uber
In 2009, the year Uber launched, FedEx made a change to its business model. The shipping firm had previously relied on independent contractors who owned their own trucks and were paid by the delivery or mile rather than the hour. For years, the company faced an onslaught of lawsuits arguing that the people who delivered mail in a FedEx branded truck and uniform should actually be classified as employees, rather than contractors, and protected by minimum wage and other labor laws.
在 Uber推出的2009年，联邦快递对其业务模式进行了更改。 这家货运公司以前依靠的是拥有自己卡车的独立承包商，这些承包商是根据交货或英里数而非小时数来支付的。 多年来，该公司面临着一系列的诉讼，认为以联邦快递品牌卡车和制服运送邮件的人实际上应被归类为雇员，而不是承包商，并受到最低工资和其他劳工法的保护。
To avoid treating workers as employees as a result of these lawsuits, FedEx pivoted instead to contracting with “independent providers” who managed multiple drivers, instead of independent individuals. The company argued that, in part, because these providers could negotiate their routes and rates, they met the definition of being independent and were not employees. That reasoning is still regularly challenged.
为了避免治疗W 0至rkers作为雇员，因为这些诉讼的结果，联邦快递转动而不是承包与“独立供应商”谁管理多个驱动器，而不是独立的个体。 该公司认为，部分原因是因为这些提供商可以协商其路线和费率，所以他们达到了独立且不是员工的定义。 这种推理仍然经常受到挑战。
Uber and Lyft — businesses that adopted a version of FedEx’s original independent contractor-field model — are now facing the same types of legal challenges the mail delivery giant battled a decade prior. Earlier this month, a California judge ordered the companies to adhere to a recently passed state employment law and treat their California drivers as employees, entitling them to a minimum wage, overtime pay, and other protections not granted to independent contractors. In response, both companies have threatened to shut down their operations in California, saying that it is impossible to change their business models quickly to comply with the law. They are also contemplating another move that comes straight out of the FedEx playbook, with the New York Times reporting that Uber and Lyft are considering moving to a franchise model for California drivers.
采用了FedEx最初的独立承包商现场模式的企业Uber和Lyft现在正面临着与这家邮件交付巨头在十年前抗衡的法律挑战。 本月初，一位加利福尼亚法官下令两家公司遵守最近通过的州雇佣法，并将其加利福尼亚司机视为雇员，赋予他们最低工资，加班费以及其他未授予独立承包商的保护。 作为回应，两家公司都威胁要关闭其在加利福尼亚州的业务，称不可能Swift改变其业务模式以遵守法律。 他们还正在考虑联邦快递剧本中的另一举措，据《纽约时报》报道，优步和Lyft正在考虑改用加利福尼亚车手的特许经营模式 。
“This would be similar to how Uber Black operated a decade ago,” an Uber spokesperson told OneZero, referring to the company’s initial model of working with existing livery companies. He said that the new model might include both driver-owned or fleet-owned cars. In both cases, drivers would likely earn a predetermined hourly wage for their time working on the app. The spokesperson did not answer questions about what Uber’s financial arrangement with fleet operators might look like. A Lyft spokesperson did not answer questions about its plans for a franchise arrangement.
优步发言人对OneZero表示： “这与10年前的优步·布莱克(Uber Black)运作类似。”是指该公司与现有涂装公司合作的最初模式。 他说，新车型可能包括驾驶员拥有或车队拥有的汽车。 在这两种情况下，驾驶员在应用程序上工作的时间都可能会赚取预定的小时工资。 发言人没有回答有关优步与车队运营商的财务安排可能是什么样的问题。 Lyft的发言人没有回答有关特许经营计划的问题。
As FedEx and other franchises have already shown, the franchise model can serve a similar purpose to the independent contractor model. While there are legitimate uses for both models, says Benjamin Sachs, a professor of labor and industry at Harvard Law School, “they are also schemes to avoid taking responsibility for workers […] And if they offload their responsibility onto someone who can’t bear it, then the driver is left holding an empty bag.”
正如联邦快递和其他特许经营权已经表明的那样，特许经营模式可以起到与独立承包商模式类似的作用。 哈佛法学院劳工和工业教授本杰明·萨克斯(Benjamin Sachs)表示，虽然这两种模式都有合理的用途，但“它们也是避免对工人承担责任的计划[...]如果他们将责任转移给不能忍受它，然后驾驶员就拿着一个空袋子。”
Furthermore, much like the independent contractor model, the franchise model can still be challenged when companies exert too much control over outlets.
