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Nasir and Matt talk about the recent motion filed by Uber claiming its drivers are not employees. They then answer the question, "As a business owner in California, what new laws should I know about?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener who is listening to this podcast, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com, and that’s an email address just to remember. And my name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: We are in the middle of the year now, right? MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Pretty much. MATT: Yeah, took a big break. NASIR: We can stop saying “Happy New Year!” now. MATT: Oh, yeah, I don’t know when the cut-off is for that. NASIR: I think January 2nd. MATT: Is it? NASIR: Yeah, in my mind. MATT: It’s dependent on the year because it falls on a Thursday this year so people might not be… or this year the 5th is the cut-off so, by the time this episode comes out… NASIR: Yeah, but if you use that logic then, if I see somebody for the first time in a year on December 1st then I would say “Happy New Year!” then. What’s the rule? MATT: Well, I’m saying that I think that people aren’t going to see each other until the 5th. I don’t know. I’m going to test it out and see what people say to me and then I’ll let you know the… NASIR: Report back. MATT: Yeah, the results. NASIR: All right. Well, what do we have? MATT: Oh, one of your favorite topics, for sure. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Uber. NASIR: Yeah, we’re talking about Uber, but I have to give some disclaimer. Obviously, Uber has success and they’re good at what they do and they raised a bunch of money and all that, but I guess my opinion is just that, man, how they’re doing it is just so annoying, you know? Those kind of “do no evil” kind of culture that we think start-ups have but they actually don’t, you know? MATT: Yeah, and I’m probably going to have to take an Uber tomorrow. NASIR: They do have taxis in San Diego, and taxi services. MATT: It’s so much harder to get those if they don’t drive by. NASIR: They have apps! They have apps, I think. Well, anyway… MATT: So does Uber. NASIR: Yeah, but Uber, et cetera, et cetera. We’ve already talked about it. MATT: I will look up on Yelp which is better – Uber or taxis – and that’s what I’ll decide. NASIR: No! Definitely, I’m going to make it my business to destroy those two companies this year. No, I’m not that crazy. MATT: Good luck! So, with this, I mean, there’s actually a lot of things in the news with Uber. I think there’s a new story that comes out every day and mostly bad, but the one we’re going to talk about here is the drivers who sued Uber, and the reason we’re talking about this is it’s going to come down as a big thing of whether these drivers are going to be considered employees or independent contractors which should come as no surprise. Uber is filing this motion for summary judgment saying that its drivers are not employees because they do not provide services to Uber. Let’s see their actual argument here. Basically, they’re saying they’re a lead generation, almost, of sorts and they get the calls in and then they send them out to the drivers and, at that point, it’s all up to the drivers on, you know, kind of how they do everything. So, in that case, these people are not employees; they’re contractors. These are all their own individual businesses that they’re running. NASIR: Yeah, and this is the exact same issue that FedEx drivers had to deal with earlier this year and we need a follow-up on that, too, because, I mean, that was a huge decision were a court said that FedEx drivers were misclassified as independent contractors and they were actually employees. But, if you recall on that case, as we know, we look outside our offices, we see FedEx drivers in FedEx trucks, right? They’re using the brand name and all that so there’s a little bit more cl...