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Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

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Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#81

Post by Animats »

fzeroracer wrote: post #15
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The loads hauled by these truckers aren't going to magically vanish because the employment laws have changed, which would strongly suggest there will be about the same number of jobs in the end, since the same amount of work still needs to be done. >I read this as: truckers will no longer be expect to supply their own $150,000 trucks to get into the business. Loads formerly carried by owner/operators and small fleet…

Independent restaurants still have to comply with the law and provide a basic level of care for their employees. Now if you had a restaurant that tried to claim their staff were all independent contractors (because they worked for multiple restaurants in the same chain) in order to avoid complying with labor law, you'd have a closer analogy. Ultimately this sounds like they wanted to get away with offloading the risk…

Now if you had a restaurant that tried to claim their staff were all independent contractors (because they worked for multiple restaurants in the same chain) in order to avoid complying with labor law, you'd have a closer analogy.

That's Travis Kalanick's "Cloud Kitchens".

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#82

Post by BurningFrog »

eloff wrote: post #64
BurningFrog wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that if trucking prices do go up, the amount of cargo that gets moved will go down.

Thanks for grounding the discussion with a little microeconomics.

Microeconomics is the best Economics!

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#83

Post by badtux »

fzeroracer wrote: post #77
BurningFrog wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that if trucking prices do go up, the amount of cargo that gets moved will go down.

No, not necessarily. Correlation is not causation and what not. If trucking prices go up, companies might opt to move more cargo at the same time (same amount of moved cargo, but less trucks on the road) or they might simply eat the loss (if they're already making massive profits) or any number of alternatives. If we were to take your argument into absurdity, the best thing to do would be to reduce trucking prices to…

The Fortune 500 made $1.1 trillion in corporate profits last year. The notion that they'll buy less stuff because shipping now costs $5 extra is ludicrous. Their problem is what to do with all that surplus cash now that they've bought down short-term Treasuries to basically 0% interest, a 1-3% increase in shipping costs wouldn't even appear on their "OMG!" radar.

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#84

Post by stickfigure »

favorited wrote: post #78
joshklein wrote: post #57

This article is about a suit from The California Trucking Association, a trade group and industry lobbyist representing corporate management, not truckers. You can learn about them on their website if you're curious. The only source providing a statement in the body of this article is the association's head lobbyist. Background sources seem to include a politician and an academic institute. No truckers. I don't have…

Thank you! The Teamsters union (and locals), which actually represent truckers, supported AB5.

Ah yes, the teamsters... who will no longer have to compete with independents.

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#85

Post by stickfigure »

fzeroracer wrote: post #77
BurningFrog wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that if trucking prices do go up, the amount of cargo that gets moved will go down.

No, not necessarily. Correlation is not causation and what not. If trucking prices go up, companies might opt to move more cargo at the same time (same amount of moved cargo, but less trucks on the road) or they might simply eat the loss (if they're already making massive profits) or any number of alternatives. If we were to take your argument into absurdity, the best thing to do would be to reduce trucking prices to…

absurdity, the best thing to do would be to reduce trucking prices to $0

What is absurd about that? If we could wave a magic wand and reduce the real transportation cost of goods to 0, it would have massive beneficial effects in the overall economy. In large part we're seeing the benefit of that in the macro due to the (formerly) falling cost of global shipping.

It's magical thinking that an increase in the cost of transport won't have some sort of negative effect on the economy.

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#86

Post by greglindahl »

raintrees wrote: post #73

In our small town in very Northern California along the coast, the local paper, which is struggling to survive, having just been bought out of receivership, has decided to start delivering the paper via USPS to avoid this law's ramifications with the paper delivery router people. So more jobs lost, thanks to legislation to protect a certain group of people. Hazlitt would have recommended examining the law's merits pr…

Jobs lost? If the paper had failed I could see that jobs were lost, but changing from one delivery system to another doesn't seem to be jobs lost?

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#87

Post by fzeroracer »

stickfigure wrote: post #85
fzeroracer wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not necessarily. Correlation is not causation and what not. If trucking prices go up, companies might opt to move more cargo at the same time (same amount of moved cargo, but less trucks on the road) or they might simply eat the loss (if they're already making massive profits) or any number of alternatives. If we were to take your argument into absurdity, the best thing to do would be to reduce trucking prices to…

absurdity, the best thing to do would be to reduce trucking prices to $0 What is absurd about that? If we could wave a magic wand and reduce the real transportation cost of goods to 0, it would have massive beneficial effects in the overall economy. In large part we're seeing the benefit of that in the macro due to the (formerly) falling cost of global shipping. It's magical thinking that an increase in the cost of t…

This isn't an increase in the cost of transport, this is an increase in the cost of trucking. There's a subtle but very important distinction there because the actual human cost of trucking (ie wages, healthcare etc) is likely much smaller than the costs of fuel, maintenance and many more externalities.

Yes, if you could magically teleport goods from one location to another, that would be fantastic for the economy and terrible for truckers. I think it's more magical thinking however to look at one statistic and assume that it would lead to doom and gloom, as many did when Seattle decided to change the minimum wage to $15.

That said, if we believe that reducing the cost of trucking at all costs is important to the economy: Why not just remove all worker protections? In fact, why not just not pay workers at all? We have plenty of prisoners that could be truck drivers.

We can kick out all of the high earning truck drivers being leeches on the economy by increasing the cost of transport and replace them with something far cheaper until automation comes along. That sounds like a good idea, yeah?

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#88

Post by jjeaff »

nradov wrote: post #70
pmcginn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in finished vehicle logistics, and I've worked directly with a wide variety of truckers, including three years in California. You are very right that the amount of cargo that needs to be moved will not change because of this law, but you are, in my opinion, wrong about everything else. I don't want to stereotype truckers because it is a diverse group. But I will say that in my anecdotal experience, this is a job…

There is no "shortage" of truckers. Never has been and never will be. New truckers can be trained in a few months. Customers and employers just don't want to pay. Claiming that there is a shortage of workers in a particular field is generally nonsense. Is there a shortage of gold? No, I can buy as much as I want tomorrow ... at the market price.

There is such a thing as elastic demand. If you can't find people to pick strawberries without paying $150 an hour, you are probably going to go out of business. That is usually considered a labor shortage.

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#89

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

stickfigure wrote: post #84
favorited wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! The Teamsters union (and locals), which actually represent truckers, supported AB5.

Ah yes, the teamsters... who will no longer have to compete with independents.

> Ah yes, the teamsters... who will no longer have to compete with independents.

Not to overstate the obvious, but that's pretty much the entire point of unions: by working collectively, individuals aren't directly competing against each other, forcing management to pay higher wages, with the goal being that the wages paid are higher than any individual could make if the union didn't exist.

Re: Truckers sue California, say new gig economy law would kill 70k jobs

#90

Post by aaronblohowiak »

wil421 wrote: post #49
a3n wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're working on it. As a trucker, I have no problem with automation. No one has the right to any specific job or career.

So no companies with viable products. Drone trucks that follow a real driver are more realistic than fully automated trucks. Everything I’ve seen from Tesla to GM’s cruise to the German luxury brands is just driver assist tech not self driving. Im asking about any company since 2000 or mid 1990s that has put people out of jobs. Netflix nope, Alphabet nope, Facebook never. Salesforce maybe some jobs. Here’s the SV 150…

Facebook absolutely helped put local newspapers out of business.
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