{"id":6349,"date":"2016-04-25T09:57:25","date_gmt":"2016-04-25T13:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/?p=6349"},"modified":"2020-06-22T12:58:39","modified_gmt":"2020-06-22T16:58:39","slug":"uber-settles-for-100-million","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/uber-settles-for-100-million\/","title":{"rendered":"Uber Settles for $100 Million"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Driving towards a settlement<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Uber, the tap a button, get a ride app that has changed the transportation industry across borders, cultures and languages alike, will pay up to $100 million to the 385,000 drivers in California and Massachusetts over whether they are considered independent contractors or employees. Uber has agreed to pay the plaintiffs $84 million<\/a>, with a second payment of $16 million if it fact goes public. Judge Edward Chen, is presiding over the case in the Northern California Superior Court, he must still approve the settlement in order for it to take effect.<\/p>\n

Shannon Liss-Riordan, is representing the drivers in the suits and stated \u201cNo court has decided here whether Uber drivers are employees or independent contractors and that debate will not end here.\u201d The case \u201cstands as a stern warning to companies who play fast and loose with classifying their\u00a0workforce as independent contractors, who do not receive the benefits of the wage laws and other employee\u00a0protections.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The payout to drivers will be based on the number of miles they drove for Uber, CEO Travis Kalanick insists that\u00a0many of their drivers want to be their own boss and value their independence so he is very pleased that this\u00a0settlement recognizes that they will remain as independent contractors, not employees.<\/p>\n

“In the U.S. almost 90% [of drivers] say they choose Uber because they want to be their own boss. Drivers value\u00a0their independence \u2014 the freedom to push a button rather than punch a clock, to use Uber and Lyft\u00a0simultaneously, to drive most of the week or for just a few hours,” Uber’s statement said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe gig economy wasn\u2019t perhaps explained to them, so they thought they were getting one thing and they go\u00a0something a little different,\u201d said Thomas Baylis, a partner with the firm of Cullen and Dykman in New York City\u00a0who specializes in labor law.<\/p>\n

The class action settlement only applies to the people who signed on to drive for Uber early on with the notion\u00a0that they may not have understood the company was not offering to actually hire them. Going forward, Uber has\u00a0made it very clear to any new potential drivers that they are not, and will never be employees, so they will not be\u00a0eligible to file suit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Uber, the tap a button, get a ride app that has changed the transportation industry across borders, cultures and languages alike, will pay up to $100 million to the 385,000…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":227,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-settlements"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/227"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6349"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8634,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6349\/revisions\/8634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}