California Governor Signs Labor Law, Setting Up Bitter Gig Economy Fight (bloomberg.com) 168
California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a sweeping new law that could force gig companies like Uber and Lyft to reclassify their workers as employees. From a report: The hotly contested legislation, Assembly Bill 5, dictates that workers can generally only be considered contractors if they are doing work that is outside the usual course of a company's business. The law codifies a 2018 state supreme court ruling, and applies it to a wide range of state laws. It could upend the business models of companies that depend on armies of independent contractors, who aren't guaranteed employment protections like minimum wage and overtime.
The bill is slated to go into effect on Jan. 1. While the legislature has adjourned until next year, fierce lobbying and deal-making efforts are expected to continue in the meantime, and could potentially yield separate legislation in 2020. In a statement, Newsom called the bill "landmark legislation," and said that, "A next step is creating pathways for more workers to form a union, collectively bargain to earn more, and have a stronger voice at work -- all while preserving flexibility and innovation." Lorena Gonzalez, the state assemblywoman who authored the bill, said in a statement that, "California is now setting the global standard for worker protections for other states and countries to follow." Further reading: Drivers? Never Heard of Them, Says Uber.
The bill is slated to go into effect on Jan. 1. While the legislature has adjourned until next year, fierce lobbying and deal-making efforts are expected to continue in the meantime, and could potentially yield separate legislation in 2020. In a statement, Newsom called the bill "landmark legislation," and said that, "A next step is creating pathways for more workers to form a union, collectively bargain to earn more, and have a stronger voice at work -- all while preserving flexibility and innovation." Lorena Gonzalez, the state assemblywoman who authored the bill, said in a statement that, "California is now setting the global standard for worker protections for other states and countries to follow." Further reading: Drivers? Never Heard of Them, Says Uber.
BUT BUT (Score:5, Funny)
But my business plan RELIES on me being able to make my desperate employees work for free. THIS ISN'T FAIR!
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The broadest similes are certainly to be found on the faces of the taxi companies and their unions today
Re:BUT BUT (Score:5, Funny)
Or maybe they have metaphors on their faces?
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The broadest similes are certainly to be found on the faces of the taxi companies and their unions today
Only about a third of ride sharing replaces taxis. More people use Uber/Lyft as an alternative to public transit or renting a car.
I mostly use Lyft when I travel as an alternative to renting a car.
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The broadest similes are certainly to be found on the faces of the taxi companies and their unions today
Here's my simile: the typical medallion taxicab is like a can of sardines that has been left open in the sun for a week.
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Uber, Lyft, every other company similarly affected by this law needs to just pack up anything they own in CA and just stop serving the State at all.
At that point, the voters in the State can decide if they actually preferred the previous situation over the new one. The owners of the companies involved should stop subsidizing the people who are voting for politicians passing laws designed to kill their companies. Otherwise, more and more locations will feel free to try and have their golden goose and eat it,
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Trick might be a better term. Or perhaps bamboozle.
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But.. wouldn't even the dimmest bulb figure out they aren't making money pretty quickly? If I start driving for Uber and in a month I'm not ahead, why would I keep doing it? Why wouldn't people hear my story and stop doing it?
Now, to undermine my own argument people fall for MLM scams to this day, but this isn't really the same thing. You literally get paid at an agreed upon rate. I don't buy it. People make money doing this, and people are willing to do the work for the amount they get paid. All you do by
Re:BUT BUT (Score:4, Informative)
But.. wouldn't even the dimmest bulb figure out they aren't making money pretty quickly? If I start driving for Uber and in a month I'm not ahead, why would I keep doing it?
They're not the sharpest tools in the shed and have poor math skills. I've done the math on several gig jobs, Amazon package delivery, Shipt, Door Dash and a bunch of others. By the time you factor in all the costs, you're making pennies in the aggregate.
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One of my nephews worked for Uber. I think he barely made any money, once you take into account the wear and tear he put on his car. He drove more than 10 hours on some days, he worked pretty hard as I could tell... but now that his car is breaking down all the time, he is back working at Home Depot.
Why did he work for them for so long?
Well, mostly because he felt good 'making' money in the beginning, when his 3 year old Audi was still running fine. And as he was using a much nicer car than his peers, he
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But he chose to do it voluntarily. If he was driving an Audi (which is a very expensive car to maintain), he could've raised his prices or even gone to the Uber Black portion and made even more money.
