Uber Employment and the Gig Economy

A recent California Supreme Court ruling makes it more difficult to classify workers as contractors instead of as employees.

The decision could eventually require companies like Uber, many of which are based in California, to follow minimum-wage and overtime laws and to pay workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance and payroll taxes, potentially upending their business models

This ruling could have major impacts on the way the Gig economy works for companies and for how some people work their "side hustles".

For companies like Uber and Lyft I would foresee them limiting "workers" to a certain number of hours per day and per week. They want to avoid any overtime or full-time employee expenses. I would also look for the rates for these services to go up as employment taxes need to be covered. It should be noted that going to driverless cars avoid all these problems.

For "workers" the revenue possible from driving for Uber or Lyft would now be limited. Also certain "freedoms" may be curtailed. How can Uber brag about not having a drug test for drivers when they now become responsible for the actions of these "employees"? I would also suspect that Uber and Lyft would start looking more into the backgrounds of people now that they would be "employees."

Would a background check on this driver have shown him to antisemitic to the point of kicking out riders mid journey for speaking Hebrew? Would Uber be liable under such circumstances?