Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 357 posts

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

#301

Post by scarface74 »

lagadu wrote: post #288
ShrinkingWild wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one would, uber would be forced to either pay higher or go out of business due to a lack of supply in drivers. As it stands though, supply of drivers way outweighs demand for drivers, so they get paid less. A "liveable wage", whatever that is, isn't a workable solution for a lot of businesses, simply because the actual value of their work may be lower than the liveable wage. Now instead of getting some money for f…

I argument that if a business can't provide a livable wage to its full time employees, then the business isn't viable.

What does that say about all of the money losing startups that are living on VC funding?

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

#302

Post by ShrinkingWild »

chii wrote: post #292
ShrinkingWild wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that that is unacceptable, regardless of what "we as a society" have deemed. The consumers being held to account for their own business dealing is the reality of the situation, they're giving their money over to the business and in doing so accept the risk. Taking that risk and putting it on everyone who didn't take that risk through bailouts using tax money is unacceptable. Analogizing to a more person…

For businesses that provide somewhat of an essential service, the 'buyer beware' mantra does not result in societally good outcomes. For example, healthcare services should be considered essential, and therefore, should not be left up to the market forces, as these forces would mean that some part of the population who is not profitable to serve will not get served. in such cases, the best option is a socialized mech…

This is likely the core of our disagreement; Healthcare is not essential, it's a luxury that has been afforded to us by those who were willing to study and learn how to do it in an advanced manner. No one has a 'right' to a healthcare professionals time and effort, same as no one has a right to my programming ability or an uber drivers driving capabilities. To phrase that in the positive light, everyone has the right to the product of their own labour, including healthcare professionals, regardless of the social cost that brings.

Leaving healthcare to 'market forces' is nothing more than leaving doctors alone to do healthcare as they please and for a profit that they earn, rather than using government to force prices down and make them work for less than they're worth.

I'm not opposed to a health care option provided by government, but it has to be optional both to pay in and use in order to be a morally sound imo.

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

#303

Post by jkaplowitz »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #298
jkaplowitz wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like every other kind of insurance, though. Health "insurance" covers many expected and predictable costs, which isn't what insurance is about in any industry. What we call health "insurance" is really just access to health care with expenses adequately covered, with only the portion of that covering unexpected or unlikely risks properly falling under the heading of insurance. Additionally, even the true ins…

That is an awesome answer, but pedantic. The real question is, again: how do we express the idea to create a REAL market for health "insurance"? It's not about the difference between health "insurance" and other kinds of "insurance." The question is how to express how to create a market for it.

Yeah, I am disagreeing with the choice of a market solution for something which we want to make available to people who can't afford it.

That's not what markets are meant for or good at, especially not the deregulated free market that is often meant by questions like yours. As for a tightly regulated market with lots of requirements about coverage and price, some states already have that, and it's exactly those tightly regulated markets which the "let insurance sell across state lines" proposals want to disrupt.

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

#304

Post by amanaplanacanal »

prostoalex wrote: post #117
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.

The providers still hold the key to pricing. When your choice of hospitals or specialists is limited, you’re going to go with whatever insurance company they accept, or pay some exorbitant price. The problem is that most people don't pre-shop for insurance that way, and only find out that their local provider is out of network when it's urgent that they get help.

Even if you plan it all out ahead of time, you end up in emergency surgery in an in-network hospital, with an in-network surgeon, only to find out the anesthesiologist was out-of-network. And you still owe tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket. It's a bad system all around.

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

#305

Post by js2 »

gwright wrote: post #153
js2 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 oppos…

> it was the Commerce Clause powers that enabled Congress to pass the referenced law

No, I don't think so. The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to regulate insurance. McCarran-Ferguson is Congress explicitly delegating insurance regulation to the states. Delegating regulation to the states is not a power derived from the Congress clause.

IANAL and I'm not sure exactly what the legal theory underpinning McCarran-Ferguson is. I believe it's probably an implied power.

> that word choice just seems out of place

Maybe abdicate isn't the best word choice, but what I was trying to impart is that when the SCOTUS decided that insurance does indeed fall under the purview of Federal law by way of the Commerce Clause, that Congress had to explicitly say that "Federal law does NOT apply to insurance." That's a sort of abdication to me:

SCOTUS: Hey Congress, it's your job to regulate insurance per the Commerce Clause. That means things like the Sherman Act apply to insurance too.

Congress: Oh, we don't want that. Let's pass McCarran-Ferguson to exempt insurance from Federal law so that the states can regulate it as they see fit.

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

#306

Post by hellllllllooo »

miracle2k wrote: post #197
hellllllllooo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That doesn't address the point.

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

#307

Post by manigandham »

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.

If you’re an employee then you’ll be driving at least 8 hours a day with a shift start and end time and no choice on rides or location. That’s not very flexible.

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

#308

Post by manigandham »

michaelt wrote: post #210
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…

All of the drivers I've asked over 1000's of rides I have had the same experience (with far fewer rides) but I'm sceptical about how reliable it is given the driver is incentivised to give me an enjoyable ride. Same as a waiter who hates his job will make more in tips by putting on a smile.

The almost always have a day job or some other obligation. The only ones that could even do it full time would be the retirees but they specifically don’t want to.

There’s also the economics of oversupply. It’s easy low skill flex work so there will be a lot of competition.

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

#309

Post by oceanghost »

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…

Thank you for this delightful new term-- Overton Window.

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

#310

Post by ceejayoz »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #265
objektif wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Listen: If you know of a better way to encapsulate the idea of really creating a competitive market for health insurance, I'm all ears. That's just been the easiest way I've ever seen of expressing: "Hey, let's have a REAL market for the stuff, like EVERY OTHER KIND OF INSURANCE!"

Health insurance largely isn't like other forms of insurance, though. You can opt out of owning a house or driving a car. You can't really opt out of having health issues, and the potential costs involved make it impossible for most folks to effectively self-insure.

Most of the rest of the developed world has long since acknowledged this - that certain things are better disconnected from profit.

Post reply on HN