Your nephew basically didn't have a business plan, started a business, found out it didn't work the way he (hadn't) planned for and (hopefully) quit.
People make bad business decisions all the time, that doesn't mean the government should get involved and protect them from the fallout. If the government and big
Re:BUT BUT (Score:5, Insightful)
You'll be ahead after a month. You'll be ahead for a year. Then you'll get the bill for your now worn out personal vehicle and your bill from the IRS, and then you'll be behind. If you're bad at math or logic you might chalk it up to bad luck and keep driving.
Re:BUT BUT (Score:5, Informative)
There are about three major pitfalls that are not readily apparent:
1) Insurance. Your private car insurance doesn't cover using your car for-hire. Uber offers insurance when you're on the clock. But you're only on the clock when there's a passenger in the vehicle, according to their rules. According to most private insurance, if you're even remotely engaged in for-hire driving, you're not covered. So if you get into an accident on the way to pick someone up, neither insurance will cover that. If you're putting a lot of hours on the road, late nights, in city traffic, you're going to be far more likely to find this out the longer you drive.
2) Depreciation and repairs. Taxi work is going to take years off of your car's life. The longer you drive, the worse condition your car will get in, and it will do that fast. At first it will be fine, especially if it's new. But because you're not a business, you can't write off the depreciation on your taxes. At some point some major repairs are going to pop up, and while those happen you're not making money. If you haven't been saving up specifically for this sort of thing, that's going to suck.
3) Taxes. When tax time comes, you're going to have to pay state, local, and federal taxes, along with social security and medicare/medicade. Hopefully you've also put some money into your retirement fund. And you'll have to figure all of those out, since Uber won't do it for you. I'd put some good money that a very large percent of Uber and Lyft drivers aren't paying all of their taxes.
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But my business plan RELIES on me being able to make my desperate employees work for free. THIS ISN'T FAIR!
Healthcare *cough* *cough* I mean... Corporate Welfare should be a universal right! Won't you heartless people think of the corporations? They're PEOPLE!
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Where did you get that bullshit from?
California unemployment rate dips to record low 4.1 percent in July [ca.gov]
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Hi,
Can you point out where your data to quote an unemployment rate of 23.55 come from. it's seems out of line from the quoted numbers. going to enjoy reading this citation.
Thank you.
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I personally know of a few people who can't hold a job worth a shit. One of them has told me that without Uber, he wouldn't be able to pay his mortgage.
What bank is loaning money to people who can't hold a job?
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how did he manage to get a mortgage???
Re:BUT BUT (Score:4, Interesting)
I can support social safety nets, and payment floors (like a minimum wage). But a blanket restriction against contracting like this is too broad and will lead to inefficiency. I need to go and read through the text of the law now to see if there's an exception for smaller businesses. If not, I'm going to have to convert myself from contractor back to an employee for my dad's business that I run. I am literally the only person running this company. But when I originally paid myself as an employee, I had to update tax rates and unemployment/workers comp insurance rates to the accounting software each year, file taxes every month (companies have to make tax withholdings payments each month), making workers comp payments, preparing paperwork for workers comp audits, appealing workers comp audits (they kept trying to reclassify me as a handyman who physically fixes things, even though all I do is accounting paperwork), etc. All that literally amounted to 25% of my workload. If the company had had multiple employees I could amortize these costs over, then it might have been worth it. But for me alone it was a needless amount of extra work.
I eliminated it all by making myself a contractor. Got my own insurance, and simply cut a check for myself each month. Instead of having to deal with all of the above every month, I just make 4 self-employment tax payments a year, and file a 1099 at the end of the year. It's a little extra work on my 1040, but minimal compared to other complications like owning a home. If there's no exception for small businesses, I'm going to have to turn myself back into an employee and waste a lot of time dealing with all the additional paperwork.
I'm also worried about what this will do to the plumbing company I use for our business. Theirs seems to be an industry where they regularly contract out work to each other. If I call my plumber for an emergency and his pumpout truck is already booked for the day with other jobs, he'll call around to his friends in the business to find one who has a free truck. That guy will come over and do the plumbing work, I pay my regular guy like usual (I don't have to give my credit card info to a stranger, don't have to add a new entry into the vendor list in the accounting software that will only ever be used once), and they work out the payment between themselves. If a problem with the service crops up the next day, I talk to my guy whom I've worked with for years, instead of some guy I just met for the first time yesterday.
