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Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

theguardian.com

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Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#321

Post by arrosenberg »

xeromal wrote: post #317
arrosenberg wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but not the way you are constructing it. The driver doesn't get to set the price, and there are downsides to declining the fare. Additionally there is no relationship established between the driver and the rider. The carriage contract is between Uber/Lyft and the rider. The platform is then hiring the driver to fulfill their end of the contract. The driver and rider have no ability to form future contracts, unle…

Actually the driver does set the price. They get to set whatever multiplier they desire and can effectively set the price to whatever they believe is fair.

Couple things:

1. Yes, in California only, effective in July of this year. I.E. regulation having an intended effect, increasing worker power.

2. The contract is still between the rideshare company the rider, not between the driver and the rider. An actual IC relationship would give the rider and driver the ability to opt-in to a provider-customer relationship and easily create future contracts with each other. Uber's model (monopoly power) necessitates their involvement, which is basically the source of conflict here. Their model is incompatible with giving the drivers actual independence.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#322

Post by randompwd »

coldcode wrote: post #230
SmokeyHamster wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the point. People deserve to be paid what they agree to be paid. The value of money relative to a product or service is subjective. If Bob agrees to mow a lawn for $10, Joe doesn't have the right to object and demand that Bob be paid $20. That's immoral and not how markets should work.

In a true market the pay for a worker with no special skills will trend towards 0. Uber drivers cannot decide what to charge, Uber does. How much an Uber driver makes is entirely up to Uber, and Uber is losing money on every ride so in the long run they have to either increase the price or pay the driver less. My (large) employer pays for my health insurance in the US which has to be added to what we charge. Uber has…

> Uber has to pay nothing for any benefits and can cut the wages to just barely enough to not die.

Subversively slipping in the term 'wages' is not arguing in good faith.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#323

Post by bloodorange »

tor_anon_1 wrote: post #283
bloodorange wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wear a board on your front and back, with a message about worker protections, universal healthcare and walk around town spreading that message and hope it has an effect.

is this supposed to be facetious? because my point is exactly that there is nothing to do other than that and that to pretend that you can "elbow grease" and "work ethic" your way out of debilitating injury is just asinine.

Indeed, my post was in agreement with you.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#324

Post by randompwd »

Tarsul wrote: post #100

Conceptually, it's pretty clear: For the single person that needs (or wants) its Uber income, the law is good because they get their income as before. However, it's only good because the whole system is bad (e.g. that labor has no power in the US). So the question whether the law is "good" is rather the question: What's the alternative? For as long as there's no alternative for Uber etc., the law is good. If there we…

Is somebody poor in America if they have access to and use of a vehicle fit for Uber? (regardless whether is financed or not)?

I think unskilled would be a more apt term.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#325

Post by neolefty »

download13 wrote: post #318
ericabiz wrote: post #51

My husband drives for Uber, and I’m glad the proposition passed as it is. He drives the way Uber was originally envisioned. He goes out some nights if there’s a surge, and in the morning on the way to work he points the app toward our stores and grabs a person (pre-pandemic) or a food delivery (today) on his way in. It pays for gas money, car maintenance, and then some. Some months he makes a few hundred dollars. Som…

Good thing they added that clause about how it needs a 7/8ths majority to repeal, ensuring this special law will be with us forever

That sounds constitutionally suspicious. Think it will stand up in court?

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#326

Post by rtkwe »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #209
rtkwe wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no voluntary out for overtime because companies usually demanded that employees worked those longer hours and employees then and now had very little protection against retaliation if they didn't want to. A lot of the 'employee choice' arguments depend on an illusion of free association when the employer has almost all the power to set work conditions and can let the employee go at will with no compensation.

> A lot of the 'employee choice' arguments depend on an illusion of free association when the employer has almost all the power to set work conditions and can let the employee go at will with no compensation. The "illusion" existed at a time when there were company towns and a Big Three automaker cartel and you really couldn't just go work for somebody else. It's a pretty outdated argument when if you don't like work…

There are maybe some jobs that are that fungible (even then I'd love to see numbers on time between jobs on any industry) but for better jobs that aren't paying minimum wage the threat of losing your job is real and the gap before getting a similarly paying job is real and threatening to a lot of people.

