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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

#731

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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. Then there is no risk to hiring a new employee beyond the wages you pay them.

That's still the same problem. If the taxes that fund the health care are paid by employees then a living wage would have to be higher to account for having to pay the taxes. If they're paid by the employer, there goes the money they were going to use to hire the employee, or they have to raise prices and we're back to causing a higher cost of living.

Taxes aren't magic. The money still has to come from somewhere. The actual problem is that housing and health care cost too much. It's necessary to solve that regardless of who is paying for them, at which point there is no longer a pressing need to try to shift the burden somewhere else, because the burden is no longer so onerous.

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

#732

Post by mfer »

blackflame7000 wrote: post #576
mfer wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live the gig works make about or a little less than the minimum wage after expenses for vehicles. This doesn't include saving for retirement, healthcare, workmans comp, disability insurance, or a bunch of other things. Basically, even if healthcare were taken care of the amount they make would not be a living wage.

Where did people get this idea that every job must supply a living wage?

I would argue that every job designed to be ones full time job while they are at a life phase where they have to be roughly self sufficient should have a wage that enables them to do so. Or, they need to go do something else.

This is not every job. It is the situation for many in the gig economy.

The reason people don't go do something else more often is something I would love to see studied.

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

#733

Post by blackflame7000 »

radarthreat wrote: post #705
blackflame7000 wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because if I need someone to mow my lawn why do I need to support their entire way of life. Not all work is equal and not all work is worth that much. What you're espousing is participation trophy logic.

Good luck getting anyone to mow your lawn, then. Simple economics.

Simple economics, you can't sell pounded sand and you can't sprinkle VC money or use Google's profits to subsidize the world.

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

#734

Post by mjevans »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #662
mjevans wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While I understand your sentiment, these voter requirements would completely disenfranchise those who literally don't have access to quality education, especially POC who have been subject to systemic oppression (See redlining). The solution should be to level the playing field (Access to education), not to change the rules of the game from under them.

Did you overlook my second to last sentence?

... "BUT if the test isn't passed that person would qualify for employment (lit paid) as a student, where attendance in class and academic progress would be part of the pay."

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

#735

Post by mjevans »

smsm42 wrote: post #711
mjevans wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The part of ECON101 that I remember most distinctly is that we kept doing supply and demand curves. We kept doing that until the professor was absolutely sure that everyone knew what happened when supply was infinite, or when demand was inelastic, or when supply was a hard fixed quantity but the needs of the market kept growing.

It's really basic stuff, that's why it's a 101 course. However the realities of that kind of course should be remembered and applied to things like "rent control" that acts as an outside influence on where the curves meet, but doesn't actually change the supply or demand directly. Knowledge that would help with assessing the possible intended and unintended results of different laws.

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

#736

Post by apacheCamel »

arwineap wrote: post #728
unksdfnaajhfjk wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, here's the rant I really try not to give to my passengers. I apologize for the length. TL;DR - Do you want to date an emotionally unavailable a-hole, or an emotionally manipulative a-hole? Pick your poison. Lyft's president once said regarding Uber, "We're not the nice guys. We're a better boyfriend." This statement describes Lyft so much better than I ever could. They don't care about doing the right thing, they…

> The notion of keeping independent contractors busy is a strange one. This seems so clearly anti-competitive I don't know how it's even legal. If my company is paying contractors, they generally want them to be busy; I'm not sure what you mean by that WRT the anti-competitive statement, are you suggesting that lyft is intentionally making it harder to drive XL for both uber and lyft? TBH, I'm not sure that'd hit on…

I think keeping contractors busy is only productive and worth it if you are getting their money's worth. You are paying them per hour worked, so if we don't have work and they aren't doing anything, we don't have to pay them. Keeping these people "busy" seems to me (and possibly OP) like a way to keep them from driving for Uber since getting paid for specifically XL (I assume) is much better than getting paid for a regular ride. The whole thing is weird because it forces people to choose between possibly getting Uber XL rides (more $$) OR staying busy with normal rides through Lyft where at least they are getting paid!

That is just what I got from the original post, I do not work for either company so it really is hard for me to relate to the pressure OP is feeling.

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

#737

Post by apacheCamel »

thefringthing wrote: post #730
unksdfnaajhfjk wrote: post #634

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Life's rough. Hopefully I solve this problem with a better job in the near future. A nation of temporarily embarrassed millionaires.

This isn't related at all. OP just wants a better job, they never stated they wanted to be rolling in it as some CEO somewhere. This is about just living, not striking it rich.

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

#738

Post by blackflame7000 »

jobigoud wrote: post #722
blackflame7000 wrote: post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I really wish people would stop basing so many decisions on Polls. There are so many problems with accurately polling people's opinions because generating a truly random dataset is really hard. Unless people have some sort of financial stake in the outcome you're only going to hear what they want to happen instead of what they think will happen.

> generating a truly random dataset is really hard IMO it's not just hard but impossible for polls to be unbiased, because people that don't like answering polls are never represented. If the subset of people that don't answer polls isn't itself following the same distribution over all possible opinions as the rest of the population the results are biased, and by definition we can't test for these correlations.

That's an excellent point. You could also add people that aren't contactable into that group.

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

#739

Post by michaelmrose »

smsm42 wrote: post #711
mjevans wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your criticism of minimal knowledge is correct. Your analysis that its insufficient to decide complex issues is correct. Your thoughts that its insufficient even to choose among 2 candidates positions on the matter is probably correct.

However you miss a points. It's not always or not even often about picking from 2 complex alternatives. It's often a matter of eliminating options that are stupid, illogical, or inconsistent. Doing so often requires basic literacy in the topic involved.

Unfortunately you are right in that disenfranchising a large number of idiots would upend social order even if it was only eliminating those who literally have no idea what is going on.

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

#740

Post by smsm42 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #739
smsm42 wrote: post #711

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your criticism of minimal knowledge is correct. Your analysis that its insufficient to decide complex issues is correct. Your thoughts that its insufficient even to choose among 2 candidates positions on the matter is probably correct. However you miss a points. It's not always or not even often about picking from 2 complex alternatives. It's often a matter of eliminating options that are stupid, illogical, or incons…

> It's often a matter of eliminating options that are stupid, illogical, or inconsistent.

But how do you know which options are stupid? Because they sound stupid to you? Are you confident enough in your powers of detecting stupid that you would base denying people basic rights on it? What gives you that enormous confidence?

> if it was only eliminating those who literally have no idea what is going on.

The number of people who have an idea what is going on, when we're talking about things like whole US economy, might be surprisingly small. In fact, sometimes I am tempted to think that number is zero. Of course, for me it makes me think maybe we need less government involvement, since a blind giant with a sledgehammer is worse than a blind giant without one, but some people think that means we need to abandon democracy. OK, but unless you are an anarchist, how do you propose to choose the government then? By instituting a series of exams? Chinese tried that, actually. Not sure it worked that spectacularly well. Check it out.

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