San Francisco, CAA proposed class action wage and hour lawsuit by a former UberX driver is accusing the San Francisco-based company of failing to pay its drivers overtime. While plaintiff Jaswinder Singh hails from New Jersey, which is where the lawsuit was filed, the proposed class action becomes a California Wage and Hour lawsuit by default, by virtue of the California headquarters for Uber, and a proposed class action that could potentially benefit drivers from the Golden State.
The proposed wage and hour class action would include class members who drove for both Uber, and UberX, identified as the lower-cost division of Uber.
In his wage and hour lawsuit, Singh identifies himself as serving as a driver for UberX from August 18, 2014 through to September 21, 2015 - a period of just over a year. Singh identifies himself as an employee of Uber, not an independent contractor.
The plaintiff holds that for the 13 months he worked for UberX, he was required to bear most of the expenses involved including, but not limited to the costs for fuel, road tolls, his mobile phone (the lifeblood of an Uber driver), and other expenses for which Singh claims he should have been reimbursed.
Singh also holds that he worked, on a consistent basis, at least 60 hours each week, but received no overtime for any hours worked beyond 40 hours per week as required under state law.
At the heart of the wage and hour lawsuit is whether, or not Uber and UberX drivers are employees, or independent contractors. Previous wage and hour lawsuits filed in Massachusetts and California were recently settled for up to $300 million. Uber, following the settlement, noted that Uber drivers in California and Massachusetts would remain independent contractors. There were no references to Uber and UberX drivers in other states.
Uber has previously held that drivers are independent contractors and not employees, who sign on as Uber drivers and are connected to patrons and fares using the Uber app, ferrying their fares around in their own vehicles.
Plaintiffs, however, note that Uber controls much of the process and experience for the fare, with the Uber driver having little say in that process. The latter, say plaintiffs, detracts from the usual definition of an independent contractor which provides a service to a client based upon an agreed-to set of parameters for service, but with the contractor remaining completely autonomous in the delivery of that service.
Plaintiffs in California Wage and Hour lawsuits and those in other states hold that Uber and UberX drivers are, in actual fact non-exempt employees of Uber and thus, should qualify for overtime and other benefits as entrenched in state laws.
The proposed wage and hour class action lawsuit is Singh v. Uber Technologies, Inc. case No. 3:2016-cv-03044.