Even in low paying 'fungible' jobs the threat of losing your job and the gap between one minimum wage job and the next stops all sorts of laws from being properly enforced because employees can't afford to lose their job in retaliation while waiting for a payout. Take basic wage theft one of the largest loses of money for people in the US every year totaling possibly billions of dollars. Companies are paying below minimum wage, refusing to pay over time, requiring off clock time, etc and employees feel like they can't come forward because they can't afford any interruption in their wages because of a number of things but chief among them is if you're living paycheck to paycheck even missing one week's wages can put you in a debt spiral.

When companies are about to pull this off I find it hard to believe that things like overtime protections and hourly limits are 'limits on choice' more than they're protections against abuse.

https://www.epi.org/publication/employers-steal-billions-fro... - just minimum wage violations

https://www.gq.com/story/wage-theft

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#327

Post by dang »

googthrowaway42 wrote: post #60
_dark_matter_ wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, can you explain? Why do you think that makes sense? If you're going to say "because this is the kind of thing a social justice minister would write", consider that: 1. You may have cause and effect wrong. The conditions this person lived through, especially as a gig worker, may have moved them to be a social justice minister; not the other way around. 2. You are not judging the article from the quality of the…

Right now all you're doing is engaging in virtue signaling. How about you go off and split your Mozilla salary with this woman and then once you provide proof of this then we can have an honest discussion. Just to be clear, nothing at all is stopping you from doing this. You wouldn't be so awful as to claim that your labor is more valuable than this woman's, would you?

We've banned this account for repeatedly and egregiously breaking HN's guidelines. Please don't create accounts to do that with. We're trying for curious conversation here, not bashing each other with two by fours.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#328

Post by sitkack »

ericabiz wrote: post #51

My husband drives for Uber, and I’m glad the proposition passed as it is. He drives the way Uber was originally envisioned. He goes out some nights if there’s a surge, and in the morning on the way to work he points the app toward our stores and grabs a person (pre-pandemic) or a food delivery (today) on his way in. It pays for gas money, car maintenance, and then some. Some months he makes a few hundred dollars. Som…

You are in Texas not California. This doesn't affect you.

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#329

Post by jryle70 »

SllX wrote: post #55

If the 2020 elections proved anything, it’s that money doesn’t buy elections. Bloomberg tried in the Primary, and tried again in Texas on behalf of Biden and the Democrats and their portion of the Texan Congressional election actually shrank in a State the mainstream media was selling as a swing State. Money gets you into the game, it doesn’t get you over the finish line. Back to Prop 22, Uber didn’t buy a law, Calif…

> Bloomberg tried in the Primary, and tried again in Texas on behalf of Biden and the Democrats and their portion of the Texan Congressional election actually shrank in a State the mainstream media was selling as a swing State

This is incorrect. Bloomberg spent $100 million to help Biden in Florida, not Texas. They may hope to flip Florida, but the main goal was to force Trump to defend there, and therefore unable to focus elsewhere, notably Pennsylvania, as they explained in the article below back in September. From that perspective they did very well.

"In a statement issued Sunday, Mr. Sheekey said Mr. Bloomberg’s latest commitments “will mean Democrats and the Biden campaign can invest even more heavily in other key states like Pennsylvania, which will be critical to a Biden victory.”

[0] - https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/13/us/politics/bloomberg-flo...

Re: Gig economy companies spent more than $200M to bankroll Proposition 22

#330

Post by tschwimmer »

ericabiz wrote: post #51

My husband drives for Uber, and I’m glad the proposition passed as it is. He drives the way Uber was originally envisioned. He goes out some nights if there’s a surge, and in the morning on the way to work he points the app toward our stores and grabs a person (pre-pandemic) or a food delivery (today) on his way in. It pays for gas money, car maintenance, and then some. Some months he makes a few hundred dollars. Som…

If there are some months that he only makes a few hundred dollars, it's possible that you're actually losing money on depreciation (even if you're net positive on current costs like gas and maintenance). This is something that I see very few drivers talk about but influences your earnings significantly.

Depreciation is a real cost. If at the time you sell your car your car, you get $X, but driving for Uber caused you to have more miles and thus sell for $X-$Y, then Y is real cost. Even if you don't sell your car and instead drive your it into the ground, the extra miles you're driving for Uber cause your car to fail faster.

I get the sense that many part time drivers think they're making money when instead they're losing it (or maybe making less than minimum wage after expenses).

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