.
The mechanical side of this could be brought over to the US, but the labor costs are probably still going to be problematic.
In the summer sure but for a large part of the country for a large part of the year motorcycles aren't really an option.
The delivery guys in New York City are as tough as nails and will deliver your food on the back of an electric bicycle in 6 feet of snow. A few years back they did the same but on manual bicycles.
The amusing thing is that lots of other countries (primarily with lower cost of labor I suspect) have had deliveries for MANY types of food for a long time. Where I live ANY kind of fast food already delivered, and back when they started their own variation of doordash/etc, this even included full size sit down restaurants. One of the things is it REALLY does not require a car to deliver. Basically, just a big box to hold the food on the back of a motorcycle. There are both first party and third party delivery places (McDonalds for instance I can order direct via McD's or use my ubereats equivalent service. It helps that tipping is not a thing (well, I mean, it IS, but it's prebuilt into the bill, and always 10%) so I basically pay a couple bucks delivery fee and food shows up.
The mechanical side of this could be brought over to the US, but the labor costs are probably still going to be problematic.
I mean, yeah. There's never been some sort of technological problem that you had to get around to make any of these services work. It's always just been purely an issue of the cost of labour. Like so so many other industries.
It is not that logistically or technologically difficult to set up a food delivery service. The question is how much people are willing to pay and how little you can get away with paying the people doing the actual legwork.
That's hardly true. The ability for customers to make orders online, and restaurants to receive orders online, streamlines the ability to interface those two things much more easily. Also the ability to send orders to drivers at any time via mobile phone is significant regardless of how much you pay them.
While racing light mechs, your Urbanmech comes in second place, but only because it ran out of ammo.
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I've read plenty of these documents, and not fully understood any of them. If you can understand them, I'm not doubting you, but don't assume everyone does. I find coding easy because I've been doing it 30 years, but only unempathetic coders assume this means code is actually easy and anyone who can't understand it is not trying hard enough.
Fair point regarding the reading level of the average American, though I don't know how much any company can really do to fix that issue. Even if they provided a "this is the short version" summary for each section, that bit would never be the legally binding part, and the full language matters.
I think "reasonable effort" is something that would be defined by a court (or rather through arbitration) if you were to contest it. And, in most cases, I actually do trust that to be done reasonably. In the case of Uber, they've always provided estimates of charges prior to the ride, to include any surge pricing. But of course some people don't read those estimates, or are intoxicated, so eventually they started requiring people to type in the surge multiplier to acknowledge it. Not sure if that's still a thing. The quoted section pertains to charges from third-parties (like restaurants under UberEats), and same thing...they notify you within the app of the charges.
I've also found that in many cases when people claim to have been "bitten" by an EULA or TOS it's not so much "I didn't understand the nuanced meaning of the word hitherto in this context" or "I didn't catch some minute detail in the hundred pages of text," it's almost always a major or even headlined portion of the agreement. Like somebody not realizing they can get hit with a cleaning fee by Uber, despite that having a large-font, boldfaced header setting that section apart and drawing attention to it. Or people not understanding that weather limits their recourse if a flight is canceled, despite the contract of carriage having an actual subsection called "Cancellation - Weather." Or not understanding what a team's refund policy is for season ticketholders when a season's attendance gets canceled due to a pandemic, when there's a bold section detailing "Cancellation policy." Even skimming the terms would give you some idea as to what's up with these things. But people don't bother. Then they're stuck in Milwaukee in a blizzard like "what do you mean you aren't going to put me up in a hotel?!"
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This is definitely something I deal with in technical writing, and why I take feedback from the users of my documents very seriously. Like if they say rewriting a step or series of steps a certain way would make more sense, I don't dismiss that and nine times out of ten that's exactly what we're going to do. It's also why once instructions are drafted I'll always step through it with the user, incorporate changes, then give it to the user without my assistance to step through. Then take any notes they provide. Not everybody does this, and it definitely shows.
Still, I do think most of it is just the unwillingness part. Like I know some people are unable to read the text, but I think most people truly just don't bother, because they have other shit to deal with.
