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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

#151

Post by neilwilson »

gwright wrote: post #66
ogre_codes wrote: post #38

There are 2 big problems with on-demand/ gig employment. #1 Our current system of coupling healthcare and other life essential benefits with employment is broken. It makes it difficult for people to work small jobs or switch jobs. In order for gig jobs to be viable, people need to be able to get survive a broken foot without going bankrupt. #2 Gig-style businesses tend to vastly underpay employees. The early claims t…

I'm not going to tackle #1 other than to say I do agree that health insurance shouldn't be provided by your employer. But for #2, you seem to be asserting that there is some method by which it is possible to determine that a particular salary/wage is "fair" and that "fair" wage must be mandated for all people. You've asserted that gig businesses are underpaying and yet lots of people continue to take those jobs. Are…

Systemically there are always fewer jobs than people that want them as a matter of policy. Businesses hire only when there is profit to be had whereas people need a job every day to eat.

If you change the system so that there is always an alternative job available - and correct the power asymmetry so that individuals can say “no deal” too then wages will correct themselves.

And very likely most gig jobs would disappear as uneconomic.

Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back

#152

Post by AnthonyMouse »

catalogia wrote: post #150
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the typical reimbursement for miles traveled isn't primarily for depreciation, it's for maintenance (and also typically fuel). Corporations also like to estimate this number on the high side, or include amortized depreciation due to time rather than miles even if the vehicle purchase was a sunk cost, because business travel is often tax deductible and this allows the company to offer the employee addit…

Fuel was reimbursed separately (I remember collecting all the receipts for that, food, and hotels) and I don't think maintenance would account for two orders of magnitude discrepancy. 0.003/mile is abysmally low.

If you have a vehicle which is ten years old, even with low miles it generally won't be worth very much, and you can't lose more than the remaining amount by putting additional miles on it. You can't even lose the entire remaining amount, because it will always have at least scrap metal value. This means that for a vehicle you hold for several years, the depreciation due to miles will be very low.

You could easily spend many times that amount on maintenance and repairs. One transmission rebuild could cost more than the total amount of depreciation due to miles over the entire life of the vehicle. Just oil changes add up to more than $10,000 over a million miles.

Maintenance is a significant expense per mile, even more if you're using "average" vehicles (as companies setting per-mile rates would) which can have significantly higher maintenance costs than the sort of vehicles people choose when they know they're going to be driving a lot of miles.

Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back

#153

Post by masonic »

bhupy wrote: post #121
sethammons wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that the $15/hr figure from the source includes tips, but does not count gas, insurance, nor vehicle wear and tear

It includes gas, maintenance, and insurance.

It can't properly do so because those costs vary tremendously by vehicle, location, etc.

Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back

#155

Post by CydeWeys »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #148
CydeWeys wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your typical rideshare car isn't nearly that old, though, and isn't going to make it to nearly a million miles either. You've cherrypicked every single variable to favor your case, and you did the calculation wrong besides (you need to use the starting value of the car, not the ending value). Do it again for a newer more valuable car, and a lot fewer miles put on it. You can easily see depreciation amounts in the tho…

> Your typical rideshare car isn't nearly that old, though Now, or when they stop using it? The average car in the US is 11.8 years old. > and isn't going to make it to nearly a million miles either This is a completely plausible number of miles for a vehicle driven full time over the course of several years. > and you did the calculation wrong besides (you need to use the starting value of the car, not the ending va…

You're not understanding that many people are buying nice NEW cars for the purpose of driving them for rideshare, because of the requirements of the platforms, and that these new cars are then depreciating heavily (up to tens of thousands of dollars' worth in a few years) because of the absurd number of miles being put on them that absolutely trashes their resale value.

The typical rideshare car here in NYC is purpose-specific (needs different plates), has an average new cost of at least $30k, and is pretty new. It's absolutely correct to count the full cost of the depreciation of this vehicle as a rideshare expense.

And the average stats for cars in general in the US are irrelevant; what matters is what's being used for rideshare. You can't use old clunkers for that.

Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back

#156

Post by kyuudou »

save_ferris wrote: post #46
hirundo wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Labor groups tend to thrive on restrictions. They benefit from many and often successfully lobby for exceptions to the others. They're natural opponents to a free market for labor. Larger corporations tend to be as well, since smaller competitors have more trouble complying, they get an advantage. So they cooperate with labor groups to oppose trends like the gig work. I was surprised that the gig economy grew so far…

How has the average American worker benefited from free market labor over the last 40 years? Free market labor has given us, among many other things: - binding arbitration in labor disputes that heavily tip the scales in favor of the company - stagnating wages while the pace of income inequality continues to grow - large corporations that are deemed too important to fail by the Fed and therefore not fully held accoun…

>How exactly does one overcome these kinds of challenges if not through grassroots organized movements?

