Not in Switzerland. They're not.
At least not according to a 3 week old judgement by the Lausanne labor court, which ordered Uber to pay a driver for the legally mandated notice period after deactivating him.
Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
151–160 of 357 posts
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you are saying that venture capitalists and naive investors are paying for part of my ride each time I take an Uber why wouldn’t I want to get as many subsidized rides in as I can before they go broke? How am I as a consumer not gaining every time this happens?
Do you have a pension? Pension and index funds buying Uber are the ultimate bagholders here. Uber is basically a legal Ponzi scheme.
Your index fund is investing in a bad investment and you say the fault is that the bad investment exists? Why not choose a different fund?
We shouldn't put bubble wrap around everything in the hopes that no one can ever do anything that might harm themselves. This kind of mindset restricts the freedom of everybody.
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bit of googling leads to: > Insurance firms in each state are protected from interstate competition by the federal McCarran-Ferguson Act (1945) Basically this is Congress using its interstate commerce power, in this case to prohibit certain types of commerce.
No, it's the opposite of that. The act is congress abdicating its power under the commerce clause wrt insurance so that each state can regulate insurance as it sees fit.
I wasn't trying to take a position on what Congress should or shouldn't have done. Just pointing out that it was the Commerce Clause powers that enabled Congress to pass the referenced law.
I find your choice of "abdicate" confusing. There is no Constitutional obligation that Congress act in a particular manner on this issue so that word choice just seems out of place to me. It suggests "not doing something" as opposed to "doing the wrong thing".
I think you are advocating that Congress take affirmative action to enable interstate insurance transactions and to preempt state regulations in this area. That seems reasonable to me.
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#154It’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.
single payer health insurance would be much cheaper if you just have the equivalent of what you pay now to the government. Single insurer=massive negotiation power. The US has the most expensive health care per person in the world
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you charge far less than the actual cost of service you're going to get demand that does not reflect the actual market, hence not true "true" supply and demand. If I was selling dollar bills for 50 cents I would sell a lot of dollars bills. We've seen this before it's called Groupon. A key difference between Uber and Groupon is there are more drivers to con then there are businesses. Uber is losing billions doll…
If you are saying that venture capitalists and naive investors are paying for part of my ride each time I take an Uber why wouldn’t I want to get as many subsidized rides in as I can before they go broke? How am I as a consumer not gaining every time this happens?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing
The idea is that while it is nice to enjoy subsidized rides at the moment, as a consumer you may suffer in the future due to Uber establishing a monopoly.
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. I've always found this suggestion a bit disingenuous. First, there is no federal law that bans insurance from being sold across state lines. What they really mean (but can't say because it is not politically appealing) is "Don't allow states to regulate insurance sold in their state." State boards regulate insurance. They seem to do it we…
I don't live in America, but having strong opinions is fun so I'll wade in anyway :D The things you are talking about are regulatory standards. I've not seen anyone really suggesting that regulatory standards are a problem in the Americas (on the contrary, everything I've read suggests if you have in insurance the whole process can be pretty comfortable). gp's post is, in my eyes, clearly going towards the point that…
> It seems like common sense to me that an individual will be better at choosing a healthcare provider than their employer.
I have picked insurance as an individual and as an employer, and that is 100% wrong.
Any kind of insurance is difficult to shop for, because it's for something you'll only really need if you're unlucky; that means it's hard to tell whether the choice you make is a good one. Health insurance is worse, because it's an extremely complicated product.
A company, on the other hand, gets to amortize the cost of figuring out the right options across all of the employees, meaning they can do a better job. They will often have a professional doing it, which helps more. They also get to gather statistical data on how well the insurance performs. And they have have much more negotiating power than individuals.
One way to think of it is that markets work best when you have actors a) of approximately equal power, b) making frequent choices, c) where the products can be easily evaluated, and d) where experience with the product happens quickly, so that the feedback loops are short. Health insurance is exactly none of those things. Markets are tools, not magic wands.
> but having strong opinions is fun so I'll wade in anyway :D
Note that this is literally a life or death question for people in the US. You might think it's fun/funny. Having watched both my parents deal with cancer, that comes across poorly to me.
> The only reason to link the two is because Americans enjoy being different.
No. The American system grew up as it did for particular local reasons, not just a random desire to be contrary on some imagined global stage. It was in retrospect an obviously bad choice given that we spend way more than others while getting worse results. But it made sense at the time.
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#157It’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.
Also, deregulate the cable/satellite TV market so you can sell across state lines … we'll see costs to the consumer plummet.
/s
Not convinced the free market will work for health insurance.
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#158It’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.
> In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.
It's strange to see someone say this like it's a good thing. Almost no one wants to "shop for the health insurance they need". They want to show up when they need care and receive it, and not have to think about it.
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#159Earlier 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.
single payer health insurance would be much cheaper if you just have the equivalent of what you pay now to the government. Single insurer=massive negotiation power. The US has the most expensive health care per person in the world
Many people do not trust that the government would achieve as good an outcome as their current private insurance. Probably a greater number fear that healthcare would become more inconvenient for them. (I’m 100% sure of the latter and maybe 50/50 on the former.)
Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says
#160Relying on corporations to help the lower middle class, is an outdated idea. Corporations are expressly designed to create value at the lowest possible cost, which necessarily means minimizing labor expenses. Relying on corporations to achieve universal healthcare and a living wage, is expressly going against what they were designed for. There is a far better way to help the lower middle class: through the government…
> And start demanding that our government do what it's supposed to do: ensure that the wealth generated by corporations is adequately shared by all.
On what basis do you think this is the proper role for government?