此外，就像独立承包商模式一样，当公司对网点施加过多控制时，特许经营模式仍然会受到挑战。
In a typical franchising model, a franchise outlet pays the parent company a fee to use its brand as well as a portion of its ongoing revenues. The model is appealing to companies like McDonald’s because it allows the company to preserve its brand while the franchisees provide the startup capital to grow.
在典型的特许经营模式中，特许经营网点向母公司支付使用其品牌的费用以及其持续收入的一部分。 该模式之所以吸引像麦当劳这样的公司，是因为它允许公司保留自己的品牌，而加盟商则提供启动资金来增长。
But franchise models can set up incentives that squeeze workers. As Brandeis University Heller School for Social Policy and Management professor and dean David Weil, PhD, explains in his 2014 book The Fissured Workplace, the setup introduces incentives that can be bad for employees: The franchise owner only makes money if its outlets can profit more than what they pay in fees to the parent company. Meanwhile, the parent company, which often sets standards such as prices, is solely focused on maximizing revenue. Sometimes a parent company’s fees and standards make it difficult for franchisees to make money without cutting corners — such as violating labor laws.
但是，特许经营模式可以建立激励措施，以挤压工人。 正如布兰代斯大学海勒社会政策与管理学院教授兼院长戴维·威尔(David Weil)在其2014年的著作《散裂的工作场所》中解释的那样 ，这种设置引入了可能对员工不利的激励机制：特许经营权人只有在其门店可以获利更多的情况下才能赚钱。而不是他们向母公司支付的费用。 同时，经常设定诸如价格之类的标准的母公司仅专注于使收入最大化。 有时，母公司的费用和标准使加盟商很难在不偷工减料的情况下赚钱，例如违反劳动法。
One analysis of labor conditions in franchise systems, published by Weil and MinWoong Ji in the Industrial Labor Relations Review, looked at the impact of franchise ownership on fast food restaurant’s compliance with federal minimum wage and overtime standards for the top 20 fast-food companies in the U.S. They found that the probability of a violation is about 24% higher among franchisee-owned outlets than among otherwise similar company-owned outlets.
Weil和MinWoong Ji在《 劳资关系评论》中发表的一项特许经营系统中的劳动条件分析研究了特许经营所有权对快餐店遵守联邦最低工资和加班标准的前20家快餐公司的影响。在美国，他们发现，与其他类似的公司所有网点相比，在加盟商拥有的网点中发生违规的可能性要高约24％。
Meanwhile, because the franchisor is not the direct employer of an outlet’s employees, it often claims it lacks knowledge and responsibility for these violations.
同时，由于特许人不是网点员工的直接雇主，因此通常会声称对这些违规行为缺乏知识和责任。
Workplace statutes and legal interpretations, Weil writes, “often hold the franchisor harmless for the actions of franchisees when it comes to employees, even as franchise and commercial law protect the franchisor’s right to impose standards on every other aspect of business decision. This creates the fundamental dilemma of the fissured workplace by allowing lead companies (in this case franchisors) to have it both ways: creating, monitoring, and enforcing standards central to business strategy while at the same time ducking responsibility for the social consequences of those policies when it comes to the workplace.”
Weil写道，工作场所法规和法律解释“经常使特许人对被特许人的雇员行为无害，即使特许经营法和商业法保护了特许人在商业决策的所有其他方面强加标准的权利。 通过允许牵头公司(在这种情况下，是特许经营者)同时拥有这两种方式，这会造成裂痕纷呈的工作场所的基本困境：创建，监控和强制执行业务战略的核心标准，同时对这些政策的社会后果承担责任当涉及到工作场所时。”
Veena Dubal, PhD, a professor of law at the University of California, Hastings, recently examined how FedEx’s transition to a franchise model ultimately impacted drivers. In a forthcoming article for the Wisconsin Law Review about the impact of misclassification lawsuits on workers in the gig economy, she uses FedEx as a case study, writing, “Strikingly, the financial conditions of the ISP drivers [independent service providers] are more precarious than they were before the … litigation. As small business people, they are not properly remunerated for their work, nor are they able to provide secure employment for those who they hire.”
