Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
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Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#2I like gig work. I like the freedom. We need fewer restrictions not more.
Forcing businesses to hire only full-time workers reduces the number of jobs. They won't hire someone unless there's 2000 hours of work to fill up a year.
Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#3I like gig work. I like the freedom. We need fewer restrictions not more. Forcing businesses to hire only full-time workers reduces the number of jobs. They won't hire someone unless there's 2000 hours of work to fill up a year.
* Decouple healthcare from employment (Universal healthcare)
* Enable robust safety nets so lack of enough gig work doesn’t mean someone is homeless or goes hungry.
Can we find middle ground? People can’t live good lives with excessive uncertainty and stress, and quality of life is what we should optimize for (like New Zealand is attempting), versus GDP. I concede gig work type employment has a place in our modern economy if workers are vigorously protected from exploitation.
Sidenote: I’d also like a 4 day work week, considering productivity gains over the last 50 years, but that might be a separate discussion.
Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#4I like gig work. I like the freedom. We need fewer restrictions not more. Forcing businesses to hire only full-time workers reduces the number of jobs. They won't hire someone unless there's 2000 hours of work to fill up a year.
> I like the freedom.
You do you, but I just wanted to provide an alternative view: that freedom might be great when you're young and equally free, but IMHO it doesn't work as well when you're 40 years old trying to ensure stable income to support your family
Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#5I like gig work. I like the freedom. We need fewer restrictions not more. Forcing businesses to hire only full-time workers reduces the number of jobs. They won't hire someone unless there's 2000 hours of work to fill up a year.
Me too, but the answer is to give Uber drivers more independence not to get rid of their contractor status. If this results in gig workers being able to for example do multiple jobs at once, being able to choose their own clients, etc then it could be a win for society?
Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#6I like gig work. I like the freedom. We need fewer restrictions not more. Forcing businesses to hire only full-time workers reduces the number of jobs. They won't hire someone unless there's 2000 hours of work to fill up a year.
> I like the freedom. You do you, but I just wanted to provide an alternative view: that freedom might be great when you're young and equally free, but IMHO it doesn't work as well when you're 40 years old trying to ensure stable income to support your family
Well, sure, but then you go and get one of those jobs.
It's not like banning gig workers will make those jobs appear. If there's 3000 hours of work to be done, a business will hire one worker to do 2000 hours and turn down the 1000 hours of work. A business can't magically "round up". The money for the extra work needs to come from somewhere.
Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#7I like gig work. I like the freedom. We need fewer restrictions not more. Forcing businesses to hire only full-time workers reduces the number of jobs. They won't hire someone unless there's 2000 hours of work to fill up a year.
* Decouple healthcare from employment (Universal healthcare) * Enable robust safety nets so lack of enough gig work doesn’t mean someone is homeless or goes hungry. Can we find middle ground? People can’t live good lives with excessive uncertainty and stress, and quality of life is what we should optimize for (like New Zealand is attempting), versus GDP. I concede gig work type employment has a place in our modern ec…
The safety nets in the US are independent of the businesses. It's not like having a "full-time job" is a safety net. Ask all of the "full-time" employees at airlines, restaurants, hotels and other places discovered after COVID-19 hit.
I'm totally cool with decoupling health insurance. I think Uber would love that.
The great thing about the independent contractor life that Uber is expousing is that you can have your four day work week. And you can jump up to six days when you've got the time and drop to one day if you don't.
Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#8I like gig work. I like the freedom. We need fewer restrictions not more. Forcing businesses to hire only full-time workers reduces the number of jobs. They won't hire someone unless there's 2000 hours of work to fill up a year.
> I like the freedom. You do you, but I just wanted to provide an alternative view: that freedom might be great when you're young and equally free, but IMHO it doesn't work as well when you're 40 years old trying to ensure stable income to support your family
That's less about uber or employment status and more about "disruption" in general.
Rapid innovation is great for advancing the state of the art but terrible for all the people in society who had made a life around doing work for a decade or two that is suddenly no longer a viable career.
We (as a civilization) need to take care of the people who aren't the ones making the new fortunes.
Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I like the freedom. You do you, but I just wanted to provide an alternative view: that freedom might be great when you're young and equally free, but IMHO it doesn't work as well when you're 40 years old trying to ensure stable income to support your family
Well, sure, but then you go and get one of those jobs. It's not like banning gig workers will make those jobs appear. If there's 3000 hours of work to be done, a business will hire one worker to do 2000 hours and turn down the 1000 hours of work. A business can't magically "round up". The money for the extra work needs to come from somewhere.
If your business doesn't generate enough revenue to hire staff for the work you want done, you're unable to hire the staff.
There's plenty of work to be done if we don't have to pay anyone anything, there is a reason we don't permit that though.
Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back
#10I like to use comparison with labor standards in other economies.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/france-uber-ruling-puts-gig-wor... is similar to this, since it involves employment status.
There are various restrictions imposed on ride-sharing companies across the globe.
Not necessarily labor, but related to medallions / licensure to drive taxis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_ridesharing_compan...