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Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

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Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#111

Post by foogazi »

bluedino wrote: post #53
whalesalad wrote: post #15

Everyone is so against this move but it I was a grocery store I wouldn’t want this responsibility either. These stores are in the business of groceries, not delivery. They got into delivery because they had to and I’d imagine it was losing a lot of money and not to mention tough for them to accomplish and manage. Everyone else and their brother is moving to doordash white label because it makes the most sense. They f…

>> People are most upset about the health insurance aspect. The issues need to be decoupled The employer should pay for it. It’s a benefit like retirement savings. If employers want better employees, they can offer fully-paid or low deductible plans to their employees. I do not want the US government running healthcare.

The US government already runs housing, schools, retirement plans. But it doesn’t mean private lenders, private schools or private retirement companies have disappeared.

The same US government incentivizes employer healthcare by allowing the deductibility of those benefits - which allows the healthcare industry to capture that money, and employers to trap employees.

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#112

Post by mullingitover »

throwaway201103 wrote: post #98
mullingitover wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Singapore has some pretty nice public housing. If there was a government policy that any time median rents climb above X, the state will procure land and build housing until it drops below that number again, it might be more workable than the blunt instrument of price caps.

Public housing in thE US is almost entirely shitholes, though. It's better than being homeless, maybe. That's about it. That is the reason many large cities have torn most of it down and replaced it with section 8 vouchers. This scatters the ghetto-dwellers from their former high-rise islands into neighborhoods, which triggers flight by the existing residents since the people coming out of public housing are clueless…

I brought up Singapore's public housing model because in Singapore residents have the option to buy, so the housing is occupied and maintained by owners who are invested in the property. I think this would work well in California and would avoid a lot of the previous, designed-to-fail public housing systems we've tried. Singapore attaches their public housing to transit and doesn't have California's regulations for parking, which cuts costs significantly.

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#113

Post by sizzle »

Pfhreak wrote: post #103
renewiltord wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because there is an existing large class of people (2 in 3 Americans) who have acted based on the idea that housing is a market and have bought a home on that basis. They have no interest in altering the status quo. To add to that, you can't choose what housing is priced by unless you have government price controls and that is a cure that's worse than the disease.

I own a home, and if it steadily loses value but my city becomes affordable for anyone who wants to live here, that seems like a pretty fair trade to me...

Tell that to the people who will be underwater on the mortgage, only way this is equitable for all is if mortgage loan principle is adjusted in reverse in parallel.

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#114

Post by Jommi »

slg wrote: post #97
Jommi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

??? Are you just ignoring everything we previously discussed? Having a way to directly amend the law via some majority is completely optional. There is no need to ever include that in the ballot proposition. Why are you choosing to completely ignore this clear fact?

I'm not ignoring anything. I am simply pointing out the 7/8 majority is so impractical that it is a worthless addition that only serves the appearance of making the law appear amendable but in practice it can only truly be amended by the popular vote.

Yes, and amending by popular vote is the norm. What exactly is the issue here again?

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#115

Post by Jommi »

mushbino wrote: post #76
Jommi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are not talking about stability of AB5, but rather the situation before it. It was trivial for most other industries to get excemptions to AB5 (there are tens, if not close to 100 excemptions now). So what really changed with prop22 comapared to before AB5?

Prop22 requires a 7/8 majority in the house to overturn (practically impossible).

You should research this more. Having even a possibility for voting to amend a law is not the normal. Usually proposition can't be overturned at all.

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#116

Post by Spooky23 »

renewiltord wrote: post #61
Spooky23 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it was clearly unethical to rob these employees of the freedom of being piecework contractors. Only through pulling bootstraps and making lemonade from lemons will these uneducated wretches be able to bask in the sunshine of freedom. Back in the glory days of Victorian England you could flip a boy a farthing for grocery delivery... I for one and pleased the make these opportunities available.

As entertaining as it must be to you to write in this style, it is quite annoying to read. Clearly GP was saying "we had to choose between a few well-paid jobs with many unable to access them or many low-paid jobs; it's a trade-off". It's obvious that that statement is intended to consider everyone's well being, not just some idle nobility as you imply.

Maybe that what it feels like for a well compensated tech worker.

The baseline assumption of the argument is that you are entitled to some minion fetching your stuff at a price low enough that not even the meager protections afforded a Walmart employee apply. Instead you have contractors working for a platform that steals tips. Gross.

Sorry my comment was awkward to read.

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#117

Post by whalesalad »

dclaw wrote: post #89
whalesalad wrote: post #15

Everyone is so against this move but it I was a grocery store I wouldn’t want this responsibility either. These stores are in the business of groceries, not delivery. They got into delivery because they had to and I’d imagine it was losing a lot of money and not to mention tough for them to accomplish and manage. Everyone else and their brother is moving to doordash white label because it makes the most sense. They f…

This grocery store chain had delivery at various times going back over a decade. It has nothing to do with the pandemic.

I grew up in California. I had friends who worked at Albertsons. I know that they had refrigerated trucks and tried to make it a thing. It never took off. They (all the local grocery chains) collectively wasted millions of dollars on their delivery systems.

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#118

Post by Pfhreak »

foogazi wrote: post #106
Pfhreak wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a home, and if it steadily loses value but my city becomes affordable for anyone who wants to live here, that seems like a pretty fair trade to me...

Would we own homes if they steadily lost value ? I mean the house steadily loses value due to deterioration. But the land appreciates due to scarcity and the available financing. >affordable for anyone who wants to live here That doesn’t scale

I'm talking about how, in the transition between housing as a commodity vs housing as a public good there would be loss of value.

And I think people still would want to own houses. There's pride in being a homeowner for many. Knowing you have a place that is yours.

It does scale, because not everyone wants to live here. Some people want to live in nyc or Miami or Houston or Chicago, etc. There's a finite interest in any location.

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#119

Post by Pfhreak »

sizzle wrote: post #113
Pfhreak wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own a home, and if it steadily loses value but my city becomes affordable for anyone who wants to live here, that seems like a pretty fair trade to me...

Tell that to the people who will be underwater on the mortgage, only way this is equitable for all is if mortgage loan principle is adjusted in reverse in parallel.

That sounds reasonable to me. If we're working on decommodification of housing, it makes sense to assist folks during the transition.

Re: Vons, Pavilions to Replace Drivers with Independent Contractors

#120

Post by Ericson2314 »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #44
whalesalad wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are voting for it by doing it. The work is absolutely exploding. Shipt cannot hire fast enough. They are handing out thousand dollar bonuses left and right. And I am in Metro Detroit, not a big area by any means.

By voting for it, I mean codifying into law labor policies that strongly disadvantage workers (Prop 22). We’re supposedly a first world country; we should act like it with regards to labor regulation.

From a macro-economic perspective there is two very different "gig economies"

- utopian: recognition that humans cannot do sustained productivity, higher experts in short bursts capture peak productivity, everyone works less overall

- dystopian: automation makes more surplus labor, which reduces the incentive of further automation by hiring low productivity but dirt cheap labor. If everyone does this, and it isn't worth it to maintain yesterday's automation, overall productivity can go down.

Unfortunately Americansn live in the second one. We are suburban squatters in the rotting ruins of our past greatness.

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