Massachusetts Bills Would Set a Minimum Wage For Rideshare Drivers (engadget.com) 148
New bills in the state House and Senate would not only pursue collective bargaining rights across companies, as with past measures, but would guarantee a minimum wage, paid sick leave and other benefits. Companies like Uber and Lyft would also have to cover some driver expenses and pour money into the government's unemployment insurance system. Engadget reports: The new legislation wouldn't decide whether drivers are employees or independent contractors. However, Senate bill co-sponsor Jason Lewis told the State House News Service his bill would establish requirements that apply regardless of a driver's status. Previous bills would have tasked workers with negotiating for benefits that are now included, Lewis says.
In a statement, the Service Employees International Union (a bill proponent) says the bill "rewrites the rules" and gives condition drivers have sought for over a decade. The Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, an industry-run organization that opposes the legislation, previously claimed that measures granting employee status don't reflect a "vast majority" of drivers that want to remain contractors. The coalition prefers bills that would bring the anti-employee ballot proposal to the legislature as well as create portable benefit accounts.
In a statement, the Service Employees International Union (a bill proponent) says the bill "rewrites the rules" and gives condition drivers have sought for over a decade. The Massachusetts Coalition for Independent Work, an industry-run organization that opposes the legislation, previously claimed that measures granting employee status don't reflect a "vast majority" of drivers that want to remain contractors. The coalition prefers bills that would bring the anti-employee ballot proposal to the legislature as well as create portable benefit accounts.
Good (Score:2, Insightful)
Workers need to realize that we're all in this together. If they're doing something nasty to one group I guarantee you they want to do it to you too.
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30 years ago I saw manufacturers that still worked that way. People lined up, and were chosen based on the need of the day. You got paid for your work. Got paid again if you worked hard for little money.
In some places, like auto manufacturing, unions help create a more stable environment that benefited everyone. In other places it was the simple lack of skilled labor that made the model less
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Imagine getting paid per line of code
I am imagining a world running an OS which looks like the Windows kernel sitting on top of systemd with an electron based GUI running the entire OS and where all modern language features have been replaced with nested If elseif statements.
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The whole point of Uber was to log out and not drive until the rates went up enough to make it worth the trouble. Anyone expecting to be paid just to stay logged in when demand was low is an idiot.
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Other "minimum wage for Uber/Lyft drivers" laws have only ensured that the driver is paid a minimum wage for the time they spend driving to pick up the passenger, waiting for the passenger, and then of course for the ride itself. They don't get paid when they're just logged in waiting for a ride.
I can't tell from the article or from the one it links out to exactly how this specific bill proposes calculating the time spent working.
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Socializing, working together, sharing resources are the foundations of human civilization. Its literally the entire purpose of the language development our giant cerebral cortexes give us the ability us to use and that is what has allowed us to dominate the planet.
if you want to go back to just being apes in the jungle go for it i guess? I think we both agree collective identity is actually very important and good, even if the term has been politicized, we're just disagreeing on where the "line" is. Indi
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It seems there's a lot of barriers being put in place in modernized societies, especially in the west, to prevent real community, real socializing, and cooperative working together for anything other than helping the ultra-rich get richer. To the point to where even some individuals get angry if they get "upset" by having to interact with someone who dares disagree with them on any given topic. We've allowed a toxic culture to develop where if someone slips a 'bad' word into conversation, or happens to hold
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The thing is, we're wired to want 'tribes' of community. It's been a few years since I've read studies on it, but at one time I remember the ideal concept of 'tribe' or 'family' if you want, was somewhere between thirty and one hundred people that interact daily, as friends, as a cooperative unit. That does not mean all one hundred must agree on every single topic, just that at that point you can know each other well enough that when disagreements occur, even if there is an initial fight, you can eventually overcome that fight and come back together to reach an agreement. Much beyond that and individuals stop seeming to be 'people' to us and just become 'others' which have no value to our own collective, our own person, and therefore must be rejected outright to protect our collective or ourselves.
This is something I've been fascinated by since I was exposed to it - if you look up "Dunbar's Number" or its more colloquial name, the "Monkeysphere", it talks about exactly this, that there is an upper limit to the number of individuals a single person can have meaningful relationships with. The number varies but the average appears to be around 150.
