Uber in advanced talks to sell air taxi business Elevate: Report

 

Uber Technologies is in cutting edge converses with sell its air taxi business, "Uber Elevate", to aviation firm Joby Aviation, news site Axios revealed bit.ly/37qqMKN on Wednesday, refering to sources.

Uber didn't promptly react to a Reuters demand for input.

Its offers rose over 6% after the news.

Hyundai Motor Co, which in January reported an association with Uber Elevate to create electric air taxis, didn't quickly react to a solicitation for input.

With Uber's business shook by the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization cut 23% of its labor force in May as a feature of forceful cost slices and pledged to zero in on its center ride-hailing and food-conveyance organizations.

Uber has been dealing with different organizations, including the improvement of self-driving vehicles, the Elevate venture and a cargo coordinations organization.

The organization is additionally in converses with sell its self-driving business.

Uber says 3000 sexual assault claims reported in US rides last year

International News
Uber Technologies Inc. found more than 3,000 allegations of sexual assaults involving drivers or passengers on its platform in the US last year, part of an extensive and long-awaited review in response to public safety concerns.
The ride-hailing company released an 84-page safety report Thursday, seeking to quantify the misconduct and deaths that occur on its system and argue that its service is safer than alternatives.
US customers took about 1.3 billion trips last year, Uber said. About 50 people have died in Uber collisions annually for the past two years, at a rate about half the national average for automotive fatalities, according to the company. Nine people were killed in physical assaults last year, Uber said.
Uber drivers reported nearly as many allegations of sexual assault as passengers, who made 56 per cent of the claims. There is little comparable data on assaults in taxis or other transportation systems, and experts have said the attacks are widely under-reported. The assault claims reported to Uber ranged from unwanted kissing to forcible penetration.
“Uber is very much a reflection of society,” said Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer who helped spearhead the two-year research effort. “The sad, unfortunate fact is that sexual violence is more prevalent in our society than people think. People don’t like to talk about this issue.”

Uber had committed more than a year ago to release a safety study, a promise Lyft Inc. made soon after. Lyft, the second-biggest ride-hailing provider in the US, has yet to publish a report. On Thursday, Uber said it would regularly share data with Lyft and other companies about drivers accused of serious safety lapses and continue publishing safety reports every two years.Uber has faced a steady stream of complaints in court across the country over driver misconduct, and Lyft has recently seen an explosion in legal claims by passengers...Read More

Uber braces for fight as California wants it to treat drivers as employees

International News

Uber Technologies Inc. has generated billions of dollars from the labor of its drivers without the expense of treating them as employees. California is poised to disrupt that business model, and the ride-hailing behemoth is gearing up for a legal fight.
Lawmakers in the state want to reclassify workers treated as independent contractors, which may dramatically boost costs for Uber and other companies built around the gig economy. Under Assembly Bill 5, which has cleared both houses of the California Legislature, many workers would be entitled to a minimum wage, mileage reimbursement and workers compensation.
Proponents say the bill, which has the support of Governor Gavin Newsom, will bring a groundbreaking shift to finally give workers their due. Uber and its allies say that if the bill becomes law, it may not meaningfully change the business model because there are still questions about which workers qualify.
“AB 5 doesn’t all of a sudden -- magic wand -- change everybody’s status to employee,” said Tony West, Uber’s general counsel. Instead, new criteria would be used to determine whether workers are employees or contractors, he said. “Now, whether or not we win under that test in California remains to be seen,” West said.

 Skeptics say Uber may be too optimistic. While it’s used arbitration, litigation and settlements to thwart drivers’ attempts so far to be classified as employees, AB 5 could pose a significant risk to the company, especially if similar measures are adopted in other parts of the US, legal experts, academics and financial analysts say.Uber is “whistling past the graveyard” if it underestimates how much AB 5 would favor drivers, said Jason Lohr, an employment lawyer in Uber’s hometown of San Francisco...Read More

US labour agency says Uber drivers are 'contractors', not employees

Company News

Drivers for ride-hailing company Uber Technologies Inc are independent contractors and not employees, the general counsel of a US labor agency has concluded, in an advisory memo that is likely to carry significant weight in a pending case against the company and could prevent drivers from joining a union.

The recommendation by the office of general counsel Peter Robb, who was appointed to the National Labor Relations Board by President Donald Trump, was made in a memo dated April 16 and released on Tuesday.The general counsel said in the memo that Uber drivers set their hours, own their cars and are free to work for the company's competitors, so they cannot be considered employees under federal labor law.

A ruling on the case is to be made by an NLRB regional director. Advisory memos from the general counsel's office are generally upheld in rulings. Any decision could be appealed to the NLRB's five-member board, which is also led by Trump appointees but is independent of the general counsel.
The memo will not affect scores of lawsuits claiming Uber drivers should be treated as employees under federal and state wage laws.

San Francisco-based Uber in a statement said it is "focused on improving the quality and security of independent work, while preserving the flexibility drivers and couriers tell us they value."Uber shares were up 6.4 per cent at $39.46 in late trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

 The memo signalled a sharp turn for the general counsel's office, which acts like a prosecutor in NLRB cases, and during the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama maintained that many gig-economy workers are misclassified as independent contractors.Under the National Labor Relations Act, independent contractors cannot join unions and do not have legal protection when they complain about working conditions.