The answer for contract software engineering is: "Technically, but not really". You interview, then they offer you a job/ contract which pays a certain hourly amount, and you can accept/decline/counter offer just like a full time job.
The equivalent here would be something like, "Okay candidate, I offer you a job as a contractor and the contract says you get paid based off of this algorithm. Accept or decline?"
This is only true at the start of your career. I’ve been consulting and contracting for decades; customers call me following word-of-mouth recommendation and ask me what my rate is.
Even when I was starting out, years ago, the palette of contract work offered was vast. I was never obliged to follow a cab-rank rule.
Typically, you're employed by the contracting agency (with benefits), they work out a deal with the business and take a cut off the top, though we informally refer to this as contracting.
If you were to set up an agreement with the software company yourself, then it'd be conventional contracting.
Yes? Who else would set them? Pedantically, the market sets the rates, but the contractor is the one with the power to say yes or no. Gig platforms take that power away (either through a reduction in rating or deplatfoming if you decline work requests).
This is simply closing a loophole gig platforms were built on (misclassifying workers in violation of labor law).
Pedantically, sure. Ethically, maybe? Legally -- we'll see how this case goes.
I think it's reasonable to argue that because the contractor had no input into the rate, and if they decline too many rides they might be removed from the service, that they do not have the power to set rates.
Having no input into the rate is meaningless. If they can decline work below a given rate then that's equivalent to setting their own rate -- the rate is set at the point where they start declining work. Obviously that may mean they don't get as much work, but setting your own rate doesn't grant immunity from supply and demand.
What would make this a lot easier is if the apps would just allow you to set a rate below which you're not willing to accept work. The reason they punish you for declining too often is that they don't want the rider to have to wait for multiple drivers who regularly decline all offers before finding one willing to accept it, so that would solve that because you wouldn't even get the offer.
I'm curious to see how this shakes out in the end, because we keep getting these decisions where they say they're employees because X, but then won't they just change X to make them contractors again?
> If they can decline work below a given rate then that's equivalent to setting their own rate
It is clearly not equivalent since uber literally determines the rate. Yes, they can refuse to work below a certain threshold but they aren't in-fact "setting the rate".
A software contract offers $50 an hour. I can either take it or leave it.
Uber offers $x an hour (or mile, or however it works.) Drivers can either take it or leave it.
What do you think is the essential difference here?
Do you think software contractors can somehow force clients to accept any rate they want? No. If they client doesn't want to pay above $x then there's nothing you can do but decline the job. Just like Uber driver can do nothing but decline the job, surely?
> What do you think is the essential difference here?
The essential difference is that the role of uber is absent from your analogy.
> Do you think software contractors can somehow force clients to accept any rate they want
I'll just assume that's a sarcastic quip in rhetorical question form rather than what you actually think I believe. Obviously, a software contract is negotiated between two parties, unlike in the case of Uber where all possibility of negotiation is eschewed for a price explicitly set by uber. If a driver wants to offer their services for more or less than uber decides, they cannot, and are forced to lower or raise their price in order to gain access to the market.
> If a driver wants to offer their services for more or less than uber decides, they cannot, and are forced to lower or raise their price in order to gain access to the market.
The drivers can ask for any price they want from Uber. Uber can either accept it or not. That’s a negotiation. What more do you think it needs to be a negotiation? That’s just like a normal contract. I may want my fence painted but I’m not paying over £500. If I won’t go below that is it no longer contracting?
Uber drivers don't have the option to set their rates. They cannot "ask for any price they want from Uber", they agree to accept the rates explicitly set by Uber: that's the contract; not every employment contract meets the legal definition of "contract employment"
> they agree to accept the rates explicitly set by Uber
Like any contractor!
If I offer to pay $500 for get my fence painted, a contractor can either accept that or not.
If you want to hire a web developer for $500 a day, a contractor can either accept that or not.
The fence painter, the web developer and the Uber driver, can all set their own rates by either accepting the job or not, can't they? I don't understand what you think is the difference between the first two and the last one?
Uber does not determine the rate, the market does. Uber won't find drivers if the rate is too low, for example because it's lower than the costs, lower than the risk, or lower that the competition. Uber (and the driver too) won't find customers if the rate is too high.
