Uber Judge Balks at Making Drivers Employees, for Now (1)

Uber Technologies Inc. beat back an aggressive bid to force it to treat California drivers as employees, but a judge’s ruling may allow a long-running fight over pay and benefits to gain traction in 2020.

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen declined Monday to order Uber to instantly convert drivers in its home state from contractors to employees based on an argument that it’s cheating not just workers but also the public at large.

But the San Francisco judge also refused to throw out the case, an early test of a California law aimed at gig economy companies that’s set ...