Uber Drivers Seeking Employee Status Propose Streamlining Suit

The drivers’ suit claims they are employees and therefore should be reimbursed for gas and vehicle maintenance. “These drivers are wholly dependent for their livelihood on Uber sending them work”, attorney Chris Morosoff said.

A federal judge in San Francisco is expected to hear arguments today on whether a lawsuit by three drivers against Uber should be certified as a class action and include all of the company’s 160,000 drivers in California.

In a crowded San Francisco courtroom Thursday, US District Judge Edward Chen postponed a ruling on the status of a lawsuit against Uber.

Drivers suing Uber Technologies Inc. for better pay and benefits are proposing to pursue their group lawsuit in phases focused first on whether they qualify as employees.

Following in Uber’s tracks, a long string of startups have shaped their business models around treating drivers or couriers or cleaners as independent contractors rather than employees. But he said they do perform a service “because Uber would not be a viable business model without its drivers”. Soon Uber’s lawyers would be before the same judge arguing about the same classification question – with respect to about 75 times that many drivers.

In the arguments over the diversity of Uber drivers in California, questions arose about what all the drivers want – and whether it matters.

If Chen agrees to certify the suit as class action, it would be a momentous win for the plaintiffs and liability would be determined en masse instead of on an individual basis, said Reuel Schiller, a labor and employment law professor at UC Hastings.

She suggests Uber reconfigure its system, and take a bigger cut of the fare so it could cover the overhead, making it “more transparent to drivers what amount they’re going to have in their pocket at the end of the day”. The result is that an entire swath of the technology industry, which has been built on cheap independent contractors may need to incur increased costs as they become full-fledged employees. Curtis Lee, CEO of on-demand valet company Luxe, says that they hope that as employees their valets will be more likely to stick around and be more dedicated to the company. “There is no minimum requirement of hours that I have to be logged onto the app. I can log on and off as it’s convenient for me”, driver Sarah Knapp said. “For Uber, it’s a totally different situation”, he says.

It’s not just Uber that’s affected, however. “That’s really up to Uber, the relationship really doesn’t have to change at all”, Morosoff said. If Chen rules that the 160,000 drivers can go ahead as a class, that might make Uber more seriously consider settling that suit amidst its own hornet’s nest of legal troubles.