Don't work for them, don't buy their products, spread the word. It's not easy but nothing worth doing is.

Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back

#157

Post by AnthonyMouse »

CydeWeys wrote: post #155
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your typical rideshare car isn't nearly that old, though Now, or when they stop using it? The average car in the US is 11.8 years old. > and isn't going to make it to nearly a million miles either This is a completely plausible number of miles for a vehicle driven full time over the course of several years. > and you did the calculation wrong besides (you need to use the starting value of the car, not the ending va…

You're not understanding that many people are buying nice NEW cars for the purpose of driving them for rideshare, because of the requirements of the platforms, and that these new cars are then depreciating heavily (up to tens of thousands of dollars' worth in a few years) because of the absurd number of miles being put on them that absolutely trashes their resale value. The typical rideshare car here in NYC is purpos…

> You're not understanding that many people are buying nice NEW cars for the purpose of driving them for rideshare

You don't buy a new car unless you have money to burn. Even if you need a "new" car, you buy a three or four year old car, which is still plenty new but lets the other guy take the lion's share of the depreciation. Half the difference is from having less time on the factory warranty which you would exceed on miles before that anyway.

Even with "newer" cars it's still not huge. A 2016 Camry with 60,000 miles is worth about $5000 more than a 2016 Camry with 500,000 miles, which is ~$.01/mile. But you don't sell a four year old car, you buy a four year old car.

> The typical rideshare car here in NYC is purpose-specific (needs different plates)

Who is to blame when cities pass rules that increase costs on drivers?

> It's absolutely correct to count the full cost of the depreciation of this vehicle as a rideshare expense.

It is absolutely incorrect when the owner is also using the vehicle as a personal vehicle, which they would need anyway, which makes the age-related component of the depreciation a sunk cost.

> And the average stats for cars in general in the US are irrelevant; what matters is what's being used for rideshare. You can't use old clunkers for that.

Which is why you stop using them for that when they're ten years old and not twenty or thirty. Notice also that this doesn't mean you're driving a ten year old car most of the time, it means you're driving a five or six year old car most of the time because when it's ten years old is when you stop driving it.

Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back

#158

Post by CydeWeys »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #157
CydeWeys wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not understanding that many people are buying nice NEW cars for the purpose of driving them for rideshare, because of the requirements of the platforms, and that these new cars are then depreciating heavily (up to tens of thousands of dollars' worth in a few years) because of the absurd number of miles being put on them that absolutely trashes their resale value. The typical rideshare car here in NYC is purpos…

> You're not understanding that many people are buying nice NEW cars for the purpose of driving them for rideshare You don't buy a new car unless you have money to burn. Even if you need a "new" car, you buy a three or four year old car, which is still plenty new but lets the other guy take the lion's share of the depreciation. Half the difference is from having less time on the factory warranty which you would excee…

This is a ought/are problem. You're saying what rideshare drivers ought to be doing, and then in that most optimistic case doing your calculations based on that, but you instead need to taking a descriptivist look at the situation and doing the analysis on what people are actually doing, not what you think they should be doing. And, yes, lots of rideshare drivers are buying/leasing new vehicles to use for the platform, and they are suffering a lot from depreciation on it.

Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back

#159

Post by bhupy »

CydeWeys wrote: post #158
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're not understanding that many people are buying nice NEW cars for the purpose of driving them for rideshare You don't buy a new car unless you have money to burn. Even if you need a "new" car, you buy a three or four year old car, which is still plenty new but lets the other guy take the lion's share of the depreciation. Half the difference is from having less time on the factory warranty which you would excee…

This is a ought/are problem. You're saying what rideshare drivers ought to be doing, and then in that most optimistic case doing your calculations based on that, but you instead need to taking a descriptivist look at the situation and doing the analysis on what people are actually doing, not what you think they should be doing. And, yes, lots of rideshare drivers are buying/leasing new vehicles to use for the platfor…

If drivers are doing something that they shouldn't be, and there's a fairly straightforward way for them to avoid negative consequences, then this is a matter that is out of scope of public policy.

Removing the negative consequences from making unwise financial decisions 1) is a moral hazard, and 2) punishes those that are using their resources more wisely.

Re: Uber wants to redefine employment, labor groups are fighting back

#160

Post by [deleted] »

bhupy wrote: post #72
mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can opt out of employer healthcare but it's not going to be in your interest to do so - they're not going to offer to give you cash in lieu.

> they're not going to offer to give you cash in lieu. The ICHRA[1], which came into effect on January 2020 allows employers to do just that. There's even a YC company that offers ICHRA functionality for employers[2]. [1] https://ichra.com/ [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22527102

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