But yeah, go ahead, justify this law based on a worst-case corner case while ignoring all the other ramifications it'll have on legitimate businesses and areas where it'll increase cost and inefficiency.
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Look into incorporating yourself....I chose the subchapter-S corp, it has a lot of benefits, like saving your a LOT on your employment taxes (SS and medicare).
With this, you can do corp-to-corp 1099 contracting work much easier and it keeps things in contractor vs employee mode.
Give this a
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That appears to be what you are doing.
I think your contractor status is BS (you should be an employee), and I doubt the law will affect the plumbers you use.
Re:BUT BUT (Score:5, Informative)
More to the point, my business plan RELIES on my not being covered by laws my competitors must abide by.
minimum wage? overtime? (Score:3, Informative)
In the realms of construction management and IT contracting I've done the pay was substantially above a normal employees, more than twice as much. Overtime? all time was billable plus expenses.
Get some skills, contracting was great.
Don't contract for grunt work like toilet scrubbing or driving your own car
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I think they got the exact wrong here, And should instead test the nature of the Contractor --- such as the person must do work requiring uncommon or specialized knowledge or skills or intellectual capabilities requiring special licensing or certification for their counterparty (Merely driving a car, common housekeeping tasks, or unskilled labor don't cut it), as the relation to the work to whatever the employer's regular business should be irrelevent. An industrial facility may have equipment const
Re: minimum wage? overtime? (Score:2)
Sometimes you need extra help for big projects that you just don't have the staff for to complete in a timely manner, and once the project is done, your budget just won't be able to accommodate that extra labor that will also probably be spending most of its time idle.
This is a very common scenario for datacenter work. The extra staff you hire don't have any skills that your existing staff don't, but now and again you'll find that you need to replace a lot of equipment all at once.
Contractors make huge buck
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Using the electrician example, I disagree to a level; an industrial facility should have staff electricians to address regular work activities in the facility. Specialized activities (say maintenance of medium voltage equipment, specialized testing, or specialized systems) may warrant independent contractors, but much of the general work should really be employees.
But, that doesn't happen because it isn't good for the IBEW.
They're not (Score:5, Insightful)
And you act like they have a choice. If everybody could just "get some skills" because they wanted to we'd all be Einsteins. First, it's a fact that older people learn slower. Second, it's kinda hard to go back to school full time when you're busy taking care of the family you had before your job got out sourced by NAFTA and Normalized Trade Relations with China. And that's before we talk about the 70% of manufacturing jobs automated or eliminated by efficiency gains. And I don't just mean widget makers. I can't tell you how many mechanical engineers I know who can't find work in their major. I do IT and a ton of my coworkers have ME degrees. There just aren't enough factories that need designing in the states to employ them, despite it being a STEM field.
And what about the people who do "get some skills". You do realize that they're not competing with _you_, right? The very same contracts you're gunning for they're now after. That will drive down your wages.
A Rising Tide does not lift all boats, it swamps all but the largest vessels.
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You are tilting at windmills. This is reality. People with low skills make and always will make less money. You people have water running out of your hands and your solution is always to squeeze harder.
This is just California picking winners and losers.
Winners: Taxi drivers
Losers: 60% of uber/lyft drivers out of work. Customers (higher prices, fewer options). 100% of uber/lyft/taxi drivers when this type of thing slightly accelerates autonomous driving.
Neutral: 40% of remaining Uber/Lyft drivers - more bene
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older people learn slower? yeah maybe we do but I'm still keeping up with the bleeding edge tech at well over half a century old.
Hah, more people will drive down wages? No, people create wealth when they work, and create more wealth doing highly valued work. If we had more people the size of the pie grows, what is happening all over the globe especially in asia with growth of middle class proves rising tide exists, no matter what bullshit your champagne socialist professor spewed while half-toked.
yeah, p
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Get some skills
What's your end game here? Having to scrub your own toilet because rather than giving jobs you don't want to do a minimum wage you instead upkill everyone and give yourself the competition?
Or are you victim blaming those people who are unable to upskill themselves? Honestly I'm not sure if you simply haven't thought this through or are genuinely a bad person.
Piecework. (Score:5, Insightful)
As a labor unionist of my acquaintance recently commented: "Gig economy? We used to call that "piecework" - and considered it a crime against workers."
