101–110 of 155 posts
The title should be: "Startups with business models based on sidestepping worker protections and labor regulations are being sued to death". As they should be.
Absolutely! Glad to see that most commenters here see that this gig economy is really bsed on exploitation.
This is a very touchy area. Firms can pay $20 an hour for cleaning services precisely because they're not paying for sick days, health insurance and the like. If they have to pay all that, then the wages go down. This is one of many reasons why a large company will pay a company like Accenture two or three times the salary compensation of it's own employees. (There are other reasons too, like having someone to blame…
> Firms can pay $20 an hour for cleaning services precisely because they're not paying for sick days, health insurance and the like. If they have to pay all that, then the wages go down. Or they could, you know, charge more. The problem with "let the market solve it" is that customers are generally extremely price-sensitive, and if all the other cleaning companies are getting away with misclassifying their workers, t…
Why force a company to choose one way or the other?
I'm now talking in the abstract, and not defending one company over another. I'm also not defending a situation where there is a clear case of everyone actually being full time employees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's actually two different kinds of laws at play, of which those restricting freedom of contract is only one. The other kind has to do with when a company can be held liable for the conduct of its employees. Companies generally cannot be held liable for the conduct of their contractors, because they don't control that conduct, while they can be held liable for the conduct of their employees. It's uncontroversial,…
Actually no, as Ronald Coase showed, it doesn't matter who the liability falls on initially - If it falls on the driver, the driver will demand higher wages / fares to compensate for the cost of insuring himself. - If it falls on the company, the company will demand higher fares to compensate for the cost of insurance - If it falls on the passenger, the passenger could demand lower fares. However, the company would s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 f…
Small business don't have a unified marketplace and reputation tracking system. In fact nothing is unified. People like these marketplaces because of the single meta layer above the individual workers.
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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…
Similarly, having stipulations like "don't listen to music out loud while cleaning", is also IMO a reasonable thing to require (as someone who often works from home).
For the record, I do think that it's a problem that many companies are getting around the social safety net that employers are required by labor law to provide. But I think that's a problem better solved by decoupling our social safety net from employment--which I think unfairly ties people to their employers.
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…
I delivered papers once a week as a kid. I got paid 3 cents per copy by the company. I worked approximately 2 hours per week. I was officially an employee. It didn't break the company to classify me as an employee. It wouldn't break Postmates to have you classified as an employee either.
I worked for a paper in the 2000's, not as a deliverer, but their deliverer's were all independent contractors.
These were two different papers at two different parts of the country, I'm sure not all papers handle it this way but I wouldn't be surprised if this was the case for most.
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Is it really based on exploitation? Take for instance one of my best friends who lives in the D.C. area. He was just raving to me about how he made of $300 in one night driving for Uber. Now, of course he has to pay for his own gas and wear and tear on his car, but he did not feel exploited. Not saying that every "gig economy" company pays well, but I don't think you can say it is all based on exploitation. I think t…
So, the downvote signifies that someone REALLY disagrees with me? Care to elaborate the downvote? I must say that if you aren't willing to enter into a dialog on an honestly written and non flaming post I'm disappointed in your integrity and maturity, whoever you are. @frostmathew - isn't downvoting supposed to be used to drop conversations that are trolling in nature? Not simply because you disagree with someone? Is…
I think it's ok to use the up and down arrows to express agreement. Obviously the uparrows aren't only for applauding politeness, so it seems reasonable that the downarrows aren't only for booing rudeness. - Paul Graham[1]
Here's the IRS's basic test for "employee"[1]: * Behavioral: Does the company control or have the right to control what the worker does and how the worker does his or her job? * Financial: Are the business aspects of the worker’s job controlled by the payer? (these include things like how worker is paid, whether expenses are reimbursed, who provides tools/supplies, etc.) * Type of Relationship: Are there written cont…
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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.
No, the root of the problem is companies that want staff who they can work like employees but who they don't have to pay like employees, provide benefits to like employees, or accept liability on behalf of like employees. There's nothing remotely new or novel about that; it's a dodge that companies have been trying to get away with for as long as labor law has existed.
Turns out that their case was a bit overstated (to put it politely). Sure, this was a problem with the medallion model, and Uber is providing a breakthrough solution. But they're not stopping there. To achieve the growth that will justify their valuation, they've got to undermine perfectly reasonable labor laws as well. So maybe not so socially beneficial after all.
Sociopathic tendencies of the leadership aside, one has to wonder if the real problem isn't the VCs who poured their funds' money into a business that could only win by undermining clear, reasonable, historically necessary, and broadly popular legislation. Had they limited their investment to an amount that could be returned simply by attacking cartels, that would be one thing. But insisting that Uber illegally strip-mine their work force may have flipped a once-good thing into the extractive menace column occupied by outfits like...well, taxi cartels.
http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-the-s...
Sounds like working for Handy is hell, whether they try to classify you as a contractor or not.