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Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

nytimes.com

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Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#91

Post by thanatropism »

Spooky23 wrote: post #69
xur17 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. Why can't health insurance companies sell across state lines right now?

States with more people and costs usually have more coverage requirements. You don’t want insurance to be like banking where banks domicile in “friendly” places like Delaware and South Dakota. Health insurance is awful enough. Republicans want this so that high cost, low benefit plans can be hocked to less sophisticated people. The more right wing folks also like shared responsibility pools where the members are the…

Are Republicans basically evil?

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#92

Post by objektif »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #36
dcosson wrote: post #23

It’s sad that the idea of people being able to get by and live a comfortable life without the benefits from a full time job is so far outside the Overton window that it’s not even mentioned in these conversations. That seems like such an obviously better outcome for everyone - what if we got rid of healthcare benefits and other types of favorable tax treatment that are tied to full time employment so that everyone is…

1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. 2. Employers start giving their employees the money they pay on their behalf. 3. People shop for the health insurance they want/need. In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.

It is quiet shocking to see #1 getting posted over and over again. How is that supposed to solve the pricing problem? How do you like pricing of say Comcast, Apple or any other company with pricing power? They offer services accross all states. I think it is way past time that we stop offering cute free market solutions to our disasterous healthcare industry. Medicare for All or gtfo.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#93

Post by ajross »

glitchc wrote: post #81
ajross wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Taking a stand", in the sense used here, refers to taking action to effect change. Call up your neighbors and tell them who to vote for. Tell all your friends who you are voting for, and why. Excusing this as some kind of structural problem with "political paralysis" sounds, to me, like you're a nominal republican who hates republican policies but is reaching for an excuse to avoid hanging out with dirty hippies and…

That’s crazy talk. Of course I want things to be better, but I’m not going to shove my politics into my neighbor’s face. Like most people, I believe strongly but privately. Not an activist.

I'm not saying you need to corner them at the next PTO meeting and hand them a revolutionary screed. But when subjects like these come up, the proper response is "The republicrat party supports these policies and has for decades, where the demicans have blocked every measure that's ever made it to the floor" AND NOT "LOL our political system is paralyzed so there's nothing we can do, amirite?"

Partisan issues[1] are not structural problems with the system, they're policy problems with one party. And in my experience people who try to make that argument (and variants, like "both sides do it") are just making excuses to treat the cognitive dissonance of cheering for the bad guys.

[1] Obvious disclaimer is obvious: not all issues are partisan. There are legitimate complaints to be made about any system of government. Some problems certainly can be structural. This one is not.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#95

Post by manfredo »

_tb1_ wrote: post #87
manfredo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many fact checking sites are actually heavily opinionated. To the point where even demonstrably true facts are labeled as "half-true" due to opinionated objections. Frequently, the veneer of calling oneself a "fact-checking" site lets them get away with some pretty significant bending of the truth. It looks like this article isn't much different. It doesn't actually refute the claim that less regulation would result…

I agree that everyone is biased. But there has just been an incredible amount of debate on this issue. For OP to state that he's discovered the solution is a bit disingenuous. Here's another source. There really is a lot: https://www.naic.org/documents/topics_interstate_sales_myths...

This hardly qualifies as a source, it's just a page of "Myth vs. Reality" bullet points with no data backing it up, nor any references to sources. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners is going to have more than a little conflict on interest here. Maybe what they're saying is true, but I'd need actual data if I wanted to believe them.

What they're saying breaches some of the most widely understood patterns of markets: that deliberate interference with markets through regulation drives up prices. Sometimes there are justifiable reasons for doing so, like making sure products are safe. If you mandate that all cars need airbags, prices are going to go up because now every car has the cost of a few airbags on top of whatever it cost previously. This claim that regulating the insurance market somehow keeps prices low goes into the same bucket of dubious claims like San Francisco progressives claiming that constructing new housing actually drives prices up and other claims of that sort.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#96

Post by thanatropism »

derekp7 wrote: post #79

I wonder if a simple change to Uber's app would fix all this -- let drivers set their own rates, and customers could pick from a number of drivers nearby based on how close they are, and what rate they charge. And/or let customers put out a bid for the rate they want to pay, then any driver can accept that bid and get the fare. That way drivers could be more legally considered contractors (they set their own rates),…

This actually exists in Rio.

Yellow cab drivers agitated for banning Uber and instead the city government made them a ride hailing app where they can choose how much to discount over full price.

I haven’t used it, but know people who do. It’s kind of up to consumers to figure out how much to pay vs how much to wait.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#97

Post by throwawaytoday5 »

dgzl wrote: post #71
RussianCow wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one said anything about superseding every state law, just those regarding health care.

Friendly reminder that our 10th Amendment rights exist specifically to limit federal power, and to give states superceding power over the federal government. The opposite doesn't actually exist.

Nice to know that people are still clinging to a document that can literally mean whatever we want it to when convenient while Americans continue to shuffle and get raped by the corporate class.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#98

Post by donarb »

fooey wrote: post #77
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. 2. Employers start giving their employees the money they pay on their behalf. 3. People shop for the health insurance they want/need. In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.

It's already legal in several states, but no insurance companies took them up on it. Trump additionally signed an executive order to setup a national way to do it, but it died off as a policy proposal because the insurance companies aren't interested http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/out-of-state-health-insu...

The problem with insurance across state lines is that insurance companies would create a policy in a state with lax regulation and rules and sell that policy everywhere else. It's the same sort of crap that allows credit card companies to set up in South Dakota because that state has lax laws over usury rates.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#99

Post by _tb1_ »

_tb1_ wrote: post #63
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. 2. Employers start giving their employees the money they pay on their behalf. 3. People shop for the health insurance they want/need. In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.

Suggestion 1 has been looked at. They've found it doesn't work.

Other sources: https://www.google.com/search?q=insurance+%22across+state+li...

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#100

Post by paxys »

standardUser wrote: post #27
inkaudio wrote: post #5

Uber drivers are fighting the wrong fight in this case. They should focus on fighting for a minimum wage that accounts for expenses. Uber's edge is not their technology, their edge is the ability to burn billion dollars a quarter subsidizing rides. Uber is masking customer demand and this sort of behavior is anticompetitive and should not be allowed in an industry as critical as transportation. Case in point, when Ub…

It's not clear to me how much the core Uber/Lyft business model needs to be subsidized to be sustainable. At this point, an Uber isn't any cheaper than a taxi is most cases. With surge pricing, it's often far more expensive.

Not sure where you are getting your data from. They are still cheaper and more reliable than taxis pretty much everywhere.
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