To be clear, I agree with this 117%.
There's approximately a 0% chance that they would accept that change though so why does that matter? They didn't pick out your resume and try to recruit you, their response to you wanting any kind of special treatment will be to not even take the time to say no
Obviously. But this still tracks with my general assertion that for many or even most customers it's not so much an issue of "I couldn't possibly comprehend all this dense legalese" and more likely a case of "I want to use the service so I guess I'll just click Accept because fuck it these terms are all the same anyway why read them..."
The case at hand was a matter of the individual not being accommodated with a guide dog. The arbiter ruled that the drivers are independent contractors, so his claim is with them and not Uber. The court didn't take any issue with this claim, nor is that claim necessarily something that will depend on Uber's TOS...the court simply said that because they didn't actually make him click the "Accept" button for the terms, he got to go to court and not arbitration. Not because the TOS was too long, not because it was too dense, not because a normal human couldn't possibly understand it. Just that he didn't actually click that he accepted the terms explicitly.
And that court that may still likely hold that those drivers are independent contractors, and he has to sue them and not Uber.
Though amusingly this has backfired a number of times for companies because whoops turns out the arbitrator they chose wasn't defacto on their side this time and actually did their job.
The issue is that there's no point in reading it because regardless of the language what all of them actually say is "Fuck you, we're responsible for absolutely nothing, ever, but can and will charge you whatever we feel like for any reason or no reason, basically at our whim, and you have no recourse. If you don't pay up we'll fuck up your credit score as an added bonus. Again, so it's clear: fuck you. Also you can't sue us lol get wrekt scrub"
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-06/doordash-workers-are-trying-to-game-the-algorithm-to-increase-pay
"The amount of such fee shall be determined, in Uber’s sole discretion, based on the type of damage and the severity. Uber reserves the right to verify or otherwise require documentation of damages prior to processing a fee."
So Uber can charge whatever they deem necessary with no checks or even required verification and my only recourse is if Uber themselves admits their own costs are unreasonable. Yup, makes perfect sense. /s
you can work multiple regular jobs
people do it all the time
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
To be clear, in this context "make sense" means "you can read and understand the language" and not "is a reasonable policy and good customer service." You did indeed interpret the language correctly, whether or not you liked it. Which is my point. It's readable. A person of reasonable capacity can read and understand it. It's not a Spanish novella. You read the two sentences of "legalese" and were able to accurately restate the content in your own words. I feel like this kinda proves my point.
Also, the bit you quoted is followed by this portion:
While it's stated that the fee will be at Uber's "sole discretion," the following sentences do place the "reasonable" modifier on it. That's the part where, in binding arbitration, it's possible that you could pursue a case for excessive fees. There'd be a burden to meet, and the odds are stacked against you, but it does set some limits on what they can charge. If Uber charged you Eleventy-Billion Dollars for a spilled coffee in an '09 Prius, you would win that case because an arbiter would determine that the cost of repair/cleaning was objectively unreasonable.
However, the lines at which such a fee becomes objectively unreasonable in the eyes of a court/arbiter and where the customer will think it's flat-out bullshit are very, very different. $100 or $200 for a spilled coffee? Probably perfectly defensible.
I agree, I don't think this works at all. I would think that, in general, you'd be a part time employee of each...but then some states and municipalities have substantial protections for part-time employees nowadays too, so that doesn't get Uber/Lyft off the hook either.
That said, I haven't dug into that SoL actually said yet (beyond snippets like the one above). I've always maintained that the underlying idea of "driver as independent contractor" is workable. Taxi drivers were often independent contractors for a loooong time before these apps showed up. The main problem with how Uber/Lyft implement that scheme is that they exercise far too much control over how these supposedly independent contractors perform the work, in ways that make it difficult to remain profitable. Taxi drivers weren't able to charge any fee they pleased because of government regulation setting fares. But Uber/Lyft have a set fee/fare pushed on them by the company, who has no incentive to ensure it's a profitable rate for the driver, as part of a race to the bottom.
