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The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

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Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#51

Post by ZoneGhost »

Eventually, these models have to change. Someone is going to start writing open data layers that replace key value points in these businesses. The companies that operate on these "gig" models do a few things that sum to a greater whole:

  1) Marketed web front-end for consumers
  2) Confidence aggregation / metrics for both parties
  3) Payment gateway / escrow service
  4) Insurance and (sometimes) materials
I think we'll see blockchain tech replace the (2) and (3)'s here. With a decentralized ledger and some form of third party "notary", you can verify ratings for an incredibly small fee. Payment gateways and automated three-party escrow services are easy with multisig transactions, and can be converted to any other currency through coinbase, circle, or whatever.

The (1) point could be replaced by an indirect revenue model, or by open aggregation apps.

(4) would then be put back in the hands of the actual service provider, where contractual liability belongs. A new business model could be born, where "Uber" simply has a nice phone app that references public blockchains to get you a driver, and sells insurance packages to drivers themselves. They wouldn't be locked down to just being an "Uber" driver, however.

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#52

Post by hnnewguy »

balls187 wrote: post #37

Why doesn't the "market" sort this problem out. Essentially these companies "own" connecting supply and demand, but I fail to see how that prevents competition from forming and providing a better alternative for both? Right now, as a demand user of Uber, I like that the company is very protective of my experience, something that is painstakingly difficult with traditional taxi services. But if Lyft offered me the sam…

>Why doesn't the "market" sort this problem out.

It will. But "the market" doesn't care about who the winners and losers are. Some of these services are essentially transferring wealth from low-skilled workers with few alternatives to "App middlemen" and VCs.

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#53

Post by habosa »

I totally agree with the comments saying that Uber and others are trying to get employee-level control over people with contractor-level benefits. The guys who drive Uber for 20,30, even 50 hours a week are definitely employees and should be treated as such.

However I'd like to throw in my own personal anecdote. I am a full time software engineer but I am signed up as a Postmates bike deliveryperson on the side. I do ~3 hours of work on Saturdays and Sundays because it's basically paid exercise and I like to explore. I am clearly NOT an employee of Postmates. If new laws are passed, would people like me just be told to go away? I think one of the coolest things about the gig economy is that there are a lot of people like me just taking on flexible employment because it's such an easy way to use idle cycles (no pun intended).

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#54

Post by Terr_ »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #7
mr_luc wrote: post #6

This 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…

This will never occur, as businesses employing these workers want employee level of control with independent contractor costs.

I agree, and it's part of why I find startup-news increasingly depressing: Most of the biggest successes seem to be based on their capacity to... well, to "do evil".

Either it's about doing evil right now (skirt or violate laws and regulation) or it's about luring investors with something that could be evilly-monetized in the future (invade privacy, put ads on everything, sell all the users' data.)

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#55

Post by nostrademons »

ZoneGhost wrote: post #51

Eventually, these models have to change. Someone is going to start writing open data layers that replace key value points in these businesses. The companies that operate on these "gig" models do a few things that sum to a greater whole: 1) Marketed web front-end for consumers 2) Confidence aggregation / metrics for both parties 3) Payment gateway / escrow service 4) Insurance and (sometimes) materials I think we'll s…

The other possibility is automation on the service-provider end. Once you've broken a task down enough so that a person can do it by following instructions from a cell-phone, the next step is to automate those instructions entirely. We're seeing this already with Google's self-driving cars vs. Uber, and I wouldn't be surprised if with recent advances in robotics & hardware startups, we start seeing Rosie the Robot taking over for Homejoy and Drone Delivery replacing Instacart.

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#56

Post by copsarebastards »

A side question: these pages that load with a gigantic graphic that covers the entire screen which I have to scroll past to get to the content have got to die. Is there a plugin which removes these from websites? I haven't found one, but I may be just searching for the wrong keywords.

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#57

Post by jkaunisv1 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #30
mtbcoder wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the Web?

You're talking about the wrong level of abstraction. Think about the problem as this: A worker sets up a website offering services. A potential customer is looking for a local purveyor of that service to hire. How does the customer find the website? If there are 25 local workers willing to do the job, how does the customer choose between them? If the customer wants to pay with a credit card, how does the worker get t…

I feel like this problem has been solved before, by small businesses. It's gotten even easier with some recent tech solutions but the premise hasn't changed much. I guess the main thing is that the customers are lazy and want a one-stop app?

Looking for a cleaner? Google "cleaning service ". Choose from the top 5 results.