加州大学黑斯廷斯分校法学教授Veena Dubal博士最近研究了联邦快递向特许经营模式的转变最终如何影响驾驶员。 在《 威斯康星州法律评论》 即将发表的一篇文章中 ，关于分类错误诉讼对零工经济中工人的影响，她以联邦快递为例，写道：“令人震惊的是，ISP驱动程序(独立服务提供商)的财务状况更加不稳定。比……诉讼之前要多。 作为小型商人，他们的工作报酬不高，也无法为所雇用的人员提供安全的工作。”
Dubal quotes from an interview she conducted with Beth Ross, the lead plaintiff’s attorney on one of the misclassification cases that inspired FedEx’s new business model, about how drivers fared after FedEx changed its business model to “independent providers:”
Dubal在她与首席原告律师贝丝·罗斯(Beth Ross)进行的一次采访中引述了一个启发联邦快递新业务模式的错误分类案例，其中涉及联邦快递将其业务模式更改为“独立提供商”后司机的表现。
FedEx leaves them alone more than they used to, but they have a terrible financial problem. FedEx doesn’t pay them enough to really compensate the people who drive for them. A lot of them do not provide workers’ compensation or provide overtime. One plaintiff […] for example, has nine drivers and four of them are on public benefits. And not because he doesn’t pay them every penny he can. He does not even have health insurance for himself and his family.
联邦快递比以往任何时候都更不用说他们了，但是他们有一个可怕的财务问题。 联邦快递支付给他们的钱不足以真正补偿为他们开车的人。 他们中的许多人不提供工人补偿或加班。 例如，一名原告[...]拥有九名司机，其中四名受益于公共利益。 并不是因为他没有尽他所能付给他们一分钱。 他甚至没有为自己和家人购买健康保险。
Uber provides its own example of the hazards of a franchise system. In Poland, the company has already introduced a franchise-like model in response to regulatory challenges that make employing freelancers a hassle. Instead, independent contractors sign up to work with intermediary companies instead of directly for Uber. As OneZero reported last year, with little oversight from Uber or regulators, some of those intermediary companies steal drivers’ pay or add unexpected fees.
优步提供了自己的特许经营制度危害示例。 在波兰，该公司已经引入了类似于特许经营的模式，以应对使自由职业者聘请麻烦的监管挑战。 相反，独立承包商签约与中介公司合作，而不是直接为Uber服务。 正如OneZero 去年报道的那样 ，在Uber或监管机构的监督很少的情况下，其中一些中介公司窃取了司机的薪水或增加了意外费用。
And relabeling drivers as franchisees rather than “independent contractors” may not solve Uber and Lyft’s legal headaches. A franchisor can be deemed a “joint employer” and thus share liability for labor violations at an outlet.
将司机重新标记为特许经营者而不是“独立承包商”可能无法解决Uber和Lyft的法律难题。 特许人可以被认为是“联合雇主”，因此在分店应承担因违反劳动而承担的责任。
“If what we care about at the end of the day is that the human beings driving for Uber have basic protections, we have to be skeptical of this arrangement just as we were skeptical of the independent contractor arrangement,” Sachs tells OneZero.
Sachs告诉OneZero： “如果我们最终关心的是为Uber开车的人受到基本保护，那么我们就必须对这种安排持怀疑态度，就像我们对独立承包商的安排持怀疑态度一样。”
All of this is to say that if Uber and Lyft were to move to a franchise model, it would not necessarily put an end to its legal challenges when it comes to how it classifies its workers. And it would not necessarily make drivers’ lives better. It would move workers from one aspect of what Weil calls the “fissured workplace” to another.
所有这一切都意味着，如果Uber和Lyft要转变为特许经营模式，那么就其如何对工人进行分类而言，不一定会终结其法律挑战。 并不一定会使驾驶员的生活更好。 这将使工人从Weil所谓的“错综复杂的工作场所”的一个方面转移到另一个方面。
Uber and Lyft are championing a ballot initiative in the November election that would exempt them from the law requiring them to reclassify drivers. They have threatened to stop service in California, their court-ordered deadline for making drivers employees if the court does not allow them to pause while they pursue a challenge to the decision. Lyft announced Thursday that it plans to follow through with suspending service starting on Friday. In a motion Uber filed with a California appellate court Wednesday evening that aims to pause its order to reclassify drivers, the company claimed that moving to an employee-based business model would increase its prices by 20% and reduce the number of quarterly drivers by 74%. It argued that it could not operate as quickly and cheaply, or provide quick part-time employment to as many people if forced to treat its drivers as employees.
