Uber Rejects Labeling Drivers as Employees Under California Law
- Ride-hailing company braces for a fight over gig economy rules
- Shift could pose biggest threat to ride-hailing business model
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Facing the most serious threat yet to its business model, Uber Technologies Inc. is dusting off a legal argument it has employed with mixed results: that it’s a technology platform, not a transportation company.
Now, as a new California law threatens to upend its source of cheap labor, Uber is pointing to the ways in which it has attempted to diversify — into food and freight delivery, for example — to put a polish on the argument that its drivers are still independent contractors peripheral to its higher mission.