Actually, the citizens of California enacted the laws; the bureaucrats are just enforcing them. Uber has the right to appeal if they feel the bureaucrats are enforcing the laws incorrectly. The judicial branch reviews Uber's complaint and will decide one way or the other.

Democracy; it's a pretty nifty system.

>It's amazing how far away bureaucrats can tell others what's best for them.

It is absolutely amazing how people of today totally ignore history and historical context. It has been years and years of struggles to enact labors laws to give employees some very small amount of power in the extremely unequal employee/employer relationship. You're acting like the time of The Jungle and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire were the good old days until pesky governments got involved and ruined everything.

The US, comparatively, has labor laws that don't give much power to the employee (see: at-will employment).

Yeah, but welcome to Hacker News.

Because in an economic downturn an enormous 1099 based workforce would cause serious shock to the economy as they do not qualify for unemployment benefits to smooth the transition as it did in the last downturn. For examples, take a look at what happened in economic downturns prior to the creation of said benefits. It's a lot more complicated than libertarian idealism unfortunately.

Because the employer-employee relationship is not an equal one. We've seen the race to the bottom that happens in the absence of labour regulations.

The fact that Uber determines the price and state of the car etc for them they are by all definitions in my book employed.

Hey, these children are working in factories of their own volition! What's the problem?

Better lock the fire exits so they don't take unauthorized breaks.

Then remove the tips restriction.

If only it was that simple.

> Why forcibly stop people consensually partaking in an activity?

There wouldn't be an issue here if there wasn't a dispute between the parties involved in the activity.

That's not compensation. A job is not compensation.

And just because it's "consensual" doesn't mean that it's not against the law. Otherwise should McDonalds be able to circumvent health codes and minimum wage because it found people willing to work for that? Of course not.