After that, people cease being people but are more like caricatures, like the people that make the garbage go away. We know they're there, they come to our
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Why in the world would you want to do that?@!?
There are a TON of us out here that make VERY profitable livings working as contractors!!
I've been in it over 20 years and I love being my own boss, making my own financial decisions, not having to "earn" vacation or sick time.
I also get to save a ton (very legally) in employment taxes (SS and medicare) doing 1099 through my S-Corp I set up to work through.
You can't
stop the fake 1099 worker and keep the real ones (Score:2)
stop the fake 1099 worker and keep the real ones.
But right now lot's of gig work 1099 stuff the works have little to no control and can't set there own rates.
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I appreciate the sentiment, but how would you legally define a distinction between them?
And as far as the Uber/Lyft thing....it isn't like someone holds a gun to anyone's head to work for them.
People are free to take or refuse those contracts just like I am on the ones I encounter.
Again...you can't fix stupid...
as long as it covers wait time, return time, time (Score:2)
as long as it covers wait time, return time, time to pickup, ect.
Uber is already not profitable (Score:3)
If they have to pay wages this high, they have to either increase the cost of transportation for riders, implement driverless cars, or go out of business. I guess we have to decide, which is more important .. 1. low costs of rides, 2. better wages, or 3. people not losing their a chunk of their retirement investments. Which compromise will cause the most suffering?
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These rides aren't cheap to begin with. People would do better remembering how to walk, how to use mass transit, etc. Though the unfortunate part is that they'd have to sit on the bus next to poor people, instead of being driven to work by poor people...
if you have an bus and if that bus goes where you (Score:4, Insightful)
if you have an bus and if that bus goes where you want to go.
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How did these people survive before Uber? Seriously, I have seen people take Uber 3 blocks from the train station to the office on a sunny day. That's a lot of money to spend for such a short walk.
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That's just how some people are.
I used to work with a guy who, when we'd have a group lunch, just would not take the 10-minute walk from the office to our favorite hangout. He'd drive (so he would walk to the lot), hunt for a spot near the restaurant, pay for parking... etc. etc. Typically we'd be at a table and having a drink before he walked in.
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It occurs to me that putting your poor fiscal and time management skills on show like that probably isnt the smart thing to do in the context of work. I know I'd be pretty unimpressed by a person like that.
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Walking while drunk is not a great idea.
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Uh, ok Karen.
Walking while drunk is great! I've seen most major cities in the US that way.
Nothing will introduce you to a city better than a hike around from establishment to establishment for an evening or two.
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Nothing will introduce you to the drunk tank faster than getting picked up on a disorderly conduct/public drunkenness charge.
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Not my problem that someone is running an unprofitable business.
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So it is your problem if someone is getting paid less than a livable wage? Or is it your problem that someone loses their retirement money? When do you sympathize if at all?
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No. There are plenty of better-paying jobs out there. I can't for the life of me figure out why anyone would drive for Uber full time.
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No but they're putting real taxi drivers who earn a decent wage out of business which is what this is actually all about.
In other words, an industry found a way around minimum wage laws and this is correcting for that.
Re:Uber is already not profitable (Score:4, Insightful)
Wage theft isn't profit. It's a fabrication.
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...a profitable business...
But we're talking about Uber.
Better wages will solve all those problems (Score:2, Insightful)
On the other hand if we let Uber redefine the nature of work into pay per piece then we are well and truly ****ed. A huge amount of wealth will be extracted from the economy [time.com] n
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So it is your belief that executives and shareholders extract money from the economy and just sort of vanish it under their bed? They don't re-invest it back into other businesses?
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That's not a belief. That's a straight up fact. You seem to have access to the internet, so you can even go check that for yourself.
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By this logic, increasing all wages by a factor of 10 would give us a paradise on Earth.
Note that that actually gives us 900% annual inflation, in the Real World (tm). Trust me, bad as you may think things are now, a year or three of 900% annual inflation would make you look back fondly at the good old days of the Great Depression....