Re:Piecework. (Score:5, Insightful)
Read up on the previous abuse of piecework. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
When in doubt about any sort of "why do we have to have a law about this?" the answer is almost always "because some rich asshole abused this and fucked over a bunch of people, so we decided not to let the fucker do that anymore." Maybe start blaming the assholes, instead of the victims, when we have to make laws like this.
Re:Piecework. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck "personal responsibility." It's a con, because "personal responsibility for YOU" means "no accountability for ME." The rich get to profit from systemic injustice, while claiming anyone and everyone could be like them, if only they tried harder. Ever hear of emergent properties? How about externalities? Here's a free clue for you: not every cost or benefit is correctly calculated in any given free market transaction, and a certain class of people know how to use that fact to enrich themselves by screwing you over, in a way that "the market" says is fair. But guess what? Those asshole invented the rules of "the market" and change them whenever they would profit by doing so. It's not fair,but thankfully we have a tried and true process for correcting unfairness: democracy. We can change our laws, and hold the corrupt accountable. And we will.
We may be in a gilded age now where the rich enjoy taxpayer funded social programs and no "personal responsibility" while the poor have only cut throat capitalism and any unfairness or inequality is chalked up to "not trying hard enough." But we have been in the same position before, historically. And we, the people, have always reined in the excesses of the owning class, in the end. We will do so again, never fear.
In short, the continuing cry of "personal responsibility" ALWAYS comes from people who have never had to face real consequences for their actions. It's just an excuse for being a fucking sociopath.
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Re:Piecework. (Score:5, Interesting)
There's nothing wrong with gig/piecework if that's actually what the person WANTS to do and what the person ends up doing. But that wasn't really where the whole model was heading and everyone involved any planning at Uber and Lyft knew that.
The original assumption was that Uber and Lyft would provide a platform for people to charge one-another for one-off rides. That's why they started and continue to use the term "rideshare" not "taxi" when describing their business. Uber/Lyft initially co-opted the term "rideshare" which has been used for DECADES in transportation policy and even federal law to refer to carpooling, vanpooling, and even transit use.
Aside: John Zimmer (one of the founders of Lyft), knew what he was doing in using the term "rideshare" because he developed a rideshare (carpool-matching) platform called "ZimRide" that's still used by numerous employers around the US today. He sold ZimRide to Enterprise (ya, the car rental guys) to start Lyft.
Uber and Lyft quickly discovered that people were willing to be taxi drivers if they got paid enough. So they kept calling these obvious taxi rides "rideshare" to get around livery driver laws and, in 2016, began to facilitate and even encourage tipping. **THIS** is where they knew there were losing their "gig" status and becoming a "job".
And then the risk and liability started ramping up, so Uber and Lyft had to have more and more oversight regarding who drove for them, the conditions of their vehicles, and how passengers were being selected. (No, you're not allowed to only pick up white people...) So given that Uber/Lyft can decide if YOU are good enough to drive for them, if your VEHICLE is good enough to be driven for them, and you can't choose WHO you give a ride, it sure sounds like they're the boss and you are an employee.
Those kinds of restrictions are supposed to come with some very specific benefits, but if these drivers continue to be classified as "contractors", they don't get those benefits.
Re:Piecework. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh sure, workers uniting together and using democracy to enact laws protecting themselves is "distorting the market artificially" but all the shit the owning class does to distort the market like "capturing the market," "regulatory capture," "blacklisting," "firing workers for organizing," and "conspiring with other rich assholes to depress wages" are just smart business, right? Yeah, fuck your situational libertarianism, because, funny fucking thing, it always tends to come down to "How can the rich fuck over the workers?" It's just more bog standard right wing pro-corporate, pro ruling class bullshit, packaged with another name.
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Oh sure, workers uniting together and using democracy to enact laws protecting themselves is "distorting the market artificially" but all the shit the owning class does to distort the market like "capturing the market," "regulatory capture," "blacklisting," "firing workers for organizing," and "conspiring with other rich assholes to depress wages" are just smart business, right?
I don't know about anyone else but I think regulatory capture and legally-enforced monopolies are bullshit too. A pox on both behaviors.
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The work is the work.
If its a full-time job they deserve a living wage, and I will spend my efforts fighting for that every single day. Its a shame really that you hate your fellow man so much.
