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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

#191

Post by LoSboccacc »

ihm wrote: post #158
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.

> 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.

dunno, since the car insurance market was deregulated in italy (or better: regulated for transparent competition, which is different in some ways) my premium went from 1200/yr to 250/yr and I'm not receiving a worse service for it.

it's all about in how the regulation is carried out. paperless data transfer between company, ban on exit and transfer fees, standardized risk assessment that's binding for all companies allowed a healthy competition.

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

#192

Post by isostatic »

astrange wrote: post #133
iamthirsty wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they aren’t interested—the default model is working for them right now. Take away the default model, and open pure competition, and the insurance companies will have to compete on that level, and things will relatively quickly get better.

Insurance only gets cheaper the larger the company gets, because the risk pool can absorb more risk. Competition doesn't improve it. A giant problem with getting healthcare through insurance companies is that it's not actually insurance. Insurance should only be used to pay out in catastrophic cases; it's always cheaper to pay for something predictable yourself than to make an insurance claim. Of course, most people…

Don’t seem to have the problem in the UK. Everyone has healthcare. Those that can afford to (or their companies) top up with swanky perks, but it’s not needed for most.

Total cost is $2800 per person per year.

In the US it would cost $950b to provide that for everyone.

The US currently spends $1077b on Medicare/Medicaid.

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

#193

Post by ehnto »

blub wrote: post #178
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…

Nice big fat red herring. Health care as a discussion point in the contractor vs. employee topic is relevant for only one country on the planet. The important benefits of having a job as opposed to gigging can be summarized as "the employer should not have complete power over the employee". For Uber drivers this is exactly the case, that's why this type of work is socially poisonous.

That is a stretch, drivers can leave at any time. They can even quit and look for other kinds of work. I don't disagree that it is playing out poorly, but that's because the driving market is a duopoly that was running at a VC funded loss for years to set a customer price that ultimately doesn't work out for the drivers. If instead fares were reasonable and the market competitive then a driver could switch to another platform when terms got worse. Some people even drive for multiple companies at once.

In other gig/freelance scenarios the markets work themselves out, but often suffer from a globalized work force pushing rates way down. In the driver situation, the prices are local, so there is no excuse for the market not to work itself out unless the drivers are not excercising their freedoms or they have no other platform with better circumstances, to which they could find other types of work. It isn't that easy I know, but you have the choice to look and try.

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

#194

Post by tfehring »

manfredo wrote: post #95
_tb1_ wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 breach…

To be clear, the NAIC isn't an industry group - it's made up of insurance regulators. I suppose the argument could be made that they have a conflict of interest in that they'd benefit from increased regulation from an "empire-building" perspective. But I've never gotten the impression that that motivates their decisions in practice. (I'm a former actuary and still work in the insurance industry.)

It's likely true that health insurance premiums would be lower, on average, in an unregulated free market. It's also true that people with pre-existing conditions would be denied coverage or charged substantially higher premiums in an unregulated free market. The current approach to subsidizing coverage for those with pre-existing conditions is less efficient than a tax-and-spend approach would be (see, e.g., [0]), but it's more politically viable since it doesn't show up in government bugets.

[0] https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2018/06/cross-subsidies.h...

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

#195

Post by ehnto »

blub wrote: post #179
gridlockd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even then, having the city of New York set the price according to "utilization" isn't supply and demand either. It's price fixing.

One man's price fixing is another's correction of socially harmful behavior. The free market will almost always devolve into worker exploitation unless there are rules.

It was a bad measure to try and solve the problem of Uber fixing it's own prices in order to create the current market dynamic. The cost of an uber ride AND the drivers wage are both subsidized by Ubers losses. If they didn't do that rates would go up necessarily. The Uber we know now simply can't exist forever, New York tried a bad way to illuminate the real price of the service so that the rest of the driving industry had a level playing field.

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

#196

Post by maeln »

burlesona wrote: post #180
blub wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice big fat red herring. Health care as a discussion point in the contractor vs. employee topic is relevant for only one country on the planet. The important benefits of having a job as opposed to gigging can be summarized as "the employer should not have complete power over the employee". For Uber drivers this is exactly the case, that's why this type of work is socially poisonous.

The definition of a contractor is in fact the opposite. Employees have to obey the hours and other conditions set by the employer. However, a business is not allowed to set such terms for a contractor - in general the rule is you can tell a contractor what you want done and what you’ll pay but you can’t tell them how or when to do it. I think what the OP was getting at is perhaps US centric, but basically Uber would…

Honestly, being a contractor in this situation do suck. Normally, especially in B2B, contractor have at least a bit of power to negotiate with their client. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not so much, but in the case of a Uber driver, you have no power over Uber.

They want to terminate/not renew your contract because they didn't like you for some reason ? They can. With no extra fee to pay. So imagine if they find out you are part of a Union or participated in a Uber-strike. As a Uber driver, you have no negotiation power over them. You only power is to go see a competitor, which has the same problem and are not numerous anyway.

Then, there is also the fact that as a "personal" contractor, if you get sick, you are fucked. You car has a problem ? Deal with it with your own money. You have no minimum salary, no paid vacation, no sick day, no protection of any kind. Whatever happen to you, Uber don't care, you are just one of their many contractor.

The status of employee brings a lot of protection that worker all over the world had to fight for. This type of unipersonnal contractor just bring us back to early 1900 worker status, and we should never accept that.

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

#197

Post by miracle2k »

hellllllllooo wrote: post #188
manigandham wrote: post #57

People seem to forget that "professional driver" is an actual job available for close to a century now if you really wanted a full-time position. Uber already works with FTE drivers at higher tiers like Lux and Black. All of the drivers I've asked over 1000's of rides have said they prefer the freedom and flexibility to work on their own time. Yes they want more money, but not at the cost of the flexibility. They alr…

Why does "freedom and flexibility to work on their own time" have anything to do with whether they are employees of the company or not? Both can easily be true together.

Uber already has employees. They are generally expected to work a certain number of ours each week and to turn up in the office when told so.

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

#198

Post by Shivetya »

timoth3y wrote: post #140
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.

> 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…

The McCarran-Ferguson Act which is a law at the Federal Level enacted in 1945 is what gives states the the authority to regulate insurance offerings within their borders and what helped create the mess and inability to shop across borders. So yeah, its a Federal Law that screwed this up.

Just because it does not prohibit cross state sales is just mincing words. It gave states the ability to make it near impossible to do so. Without consistent requirements how would one expect to have a viable product?

There was an attempt to repeal it but that apparently did not get past the Senate, it was again pushed in 2017 through another act. There are attempts in the Senate as of 2019 to do it.

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

#199

Post by akvadrako »

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…

It's not just healthcare - if you want to give people the most freedom to engage in new business arrangements, we should have a UBI as a baseline. Then even if your part-time taxi gig doesn't work out or comes in less than minimum wage, you can afford to survive.

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

#200

Post by ionised »

twblalock wrote: post #170
ihm wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is a comprehensive source. Here's a poll where 70% of the respondents supported Medicare for all[1]. [1] https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/412545-70-...

> I don't know if this is a comprehensive source. Here's a poll where 70% of the respondents supported Medicare for all The 70% don't understand that Medicare for all would kill off the private insurance industry. A lot of people like the idea of a single-payer system but they never assume they would be forced to give up their current private insurance. Tell people that their private insurance would go out of busines…

> The 70% don't understand that Medicare for all would kill off the private insurance industry.

Perhaps they do undestand and simply don't care? Why should they? Insurance is a parasitic industry.

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