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What Does It Mean To “Gig” American Workers?

What Does It Mean To “Gig” American Workers?

Pouty, whiney, and spoiled-bratism is not nice coming from a four-year-old — but it’s grotesque when it comes from billion-dollar corporate elites like Uber and Lyft.

The two internet-based ride-hiring (they call themselves “ridesharing,” but they don’t share anything, and their business model relies on folks needing a ride to hire a driver through their app) brats have swaggered into cities all across our country, insisting that they’re innovative, tech-driven geniuses. As such, they consider themselves above the old laws that other transportation companies, like taxis, follow. So Uber and Lyft have made it a corporate policy to throw hissy fits when cities — from Los Angeles to Atlanta, Houston to Portland — have dared even to propose that they obey rules too.

The latest tantrum from the California giants happened in Austin, when the city council there adopted a few modest, perfectly reasonable rules, despite the screams of PR flacks from both outfits. The petulant duo then used fibs and high-pressure tactics to get enough signatures on petitions to force a special election to overturn the council’s action. Naturally, being brats, they gave the city an ultimatum — “Vote our way or we will leave town” — and assumed that Austin’s tech-savvy voters would flock to do whatever the popular ride-sharing service wanted.

But they picked the wrong city. First, they ran a campaign of blatant lies, as though Austinites wouldn’t question them. Then, they shoved a sickening level of corporate cash into their campaign, apparently thinking that the sheer tonnage of ads would win the day for them. However, the slicks from California turned out to be uber-goobers. Despite spending $9 million (more than the combined spending of all city council candidates in the past decade), they went down, 56 to 44 percent.

Since they didn’t win their campaign, Uber and Lyft have now left town in a huff leaving their 10,000 Austin workers/drivers behind to fend for themselves. Since their workers are considered contract employees, there will be no severance package or unemployment benefits for them.

This is part of the new “gig economy — the latest corporate buzz-phrase from Silicon Valley to Wall Street. CEOs are hailing a Brave New Workplace in which we lucky worker bees no longer have to be suck in traditional jobs with traditional hours, traditional middle-class pay scales, traditional benefits, traditional job security, and all those other fusty “traditionals” of the old workplace, In fact, in the gig economy, you’re not even bothered with having a workplace. Rather, you’ll be “liberated” to work in a series of short-term jobs in many places, always being on-call through a mobile app on your smart phone or through a temp agency. How exciting is that?

Well, they use “exciting” in the sense of distressing and nerve-wracking. The gig economy means you’re on your own — you’re not an employee, but an “independent contractor,” with no rights and no union. You might have lots of calls to work this week, but there’ll be many weeks with no calls. Don’t get sick, injured or wreck your car, for no health care or workers’ comp are provided. A pension? Your retirement plan is called “adios chump.”

This “alternative work arrangement” is not a futuristic concept — it’s already here and spreading fast. And it’s not just ride-hiring gigs either. Some 16 percent of U.S. workers are now in this on-call, temporary, part-time, low-pay, you’re-on-your-own economy, up from only 10 percent a decade ago. Corporate chieftains (backed by the economists and politicians they purchase) are creating what they call a workforce of non-employees for one reason: Greed. It directly transfers more money and power from workaday families into the coffers of moneyed elites.

Their gig economy is aptly named, for “gigs” are crude four-hook fishing devices that’re drug by commercial fleets through schools of fish to impale them, haul them in, and cash in on the pain. And if you don’t think the gig economy is painful, why don’t you ask the 10,000 Uber and Lyft workers in Austin how they feel about it?

To find out more about Jim Hightower, and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2016 CREATORS.COM

Photo: An Uber car is seen parked with the driver’s lunch left on the dashboard in Venice, Los Angeles, California, United States July 15, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

Lyft Drivers, If Employees, Owed Millions More – Court Documents

Lyft Drivers, If Employees, Owed Millions More – Court Documents

By Dan Levine and Heather Somerville

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Drivers who worked for ride-hailing service Lyft in California during the past four years would have been entitled to an estimated $126 million in expense reimbursements had they been employees rather than contractors, court documents show.

Lyft drivers would have recouped an average of $835 each under a standard rate for mileage reimbursement set by the U.S. government, according to the documents, which were made public on Friday and had not been previously reported.

