"Uber will pay $100 million to settle the biggest legal threat to its business"

From Quartz:

Uber is paying up to $100 million to settle class action lawsuits in California and Massachusetts. Drivers in those states will remain independent contractors rather than becoming employees.

The settlement is pending approval by US district court judge Edward Chen. A hearing could happen as soon as June 2, according to court documents.

Uber has spent the last two and a half years embroiled in a major legal battle over its business model. The company considers its drivers to be independent contractors, but many of those drivers believe they were treated more like employees. Uber drivers were granted class-action status in the case by a federal judge in California last September.

The distinction is critical for both Uber and its drivers. Hiring workers as contractors instead of employees is estimated to save companies as much as 30% on labor costs, because independent contractors aren’t entitled to the same safety nets as traditional employees—i.e., benefits such as health insurance and minimum wage protection. They’re also responsible for paying their own business expenses. For Uber drivers, these include gas and car maintenance, which really add up.

The $100 million settlement is big—especially for a startup that burns money like Uber does. For the first three quarters of 2015, Uber lost $1.7 billion on $1.2 billion revenue, Bloomberg reported. But forcing the company to reclassify its workers as employees would also have been expensive, and would have ended the Uber model as we know it. 

Under the deal reached between Uber and the plaintiffs, Uber is paying a guaranteed $84 million to drivers in those states, according to a statement emailed by Shannon Liss-Riordan, the lawyer representing drivers, late on April 21. While the class size was never precisely specified, in California alone it could have covered as many as 160,000 people. Uber will hand over another $16 million should it go public and, within a year of its IPO, multiply its valuation 1.5 times from the $62.5 billion figure that was set during its December 2015 financing....MORE

Previously:
Lyft, Drivers Settle One of Many Employee Classification Lawsuits
As Three More New Economy Companies Are Sued For Employee Misclassification, Uber Thinks It Has the Golden Ticket
Lawyer in Uber Class Action Says They Want to Take the Case National
California Labor Commission Rules Uber Drivers Are Employees, NOT Independent Contractors
Uber: Judge Certifies Class Action Status For California Drivers
Meet the Lawyer Taking on Uber and the Rest Of the On-demand Economy