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The Great depression was caused by Wall Street not being regulated so that they could run the country over a cliff at the drop of a hat. It was exasperated by right wing pro co
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Yes, if you push things to an extreme scenario they dont work any more. Way to go pointing that out.
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So, let's drop the "extreme"...how about 11% per year, instead? Just like this last year...
Note, by the by, that the inflation rate in Germany post WW1 was around 300% per MONTH! Yes, it can happen.
And yes, there are people who would be delighted to make it happen - pretty much everyone who calls for mandatory wage increases, for example. Because the people calling for mandatory wage increases NEVER think that price increases will, more or less automatically, will go along with the wage increases....
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I'm not an economist so I don't have exact answers for you on how much is too much but I do know enough about fiscal policy to tell you that X amount of an increase to money supply does not equal X amount of inflation. If that was true a middle class would have never formed as any increased wages that brought people out of poverty would have just been inflated away.
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You seem to be absolutely missing the point here.
The money already exists. Society has it. The issue is *who* in society has it, and what they're doing with it.
If you 100% socialized the US, if you took all of the wealth in the US and gave everyone an equal share of it, the average american would have 2x as much wealth as they have now. That is absolutely bonkers.
Trillions of dollars have been extracted from the economy and stockpiled by the 1%. If you give the average person twice as much money, they're go
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That's not likely to happen except with goods that have very inelastic consumption curves. Increased wages will result in some price increases and some increased automation to reduce the labor portion or production. The increase in automation would actually be where the standard of living increases come from assuming you aren't the one automated out of a job.
Re:Uber is already not profitable (Score:4, Insightful)
A living wage should be a basic condition of any employment and needs to be factored into the price of our goods and services. If people aren't willing to pay that much, too bad. Nobody should have to work for starvation wages so other people can get stuff cheaper.
Re:Uber is already not profitable (Score:4, Insightful)
Thankfully a living wage is not guaranteed.
What is the definition of a living wage? One adult taking care of a family of 4 and sending the kids to college and retiring at 65?
Ok, I'll take that. To cut grass. I'll mow my neighbor's lawn once a week and take my living wage.
Wait, what's that you say? I'm not working hard enough or producing enough to earn a living wage like that?
Ok. Glad you agree not all jobs are worth a living wage. Mission accomplished!
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If they weren't earning a "living wage" already they'd be dead. You don't mean a wage sufficient to just "live" though, you really mean something entirely different and are just lying instead of saying what "livable wage" actually means.
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If they weren't earning a "living wage" already they'd be dead. You don't mean a wage sufficient to just "live" though, you really mean something entirely different and are just lying instead of saying what "livable wage" actually means.
Or their wages are being supplemented by government social programs, like the 70% of food stamp/SNAP recipients who work full time. Maybe if these companies paid an actual living wage, they wouldn't have to rely on government programs to stay alive.
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Or their wages are being supplemented by government social programs, like the 70% of food stamp/SNAP recipients who work full time. Maybe if these companies paid an actual living wage, they wouldn't have to rely on government programs to stay alive.
But people working for wages to pay for food, housing, etc. instead of relying on government handouts is communism!
Or something.
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Hahaha, right? You'd think conservatives would actually want people to earn enough so that they didnt have to depend on government services.
The fiscal sense of spending some money now to save a shit ton later is lost on a lot of modern American conservatives though.
Re: Uber is already not profitable (Score:3)
People should be able to work for what they are willing to work for.
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It's a vicious circle. People are on poverty wages, so they need cheap stuff to survive. Can't have the cheap stuff without poverty wages.
The UK has reached the point where even skilled jobs like nursing don't pay enough to avoid having to rely on charity just to eat, and where younger people can only afford housing with massive assistance from their parents. The cost of living is incredibly high, and the government wants to keep wages down so profits can stay up. It's exploitation on a national scale.
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And the workers who needed the income? What of them? Tough?
Re: Uber is already not profitable (Score:2)
They can be supported by people with jobs.
Hurray for us! );
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And the workers who needed the income? What of them? Tough?
Yeah, and what about all those poor kids who were put out of work when we passed child labor laws?