I think there are ways that these companies could change their model to allow for independent drivers. I also think those changes to the model probably don't work for the companies, which basically just says the entire business model is broken. But I'd assume what the SoL was saying is simply that the status quo isn't acceptable, meaning either they are employees or the policies enforced on them as contractors change?
Generally not simultaneously though. And those sort of part time jobs are notorious for offering no benefits and no sick leave, so we'd need to fix that too.
It might work if part time jobs had to pay a certain amount towards an ACA plan dependent on the hours worked.
Hey, this is just more compelling anecdata to highlight why it’s good for the secretary of labor to be talking about this!
All of that shit sucks and SecLab should be yelling at people to make it better!
Sick leave is state dependent and at least in CA is a function of hours worked. Regardless this would put the choice on the employee as they could choose to work full-time for an app or part time for multiple.
The reason people work for multiple companies is that there's not enough work at one, because the companies don't need to pay for workers that don't have any work to do.
Really, Uber and the like are offering piece work, and using "independent contractor" as a magic word to keep those regulations from applying. To be clear, piece work is legal, you just need to do it correctly; this includes paying a minimum wage.
It's not about time worked, it's about the frame of their work. Do they need to perform their work in a specific manner such as through an app controlled by the company or can they do it on their own terms? Can they set their own prices for the service or is it entirely out of their control? Are they evaluated based on the end result of their services or through individual metrics to keep track of performance? The amount of time worked doesn't factor in at all.
Yep. This is just a question of federal law saying "this is the line between employee and contractor", and it has a set of criteria to make that decision.
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I think it would be better to track all of them in "active on the clock", meaning with a fare, or an active delivery in the case of door dash, inclusive of any time spent going to that fare and time spent on the road in service to it... then multiply that time by 2x. Note that none of this represents pay - they are paid in fares and tips all the same, it just represents the overall time investment you make to provide value to the company.
I am leaning on active on the clock because otherwise the system is too easy to game. I could set up accounts on all of these services and simply decline all fares / delivery options. It can't be that I am "available" - I have to be active. If they hit 40 hours or more a week on this metric for 8 weeks (which would mean over 20 hours of active on the clock each week), the company should be obligated to provide benefits options, paid time off, etc. If you spend half your day waiting for the next fare and spend 8 hours a day with the app marked available, five days a week, you are full time.
Benefits; Each week should allow for the accrual of a little over an hour in paid time off, of which they would give you an allotment by default based on the number of weeks you worked full time before converting. And I think the hourly rate for PTO should represent what they, on average, earn in a day in their region by hour. This lets a committed worker earn roughly 80 hours of paid time off each year that matches what they make on the clock - matching the two weeks off most service employees get.
There should be some manner of subsidized healthcare plan that the driver can choose to participate in AT A MINIMUM. Sadly very few places get free healthcare from their employers any more, but uber is absolutely large enough to negotiate a good group policy (or twist an HR company like Insperity or ADP's arm to do so), and then uber can front at least 50% of the burden for someone to buy in.
AT A MINIMUM sick days should not count against maintaining their employment status - personally I would give a different allotment of PTO for sick days, same size as your normal PTO pool, and allow them to use it question-free for 2 days or less, or as long as they have time accrued with a doctor's note.
I am of a mind that it should be a decently high floor to achieve - 8 concurrent weeks or so - to unlock it, but it should be a bit harder to lose that status once you have it - like, move to an average instead of week to week, and allow for multiple missed weeks and a ton of notices before revoking the status.
Something shaped like this, where the benefits accrue over time and only unlock if you are serious about working for one of these gig economy companies, solves the issue of uber/lyft/etc. having to convert everyone into a w2, while also rewarding the folks who actively treat this like a full time job, of which there are many.
And finally, there would need to be oversight on these companies to not game the system to make sure drivers get less than they need to get or maintain status. Which would be fairly easy, as it is a small number of companies creating the current nightmare hellscape for millions.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
It will of course murder the industry, because it's structurally built on exploitation to stay competitive. I'm also fine with that.
