Uber, DoorDash Sue NYC Over Minimum Wage Law - Slashdot

Posted by BeauHD

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  "The rule must be paused before damaging the restaurants, consumers and couriers it claims to protect," Josh Gold, an Uber spokesman, said in a statement."

  What a kind and caring person Josh is!

  • “In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

    “By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I mean the wages of decent living.”

    --Franklin Delano Fucking Roosevelt

    • Re: Soo thoughtful!

      Sadly, that's been gone since sometime in the 60's. We decided that "out of many, one" was actually "from the many to the one [%]"and they happily voted in people who are as much like ourselves as the average middle-class worker is to a homeless person. They don't understand our lives, our concerns, or anything else about us. They only concern themselves with "the lessers" when it comes time to lie enough to get them to vote. At any other point it's just redirection, bigotry, racism, and hatred to keep the

• so they don't want to pay to have people waiting ready to take an order?
  don't want to pay for time from order to getting to the pick up location?
  don't want to pay for the time that the diver needs to wait at the pick location for it to be ready?
  don't want to pay for the time after dropping an order to get back to your core zone?

  • Re:

    not to mention the wear and tear on the vehicle they drive and the cost of gasoline or electricity to charge an EV.

  • They have always pretended they don't employ these people.
    Their business model is based on exploiting someone. If they can't exploit the restaurants, or the workers they'll have to try to exploit their customers who have the choice not to use them.

    • Re:

      “In my Inaugural I laid down the simple proposition that nobody is going to starve in this country. It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

      “By business I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages I mean more than a bare subsistence level-I

      • Re:

        I think Reagan decided we didn't need to worry about any of that.

    • Re:

      Exactly. Same goes for "ride sharing" businesses. The entire business model from the start of these businesses is geared towards having a thriving business with customers when the technology is ready to replace human drivers with automated systems. They don't really want human drivers, they're forced to use human drivers until the technology to replace human drivers is mature.

      These companies are trying to convince, and are succeeding in too many cases, of convincing people that are working in a contracto

      • Re:

        I'm not out to defend the companies, but the deliveries are at the delivery person's discretion. That means they are very much free to pursue their own activities during that time.

  • Re:

    All you need to know:

    They're already pissed they have to pay people at all to get them to work for them. They expect to be able to get away with paying under minimum wage. Why do the workers exist if not to make the delivery companies richer?

  • Re:

    You don't get rich by spending money.

• they will be forced to pass on the cost of the higher wages to consumers by raising prices.

  There is absolutely nothing which requires a company to pass on the cost of higher wages. Nothing. Companies choose to do so in order to keep up their profits.

  • 1 hidden comment

  • • Re:

      It may surprise you to learn that those are not the only options available.

    • Re:

      > You idea is what? Print money, have UBI for everyone and the only work anyone does is purely voluntary?

      oh wow, what a shitty life. Can you imagine having that much freedom that you can make your own choices, enjoy your own life style, chase after your own hobbies, and not be burdened by bills, debt, inflation, and over all "cost of living"?

      That just sounds so awful! Freedom is uncomfortable. I need my regimented 5 day paid for 40 hours but work 50 hours week otherwise I'd be completely lost and without

    • Re:

      Ask yourself how much a CEI, CFO makes for Uber, etc...then you think it is killing capitalism
      If they make 4 or 5 times the average pay of the company then it is capitalism
      if they make 100 to 1000 then it is slavery.
      so lets bring back slavery as it will be good for the consumers and restaurants

    • Re:

      Congratulations on knocking down that strawman. There is nothing preventing a business that has been taking an inordinate overhead, from reducing that overhead rather than increasing costs. There is also nothing preventing such a business from finding efficiencies elsewhere to offset the costs of paying their workers a fucking living wage.

      Oh, right. You think if you simp and dicksuck the billionaires hard enough, you will win the lottery and join their club. Because you're insane.

      • Re:

        Yeah. Come pick up your own pizza.

