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Uber insisted on Wednesday that he may not need to reclassify his drivers as employees, despite a recently passed California bill, which seems l & # 39; require. A few hours later, the company specializing in amusement rides learned that she would soon have the opportunity to test her argument in court.
A long-time legal antagonist filed a class action suit on behalf of drivers in a California federal court on Wednesday accusing Uber of wrongly classifying drivers under the state's job test. .
In the complaint, the lawyer, Shannon Liss-Riordan, stated that Uber had not paid her Californian drivers the minimum wage, overtime and reimbursement of expenses to which they were entitled in as employees. The complaint asked the court to issue an injunction asking the company to reclassify the drivers.
"Uber does not understand anything," said Ms. Liss-Riordan about Uber's argument that he did not need to reclassify his drivers. If it were to prevail, Uber could be required to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to drivers for lost compensation and refunds.
The complaint is based on a 2018 decision of the California Supreme Court setting a new test for employment in the state. Under this decision, a company is required to classify workers as employees rather than contractors if it directs or controls their work; if their work is part of the usual activities of the company; or if the workers do not generally operate an independent business doing the same work as they do for the business.
The measure adopted Wednesday by the legislature codifies and expands this decision. Under the bill, anyone deemed to be an employee subject to the test would be entitled to protections such as unemployment insurance, workers' compensation and paid sick leave, and not just the minimum wage and overtime.
Neither Mr. West nor the company cited a specific court decision in support of this assertion. A spokesman for Uber gave two examples of decisions made by arbitrators rather than courts that found that drivers did not take into account the usual activities of the company.
Legal experts have stated that Uber would probably not have to win over this claim before the courts. "The courts have not necessarily been receptive to this argument," said Richard Meneghello, co-chair of the economics practice group of law firm Fisher Phillips, which represents employers. "From a neutral point of view, this seems to be a difficult battle for the show economy."
Uber did not comment on the class action beyond what he had announced Wednesday.
In a related case involving Grubhub, which operates an Uber-type platform that connects restaurants and delivery men and which Ms. Liss-Riordan is also arguing, a judge ruled that the delivery of food was part of the company's ongoing activities. Los Angeles, where the applicant worked. The judge nevertheless ruled that the plaintiff was not an employee with respect to the prior employment criterion of the state. But according to the new test adopted by the California Supreme Court shortly after the Grubhub decision, this finding would likely make the employee a driver. Grubhub challenges this position on appeal.
Orly Lobel, a law professor at the University of San Diego, who spoke out against the rankings of all Uber and Lyft drivers as employees, said: "In the end, he is very likely that the courts think they are employees. think it's absolute. "
The main plaintiff in the new case is an Uber driver, Angela McRay, who uses the platform since November 2016, sometimes more than 40 hours a week.
Liss-Riordan, a Democratic senate candidate in Massachusetts, said the trial highlighted the issues that motivated her to stand for election. "The drivers make the company possible, but they do not make the minimum wage and they are trampled on," she said.
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