You can bet your bottom dollar that as employees drivers will be afforded no freedom to double dip. The only reason they are able to at the moment is because companies held back on initiatives that they feared would classify drivers into employees. Now they will have no such fear and gig work will be strictly controlled. Prices will go up simply due to the loss of efficiency from multiplexing gain that gig work provided the economy. California never fails to take every opportunity to reduce market efficiency.

Prices up, sorry consumers. total earnings down, sorry full time drivers. hourly earnings up, yay part time drivers.

Why hire part-time drivers at all? The marginal costs don't make sense if they can't get all the hours they can.

Mmm I think you get the best of all worlds (as the hiring company) with part timers.

- <30 hours/week so no benefits - you can only work in these hours - take it or leave it cause we now can remove your ability to work for any other times

No marginal costs outside the min wage (no benefits) and honestly you don’t want more hours unless they are explicitly in the time and place you want them.

I don’t think it’s that simple. What is considered “work hours”? I assume it’s whenever the app is turned on and you are looking for fares, not just when you have someone in your car.

I think a lot of drivers who use both have both apps turned on simultaneously? This would probably mean that you’d only be able turn on one at a time, which might mean fewer trips per hour.

Another interesting consequence is potential to introduce stricter employment contracts that might say you can’t drive for a competitor...

If they have to be paid minimum wage I think uber will be playing a much more direct role in setting their work hours, not just whenever the app is turned on. They probably can't prevent them from taking a second job but they can prevent them from doing their second job when they're on the clock of the first. This actually solves a common complaint lately of drivers cancelling one ride while they pick up someone on another service.

> Another interesting consequence is potential to introduce stricter employment contracts that might say you can’t drive for a competitor...

This aspect is good for uber, there are many ride sharing apps now and drivers will flick between them and uber has zero competitive advantage. As private contractors they're free to recommend others to clients and this will go away. Bootstrapping competitors will be much harder.

> They probably can't prevent them from taking a second job

They absolutely can and they probably will. You can put almost anything you want in an employment contract, and agreeing not to work for a competitor is an extremely common clause.

Not in California can they do that (non compete clauses are not enforceable in California).

I am aware, but I don't believe California's prohibition on non-competition clauses covers the scenario where you're still employed by the company.

It depends if they are exempt or not. If non exempt, then no.