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> I am forced to treat the people who cut my lawn and clean my house as employees, according to tax law, for funding unemployment insurance among other things.

It's the other way around: The people who cut your lawn force you to treat them as employees. What stops you from hiring a "proper" contractor?

> But Uber's labor force, without which literally the company wouldn't exist, are not eligible for the same benefits.

Yes, because they are contractors. They set their own hours and choose whether to show up or not. They don't have any of the duties that an employee has. Therefore, they don't have any of the rights either.

> The logical next step is that the company has no liability for anything that happens to you in one of their cars.

It's not their car. Uber is a middleman. That's what people don't understand. Their "added value" is to bring together service providers and service users. They don't provide insurance or anything.




They do provide insurance:

https://www.uber.com/drive/insurance/


That's news to me, I stand corrected.




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