Heena Sharma Blog

Uber Technologies Inc . faces a new legal attack on its refusal to treat drivers as employees that depicts the company as mistreating not just them but the public at large. A lawyer who’s been fighting the ride-hailing giant in court for six years wants a judge to now take into account the extra costs saddled on California taxpayers by Uber’s business model. Drivers being cheated out of wages and not being reimbursed for expenses causes California to lose out on payroll taxes, attorney Shannon Liss-Riordan said in an interview. Uber also avoids paying premiums for workers compensation, social security, unemployment and disability insurance, and public assistance for drivers who can’t support themselves, she said. The company has warned that attempts to convert its drivers from independent contractors to employees under California’s recently passed AB 5 law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, will be handled as they always have: by its armies of lawyers in courtroom combat. For g...

Uber Technologies Inc. envisions taking to the skies with a fleet of food-delivery drones in as little as three years, an ambitious timeline for a ride-hailing company that would face numerous technical challenges and regulatory hurdles. The San Francisco company is seeking an operations executive who can help make delivery drones functional as soon as next year and commercially operational in multiple markets by 2021, according to a job posting that appeared on Uber’s website. App-reliant Uber has limited experience developing hardware beyond its nascent electric scooters and its equipment for self-driving vehicles, an as-yet unproven technology. The drone executive will “enable safe, legal, efficient and scalable flight operations,” according to the job listing, which refers to UberExpress, an internal name used for the drone delivery operation within its UberEats prepared-food delivery unit. After an inquiry from The Wall Street Journal, Uber removed the job list...