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We had an alternative for them, which was school and school lunches. You're ready to support a fully grown healthy man and pay them more than what Uber was going to pay?
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We had an alternative for them, which was school and school lunches. You're ready to support a fully grown healthy man and pay them more than what Uber was going to pay?
If paying employees a decent wage makes Uber's business model unsustainable and they go out of business, too bad. Maybe the executives could reduce their salaries to compensate. 70% of SNAP recipients work full time jobs which essentially means their low wages are being supplemented by social programs at taxpayer expense. This implies that such businesses are already unsustainable at their current profit margins and should either distribute those profits more evenly to their workers, or they should go out o
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Their business model seems to be working just fine. You're the one demanding to impose your own business model on them.
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I'm just noting that in places where Uber have to abide by the same labour laws as everyone else, they lose money. Which is fine. If they can't pay the labour they need for their business to run they should die.
It's capitalism 101.
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Government is what's banning Uber from operating, by forcing them to pay wages far above what people are willing to work for. If Uber is banned, you're going to support those people who needed that Uber income? You'll give them the cash they need? If yes, then yeah we should stop Uber.
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Are you 14?
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My money's on driverless. Both Waymo and Cruise have become very common in San Francisco. And, the occasional very publicly hilarious whoopsie aside, they've become nearly as good as taking an Uber or Lyft. And if they can handle San Francisco's traffic, hills, narrow streets, windy streets, aggro drivers, even more aggro bicyclists, tech-hating hipper-than-thou types who screw with them just to be obnoxious, and random crazy people who run out into traffic, crosswalks be damned; they ought to be able to
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They'll need some sort of remote control assist for the whoopsie situations. I'd imagine someone sitting at home with a multi-display setup can manage about 10 cars at a time, supported by a field support person/crew in each town that can go onsite when accidents and things like that happen.
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If they have to pay wages this high, they have to either increase the cost of transportation for riders, implement driverless cars, or go out of business.
And? A company's right to survive does not trump modern day slavery. You said it yourself, they are already not profitable. LET THEM FINALLY DIE!
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Uber drivers aren't slaves. They may be morons but still.
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#1 and #2 are legitimately a difficult discussion. Drivers don't make good money. But the cheap rides might help other poor people. But even then it's somewhat of a false dichotomy.
A better choice is to ensure drivers a livi
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and I know this is a crazy thought...
they could stop paying the top 5-6 executives 7-20 million dollars a year and use that to pay their employees instead.
The idea that you'd immediately jump to "I won't be able to afford it if they pay their drivers a fair wage" while the very top is just hoarding wealth is fucking ridiculous and disgusting.
Uber lawsuit in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 (Score:2)
~nt~
isn't uber a taxi ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've never seen any clear explanation as to why Uber and Lyft can't be regulated as taxis.
It sort of seems like the have an illegal activity and the companies are taking a cut off the top, you know, like the mafia.
there is his complication that people WANT an uber service and i'm assuming it's because it's cheaper.
also ,why the F can't the taxi companies compete ? are they really that bad, or is the overhead of their regulation preventing them from competing ?
enquiring minds want to know.
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It's the "internet" thing. Remember back in the dotcom bubble where politicians were scared to death to tax anything on the internet lest it harm the growth of all these useless services? The same thing is here - a new startup, with a new unproven track record, that is avoiding taxes, is ignored because... STARTUP! The entire business model of many of these companies was to ignore the laws and deflect, and deal with that problem later after the founders are rich.
The people whine about their retirement be
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It's the "internet" thing. Remember back in the dotcom bubble where politicians were scared to death to tax anything on the internet lest it harm the growth of all these useless services? The same thing is here - a new startup, with a new unproven track record, that is avoiding taxes, is ignored because... STARTUP! The entire business model of many of these companies was to ignore the laws and deflect, and deal with that problem later after the founders are rich.
The people whine about their retirement because of investment inr an industry that is less than a decade old is surprising too, but it still fits into the idea that money trumps laws, money trumps fairness, money trumps everything. Screw the workers as long as they get an extra 0.5% in their portfolio returns.
