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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

#711

Post by smsm42 »

mjevans wrote: post #637
criddell wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to rebuild US healthcare system to look like Canadian or any of the European ones would not be as easy as just public agreeing on something Why not? Canada didn't always have their healthcare system. Canadians just agreed on something and suddenly they had it.

I think the segment on late night TV that I watched used to be called "street walking with jay lenno", or something along those lines. The premise was pretty much: take a question that might sensibly appear on a GED test (highschool graduation equivalency, without the class credits), that probably at least 50% of the viewers (so adults that could afford a TV and stay awake until midnight / had just finished watching…

> every voter should be an informed voter that can at least understand the basic impact of their actions

I get a feeling you think you are one of these voters. But are you, indeed? Are you really sure you can predict the impact of the actions in a system as complex as 300 million people inside trillion dollar economy? Before you answer that, remember that many people with advanced degrees tried and failed to predict things about economy, and even more people with advanced degrees are in constant and complete disagreement about what would be effect of that or this policy and what should be done to achieve this or that effect. And "unintended consequences" appears in virtually every article describing the aftermath of any serious government decision. If all those people aren't really able to figure out how things work, are you confident you are?

> should at least be able to pass an ECON101 test

Why ECON101? That course probably provides very basic knowledge (depending on the curriculum) which is next to useless when dealing with enormous and complex systems because it ignores myriad of details. It's ok for a 101 course, but if after taking this course you think that you know enough to make informed decisions about the whole US economy, then this course actually decreased the amount of your actionable knowledge. And yes, voting is making decisions about the whole US economy, ultimately.

> I would really prefer a local, national, geo-political, basic law, and economics (including some light math) test as a pre-requisite for being able to vote

Are you sure you would pass? What if I will be writing the test and make every effort to make you not pass (you don't think politicians would ignore an opportunity as juicy as disenfranchasing a huge number of their opponents' base?)?

You understand also that making decisions for people that can not vote is the reverse of what representative democracy is, and a just cause for rebellion? If any situation justifies violent overthrowing of a government, it is a situation where the government denies participation in vote to a class of citizens which committed no crime, did nothing wrong but failed to satisfy an arbitrary criteria somebody instituted to not let them vote because they didn't like what they might choose. Who would consider such a government a legitimate one? You probably wouldn't, if you were one of the disenfranchised people. But somehow nobody thinks they will fail the test.

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

#712

Post by 75dvtwin »

We are getting to a fundamental dissonance between different models of work engagement, and the cost (monetary and environment) of essential services that citizens need to rely on.

Workers say 'I need to be able to choose when I work, and for how infrequently'.

Government says: 'we will mandate your employee to pay for your benefits'.

Workers say: 'I need to be able to afford essential services, like health care'. Government says: we will either make your employee pay for it, or we will tax the whole country to fund it.

Workers say: I would like to get college education that promises, well paying jobs, and makes myself competitive with, (including, but not limited to) foreign-educated workforce.

Government says: We will make tax the whole country to fund it

Workers say: I would like to sustain family with children, on one salary.

Government says: Nope, but will tax the whole country and fund free child care, for working parents (that's Australia).

--

What's not present in these question/answers -- are solutions that make

a) Work engagement simpler, and less litigious b) The health care cheaper c) The cost of education cheaper

This is

Instead, US is marching along to keep its burden of legalized racketeering through groundless lawsuits.

Instead, the US is keeping its out of control health care costs (or apply price controls, in the hope that quality will not suffer).

Instead, the US is keeping its out of control college education cost....

--

It just seems that we have tilted way from figuring out how to make things cheaper through fair competition and through advances in technology.

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

#713

Post by prepend »

PorterDuff wrote: post #555
prepend wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did software contracting for a while. It’s certainly appropriate to define parameters like “use language x, code these features, by this deadline and keep a synchronized copy of the code in this repo.” You can’t set hours and direct particular tasks day to day.

Having personally been through the employee vs contractor maelstrom when, for some unknown reason, the state government got a bug up it's ass, I'd have to say that the state requirements become quite arbitrary. What you might think is appropriate is sort of besides the point.

I too have been through the maelstrom. What I think is appropriate for me as it all boils down to interpreting the IRS regs and hiring a good lawyer who successfully avoids and navigates lawsuits for me. Just because I navigated it successfully doesn’t mean I’m right or my interpretation is appropriate for all.

But I think it’s pretty useful and certainly disproves that it’s not possible to hire software contractors.

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

#714

Post by prepend »

nickjj wrote: post #560
prepend wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did software contracting for a while. It’s certainly appropriate to define parameters like “use language x, code these features, by this deadline and keep a synchronized copy of the code in this repo.” You can’t set hours and direct particular tasks day to day.