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"Living wage", lol. A living wage is one where you can afford 2k calories and a roof over your head. It's not "I want to live in San Francisco so I need $60k a year minimum!". All minimum wage does is speed up automation, increase prices, and price more people out of the labor market. But..it makes you feel good, like a "man of the people" so I guess it's not all bad, lol.
Controversially, for a fairly right leaning fellow, I think we are going to need a UBI or bigger welfare system (both essentially the sam
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I concur, and from an efficiency standpoint a) we can do it, and b) we should do it. Make-work is no good for anyone unless there's no other way to put food on the table and a roof over your head.
While there will definitely be deadbeats, I can see a chunk of the population working on making life better for everyone just because they're bored. Garden the neighborhood, run a free day-care, go to the park and play music all day, neighborhood theater group, volunteer at the pet shelter or the hospital or the ol
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The work is the work. You are paid based on how badly the work needs done and how many people can do the work, that's it. Not based on how much money you need, what a "living wage", nothing else.
That is a very myopic view of economics which, at its core, is a social framework. It just happens to be about trading labor and goods. Any kingdom, country, whatever is going to be evaluated on how well the citizens fare under the rules. An economy is not for the purpose of ideology, it's supposed to serve a country which is comprised of people. We tend to forget this. We are all people. We're supposed to working together not drawing lines in the sand demonizing each other. While we do that, other c
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Part of the problem is you lot focus on "inequality" which is a meaningless metric. I am not any better or worse off of my filthy rich neighbor makes another $1B or loses all his money in the stock market. It's all fake but it's something people like you use to rile the rabble.
The only real metric is the standard of living. People trot out this "wages haven't kept up!" nonsense, but every segment of America is better off than they were 50 years ago, rich or poor. A poor person in America is better off than
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Part of the problem is you lot focus on "inequality" which is a meaningless metric..
I didn't say shit about inequality. I didn't say a fucking thing about the government's job being to create equality of outcomes. You assume you're talking to a liberal and you're not you pompous asshole. Go fuck yourself.
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You assume you're talking to a liberal and you're not you pompous asshole.
You can virtue signal your conservative views.
Pretty rich coming from someone who said that to me, when I'm not really conservative either outside of a handful of issues.
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For example, the ideology that every full time job deserves to be paid a "living wage", even if the job does not create enough value to pay for it. And the ideology that money grows on trees and handing it out for free can be paid for by ... just printing more money.
Go pray at your stupid ass church. There's ideology for you. Wrap everyone up in snakes. That'll work better. Seriously, screw you ignoramuses.
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Coming up next (Score:2, Troll)
California unemployment increases, more people go on welfare, already crazy taxes go up even further. Brilliant!
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Unemployment increases because companies take advantage of this nonsense 'gig economy' to have full time (often much more than full time) workers with no benefits, overtime, or even livable wages.
The money's there, it's just going into the pockets of the wealthy currently...and most 'fixes' I agree wind up disproportionately hurting the working/middle class. This seems to be a bit less bad tho
The majority aren't gigging full-time (Score:2)
I went looking and found that the vast majority of Uber driver drive fewer than 35 hours per week [ride.guru]. Anecdotally, I've not been in a Lyft or Uber car with someone who does it full time; it's supplemental income, with some only driving during surge pricing.
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What stupidity. Right now Uber and Lyft are simply money loss engines funneling money from VCs into the hands of people who want rides. That's 100% all they are. Nobody is "lining their pockets" or even close to it. Uber/Lyft are a subsidy from VCs to the general public.
Uber and Lyft can't make money now, if this sort of stupidity caught on then they would be out of business. Now those poor, downtrodden workers lost a source of income and we, the public, pay for shitty taxi service.
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Nobody is "lining their pockets" or even close to it.
There are some executives [businessinsider.com] at Uber that seem to be at least "close to it". I'd accept half of what they're being paid to lose that kind of money.
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California unemployment increases, more people go on welfare,we have to hire more CA Government workers to handle the increased case load, more union dues collected by these workers, more donations from those dues to our current Sacramento rulers, already crazy taxes go up even further, and we stay in power even longer. Brilliant!
FTFY...
I like this! (Score:4, Interesting)
Time will tell and all we need to do is watch California.
Just my 2 cents
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Excellent. Congratulations. (Score:2)
I wish we had more such politicians over here in Europe, too, after 'Labour' and 'Social Democrat' parties all over Europe have been cutting down on social systems and on workers' rights for decades, have stopped taxing the rich and produced millions of working poor – and now are gasping and screaming over an unprecedented (for post-war times) rise of right-wing extremists inside and outside of parliaments, while they themselves are becoming less and less visible with each new election.
