The company also has been forced to fend off high-profile suits in California and New York that would force it to treat drivers like employees. In a separate batch of lawsuits, ironically, Uber has argued that its text messages to potential drivers shouldn’t be covered by anti-spamming laws because they are technically offers of employment, and therefore exempt from regulation.
Uber is part of an attack on worker security, it is a way for profiteers to push responsibilities on to individuals. Like so many businesses who are adding fees and cutting services and moving to self serve models, they minimize the power of the workforce because that is a threat to maximal profits.
The attractive veneer is the small government narrative and anti regulation sentiment, which ignore the long term consequences- more and bigger economic crashes, declining wages, increasing concentrations of wealth. The Great Depression happened under circumstances very similar to today's.
In some instances, Uber has prefered to pull up stakes before paying out workers’ compensation. In 2015, shortly after Uber launched operations in Alaska, Rhonda Gerharz, the chief investigator for Alaska’s Workers’ Compensation Board, initiated an investigation into the company. She thought that the company was possibly misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors, allowing it to avoid buying expensive workers’ compensation insurance in violation of Alaska law.
“Misclassification is a big deal,” she explained. “If these workers get hurt and the company doesn’t have insurance, the public ends up picking up the bill in the form of benefits like food stamps and low-income housing assistance.”
She began to dig into the exact relationship between drivers and the company. “I look at things like: does the business have the right to hire or fire someone, who’s exercising control of the manner of means to accomplish the task, and who provides the tools for the job,” she told The Intercept.
At first blush, Uber appeared to Gerharz to be operating like a traditional employer, and therefore skirting workers’ compensation laws. But before she could finish her investigation, Uber pulled out of the state entirely. Uber did not respond to request for comment about its operations in Alaska. But over the past two years, Uber worked to convince Alaska legislators to write a carve-out to exempt transportation companies that do business with an app from workers’ compensation regulation. Alaska Governor Bill Walker signed the bill into law earlier this month.
Uber want to have its cake and eat it too:
>The company also has been forced to fend off high-profile suits in California and New York that would force it to treat drivers like employees. In a separate batch of lawsuits, ironically, Uber has argued that its text messages to potential drivers shouldn’t be covered by anti-spamming laws because they are technically offers of employment, and therefore exempt from regulation.
Uber is part of an attack on worker security, it is a way for profiteers to push responsibilities on to individuals. Like so many businesses who are adding fees and cutting services and moving to self serve models, they minimize the power of the workforce because that is a threat to maximal profits.
The attractive veneer is the small government narrative and anti regulation sentiment, which ignore the long term consequences- more and bigger economic crashes, declining wages, increasing concentrations of wealth. The Great Depression happened under circumstances very similar to today's.
>In some instances, Uber has prefered to pull up stakes before paying out workers’ compensation. In 2015, shortly after Uber launched operations in Alaska, Rhonda Gerharz, the chief investigator for Alaska’s Workers’ Compensation Board, initiated an investigation into the company. She thought that the company was possibly misclassifying its drivers as independent contractors, allowing it to avoid buying expensive workers’ compensation insurance in violation of Alaska law.
>“Misclassification is a big deal,” she explained. “If these workers get hurt and the company doesn’t have insurance, the public ends up picking up the bill in the form of benefits like food stamps and low-income housing assistance.”
>She began to dig into the exact relationship between drivers and the company. “I look at things like: does the business have the right to hire or fire someone, who’s exercising control of the manner of means to accomplish the task, and who provides the tools for the job,” she told The Intercept.
>At first blush, Uber appeared to Gerharz to be operating like a traditional employer, and therefore skirting workers’ compensation laws. But before she could finish her investigation, Uber pulled out of the state entirely. Uber did not respond to request for comment about its operations in Alaska. But over the past two years, Uber worked to convince Alaska legislators to write a carve-out to exempt transportation companies that do business with an app from workers’ compensation regulation. Alaska Governor Bill Walker signed the bill into law earlier this month.
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Uber want to have its cake and eat it too:
Uber is part of an attack on worker security, it is a way for profiteers to push responsibilities on to individuals. Like so many businesses who are adding fees and cutting services and moving to self serve models, they minimize the power of the workforce because that is a threat to maximal profits.
The attractive veneer is the small government narrative and anti regulation sentiment, which ignore the long term consequences- more and bigger economic crashes, declining wages, increasing concentrations of wealth. The Great Depression happened under circumstances very similar to today's.