Lyft and larger rival Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] face legal actions from drivers who contend they should be classified as employees and therefore entitled to reimbursement for expenses, including gas and vehicle maintenance. Drivers currently pay those costs themselves.

The new figures, requested by a judge and calculated by attorneys for the drivers based on data supplied by Lyft, provide a rare glimpse into how much ride-hailing services may save by classifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.

In a statement, Lyft said a recent survey showed that 82 percent of drivers preferred being classified as independent contractors. The company also called the reimbursement calculation “hypothetical and misleading,” partly because it assumed some drivers would be deemed employees even if they only worked “a handful of hours.”

The judge asked for the estimates as part of his oversight of a proposed settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed by California drivers against the ride service.

More than 100,000 of the 150,602 drivers included in the settlement drove fewer than 60 hours during the four-year period at issue and likely would have made less than $835 each in expense reimbursements had they been considered employees.

Other drivers racked up hundreds of hours and would have been entitled to far more, the documents show. More than 1,500 drivers drove 1,000 hours or more over the four years.

It is unclear how many drivers Lyft has across the country. The company operates in more than 200 U.S. markets and has raised about $1.4 billion to date from investors, including General Motors Co, Andreessen Horowitz and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. It is valued in the private market at $5.5 billion.

In an interview last week with Reuters, prior to the release of the documents, Lyft President and co-founder John Zimmer said drivers were better served by company programs – with higher payments to drivers who work more, the opportunity to get tips, and access to discounted gasoline – than if they were reclassified as employees.

“It should be understood that this is a specific industry where our average driver is doing 15 hours, and we are trying to create benefits for all drivers,” Zimmer said. “We’ve thought about it from the perspective of all the drivers on the platform. … We are trying to do what is the right legal path, and for us that’s quite clear.”

The Settlement

Lyft agreed to settle the class-action lawsuit in January. Under the proposed deal, Lyft would pay $12.25 million, with drivers receiving an average of $56 each after attorneys’ fees and other expenses, documents show.

During settlement negotiations, attorneys for the plaintiffs said in filings that they believed drivers were entitled to expense reimbursements totaling $64 million, far less than the $126 million they had calculated after being provided with updated Lyft records.

“During these few months since the agreement was negotiated, Lyft has grown substantially (far beyond what Plaintiffs would have predicted at the time they were negotiating),” they wrote.

Based on the updated reimbursement data provided by Lyft, the $12.25 million settlement represents slightly less than 10 percent of the potential value of the claim, they said. Plaintiff attorneys have argued that the deal was a good one for drivers, partly because Lyft would no longer be able to summarily terminate drivers from its system.

The latest figures were submitted in response to questions about the proposed settlement from U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco, who is expected to consider whether to preliminarily approve the deal at a hearing this week.

Earlier this month five drivers and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union objected to the proposed settlement, saying it would shortchange drivers by keeping them as independent contractors.

“Plaintiffs have not properly calculated the value of the class’s claims, have not considered the ongoing economic – and public cost – of Lyft’s misclassification scheme,” they wrote.

The Teamsters also filed a complaint against Lyft with the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency charged with investigating and ruling on unfair labor practices.

Shannon Liss-Riordan, who represents the plaintiffs, said the lawyers also would have preferred that drivers be reclassified as employees, but the risks of continuing the lawsuit were too great. Nothing about the settlement precludes NLRB action, she said.

“Based on the data we reviewed, the vast majority of Lyft drivers have driven very little – even less than 30 hours total for the company, which is why the average amount per driver is so low,” she said.

The data underscores Lyft’s argument that the majority of its drivers are part-time, using the service to supplement other income.

About 83,000 California drivers drove fewer than 30 hours total over the past four years, according to court documents. Of the 150,602 total Lyft drivers covered by the settlement, drivers worked an average of 92 hours each during the four-year period.

 

(Reporting by Dan Levine and Heather Somerville; Editing by Sue Horton, Lisa Girion and Richard Chang)

Photo: Maya Jackson, a Lyft driver from Sacramento, holds a Lyft Glowstache during a photo opportunity in San Francisco, California February 3, 2016. REUTERS/Stephen Lam