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California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

nytimes.com

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Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#641

Post by nitwit005 »

chongli wrote: post #400
whiddershins wrote: post #246

All these people making Uber money on the side ... the whole thing was possible in part due to the low friction in (and also complete disregard for) the regulatory environment. I’m in NYC and honestly can’t figure out how to legally hire a studio assistant for a few hours a week without being at risk for any of a number of lawsuit vectors. So I just coil my own cables. And I don’t mentor people who want to learn some…

The way to protect workers is to shift the burden of health care and other costly benefits onto the government, supported by taxes. Then there is no risk to hiring a new employee beyond the wages you pay them. The US public does not want this, though, and the war of words over universal health care has led to incredibly deep entrenchment on the side of those opposed. All this despite the mountain of evidence from oth…

> The way to protect workers is to shift the burden of health care and other costly benefits onto the government, supported by taxes.

Or just disconnect this stuff from the employer. It seems strange that employers are involved in something like health insurance. It creates friction changing jobs, and much of the population isn't employed.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#642

Post by gnopgnip »

middleload wrote: post #224
throwaway_law wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cost/Benefit. Uber doesn't want drivers classified as employees so they don't have to pay minimum wage, provide employee benefits, pay payroll taxes, or otherwise comply with the law vis-a-vis employees. Yet, it is one thing for Uber to hire drivers as contractors individually where Uber has full control over the terms, in other words no driver is in a position to negotiate their contract with Uber...it is an entirel…

In my country, working as an Uber driver gets you a good salary. I think it's around 1000€ (minimum wage being less than 500€). Is it different in USA? Do they get less than minimum wage for 8 hours?

How are you measuring the hours exactly? Just time when a passenger is in the car? Time on the way to pick up the passenger until you drop them off? All the time logged in and looking for a rides?

How do you factor in the car related expenses? And what about depreciation and other expenses beyond the direct out of pocket costs?

It is certainly possible to spend more than 8 hours trying to get rides, and end up with less than 8 hours worth of minimum wage pay after subtracting vehicle costs.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#643

Post by ntpeters »

unksdfnaajhfjk wrote: post #634
JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you'd rather drive without a guaranteed minimum wage, possibility for unemployment benefits, or health care benefits? I fail to see how that leaves the driver in a better position.

Better position compared to what? > a guaranteed minimum wage A min-wage guarantee implies Uber and Lyft will tell you when and where to drive because it would demolish the fundamental mechanism we drivers use to allocate ourselves. Otherwise we would all clump up in a parking lot somewhere trying to insulate ourselves from the costs of driving people around while collecting $10/hr. > possibility for unemployment ben…

> I cringe every time somebody says "Oh but Lyft treats drivers so much better than Uber, right?"

I'm somebody who genuinely thought this was the case. Would you mind elaborating?

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#644

Post by 0xffff2 »

balfirevic wrote: post #296
ken wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can think of many different ways to interpret your first sentence, so I'm not clear what you're saying, but this does make me wonder if it's going to lead to any sort of licensing or certification for general industry programmers. If workers in this field want to call themselves "software engineers" and gain the benefits of a professional title, like lawyers and architects, they're going to have to start following…

> If workers in this field want to call themselves "software engineers" and gain the benefits of a professional title What are those benefits?

For software engineers? None at all right now. Theoretically, we could get to a point where working on certain safety-critical systems (think self-driving cars, regular vehicle firmware, medical equipment, etc) required that a software PE sign off on all of the work, in the same way that a civil PE has to sign off on a bridge design before it's built.

The NSPE used to have a software engineering PE, but my understanding is that they dropped it for lack of interest. Until we see some legislation somewhere that mandates the kind of sign-offs mentioned above, I don't think we're going to see PE's in the software world.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#645

Post by [deleted] »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #329
dnautics wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> applies to literally any company who would hire a freelancer to work on their product or service. IANAL but I imagine that's exactly the point. There are always incidentals, like let's say you're a restaurant and you need to hire a plumber to fix your toilet or if you're a real estate agent and you need to hire a programmer to do your website.