        • Re:

          For some reason pizza delivery has been profitable for years without needing to categorize the drivers as contractors. Maybe Uber Eats, DoorDash, and Grubhub are simply bad ideas.

      • Re:

        Their inability to operate a profitable business is not my problem.

      • Re: False

        Nobody is forcing you to live in NYC and deliver packages at a loss. These people are choosing to take these jobs in the hope of making a better life for themselves. Regulations like this ALWAYS results in the minorities and the poor having less opportunity, not more.

        Why would I hire a poor minority student when for the same amount of money Iâ(TM)m now forced to pay them I can find a middle aged experienced worker? Hence why McDonalds and co is more and more hiring 30-50yo white dudes to manage their k

    • Re: False

      I don't know if you realize this, but business came into existence before the concept of investors.

      • Re:

        No it didn't.

        By definition, any business has at least one investor - the person who started the business.

    • Re:

      Their comment still stands. Higher wages don't lead to higher prices. Prices are set to what the market will bear, and if the market could bear a price increase, they would have already increased prices.

      If higher wages means their business is not profitable at prices the market will bear, they should go out of business and let profitable companies take their place.

    • Re: False

      What risks ?
      Going to the government and request to be bailed out when shit hits the fan, like in the case of SVB ?
      Thatâ(TM)s some kind of neoliberal bullshit that weâ(TM)ve been hearing for a while that is not rooted in reality, mate

  • Re:

    If a service is non-viable, i.e. the company cannot generate enough revenue to cover its costs, including living wage for *all* its workers, then don't provide that service. It's that simple. Don't blame workers for non-viable business models. If they all shut down tomorrow, I doubt many people would remember them a year from now.
• Don't use any of the "Gig" apps until they want to accept the same rules and regulations the rest of their non online based counterparts have to. There are plenty of restaurants who keep their own delivery drivers on staff granted you may have to *Dread the thought* make a phone call and talk to someone to give them your order. When the bottom line falls out from they might start treating there workers fairly

  • Re:

    That phone-ordering process is quite error-prone. Not supporting DoorDash at all, but there is a reason why online ordering is a lot more convenient. And restaurants online order website are usually horrendous and often require you to register. In fact, some of them will direct you to some other intermediary which you haven't even heard of.

• by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 06, 2023 @07:04PM (#63663400)

  I live in one of those fascist 15 minute cities. So I just walk to my local restaurants. Most of whom have cheaper prices on their own menus than on Uber Eats. Not only do I save money by not paying the fees, the taxes that are applied after the fees, and the tip that's applied to that total, but the restaurant makes more money by not paying the Uber Eats tax.

  So fascist

• Delivery workers should be grateful to be working for such a fine, splendid, up-standing company.
  
  No healthcare. No sick pay. No rights. Uber treats its workers as if they were disposable. Arbeit macht frei!

• ... the higher wages. It means I won't feel guilty not handing them a tip.

  • Re:

    Oh, how I wish tipping would just die in the US. I fully support tipping under the current system, because it's how it's structured, but there are some people that push it too far.
• It occurred to me while I was watching some old sitcom show hilighting piece work that gig's are just the technology equivalent of piece work. The wheel is always reinvented when it makes money for someone.

• That does not sound like a legal case??? Governments are allowed to enact laws that harm and impoverish their citizens. I don't see how going to court and just claiming "it's a bad idea" is going to accomplish anything.

• Wow, I thought they were suing because NYC set the wages too low.(sarcasm) If they don't like it, then leave. These shitty apps are just rebranding slave labor that has already been regulated due to slum employer abuse.
• I'm surprised that there's a legal avenue for the public to overturn laws.
  
  What law are they suing under?

• I think it is definitely fair to make sure gig workers get paid at least minimum wage.

  However, I don't particularly like the idea of tracking how long they are logged into the app as a measure of their hours worked. I understand it to some level, but that just complicates the situation and is ripe for attempts at playing that system for all parties. Just think of a driver who stays logged in all day, but declines the vast majority of deliveries. Last I checked, they can't force you to take a delivery as yo