Illinois and Uber clash, AB5 back on the chopping block, and a Connecticut bill offering drivers $36/hr. LegalRideshare breaks it down.
Uber threatens to leave Illinois if a new bill is passed. MyStateline.com added:
A bill in the state capitol would remove the exemption of drivers of rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft to be classified as “common carriers”. Under a 2014 law, drivers working for companies like Uber and Lyft were exempt from the law.
The bill follows a recent high-profile Illinois court case. In Doe v. Lyft, a woman in Chicago was allegedly sexually assaulted by her Lyft driver. The woman sued the driver, Lyft, and the company used by Lyft for background checks, but Lyft argued since their drivers were defined by Illinois law not to be common carriers, they were not liable for any damages.
Lyft officials are strongly opposed to the bill. They argue with the current laws in place, only 0.0002% of their rides have a registered safety incident. Representatives of the company also say the new rule would increase the cost for riders.
Uber is also against the bill. They argue if the bill becomes law, it may cause them to end services in some parts of the state and impact service for users in the state.
Uber's new tech stops older victims from being scammed. WESH2 reported:
“They would call them and say ‘hey, your grandson's been arrested. He ran into a pregnant woman and we need $10,000 bond to get him out of jail,'” Uber's Head of Global Security and Investigations Vince Lisi said.
“So my investigators went and looked at these trips. And they identified a signature for them. Kinda like a digital fingerprint,” Lisi said.
Uber engineers created an alert system for that digital fingerprint covering the 1 million global trips every hour.
And immediately once it was turned on the system's first alert came from Brevard County last week. So the company alerted the sheriff's office.
“In this case, we were successful in stopping that money drop and getting the money back to the victims,” said Brevard County Sheriff's Office Public Information Officer Tod Goodyear.
AB5 is back on the chopping block. Freightwaves reported:
A lawsuit against AB5 brought by Uber, Postmates and two of their gig drivers failed in a lower federal court in California in 2020 but has been partially revived on appeal.
The partial reversal of the lower court case was handed down Friday by a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. With the reversal, the efforts by Uber, Lyft and in this case Postmates pushing back against implementing AB5 for app-based drivers scored two major victories in one week.
One of the central arguments of Uber and Postmates centers on the long list of exemptions for specified industries that were approved either in the original AB5 legislation or in subsequent laws. Many of those exemptions were added to the list after some initially nonexempt industries found themselves in chaos under AB5. (Foreign language translators were a major example.) The appellate court decision lists all the groups exempted in what amounts to almost a roll call.
An Uber driver in Tampa is being hailed a hero. WFLA reported:
A Tampa man is calling his Uber driver a hero for jumping into action after a driver crashed their vehicle right in front of them.
“This red Toyota Tacoma comes kind of flying and it flips two or three, or three or four times, and it lands, thankfully, goes through one lane of traffic and lands in the grassy median,” Fox recalled.
Fox said his Uber driver, Almir immediately pulled over to check on the passengers.
When they heard someone cry out for help, John said Almir didn't hesitate before jumping into action and pulling the driver out of the truck to safety.
A new proposal in Connecticut would pay drivers $36 an hour. CT insider reported:
Drivers who deliver food and groceries, as well as Uber and Lyft drivers would be paid $36 per hour, plus $1.30 per mile under legislation that next heads to the state Senate. The so-called predictable-scheduling bill, aimed at protecting workers in the retail, food service, hospitality and long-term health care industries with companies of 500 employees or more, moves next to the state House of Representatives.
The scheduling bill would require employers to notify workers of their coming hours two weeks in advance, and force them to pay workers half their pay for each hour lost, if their shifts are changed with less than a week's notice. It would affect employers with more than 500 employees globally, including big-box stores and restaurants with more than 30 locations. Such employers have been identified with forcing employees to pick up shifts with no notice, or send them home even if they had been scheduled to work.
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