Santa Clara, CA: Ride share platform Uber, is facing another employment class action lawsuit alleging violations of California labor law. Filed by Uber drivers, the proposed action claims that Uber continues to misclassify its drivers as independent contractors, which has resulted in wage and hour violations, including Uber’s failure to provide accurate wage statements, and failure to timely pay wages due at termination.
Further, the suit claims that Uber’s attempts to change the nature of the financial arrangement it maintains with its drivers pursuant to prior class action lawsuits against the company, have resulted in a new fraudulent fare pricing scheme, wherein Uber drivers’ fares are are different from those provided to customers.
According to the suit, in September 2016 in California, Uber implemented its new ‘upfront’ pricing system, which calculates the passenger’s total fare before a driver begins providing transportation services. Uber’s software also calculates the appropriate route for the driver and compensates the driver’s fee per ‘mile and minute’ configurations.
Consequently, the new upfront pricing model has resulted in drivers and users receiving different route configurations, with end users often being provided longer routes in the calculation of its fee than the route used to calculate the driver’s pay.
Upon conclusion of the transportation, the Uber Defendants collect the upfront rate from the User based on the longer route and time calculations but do not transmit the full fare collected to the drivers. Instead, Uber often transmits or provides the drivers with a fee based on a reduced fare amount. Uber retains the difference in the fare charged to the User and the fare reported to the driver, in addition to the service fee and booking fee disclosed to drivers.