It's not really about tax, it's about regulation. Regulations are important for safety and fairness, especially in a situation where competition is limited, certain competitors can act unfairly or the customer can be put into a dangerous or damaging situation. Taxi industries have a long and sordid history with uncompetitiveness and criminal behaviour. You only have to visit a variety of developing nations where taxis are
Before anyone complains that the regulations.. blah, blah, blah... Not everywhere i
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Uber started out as ride sharing and morphed into a taxi company. They’re a taxi company operating without following any of the regulations that other companies follow.
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It's not a taxi service because you can't hail an uber from the curb, you have to use an app.
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Taxi companies can't screw their employees as badly as Uber. They have to provide the legally mandated benefits like paid holiday and various contributions. Uber claims everyone working for it is an independent contractor, which creates a race to the bottom for the drivers. Many of them only survive by doing excessive hours or by having two jobs.
Courts in the UK have ruled that Uber's drivers are employees, despite their claims. I guess the law in the US doesn't allow that. The rule in the UK is that if you
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I've never seen any clear explanation as to why Uber and Lyft can't be regulated as taxis.
I've been asking myself this question for a while now...
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Taxi companies typically can't compete because they have to do things like be available during scheduled hours and they don't have the same amount of flexibility (start driving during a surge).
The Uber model is much more efficient. That they can't make a good profit and provide drivers with living wages is indicative only of their ineptness.
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The worst abuser of gig workers is the government (Score:4, Insightful)
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I'm not sure about your background, but most of us have bills to pay and need to earn money to pay those bills.
In a pinch, people will take jobs that will pay some short-term bills, even if the wage isn't high enough to meet long-term bills, or even some short-term expenses.
The rest of those costs will be pass
Business 101: Expenses get passed on to consumers (Score:5, Interesting)
All this will do is raise rates and incentivize automation [slashdot.org]
NB: the real minimum wage is $0. These countries have no minimum wage [wikipedia.org]
Austria,Denmark,Finland,Iceland,Italy,Norway,Singapore,Sweden
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Re:Business 101: Expenses get passed on to consume (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting Wikipedia article.
Austria
National collective bargaining agreements set minimum wages by job classification for each industry and provide for a minimum wage of (US$1419) per month. Wages where no such collective agreements exist, such as for domestic workers, janitorial staff and au pairs, are regulated by relevant legislation and are generally lower than those covered by collective bargaining. The national minimum wage legislation has lapsed, although is still in force by convention.
Denmark
None; instead, negotiated between unions and employer associations; the average minimum wage for all private and public sector collective bargaining agreements was approximately DKr 110 (nominally US$16) per hour, exclusive of pension benefits.
Finland
None; however, the law requires all employers, including non-unionized ones, to pay minimum wages agreed to in collective bargaining agreements; almost all workers are covered under such arrangements.
Iceland
None; minimum wages are negotiated in various collectively bargained agreements and applied automatically to all employees in those occupations, regardless of union membership; while the agreements can be either industry- or sector-wide, and in some cases firm-specific, the minimum wage levels are occupation-specific.
Italy
None; instead set generally through collective bargaining agreements on a sector-by-sector basis.
Norway
None; wages normally fall within a national scale negotiated by labor, employers, and local governments.
Sweden
None; in Sweden the law provides for the right of workers to form and join independent unions to bargain wages collectively, and it prohibits antiunion discrimination.
Seems like 6 of the 8 countries you listed rely on strong unions and collective bargaining to keep salaries livable, while one of the remaining ones has minimum wages set at the local government level.
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For a short while, this might actually work as expected. But ultimately minimum wage is a "filter".
Given recent layoffs, we know companies don't actually value their employees. They are just a number. And if they are a negative number, for any reason, internal or external, then the company will try hardest to get rid of them.
Those Uber drivers already making more than minimum wage will not be affected.
Those who were making less, will have a small amount of reprieve, and them will either have to meet "perfor
We tried that in California (Score:2)
Uber/Lyft will outspend 10:1 to block it like they did here. It still the most money spent on a ballot measure here so far. I got 2-3 mailers per day for months.
