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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

#311

Post by malandrew »

dragonwriter wrote: post #277
gwright wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disheartening that my comment has drawn some negative reactions. A public policy of forced "sharing" of wealth has an absolutely abysmal track record. Any supporters of that idea willing to explain why they think it will work this time? Anybody want to take my question seriously and answer what philosophy of government they are using to claim that redistribution of wealth is the proper role for government?

> A public policy of forced "sharing" of wealth has an absolutely abysmal track record. A public policy of forced sharing of wealth is what distinguishes the developed societies of the modern world from those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (that is, it distinguished modern mixed economies from true capitalism), and it's what has made possible anything but a miserable existence for the bulk of society, the…

20th and 21st century societies are largely better off because capitalism has drastically increased quality of life by making many goods and services faster, cheaper and better. Saying that this progress is due to government redistribution policies is a huge stretch. Many places few or no such policies have seen an massive increase in quality of life in the past 120 years that can only be attributed to something other than government intervention. Most of the 20th century’s biggest failures were due to government intervention.

https://humanprogress.org/ylin

The other thing worth considering is that many of the socieities that have fared the best over the past 300-400 years are almost invariably in places with four distinct seasons. The reason for this is that seasons are a forcing function to make sure planning and long termism becomes part of the culture. If you don’t plan for surviving winter, you die. If you learn how to plan for winter, you sharpen skills that can be used to plans years ahead. Tropical climates don’t have this benefit.

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

#312

Post by thefringthing »

Sharlin wrote: post #236
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.

> Health care as a discussion point in the contractor vs. employee topic is relevant for only one country on the planet. Even in countries with single-payer healthcare, full-time employees may be eligible to a better healthcare deal via their employer than a temp worker, never mind a contractor.

In Canada, white collar jobs often come with some extra supplemental health insurance, but it's not a huge deal for most people. I think I get half of dental costs covered, for instance. It's not literally life or death the way it is in the US's evil system.

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

#313

Post by deminature »

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…

>basically Uber would be a lot better gig if you could be an Uber driver and have good health coverage

Haven't heard about it in a while, but this is a goal of the current CEO: http://fortune.com/2018/10/04/uber-driver-benefits-insurance...

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

#314

Post by learc83 »

magicalhippo wrote: post #177
learc83 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. No one can agree if a given minimum wage increase results in a workforce reduction, and if it does by how much. There is no consensus here, which probably means at the minimum wage increases we've seen, the effect is negligible.

> No one can agree if a given minimum wage increase results in a workforce reduction, and if it does by how much. It's certainly not a nice analytic function, but clearly the higher the minimum wage, the fewer jobs make economic sense. If I could pay someone a couple of bucks a day to open and close my garage door, I could afford that. But the minimum wage is far beyond that, so I got an electric door opener instead.

There are 2nd order effects though. Higher minimum wage has a direct impact on the income velocity of money because it tends to move money towards lower income workers, who spend money faster. This effect can actually result in more jobs overall.

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

#315

Post by gwright »

dragonwriter wrote: post #277
gwright wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disheartening that my comment has drawn some negative reactions. A public policy of forced "sharing" of wealth has an absolutely abysmal track record. Any supporters of that idea willing to explain why they think it will work this time? Anybody want to take my question seriously and answer what philosophy of government they are using to claim that redistribution of wealth is the proper role for government?

> A public policy of forced "sharing" of wealth has an absolutely abysmal track record. A public policy of forced sharing of wealth is what distinguishes the developed societies of the modern world from those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (that is, it distinguished modern mixed economies from true capitalism), and it's what has made possible anything but a miserable existence for the bulk of society, the…

I think there is some ambiguity here as to whether you are defending redistribution as a means to an end or as an end unto itself.

To clarify, if you assert that a proper role of government is to provide a basic safety net for all citizens, then you could follow that up with the idea that some revenue is required to meet that goal and that might include "forced sharing" -- taxes of some sort.

On the other hand if you start out with the statement that redistributing wealth is the goal itself, then you are talking about something entirely different and it is this idea that I was suggesting as having an abysmal track record.

So my question remains, what philosophy of government starts with the idea that the proper role of government is to redistribute wealth forcibly?

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

#316

Post by wpietri »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #262
wpietri wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

> I have picked insurance as an individual and as an employer, and that is 100% wrong. Wha..? So, are you in favor of your employer picking out your car insurance or your home owners insurance? Sure, health insurance is complicated, but have you read your car insurance policy? I don't see the two as being FUNDAMENTALLY more or less complicated. Further, I will probably blame any irreducible complications you may quot…

Life-long medical care is vastly more complicated than dealing with a car accident. It's true that the American system piles additional complexity on top of that. But the worst case in car repair is buying a new car. Medical care is so complex we can't even pick a worst case, but the many, many terrible cases can last years, cost millions of dollars, and have no clear answers from beginning to end.

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

#317

Post by wpietri »

roenxi wrote: post #164
wpietri wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 w…

> Health insurance is worse, because it's an extremely complicated product. Get sick, go to hospital, insurer covers. There is a shortlist of things the insurer won't cover. You pay the insurer each month. Insurance isn't complicated. It is a complicated by bad regulation that mean insurers aren't trying to sell to individuals. > A company, on the other hand, gets to amortize the cost of figuring out the right option…

> Get sick, go to hospital, insurer covers. There is a shortlist of things the insurer won't cover. You pay the insurer each month.

It is extraordinarily clear that you've never had to do this. And apparently never had to deal with a serious illness in your family. Which is great for you, but please understand that's not the case for others.

> An identical argument could be made for [...]

No, not at all. The only one of those that might meet the four factors I describe is schooling, which is also a highly fraught choice, but it's still not as bad on dimensions B, C, and D. Individual educational needs are also less varied and more predictable than medical care needs. And for choosing education, society puts extensive effort into helping people make those choices well: school rankings, guidance counselors, oceans of books and articles, school accreditation, etc, etc. Until the ACA, there was basically no assistance for picking an individual care plan. ACA marketplaces help a bit, but it's still an extremely difficult choice.

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

#318

Post by nybble41 »

make3 wrote: post #173
sokoloff wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

The government can literally force healthcare providers to accept prices if it's the only payer. It can even write laws forcing them to accept those prices. It would take some time to adjust, but eventually you would ask win. Right now you both have the most expensive in total, expensive in median and the most unfair. http://time.com/2888403/u-s-health-care-ranked-worst-in-the-...

> The government can literally force healthcare providers to accept prices if it's the only payer.

In the short term, perhaps. Long-term, though, the government can't force anyone to provide healthcare; they can only prohibit charging more for it than their chosen price ceiling. If that ceiling isn't high enough to make providing healthcare a worthwhile occupation the inevitable result is shortages, rationing, waiting lists, and—ultimately—people going without health care they could otherwise afford, were anyone allowed to provide it at the market-clearing price.

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

#319

Post by EpicEng »

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.

I don't agree with you, but let's assume I do. What next? All of those business fail and... Low skill workers now make zero instead of something >= minimum wage. How is that better?

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

#320

Post by standardUser »

paxys wrote: post #100
standardUser wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am getting my data from paying for taxis, Ubers and Lyfts on a regular basis.

Of course rideshares are more reliable - and better across pretty much every possible metric! - but they are no longer cheaper across the board in the metro areas I have used them. Sometimes they are cheaper, sometimes they cost more, and in both cases we are now expected to tip.

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