Judge adds new army to Uber driver suit A US judge has issued a ruling that will expand the pool of drivers who can take part in a class action lawsuit against dial-a-ride giant Uber. Judge Edward Chen of the Northern California US District Court said that an agreement Uber had signed with drivers from 2014 to 2015 containing an opt-out clause in the class action …
It is mind boggling that there can be clauses in contracts which limit legal redress for employer abuses (I know uber would say partner but the same bloggling still applies). This smacks a little of EULA, stick any old crap in there and hope that it intimidates users and never gets tested in court.
I get so frustrated when I see articles about Uber, because the idea of getting a cab for a fixed price etc was so badly needed. However, the piss-poor way it has gone about it, breaking laws, using unfair contracts, and generally behaving like a corporate twat has given the whole concept a very bad reputation. Are there any similar services that are not behaving in a way that shows that capitalism always degenerates into bullying and arse-holeishness, but don't get the same amount of press because they are not permanently in court or arguing with regulators?
I think you have actually just summarised the entire USP of the "disruptors". A hundred years ago the US trusts led to anti-trust laws by their rapacious behaviour, unfortunately the narrative now is that we have "moved on" (i.e. politically far to the right) from those days and so regulation is now a dirty word. Meanwhile, as Piketty points out, we are in a new Roman era where more and more of the assets move to smaller and smaller numbers of the ruling class. T S Eliot once described us as living in an "age that advances progressively backwards" and I think he had a point.
When the idea was part-time workers, mums, students etc (i.e. 'nice ordinary people') would drive their nice cars for Uber as a way to get cash, and you'd have a ride at a good price (unless rides were scarce, in which case you'd pay through the nose), it was appealing. As it turned out, and oh who could have predicted it, poor people with clapped-out cars desperate to put in as many hours as they could without dropping dead signed up and did the actual driving. Now they need legal protection, because the company is doing its best to treat them like amateurs when it's these people's only job.
The fact that the 'inventors' of the idea are gazillionaires, while the drivers are denied the most basic labour rights, confirms to me that the new wonderful world of internet businesses is right back in the 1890s. But where are our muck-rakers and social activists?
" ...a profound effect on the entire ride-sharing industry,.."
It's not "ride-sharing" just because marketing and user classholes wanna purport its touchy-feely-ness. It's a frickin taxicab service with a much better ordering system for people that want to "feel" they have a chauffeur. Perhaps we can go all *hippy and call it a "streamlined hitchhiking", but that would break a bunch of other specific US state's laws.
Perhaps cab companies et, al should sign up as Uber drivers and do a direct gig comparison, at least for their own education of the system. I'd imagine Uber has some BS about not having a car that looks like a cab... which would lend weight to my "user classhole" definition. Imagine a fully advert ladened yellow-cab showing up and claiming to be your Uber car. You might as well cut a run into your nylons and scuff your patent leathers right there.
All this being said, what's to stop people from (eventually) collecting drivers details, having a phone book of trusted drivers (ex-Uber drivers), and calling/txting them for a ride when you need one? I imagine Uber will eventually fail from the tech-fad factor graces, redundancy and even smarter users/websites. Then again, *users seemingly aren't trying to get smarter... perhaps lazier... "Ride sharing" my arse.
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