No, those examples you give would be taken care of as part of the "B" part of the test. Plumbing and website design is certainly not the main business of restaurants and real estate agents. The problem becomes if you need to hire a freelance programmer to do some work for your software development company. There the "C" part of the test becomes a lot more of a gray area IMO.

[deleted]

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#646

Post by 0xffff2 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #329
dnautics wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> applies to literally any company who would hire a freelancer to work on their product or service. IANAL but I imagine that's exactly the point. There are always incidentals, like let's say you're a restaurant and you need to hire a plumber to fix your toilet or if you're a real estate agent and you need to hire a programmer to do your website.

No, those examples you give would be taken care of as part of the "B" part of the test. Plumbing and website design is certainly not the main business of restaurants and real estate agents. The problem becomes if you need to hire a freelance programmer to do some work for your software development company. There the "C" part of the test becomes a lot more of a gray area IMO.

>The problem becomes if you need to hire a freelance programmer to do some work for your software development company.

In that case, C is irrelevant because you've already failed B AFAICT. This law makes it so that it's simply not possible for a software company to contract out software jobs to individuals. It has to either contract the software to another company, or do the job in house with W2 employees.

C, if my reading is correct, means that (ignoring licensing issues) you can't contract a carpenter to fix your plumbing.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#647

Post by UnFleshedOne »

erdleerdle wrote: post #383
whiddershins wrote: post #246

All these people making Uber money on the side ... the whole thing was possible in part due to the low friction in (and also complete disregard for) the regulatory environment. I’m in NYC and honestly can’t figure out how to legally hire a studio assistant for a few hours a week without being at risk for any of a number of lawsuit vectors. So I just coil my own cables. And I don’t mentor people who want to learn some…

New York State just overhauled farm labor in a similar manner that will prevent most small farms from hiring by season... and in agriculture seasons can be 2 weeks to 2 months... but now you have to cover FT, benefits, plus unemployment insurance. So in theory you can hire someone... they can work for 2 months and then collect unemployment after you run out of work for them because the earth's position changed and it…

Farming kinda relies on exploiting under-payed workers. Historically those were sharecroppers (who created the myth of family farms), but lately they are undocumented immigrants.

Why do "consumers" have a right to underpay for somebody's labor?

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#648

Post by 0xffff2 »

dmode wrote: post #89
Mizza wrote: post #71

Can anybody here with proper experience break down the "ABC" test for me? It seems to me like the "C" part (that the work is "part of a company’s regular business") applies to literally any company who would hire a freelancer to work on their product or service.

Just read through the text of the bill, looks like the work you describe is explicitly exempted from the bill https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...

Can you point out exactly where you think this is exempted? Particularly, my reading is that a software company cannot contract out software development tasks under this bill.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#649

Post by 0xffff2 »

buboard wrote: post #200
DeonPenny wrote: post #57

Well, RIP to the Gig economy hopefully robots get here soon. Cause I can't see the market surviving this.

Driver robots? See you in 20 years Its more likely you ll see drivers forming shell contractor companies so they can still work for both uber and lyft etc

20 years is optimistic. Real fully autonomous self-driving cars will arrive 10 years after fusion power becomes commercially viable.

Re: California passes bill that classifies gig economy workers as employees

#650

Post by DuskStar »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #503
unksdfnaajhfjk wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why I don't understand why people take gig jobs. Sometimes Compared to what? is the most important question. I've been driving for a few years. Before this I was making minimum wage with no benefits. Before that I had a difficult stretch of unemployment. One of my least favorite questions passengers ask me is What did you do before this? because I don't really like to talk about it. It is a rough job - you…

So, you'd rather drive without a guaranteed minimum wage, possibility for unemployment benefits, or health care benefits? I fail to see how that leaves the driver in a better position.

What if the choice isn't between "driving with a guaranteed minimum wage + benefits" and "driving with no protections" but between "driving with no protections" and "doing nothing"? That's the fear here.
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