I think even figuring out a way to simply apply a minimum wage to the delivery and ride share gig workers would probably destroy their industry at this point.
Which isn't so much a problem with these companies. It's the fact that having an actual human fetch you dinner or drive your ass around is expensive, and probably more expensive than most people want to pay regularly. Every time somebody bitches about how much it costs to order DoorDash via picking it up yourself, I remind them that an actual human being will spend like thirty minutes of labor, as well as mileage, getting that food from restaurant to door. It's the entire reason you ordered DoorDash, because you didn't want to drive your ass to the restaurant.
Ultimately it's the customer exploiting the driver, these app platforms just make a decent living as middlemen by offloading all the costs.
Pizza delivery existed long before DoorDash. If DoorDash and the like leveraged economies of scale and stuff I would think that they could extend the delivery focused business model of places like Domino's to other restaurants and chains that don't want to have to develop their own delivery infrastructure.
A local vietnamese restaurant that has its own delivery and web based ordering system is halfway down a google search results list.
Making people think Pho is $14 when it's $9.95 and charging $6 for delivery when they offer it much cheaper using their own hourly employees.
It's just a terminally corrupt business model that harms everyone including restaurants.
Edit:
Yes if they ethically leveraged the idea of a fleet of appropriately compensated restaurants and drivers it could be great for everyone. That ethical part seems beyond the capacity of the barely ahead of the law capitalism we have right now though.
Disrupt isn't a good thing. I'm tired of 'Move fast, break things.' Because the thing that's broken is usually the law.
However apps don't need to skim such a huge percentage just for existing.
My point here is less that we shouldn't fix the gig economy, and more that people sign up for these things for a reason, and we shouldn't screw them over in an attempt to help them.
None of the proposed regulations would require any changes to the above. Piece work has been around for a long time - there is nothing new about the gig economy other than the techie sheen.
Back before DoorDash in many areas the only things that delivered were pizza and Chinese. Basically food types where it doesn't matter if they sit for a bit, they still taste fine. And pizza slowly moved to a model where chains ran exclusively on delivery, without even maintaining a dining room. And delivery was cheaper back then, because they'd load up a driver with multiple orders and have him run a route. Nowadays it's usually like 1-2 orders tops, from my understanding.
Which, of course, is why it costs like $11 on top of the menu price to have a pizza delivered now, between the $6 fee and the $5 tip. Oh, and ever notice how many specials are "carry-out" only? There's a reason. They're basically doing the DoorDash model, where they bake all the extra cost into the delivery items, tack on a charge, and "encourage" customers to tip so the driver makes a living.
The mechanical side of this could be brought over to the US, but the labor costs are probably still going to be problematic.
In the summer sure but for a large part of the country for a large part of the year motorcycles aren't really an option.
That seems like a flaw in the system that could be improved, maybe even by having a more stable pool of drivers who are actually employees? Like, it seems a more efficient alternative to the current way these apps work would be to have drivers basically making laps through an area and doing pickups and drop-offs as they go.
The expectation that it should be possible has created a demand, technology has allowed orders to be combined easily in a central clearinghouse in a way that wasn't possible back when you ordered things by actually calling the restaurant, and people have shown that they will pay a premium for the service. Regulations need to ensure prices reflect the actual costs and that labor standards are met and all that, but free market competition will eventually stabilize some food delivery service that can operate at a price point that enough people will accept to run profitably.
I mean, yeah. There's never been some sort of technological problem that you had to get around to make any of these services work. It's always just been purely an issue of the cost of labour. Like so so many other industries.
It is not that logistically or technologically difficult to set up a food delivery service. The question is how much people are willing to pay and how little you can get away with paying the people doing the actual legwork.
The delivery guys in New York City are as tough as nails and will deliver your food on the back of an electric bicycle in 6 feet of snow. A few years back they did the same but on manual bicycles.
That's hardly true. The ability for customers to make orders online, and restaurants to receive orders online, streamlines the ability to interface those two things much more easily. Also the ability to send orders to drivers at any time via mobile phone is significant regardless of how much you pay them.