Seems like another manifestation of this phenomenon
http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/permanently-temporary-0000176...
Also this article has some very basic errors in it, missing words etc. Looks like it wasnt proofread at all.
The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
11–20 of 155 posts
Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
#12The rules, such as they are, seem fairly straightforward. If, in the case of outfits like Handy and Uber and Instacart, the "employer" is laying down rules, requiring certain performance, setting the price, and enforcing metrics, they are an employer and the person doing the work is an employee who should be treated as such. If, in the case of outfits like Redbeacon, the site is collecting leads and distributing them…
So if I hire someone to play Princess Elsa at my daughter's birthday party, requiring her to wear a certain uniform on a certain day during certain hours and setting a price, then she is therefore an employee? Aren't setting prices and terms of contract a standard part of any contract? If you are providing a marketplace for people to find contracts between parties, and you are in any way filtering what you will or wi…
No, but if you hire her through an agency that you pay (and not her) then yes, her agency is her employer.
Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
#13There needs to be a decentralized marketplace that gets out of the way and doesn't have everyone at the mercy of its platform. But that's hard to build. Once it's built, the two sides can compete on reputation, cost, or whatever else, crafting their own strategy and the overall wealth of the system will go up. The gatekeepers often hold the system back - even the ones who built the system. I believe that platforms sh…
You mean the Web?
Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
#14The rules, such as they are, seem fairly straightforward. If, in the case of outfits like Handy and Uber and Instacart, the "employer" is laying down rules, requiring certain performance, setting the price, and enforcing metrics, they are an employer and the person doing the work is an employee who should be treated as such. If, in the case of outfits like Redbeacon, the site is collecting leads and distributing them…
So if I hire someone to play Princess Elsa at my daughter's birthday party, requiring her to wear a certain uniform on a certain day during certain hours and setting a price, then she is therefore an employee? Aren't setting prices and terms of contract a standard part of any contract? If you are providing a marketplace for people to find contracts between parties, and you are in any way filtering what you will or wi…
http://www.careerusa.org/resources/career-files/100-resource...
The IRS uses a 20 item check list. Reading though the list "So if I hire someone to play Princess Elsa at my daughter's birthday party" would clearly be a 1099. However, if they work though an agency then they might qualify as a w-2 for that agency.
Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
#15Yay!
Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
#16This will not kill it. The Gig Economy will be a thing, and it should be. But it needs to be legitimate, and it should lead to more autonomy and freedom for the Giggers, not less. To accomplish this, businesses that treat contractors like employees should absolutely be punished! If we really are to replace the old "master-servant relationship with a purely economic one, between equals," (like Paul Graham said so beau…
It won't kill it, but it will make it extremely unprofitable. It takes time for the law to catch up with this, but I'm certain this will this be ruled as an employer-employee relationship. The government looks very poorly on companies that try to exploit workers. It's why you can't work for a restaurant for no pay but all tips, the government won't allow it because they have to provide a minimum level of protection for workers from being exploited by employers.
Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
#17"Instead, it [Handy] relies on an army of independent contractors to complete jobs, taking a 15% to 20% commission of every hour worked"
This is where it doesn't feel like an employer. Employers take more like 50%. So yeah, you don't get protections, and you get higher take-home pay. It sounds like a pain in the ass when you have to buy your own supplies, handle customers, etc., but all that is not uncommon even for employees. The result of leaving the workers responsible for all these details (and risks) is increased potential: the ability to optimize your work, and very directly benefit from that.
Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
#18In a double-sided marketplace I'm tempted to think of the actual seller as being the one that determines the price.
In the case of Handy, Uber, etc... it is in fact Handy, Uber, etc.
In the case of Amazon, the price is determined by the contractor themselves.
Is there some major flaw in this thinking? Employees are not generally empowered to determine the price at which their work is sold, and yet contract suppliers are. I think this works fairly well to determine whether or not the person actually performing the work is really an employee or a contract supplier.
Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
So if I hire someone to play Princess Elsa at my daughter's birthday party, requiring her to wear a certain uniform on a certain day during certain hours and setting a price, then she is therefore an employee? Aren't setting prices and terms of contract a standard part of any contract? If you are providing a marketplace for people to find contracts between parties, and you are in any way filtering what you will or wi…
http://www.careerusa.org/resources/career-files/100-resource... The IRS uses a 20 item check list. Reading though the list "So if I hire someone to play Princess Elsa at my daughter's birthday party" would clearly be a 1099. However, if they work though an agency then they might qualify as a w-2 for that agency.
Great link! I can't help but think this could be the root of the problem:
This 20-point checklist is only a guideline; it does not guarantee that a person is correctly classified. Most agencies and courts typically look to the totality of the circumstances and balance the factors to determine whether a worker is an employee.