Re:Excellent. Congratulations. (Score:5, Informative)
What odd piece of EU to you live in? Most of Europe has FAR better benefits and social welfare than the USA.
USA: zero parental leave. zero mandatory vacation. minimum wage is below poverty line. Neutered overtime laws. Ridiculous healthcare that's anything but universal and anything but affordable.
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It's all perspective. They see the cuts to their social programs as leaving their social safety net in shambles. But those shambles outshine US's social safety net like a lighthouse being compared to a flashlight.
To them, austerity cuts to ensure the long-term viability of the safety net are an atrocity. "Just make it work!"
To us, getting guaranteed sick time and vacation time in the US for all employees would be a socialist revolution. "Don't shove your socialism down our throats... our very soar throats.
I want to see this for tech "contractors" (Score:5, Interesting)
This became common practice in the tech world in the 90s when healthcare was cheaper and jobs were plentiful (making unemployment insurance superfluous). Now in 2019 us tech workers are sorely missing the benefits of full time employment. These tricks also let companies do mass layoffs without triggering various legal protections and severance package rules.
This bites _all_ of us in the ass because it means tons of desperate tech workers who have to take the first job that comes along for the lowest pay offered just to keep a roof over their heads. That desperation drives down the wages of everybody reading this. We stand together or we get cut down one by one.
Re:I want to see this for tech "contractors" (Score:5, Interesting)
This became common practice in the tech world in the 90s when healthcare was cheaper and jobs were plentiful (making unemployment insurance superfluous). Now in 2019 us tech workers are sorely missing the benefits of full time employment. These tricks also let companies do mass layoffs without triggering various legal protections and severance package rules.
And California brought the smackdown back in the 90s, too. I know, I was there. For a while, it seemed like the decent-paying tech contract gigs dried up. But it was worth it, and we now have a labor market that's fairer to the workers.
Posters here are acting like this bill makes commerce illegal -- and they would, because /. has always been a libertarian snake pit. But they need to look at the actual case that the bill addresses, not some theoretical fantasy. Nothing in this bill is going to stop me from hiring the kid down the street to rake my lawn. What we're talking about are a couple of very, VERY rich corporations who rely on what are probably hundreds of thousands of workers in the state, who currently are not being given the assurances and protections of California labor law.
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Laugh it up fuzzball (Score:2)
Because us tech workers have it better than Uber drivers we forget that there's a venture capitalist out
Oh, and two Lucas references in one post (Score:2)
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If I see someone getting robbed at gunpoint, I don't ask them which one is richer to decide who is wrong.
I'm not asking for anyone with guns, aka the govt, to step in and help Uber - only get out of the way. You're asking for someone to please, come save you Obie-Wan you're my only hope. To me that's not really that subtle a distinction, are you really confused by it?
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I've seen jobs where the recruiter will flat out tell you that you'll get fired in 12-18 months...
I don't know about you but I see a world of difference between "Bob, you're fired." and not renewing a contract when the contract term (which everyone knew about up front) is up.
Specifically, everyone I knew who worked contract knew that was part of the deal: I get higher compensation, worse benefits, and new opportunities every six months, but I need to find a new gig every six months.
You know what I find distressing about AB5? It's very clearly not about "protecting workers". It's about using the politica
Who cares about UBER (Score:2, Troll)
Doesn't really make sense. (Score:3)
At my company, we hire contractors for temporary work, when we need someone for a specific task and we don't want to go through the whole hiring/firing process. Contractors do the same work as regular employees but get paid twice as much and have no job security beyond the end of the contract. The tradeoff seems fair to me.
Classifying them as employees will make them less valuable to the company, it will make the company less flexible, and it will put today's employees at greater risk when the next layoff comes. This won't end well.
Re:Doesn't really make sense. (Score:5, Informative)
The key part is your company is hiring these people for a specific job for a specific amount of time. Everyone knows the person was brought in for a limited stint.
Contrast that with the Uber and Lyft taxi companies who hire people for an indefinite amount of time, who direct their job duties, who lay out other manners of how the work is performed, yet claim they're only contractors.
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What part of "hired" are you not getting here? They can work 0 hours or 80 hours a week completely on their own schedule. They don't have to give notice to quit, they are unsupervised.