Want to offer your cleaning services? Set up a simple website, read some SEO articles or get a friend to help with that. Maybe go in with a friend or a family member (like the sisters the article described) to share those costs. Get a square reader for taking credit cards, lose 2-3% instead of 15-20%. After each job ask for a review that you can put on your website.

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#58

Post by VLM »

alwaysdoit wrote: post #9
techsupporter wrote: post #4

The 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…

A pity you're getting downvoted because its a valid point, although wrong. The problem with your example is it fails the common language "none of your business" test.

Obviously if the work is illegally portraying a trademarked disney character at a party, the time and clothes are kind of important for accomplishing that task.

The "none of your business" test failed in the linked article where the two young women were subject to numerous rules having nothing directly to do with cleaning things.

For example the electrician who installed the high power wiring to my air conditioner condenser, teamed up with an apprentice. As a contractor its absolutely none of my business, I pay a fee for a service and he can bring 50 apprentices on the jobsite, as long as he gets the job done in a workman like manner up to building code following all safety laws, etc. I can provide no input on the tools he uses or the time he takes as long as there's no OSHA/EPA violation, pass the municipal inspection, etc. I'm trading money for fit for purposes accomplishments, not renting a slave to be bossed around.

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#59

Post by logicallee »

techsupporter wrote: post #4

The 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…

you say it seems straightforward, but your first standard for the case of a de facto employer matches what you explicitly list under a true contractor:

First you state:

>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.

Then you state:

> If, in the case of outfits like Redbeacon, the site is collecting leads and distributing them while letting the two parties work out the arrangement for themselves, the site is a referrer and the contractor is a contractor. Redbeacon doesn't require that the contractor who I hire to paint a room show up in Redbeacon attire, only do work through Redbeacon, charge what Redbeacon dictates, and follow Redbeacon's rules for how the work is done.

So the standards you've listed start by saying an "employer" can't lay down rules and ends by giving an example of "true contractors" that follow Redbeacon's rules for how the work is done.

If you can't even write four paragraphs without a blatant contradiction[1] perhaps the case doesn't seem nearly as simple as you make out at all!

[1] (No offense, I spotted it because I was reading carefully for guidance and your two sentences were strikingly parallel and started with the exact words "if, in the case of outfits like" [a] and then [b], where you listed the difference.)

EDIT: I misread the second sentence as "Redbeacon doesn't require a, only b, c, and d."

Re: The Gig Economy Is Being Sued to Death

#60

Post by will_brown »

tptacek wrote: post #49
will_brown wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even upon rereading OP it is not clear it was referring to Federal Law, there is even mention of both State and Federal Departments of labor, so I think use of the word rule was an all encompassing term for classification law. Still it only adds to the problems with this area of the law, after all it is not only possible, but common, for an individual to be classified as an employee/independent contractor on the fede…

This is likely due to the IRS being prohibited from issuing rules and regulations, and as a result in the words of the IRS, "Previously issued guidance may not reflect current case law, statutory changes, or changes in workplace situations." However, you are correct that this factor, under FL case law, though weighted more heavily is not determinative by any means. I've read this 3 times and I don't really understand…

>The IRS contractor rules are the most important employee classification rules with any bearing on this discussion, and they are both clear and very well-understood by employers.

You can not say IRS rules are more important than State case law for purposes of classification or this discussion. Such a statement shows the law is anything but clear. Federal/State classifications are an independent determination and require separate analysis.

Example, say A hires B as an Independent Contractor, having focused on complying with only the Federal factors, then B sues A at the State level after being was injured on the job claiming A misidentified B, whereas B claims he was really an employee and should receive workers comp. The Court is not going to apply the Federal Rules/Law they will apply the State Law, in fact we can go ahead and assume B was correctly a Independent Contractor at the Federal Level, but the Court could find under State Law B was classified and the relationship was that of employee/employer now A is liable for failing to comply with State Law and have to pay B's workers comp. This is the exact type of lawsuit that could be replicated hundreds or thousands of times sinking any Start-up, who fails to comply with any aspect of the classification paradigm.

>I am not a lawyer, but I am something like 99.999% sure that 1099'ing an LLC does very little to ensure that a contractor can't be retroactively classified as an FTE for whom W2 withholding was required.

As I said you are correct, just because you pay a company rather than a individual does not automatically make that an Independent Contractor relationship, but it is one factor. For example, in the Florida Worker's Compensation Statute (which provides its own factors, separate from both Florida Case Law and the IRS 20 Factors) factor number 2 reads:

"(II) The independent contractor holds or has applied for a federal employer identification number..."

[1] http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Displ...

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