>You are claiming a false binary. They could hire drivers as employees.
Isn't that what's essentially happening today? They're forced to "hire drivers as employees" (insofar as being guaranteed pay even if there's no work to be done), and the results were predictable: the firms simply refuse to hire all the drivers. Previously they were willing to take on anyone they can, because they didn't have to pay for them even if they didn't have work for them.
If the company is dictating the terms of what work they take and when, that makes the workers employees.
The key differentiator for an independent contractor is they choose what work to take, and when.
Truly independent contractors would be able to access and accept jobs via Uber, from any client, whenever they wanted.
Uber and Lyft are trying to eat their cake and have it, too: saying, "you're independent contractors [and thus have full control of what work to take and when]", but then turning around and saying, "_actually_, we need you to work only these jobs, only within these hours, for the good of only the company", which obviously makes them employees.
Okay but to be fair that wasn't the original model. Before the minimum wage law uber drivers could take rides any time they wanted. It was only due to the minimum wage law, which essentially forced uber to pay for time even if there wasn't any riders, that caused uber to restrict when drivers could take rides. Using this to claim that uber wants to "eat their cake and have it, too" therefore makes little sense.
> Okay but to be fair that wasn't the original model
That is true: initially the business model exploited people and society before we could mobilize our slow government to force them to be more decent and less exploitative.
We as a society, acting through our government, aren't under an obligation to make sure every business model that everyone wants to use is legal, and we decided their old one shouldn't be, because it was exploitative.
> It was only due to the minimum wage law... that caused uber to restrict when drivers could take rides.
The law didn't cause that. Uber's decisions caused that, and they could have decided differently. Indeed, the decent response for Uber and Lyft would be to figure out the spirit of the law, and comply with that as well as the letter. Treating drivers decently, as employees, would be one way to accomplish that. Another way might be lowering ride prices when supply exceeds demand.
In contrast, the companies are trying to eat their cake and have it too, by continuing to be exploitative with these actions in the article. Unfortunately they will need to be slapped down again, because the actions are illegal, as pointed out in my post above.
> the minimum wage law... essentially forced uber to pay for time even if there wasn't any riders
Correct: that is precisely what we wanted when we passed the law. This isn't an error that we need Uber and Lyft's help fixing. If Uber decides what work its workers can do and when (perhaps because it's more profitable for Uber that way), then that makes the workers, employees.
Isn't that what's essentially happening today? They're forced to "hire drivers as employees" (insofar as being guaranteed pay even if there's no work to be done), and the results were predictable: the firms simply refuse to hire all the drivers. Previously they were willing to take on anyone they can, because they didn't have to pay for them even if they didn't have work for them.