{"id":27504,"date":"2020-08-17T16:19:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-17T23:19:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=27504"},"modified":"2020-08-17T16:19:41","modified_gmt":"2020-08-17T23:19:41","slug":"california-ruling-against-uber-lyft-threatens-to-upend-gig-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=27504","title":{"rendered":"California ruling against Uber, Lyft threatens to upend gig economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

The business models for Uber, Lyft and dozens of other gig worker companies that have sprouted up over the last decade are up in the air after a California judge ruled that rideshare drivers must be classified as employees rather than contractors.<\/p>\n

Uber and Lyft have until Thursday to appeal the decision. The end result will likely have repercussions well beyond California.<\/p>\n

Failure to overturn the ruling would mean the two companies, which already fail to turn a profit, will be unable to operate under their current business structures in a state known for setting nationwide precedents.<\/p>\n

San Francisco Superior Court judge Ethan Schulman ruled Monday that Uber and Lyft must classify their drivers as full employees under Assembly Bill 5, a landmark law that establishes a test for determining whether workers can be classified as independent contractors.<\/p>\n

Schulman sided with California Attorney General\u00a0Xavier Becerra<\/a>\u00a0(D), who brought the lawsuit after the two ridesharing giants resisted the law when it took effect in January, arguing their core business is technology rather than ride-hailing.<\/p>\n

Both companies reacted aggressively to Monday\u2019s court decision, threatening to shut down operations in California if they are forced to provide workers with basic protections like a minimum wage and the right to organize. Those threats have put drivers in a precarious position.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs deplorable as that is, it’s not surprising, because now that the pandemic has pushed the vast majority of drivers into financial ruin, Uber and Lyft are ready to completely abandon them,\u201d Erica Mighetto, a driver in the San Francisco area and member of Rideshare Drivers United, told The Hill.<\/p>\n

After the ruling, both companies filed motions to extend a 10-day stay that Schulman placed on his decision to give Uber and Lyft time to file appeals. He denied their motions, meaning Thursday is still their deadline for appealing.<\/p>\n

Legal experts say that while the companies are almost certain to appeal, they\u2019re unlikely to make any new arguments when they do so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The business models for Uber, Lyft...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-ca-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27504"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27505,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27504\/revisions\/27505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}