This doesn't mean anything yet. (Score:2)
In just under two years when the session ends we'll see if this bill isn't killed in the multitudes of ways it can die.
It's an absolute monster of a bill that can and will be modified a hundred ways before it comes to a vote, and even after a vote it can still be modified or killed. Even if it passes the house and the senate there's no guarantee that the implementation will be great or that the governor won't override some sections or veto it or simply fail to sign it after session ends.
Wake me up when some
Forced hours? (Score:3)
Will drivers be forced to work 8+ hours/day and take any ride offered to them? Like real employees?
Ride-Sharing? (Score:2)
Did anyone forget that the original idea of these apps was ride-sharing?
I'm not sure this was ever intended to be a "job" for the drivers.
The original idea of these apps was ... Going "downtown"? You can pick up someone else who's going that way, save the environment, and maybe make a buck or two to pay for your gas.
Again, I understand that these are treated differently now, and it seems like the companies behind the apps are also instating policies that indicate they are treating it as more than that.
But,
Set it (Score:2)
What about setting a minimum wage for freelance housecleaners? Minimum wage for electricians? For software freelancers? Janitors.... Control everything! Nothing left to chance!
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Because if my money gets paid to the drivers, there won't be much profit left over for dividend payments on my shares.
Perhaps that tells you something about how capitalism works.
Or was that your point?
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Is someone forcing them to be stupid?
If Uber can keep finding people after all these years who are that stupid then more power to em.
Uber isn't cheaper than a cab in most places. The difference is I can get an Uber but getting a cab sucks and most cabs are fucking filthy.
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It's still a hell of a lot cheaper here (New Orleans)...and far more dependable too.
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You can't fix stupid.
And it's not the Govt's job to save idiots from themselves.
Re: Should I sell my Uber shares now? (Score:2)
And it's not the Govt's job to save idiots from themselves.
Beyond a specific threshold, yes, it is. This is why e.g.legislation against ponzi schemes exists in essentially all jurisdictions.
This leaving aside that it's not only a question of being stupid, it's also a question of being in a coercively disadvantaged economic position to begin with, and one's very survival depends on moving on regardless of risks or damages to self.
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I've been pretty broke at times in my life....and I always found alternatives to make money.
If nothing else, one can almost always get a restaurant job, and I used to make a killing schmoozing for tips as a waiter and bartender.
Don't get me wrong, I started out wash
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If we pay workers nothing, then stock prices go up! But if we pay workers nothing, then they can't buy stocks! Which is a win-win for people trying to keep workers and money widely separated.
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Not really, economy has grown the most under Democratic presidents, which is a stat swept under the rug when Republicans campaign. Look at GDP and the rates of growth not the actual values, and you can see that it always goes up but it also speeds up and slows down.
Minimum wage being set by a state is not unconstitutional by the 10th amendment. Have you read it? It says powers not otherwise enumerated belong to the states, and last I checked, Massachussets was a state.
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Isn't setting a minimum wage unconstitutional, as per the Tenth Amendment?
The 10th Amendment states that powers not religated to the Federal government are reserved by the states. And this is the state of Massachusetts setting a minimum wage for rideshare drivers within the state of Massachusetts. What does the US Constitution have to do with it?
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The federal minimum wage is only applicable to businesses involved in interstate commerce (that have to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act), which the federal government is allowed to regulate. However most states set their own minimum wage to the federal limit. If you don't live in such a state and don't do interstate commerce you don't have to follow the federal minimum wage.
Re: Unconstitutional... (Score:2)
Don't kid yourself. Plenty of people think people who make more than them should be taxed at 100% of that amount.
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You know it used to be 90%? Does that sounds right?
If it's sufficient high, sure. I would not have an issue with all income over two million per year being taxed at 90%. It's not exactly like they are going to starve and realistically when you're making that much money you're less likely to be creating wealth yourself than to be taking it from the wealth your employees are generating. So paying some back especially for infrastructure etc is fine.
Once you start to hit those levels of income they start paying people to find all loopholes to reduce tax or put
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Probably
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You can do that at any job now, so why would Uber be different?
And like any job now, if you show up and don't do anything, you will get fired. Again, why would Uber be any different?