The hours thing is what's going to screw CA. Hard to argue that someone is an employee when they can not show up to work for 2 months, stroll into work for one hour at 11pm on a Friday, then skip a few weeks, etc... Uber and Lyft are going to fight this and there's a good chance they'll win. If not, it's such an existential ch
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Contrast that with the Uber and Lyft taxi companies who hire people for an indefinite amount of time, who direct their job duties, who lay out other manners of how the work is performed, yet claim they're only contractors.
What are you talking about? A gig driver is brought in for one ride at a time. They can work or not at their sole choice. They can talk or keep silent. They can drive fast or slowly, like a granny or like a NY taxi driver. They might get poor reviews and not be re-hired if the experience is unpleasant but the gig companies aren't telling what to choose, only the consequences of their choices.
Sounds pretty independent to me. More independent than my job, that's for sure.
Solved the problem by removing the choice (Score:3)
Government is trying to solve the problem by removing personal choice. Many gig job workers already have regular jobs; they can take advantage of a side hustle because they control the hours they can devote to it. If Uber drivers wanted a second job as a cab driver, they'd have been cab drivers. But the gig model allows for extreme flexibility: not only do you choose the days that you work, but you can also decide not to drive on a ride-by-ride basis. Assuming the ridesharing companies adjust to the employee model, they're going to upgrade their highest-hour drivers only. There are going to be a lot of occasional drivers without a side hustle, along with a lot of riders without a driver.
To "protect" gig workers, the government makes the option disappear. "See, because you can't drive for Uber on Saturday nights anymore, you're not being punished with that extra cash you used to earn!"
Not that simple (Score:2)
The same as when a non-gig worker drives into you (Score:2)
You want to get paid extra because they have an app?
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Umm, the court system the same as you do when a taxi driver or anyone else runs into you. What are you even talking about?
Some uninsured/underinsured clown is running rampant on the roads for more hours than they otherwise would be, and driving in more of a rush than they otherwise would be, at odd hours, and in unfamiliar areas. If they don't kill you you get awarded a judgment for $50,000, but you'll never collect it because they're broke idiots who thought driving for Uber / Lyft was financially viable.
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Crime, Inc. (Score:2)
Forming corporations for the purpose of subverting laws under the guise of technology was a bad idea. That, in part, was why I had no interest in these companies when they IPO'd. I didn't want shares in Crime, Inc. because you just had to figure the shit would hit the fan at some point. Also, a lot of these companies are bleeding money like a stuck pig anyway. How do you lose money exploiting labor? I dunno. These guys must be stupid like foxes. The ones who actually run the hen-house know what they'
You spelled BETTER Gig Economy wrong (Score:2)
If you want to start a sweatshop, do it in Pakistan or some other country, not America
gig economy (Score:2)
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Would love to see the gig economy's just pull out of CA... See how that works out.
They'd give up on the most populous state with a lot of disposable income? Are all the red states going to keep them afloat? I think there are a lot more dollars to be made by complying with the law and operating in Los Angeles and the Bay Area than relying on Alabama, Mississippi, and New Hampshire to keep them afloat. California has a lot of well-earned influence...a large population and 15% of the nation's GDP....greater than nearly all of the red states combined.
Bravo for California?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
I hate to say it, but California is actually trying out some interesting legislation.
First, most of theses gig workers are obviously employees and not independent contractors if you look at the case law, but "case law" means you have to read appellate court opinions and follow the logic over what can be years of opinions. Black letter law is generally easier for the public to grasp and understand, so this really just benefits the public, and has the added benefit of preventing an appellate court in the future from tossing aside precedent and deciding that people doing their jobs exactly the way a company tells them to are not really employees after all.
Second, anxiously awaiting whether the California governor will sign the the Fair Pay for Play Act which allows college athletes to make money from their own likenesses. It just totally pisses me off that the students in the marching band can get scholarships from their music departments/schools/colleges and still go out and make as much money as they want from music lessons, concerts, or anything, really, while the athletes cannot. I am really looking forward to multi-billion dollar "nonprofits" being exposed for what they are.
Now, if someone will just do something about non-compete clauses in employment agreements.
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Except when you don't eat or have a place to live if you don't "associate", you're not really freely associating. "Do this or starve" is really not too much different than putting a gun to someone's head.