优步和Lyft在11月的选举中拥护一项选票倡议，该倡议将使他们免于要求他们对驾驶员进行重新分类的法律。 他们威胁要停止在加利福尼亚的服务，如果法院不允许他们在质疑该决定的过程中暂停工作，他们将在法院命令的最后期限内禁止司机开车。 Lyft周四宣布计划从周五开始暂停服务。 Uber在周三晚上向加利福尼亚上诉法院提起了旨在暂停其对驾驶员进行重新分类的命令的动议中，该公司声称，转向基于员工的商业模式将使其价格提高20％，每季度减少74个季度驾驶员％。 它辩称，如果被迫将司机当作雇员对待，那么它就不可能像以前那样廉价快捷地运转，也不能为许多人提供快速的兼职工作。
As my colleague Brian Merchant argued in a OneZero op-ed earlier this week, perhaps they shouldn’t operate so quickly and cheaply if they can’t do it while paying drivers as employees.
正如我的同事Brian Merchant在本周早些时候发表的OneZero专栏文章中所指出的那样，如果他们不能付钱给司机当雇员，那么他们就不应该这么快，便宜地运营。
Franchising may not be a satisfying answer, but there are plenty of other options. Apps like Flywheel allow hailing of licensed cabs via a smartphone app (though traditional models for licensed cabs and livery services have their own issues). And “platform cooperativism,” a theory championed by New School professor Trebor Scholz that posits digital tools can help enable COOPs, is now more than an idea, with apps such as London’s TaxiApp, Belgium’s Partago and Vancouver’s Modo, and Quebec’s Eva using the model for transportation services, including sharing vehicles instead of hailing them.
特许经营可能不是令人满意的答案，但是还有很多其他选择。 诸如Flywheel之类的应用程序可以通过智能手机应用程序来对许可的出租车进行叫喊(尽管许可出租车和涂装服务的传统模型有其自身的问题)。 由新学院教授Trebor Scholz倡导的一种假设为数字平台可以帮助实现COOP的数字平台理论，如今已不仅仅是一个主意，它使用了伦敦的TaxiApp ，比利时的Partago和Vancouver的Modo以及魁北克的Eva等应用程序运输服务，包括共享车辆而不是叫车。
And maybe the most obvious solution: Uber and Lyft — or if not Uber and Lyft, another app — could simply comply with the spirit of California’s new independent contractor law and make its drivers employees.
也许是最明显的解决方案：Uber和Lyft-或(如果不是)另一个应用程序Uber和Lyft-可以仅遵循加利福尼亚州新的独立承包商法的精神，并使其司机成为雇员。
Contrary to what these companies have claimed, operating a ride-hailing business with employees is possible. We know this because a Texas-based app called Alto has been doing it since 2018. The company’s CEO Will Coleman told CNBC that it will never be as fast as Uber or Lyft, but that hiring employees avoids an excess supply of drivers that results in driving down drivers’ pay and congesting city streets. In an email to OneZero, Coleman said drivers earn on average $15 per hour and have access to sponsored health benefits and paid time off.
与这些公司所声称的相反，可以与员工一起经营叫车业务。 我们之所以知道这一点，是因为自2018年以来，德克萨斯州一家名为Alto的应用一直在这样做。该公司的首席执行官Will Coleman告诉CNBC ，它的速度永远不会像Uber或Lyft那样快，但雇用员工避免了过多的驾驶员供应，从而导致压低司机的薪水和拥挤的城市街道。 科尔曼在给OneZero的电子邮件中说，驾驶员平均每小时可赚15美元，并且可以享受赞助的医疗福利和带薪休假。
And notably, the argument for Alto to use this business model isn’t only a moral one. The company offers other services, like a daily delivered lunch option for customers. “It would have been difficult, if not impossible, for us to launch [the daily lunch service] at our standard of service without the feedback and training of our drivers,” Coleman says.
尤其值得注意的是，奥拓使用这种商业模式的观点不仅是道德上的。 该公司还提供其他服务，例如每天为客户提供午餐。 科尔曼说：“如果没有驾驶员的反馈和培训，我们很难(即使不是不可能)以我们的服务水平启动[每日午餐服务]。”
Meanwhile, the company’s marketing emphasizes clean cars, reliable service, safe drivers, and high-quality service — all things that both could make its pitches for add-ons like dependable lunch or helping with kids pickups more appealing and are much easier to guarantee through an employment relationship.
同时，公司的市场营销强调清洁的汽车，可靠的服务，安全的驾驶员和高质量的服务-所有这一切都可以使其成为附加组件的代名词，例如可靠的午餐或帮助孩子领取皮具的吸引力，并且更容易通过雇佣关系。
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