> You can’t set hours and direct particular tasks day to day. What if this is part of the requirement of doing the contract work? For example, your job is to pair program with one of their employees and they are only available from 10am to noon. Technically the person paying you for your time is setting your hours.

This gets into a big grey area and I’m not sure there’s an absolute rule. If I were writing the contract I would say “must pair program with employees” and let the contractor figure iut how to meet the req.

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

#715

Post by C1sc0cat »

balfirevic wrote: post #424
C1sc0cat wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite I looked at going down the CENG route when I worked at BT via the BCS. 1 they kept changing the requirements 2 what are the benefits ironically as I started on the mech Engineering route I am more an "Engineer" than many other developers

Thanks for the answer, but I'm afraid I didn't understand anything of what you said.

A CENG is a Charted Engineer like a PE in Canada, the BCS is the British Computer society which works with the IEEE on the certification part.

The other part was at my first Job I was on the Vocation track in mech eng and got to the first rung on the Certification track. "technician engineer" I think it was called

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

#716

Post by skohan »

PorterDuff wrote: post #568
cptaj wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it can be for profit but it needs regulation on how much you can bleed patients for. Selling pills for thousands of dollars when they cost you a dime to make is simply exploitative.

What was the NRE on that pill or the hundreds (thousands?) that didn't work at all? OTOH (or the other other hand), I'll bet that you could make a strong argument for stopping new drug development entirely. Simply sell existing drugs for as little as possible. It wouldn't surprise me if most of that research has insanely high marginal cost with little benefit at this point. I'll bet you'd have a healthier public, on…

The cost of medication is not strongly correlated to research costs. In the US most drug prices are set via a single factor: how much will people pay for it?

Under this rubric, "cheap" lifesaving drugs are viewed as an arbitrage opportunity. If a lifesaving cancer drug costs $20k per month, then why should a comparable MS treatment be "given away" at $15 per pill?

Also a huge percentage of new drug research is not geared toward creating new and interesting treatments: it's based on making small changes to existing molecules to preserve efficacy while making something "new" enough to be patentable.

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

#717

Post by lovetocode »

mdorazio wrote: post #677
pishpash wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. eBay makes selling happen on their platform, does that make eBay a store and all sellers employees of eBay? Uber also is a technology company just like eBay.

eBay is marketplace where sellers and buyers transact on their own terms - sellers set their own prices and buyers choose from multiple options to purchase things. Uber is not a marketplace - drivers do not set their own prices and riders cannot choose from multiple options when selecting a driver. If Uber wants to be treated as a marketplace and sidestep this new law, it needs to make significant changes - if driver…

This comment makes the most sense to me

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

#718

Post by leetcrew »

jshowa3 wrote: post #679
leetcrew wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Instead we've subsidized all these gig corporations so frequently that one of the biggest ones pays 0 in federal taxes. which one is this?

Amazon

how do they get out of paying payroll tax?

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

#719

Post by throwawaynihil »

paul_f wrote: post #178
throwawaynihil wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> California loves making bandaid state fixes to federal problems, I think this is the wrong way to go. You just hit the nail on the head. The real problem is that California is grossly under-represented in government, thanks to the founding fathers and gerrymandering. We have to slap together these hacks because otherwise we would wait centuries to get any real change out of the Fed. As for "USA's democracy", screw…

How does gerrymandering affect California's representation at the Federal level? And the makeup of the Senate? It's that darn constitution again :-)

Because Gerrymandering is how the GOP maintains control of the country. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or other, we should see that as the biggest attack on our democracy.

When the GOP owns the senate, as they do, they attack California's sovereignty at every opportunity. We are net-givers to the federal budget, whereas moscow mitch is a welfare queen whose state is the biggest net-begger.

Our wealth, our culture, our environment are all under attack by a nation of right-wing christian terrorists who resent that us Californian libtards have created the wealthiest, most successful and productive society the world has ever known .. while all they do is shoot guns.

#calexit

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

#720

Post by throwawaynihil »

School-Cotton wrote: post #244
throwawaynihil wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really don't understand how gerrymandering screws over our democracy, then you're not worth responding to. The fact is a state with 38 million people and a GDP equivalent to 20% of the nation should have more representation than moscow mitch's welfare state of kentucky.

That's not related to gerrymandering though, which is why I think the post you're replying to is confused. The unfairly low representation of large states in the Senate is a huge issue, but it's not what "gerrymandering" means.

Forgive my wording, gerrymandering is the primary tool used by the GOP to control the USA. It's their strongest tool to cheat their way into elections, we've seen that clearly in North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Georgia.

If we actually followed the spirit and intentions of the founding fathers, then California would already be grossly under-represented. Add to that the way the GOP rigs the elections via gerry-mandering and . voter suppression, and Californians are treated like slaves, not citizens.

They have all forgotten the battle cry of the republic, "NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION".

#calexit

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