<story><title>Uber Drivers Deemed Employees by California Labor Commission</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/17/uber-drivers-deemed-employees-by-california-labor-commission/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>KingMachiavelli</author><text>Could this ruling be used to argue that the farmers in poultry raising contracts with Tyson, Poultry House, etc to raise chickens owned by Tyson are also employees?&lt;p&gt;1) Chicken farmers own and provide equipment that (2) the parent company requires and has set standards.&lt;p&gt;3) The contractee chooses farmers based on some criteria(not certain, but I would assume it&amp;#x27;s fairly extensive).&lt;p&gt;4) Contractee sets prices; the farmers do compete with each other for the best pay based on quality, but the farmers do not set prices. Chicken quality could be seen as equivalent to Uber&amp;#x27;s pay based on hours&amp;#x2F;distance driven.&lt;p&gt;5)Chicken farmers do possess skills that influence Tyson&amp;#x27;s profit or loss, so this point differs.&lt;p&gt;6)I&amp;#x27;m very much doubt that the farmers can subcontract.&lt;p&gt;7) The chicken farmers are vital to the contractee&amp;#x27;s business; the profit of Tyson and other companies that use poultry contracts depends primarily on the supply and quality of the chickens raised by the contracted farmers.&lt;p&gt;Overall, Uber drivers and contracted chicken farmers seem fairly similar though the chicken farmers may conform slightly more to the traditional contractor role.</text></item><item><author>beering</author><text>Skimming through the doc, court findings are:&lt;p&gt;1) Drivers providing their own cars is not a strong factor - pizza delivery employees also drive their own cars.&lt;p&gt;2) Uber &amp;quot;control the tools that drivers use&amp;quot; by regulating the newness of the car.&lt;p&gt;3) Uber exercises extensive control over vetting and hiring drivers and requires extensive personal information from drivers.&lt;p&gt;4) Uber alone sets prices, and tipping is discouraged, so there is no mechanism for driver (as &amp;quot;contractor&amp;quot;) to set prices.&lt;p&gt;5) Plaintiff driver only provided her time and car. &amp;quot;Plaintiff&amp;#x27;s work did not entail any &amp;#x27;managerial&amp;#x27; skills that could affect profit or loss.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;6) Drivers cannot subcontract (presumably negating Uber&amp;#x27;s position as a &amp;quot;lead generation&amp;quot; tool for contractors).&lt;p&gt;Sorry that these are out of order. Look on Page 9 of court documents for full text.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jahewson</author><text>6) is critical, you can&amp;#x27;t just brush it off:  someone who can hire other people to perform their labour is generally not an employee. What you&amp;#x27;re claiming applies to pretty much any fixed price contract, and it should be obvious that most such contracts don&amp;#x27;t result in an employee relationship. ALL of the necessary criteria must be met for that to happen - not just some.&lt;p&gt;e.g. I could be paid by a farmer to to work on such a chicken farm (presumably many people are), but I can&amp;#x27;t be paid by an Uber employee to cover their shift. That is a critical difference.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber Drivers Deemed Employees by California Labor Commission</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/17/uber-drivers-deemed-employees-by-california-labor-commission/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>KingMachiavelli</author><text>Could this ruling be used to argue that the farmers in poultry raising contracts with Tyson, Poultry House, etc to raise chickens owned by Tyson are also employees?&lt;p&gt;1) Chicken farmers own and provide equipment that (2) the parent company requires and has set standards.&lt;p&gt;3) The contractee chooses farmers based on some criteria(not certain, but I would assume it&amp;#x27;s fairly extensive).&lt;p&gt;4) Contractee sets prices; the farmers do compete with each other for the best pay based on quality, but the farmers do not set prices. Chicken quality could be seen as equivalent to Uber&amp;#x27;s pay based on hours&amp;#x2F;distance driven.&lt;p&gt;5)Chicken farmers do possess skills that influence Tyson&amp;#x27;s profit or loss, so this point differs.&lt;p&gt;6)I&amp;#x27;m very much doubt that the farmers can subcontract.&lt;p&gt;7) The chicken farmers are vital to the contractee&amp;#x27;s business; the profit of Tyson and other companies that use poultry contracts depends primarily on the supply and quality of the chickens raised by the contracted farmers.&lt;p&gt;Overall, Uber drivers and contracted chicken farmers seem fairly similar though the chicken farmers may conform slightly more to the traditional contractor role.</text></item><item><author>beering</author><text>Skimming through the doc, court findings are:&lt;p&gt;1) Drivers providing their own cars is not a strong factor - pizza delivery employees also drive their own cars.&lt;p&gt;2) Uber &amp;quot;control the tools that drivers use&amp;quot; by regulating the newness of the car.&lt;p&gt;3) Uber exercises extensive control over vetting and hiring drivers and requires extensive personal information from drivers.&lt;p&gt;4) Uber alone sets prices, and tipping is discouraged, so there is no mechanism for driver (as &amp;quot;contractor&amp;quot;) to set prices.&lt;p&gt;5) Plaintiff driver only provided her time and car. &amp;quot;Plaintiff&amp;#x27;s work did not entail any &amp;#x27;managerial&amp;#x27; skills that could affect profit or loss.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;6) Drivers cannot subcontract (presumably negating Uber&amp;#x27;s position as a &amp;quot;lead generation&amp;quot; tool for contractors).&lt;p&gt;Sorry that these are out of order. Look on Page 9 of court documents for full text.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattmanser</author><text>The farmers can subcontract, they can hire extra hands and don&amp;#x27;t have to do the work themselves.</text></comment>