Not true. Uber's algorithm sets the rate within certain profitability margins which are determined by uber, "the market" is very artificial since customers only ever see the rates that uber decides they should see rather than what some drivers would actually offer.
> Uber won't find drivers if the rate is too low, for example because it's lower than the costs, lower than the risk, or lower that the competition. Uber (and the driver too) won't find customers if the rate is too high.
Right... uber deliberately structures the market through their explicit control of the price. The price is only "too low" or "too high" with respect to uber's business goals not with respect to what the actual market would do.
There are other market players than Uber, and Uber is in no way a taxi monopoly. You could say this about literally any marketplace and especially about any taxi company (nearly all taxi companies have independent drivers-contractors, usually driving their own but branded cars - at their own expense, and with exclusivity contracts; taxis all over the world work this way), but only the more modern marketplaces are forced to modify their relationships. I both as a customer and a occasional driver hate this, thankfully I am driving in Czechia where no such law would ever pass, the traditional taxi lobby is not as strong - but they're trying hard.
> There are other market players than Uber, and Uber is in no way a taxi monopoly
True, but not relevant to my point which is that uber explicitly sets the rates, not drivers, and not the market. I understand why they do this, but it's simply false to say that drivers having the option to sometimes pass up on rides is the equivalent of setting their own rate.
Let's consider me, an IT contractor. I have a profile with IT staffing agency. They offer me contracts with a predetermined rate that I can accept or decline; I was offered an exclusivity contract for additional 5% income, but I declined. Why is me, an Uber driver so different that I am to be forced to be an employee?
Is the amount a driver makes totally transparent to them ahead of accepting a ride, sufficient that they could refuse anything that makes them less than $XX/hour or travels to an area they don't want to travel to?
Are drivers removed from the platform if they refuse too many rides?
It seems like the drivers actually have very little power to enact any effective bargaining over rates in practice.
If I had a dispatch company that phoned/radioed possible drivers in some round robin order, if driver number 4 always tends to decline I would stop wasting my time and my rider's time in contacting him again, after a point
Sure, but in this example the situation only happens because the dispatcher controls all the prices, if the drivers could set their own prices then they would have no reason to decline.
No, it is not at all identical because riders only get to see the prices that uber wants them to see rather than all the rates that would be available if drivers could set their own rates, thus "the market rate" cannot escape a threshold that is contrary to uber's business prerogatives.
Second, Uber is running the supply/demand auction system behind the scenes already. Prices are not fixed but dynamic and change in real-time based directly on supply and demand.
I’ve often brought up the app to check prices and decided not to ride for a while. Drivers do something similar.
> thus "the market rate" cannot escape a threshold that is contrary to uber's business prerogatives.
I’m not sure what this means. I’m sure Uber sets some reasonable floor on the price, but it’s more in the driver’s interest than their own. There are absolutely drivers who would drive for below operating cost of the vehicle because either they aren’t bothering to calculate it or they aren’t the ones actually paying for it (e.g. a car that is late on payments and soon to be repo’d).
In actuality these actions aren't so different, I could offer my services to Microsoft at 200k an hour and they're free to decline me.
I think the real issue here can't be resolved by an examination of terms - it involves a power dynamic where Uber contractors are extremely at disadvantage when it comes to being able to set your own rates. I don't know if Uber even has someone on staff that's qualified or expected to negotiate with independent drives that are interested - they have a posted rate that you either accept or they walk away. And, the worst part, they change that posted rate for BS reasons constantly in a way that people can't predict, it makes for an unreliable and misleading income.
When it comes to standard W2 employment, an employer can also list $X/hr or an annual salary.
You can absolutely go in and demand whatever you want. If you ask for 3x, you probably won't get the job. But 5% or 10% over x? It's possible. I don't see how contracting is 'locked in'. You are certainly free to negotiate, unlike on Uber or Lyft's platform.
"Rating" is generally accepted as the "star rating" or some other statistics that users will see. Yes your "acceptance rate" will be affected, but this is a vanity metric that is secret to the driver => It is irrelevant.
There is no mention of deplatforming in any of these articles.
