I wrote about Uber and Lyft's options in California now that a court ruling forces them to reclassify drivers as employees (1) https://onezero.medium.com/a-new-franchise-model-could-help-uber-and-lyft-but-not-their-drivers-c45e644a553

Yes, there's "stop operating and protest" but if they lose their challenge to the ruling and their ballot measure, eventually they'll need a longer-term strategy. One they've floated is a franchise model (2)

But franchises can be another part of what @profsheena calls the "fissured workplace" - a way for companies to have it both ways,"creating, monitoring, and enforcing standards central to business strategy while at the same time ducking responsibility for the social consequences”

FedEx made a similar move to what Uber/Lyft have said they will consider when facing the mandate of treating workers as employees. @veenadubal wrote a fascinating case study of how that worked out for workers: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3064222 (4)

The tldr: Not great — "As small business people, they are not properly remunerated for their work, nor are they able to provide secure employment for those who they hire." (5)

Essentially Uber/Lyft would be trading one system of offloading responsibility for workers for another (which could also face legal challenges if they exert too much control btw ... so this doesn't necessarily solve the problem from the companies' perspective either) (6)

There are other options! And existing ride-hailing companies that are already using them! (7)

Read more in the article: https://onezero.medium.com/a-new-franchise-model-could-help-uber-and-lyft-but-not-their-drivers-c45e644a553