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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

#101

Post by foogazi »

katmannthree wrote: post #67
manigandham wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So set the floor and increase education. This regulation doesn't do any of that, instead it just removes that way of working as if these people can't make the choice for themselves.

How do you set that floor if not with this (or similar) regulation? I'm 100% with you on increasing education, but that has a delayed effect of many years. And even with the delay, there will likely always be some people who need to make rent or feed their kids who'll accept the equivalent of a $5/hr job because it's all they can get. I was once that person, filling out quizzes on amazon's mechanical turk for what wa…

> I appreciate having had the work, but it still feels like a loophole around having a minimum wage.

Do you think there is a place for sub-minimum wage jobs?

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

#102

Post by manigandham »

fzeroracer wrote: post #80
manigandham wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So set the floor and increase education. This regulation doesn't do any of that, instead it just removes that way of working as if these people can't make the choice for themselves.

Except we already have the floor. It's called being labeled an 'employee'. Independent contractors are a way of companies getting around the floor. So you either modify the floor so that contractors have the same benefits as employees, or you make them employees. Both of which are fundamentally the same thing.

The problem is thinking it's only about the companies. The job of professional driver has existed for a long time. People working as freelancers specifically don't want a job for whatever reason. Why should that freedom be taken away?

Why must contractors have the same benefits? They have the choice to make whatever deal they want. A better strategy would be healthcare and taxes that aren't tied to employment so that contractors can more easily match employee terms.

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

#103

Post by ng12 »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #89
stickfigure wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> forcing management to pay higher wages,

Independent truckers don't have management. They make more money and don't pay union dues. That's the whole point, and why the Teamsters want them gone.

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

#104

Post by antisthenes »

BurningFrog wrote: post #43
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…

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

Ceteris paribus, of course.

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

#105

Post by Animats »

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…

Right. The Owner Operator Independent Driver Association says low pay is the problem.[1] They're concerned about the Hours of Service regulations. They have a list of state issues, state by state. CA-5 isn't even mentioned.[2]

[1] https://www.ooida.com/MediaCenter/PressReleases/pressrelease... [2] https://www.ooida.com/Legislative/leg-watch.aspx

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

#106

Post by nemo44x »

thephyber wrote: post #71
nemo44x wrote: post #60

You’re watching corruption in real time Here. Lorena Gonzalez is openly condemning the court system and corporations are flexing how much they’ll spend if they can’t cut a deal. Regulations like these lead to lobbying which leads to corruption. This isn’t about “justice for workers” - it’s a shakedown by politicians in a single party state.

> Lorena Gonzalez is openly condemning the court system Can you explain your thinking here? From my reading, the law she wrote/sponsored was largely aligned with the Supreme Court of California interpretation of the Dynamex case.

She says that they are “delaying justice” by taking their grievance to “the courts”. I read it as a condemnation of the courts as an obstacle to her view of what justice is.

Any law maker should embrace a court challenge to their law. Suggesting the courts are an obstacle to their constituent’s is bad precedent.

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

#107

Post by graeme »

tstrimple wrote: post #95
graeme wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that's more concrete. So, to give a specific example: a friend of mine runs a photography business. He's independently established in the trade. Sometimes, he subcontracts for others when they have a job they can't fulfil on their own. At other time, he has subcontracted work out to other photographers. They are also independently established. 1. This is banned by the California law? 2. You approve of this restri…

This is easy enough to answer by looking at the provisions in the bill. https://iccoalition.org/top-news/california-dynamex-decision... > The Court adopted an “ABC” test for determining “employee” status for purposes of the wage order, which presumptively considers all workers to be employees, and permits workers to be classified as independent contractors only if the hiring business demonstrates that the worker in q…

Each means all three of the conditions. So they have to satisfy B as well:

> (B) that the worker performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business; and

This pretty clearly seems to render the arrangement illegal. Does this change your view at all?

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

#108

Post by merpnderp »

denkmoon wrote: post #92
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Thus avoiding a race to the bottom where truckers drive all day just to feed themselves and our insatiable desire for free shipping.

What if someone is perfectly happy to drive for $1 less than the union negotiated? Why would you use the force of government, police with guns, to keep them from selling their labor a dollar cheaper. Especially when they’re perfectly happy to do so?

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

#109

Post by katmannthree »

foogazi wrote: post #101
katmannthree wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you set that floor if not with this (or similar) regulation? I'm 100% with you on increasing education, but that has a delayed effect of many years. And even with the delay, there will likely always be some people who need to make rent or feed their kids who'll accept the equivalent of a $5/hr job because it's all they can get. I was once that person, filling out quizzes on amazon's mechanical turk for what wa…

> I appreciate having had the work, but it still feels like a loophole around having a minimum wage. Do you think there is a place for sub-minimum wage jobs?

Not in this country[0], no. If you allow a company to set the floor for their market with sub-living wages, then all other companies need to either match the low wages to stay competitive or they'll eventually fail or be taken over.

On a slightly broader scale, I don't see any mechanism by which markets self-regulate to police unethical behavior. All I see is the opposite, companies rebranding when their image gets tarnished and hiring PR firms to lie to people but they don't actually stop behaving unethically. Even in rare cases when they get fined, oftentimes the fines are less than the profit they made from the specific actions they were fined for.

[0] Global issues, trade, outsourcing, etc are a far bigger discussion.

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

#110

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

> If we were to take your argument into absurdity

I'm making an observation, not an argument.

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