If people were guaranteed the necessities of life no matter what, I would agree that then one party doesn't hold all the cards, and we should let people do as they will, and if they want to work for a penny an hour—well, they still get to eat. But when that's not the case, it's not really free associa
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JFC....
I mean "really"? When in the course of human history EVERY have people been guaranteed the necessities of life....when has ANY human since time began been guaranteed of anything?
Never
This is the US. We are a nation of individua
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The welfare state is hardly a new concept. It was done literally millennia ago [springer.com]. And many times since then. Many countries in Europe currently use it. So, yes, life can and has worked that way, in the course of human history.
Most (perhaps all?) Scandinavian countries currently use such a model, as do some others in Europe. They are doing fine. As to some people not wanting it...well, tough, taxes aren't optional. The
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I personally don't wanna pay 45-55% or greater of MY hard earned money in taxes to pay for that shit.
Again, I don't mind a safety net for the infirmed, or elderly, but anyone that is able bodied and can work....let them do it.
And if they fscked around in school and didn't learn or apply themselves, and now have to take jobs that teens and college students should be doing...rather than a "real job" li
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I might actually buy that if we nullify corporate charters and any grants of right-of-way to non-government entities.
Of course, that might require government entities to avoid tearing down the power grid and natural gas services and much of our telecommunications infrastructure.
But even if we start that process today, it will take long enough to smoothly transition that we'll need regulations for now (sunset them when the above is accomplished if you like).
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I might actually buy that if we nullify corporate charters and any grants of right-of-way to non-government entities.
I was wondering when someone would bring up corporate charters, because they're an example of business owners wanting to eat their cake and have it too.
It seems to me that if the government gives someone an "artificial person" that they can load all of their business debt onto, thus avoiding personal liability/responsibility while still collecting the gains, then that government can also hav
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Beyond that, Smith's observations and thesis that market forces will maximize overall wealth depend on buyer and seller being within an order of magnitude or so in economic power. Multi billion dollar companies vs. sub million dollar consumers and employees make for a broken market.
In fact, he warned that corporate charters should be granted very sparingly only when there is no other option and the grantee should be held to that charter and regulated closely.
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When in the course of human history EVERY have people been guaranteed the necessities of life....when has ANY human since time began been guaranteed of anything?
When we fight for them, not a crazy concept.
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Yes, we have an epidemic of starving people in this country! Think of their poor bellies, distended from hunger as they pitifully pull themselves up from sleeping under a bridge!
Wait, what's that you say? That belly is distended from blubber from eating too much, _not_ from hunger? Wait, the only truly chronically homeless people in this country are mentally ill or drug addicted? You mean anyone can get at least a roof over their head and 2k calories a day in this country, even anyone who manages to get on
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We already live in a society where you don't need to worry about getting food or shelter, so your precondition is met.
Tell that to the homeless in my city
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I'd prefer a guarantee on essentials rather than "safeguards". Safeguards -- especially this one -- tends to be overly broad and harm (or disallow) cases where both sides DO both benefit. Most Uber/Lyft drivers, I imagine, are glad they can drive for money without owning a Taxi license. And would likely not be working otherwise.
This law pretty much guarantees a good portion of them will become jobless.
I agree with the notion that if the money is there, use it to provide basic necessities. But that's the fun
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Sure. Fortunately, us humans and our big brains can move things away from those "nasty, brutish and short" defaults. Infections used to mean death or amputation, now you take some pills. It used to take months on a dangerous voyage to go to another continent, now you can do it in comfort, safety, and less than a day. We've made many things better than what "the universe" handed out.
It always astonishes me that pe
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Can we take care of the Typhoid and homeless issues next?
Our state will just give them bus tickets to California.
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"California is now setting the global standard for worker protections for other states and countries to follow."
Maybe Lorena Gonzalez, the state assemblywoman who authored the bill, might want to take a look how this works in other countries of the world, instead of deciding a priori that just because it came out of California, it must be better than anything else in other countries in the world.
I'm American, but live in Europe. I've seen a look of different systems that work for some countries, and different ones for different countries. But a "global standard for worker protections" defined in California . . . i
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"Typhoid and homeless issues next?"
It's Typhus and California's tent cities and programs that encouraged their creation were an epic fail. Police officers have to pressure wash feces, urine and used hypodermic needles off the streets. California, as a state, is absolutely terribly managed and I hope they eventually secede from the union. This problem of lack of union representation and good jobs availability is a legit problem for all 50 states though.