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The Modern Workforce

jeremycai.com

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Re: The Modern Workforce

#11

Post by gaius »

bernardlunn wrote: post #10

Can we please call BS on the sharing economy name. It is is the "squeeze cash out of spare personal resources economy" (resources being time, car, house etc).

It's also the screw-your-neighbour economy. If your little AirBnB money-spinner increases wear-and-tear on the common areas of the building, it's the other tenants who will pick up the costs of the extra maintenance. In time it will come to be seen as profoundly anti-social. Not to mention, if you're running a business you should be paying business rates and taxes... Remind me where is the "sharing"?

Re: The Modern Workforce

#13

Post by gaius »

Delmania wrote: post #6
p0cket wrote: post #2

Great read. Although services like Uber and Lyft are getting more popular, I didn't know the freelance/part-time market as a whole was growing.

In various business publications, it's referred to as the "sharing economy".

In the UK, "zero hours contracts".

Re: The Modern Workforce

#14

Post by steamy »

altcognito wrote: post #3

The statement: > The better our software gets, the more companies are able to hire. Good, well-paying, well-placed jobs results in happy people. That’s pretty rewarding, if you ask me. is in direct conflict with what the market desires: Market forces desire resources that labor that is mobile across the country, requires no long term commitment, has a low risk hiring and comes at minimum cost. I don't see how the mar…

It's been always like this for human labor throughout history and more specifically since the Agricultural Revolution. Human labor is always in surplus and this resource has been exploited by economic powers and interested parties in many ways from hardcore slavery to modern wage slavery but what changed recently was technology made it easier and more efficient to tap into this resource for anyone interested and thus this imbalance of power shifted in favor of the capitalists and business owners.

It seems that most of the gains that we take for granted like weekends and paid vacations and so and so forth that the labor movement acquired over the years since the advent of socialism are up for grabs and at risk of evaporating altogether.

Re: The Modern Workforce

#15

Post by colechristensen »

doki_pen wrote: post #9

Turning ordinary employees in to independent contractors is a disturbing trend that is eliminating traditional workers rights. Although some new companies have legitimate reasons for hiring contractors, for most it's not part of some new amazing model of labor, it's simply a way to save money. Usually it's illegal, but the IRS is being destroyed by budget cuts and can no longer enforce the law. Filing against your em…

It depends on the relationship, being an actual independent contractor is truly liberating. Choosing your own hours, working only on things you want to, setting your own salary based on how much you want to t work. There is real freedom in that as long as you get paid appropriately and actually get that freedom.

Companies wanting to save money on benefits while having 9-5 workers with no freedom of choice of when or how to work and no freedom to take other jobs? That's abuse of the system and illegal.

The difference is important.

Re: The Modern Workforce

#16

Post by eldavido »

doki_pen wrote: post #9

Turning ordinary employees in to independent contractors is a disturbing trend that is eliminating traditional workers rights. Although some new companies have legitimate reasons for hiring contractors, for most it's not part of some new amazing model of labor, it's simply a way to save money. Usually it's illegal, but the IRS is being destroyed by budget cuts and can no longer enforce the law. Filing against your em…

Right, except (1) it's your obligation to change the law as a voter and (2) profit-maximizing companies have every obligation to act in their shareholder's best interests, within the bounds of the law. So really, it's up to us as citizens to decide what's fair, and get the appropriate legislation passed to change it.

Re: The Modern Workforce

#17

Post by Delmania »

Ecclesiastes 1:9: What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

Uber, Lyft, and the whole "sharing economy" is nothing more than another iteration of line balancing. Retails centers do this during the holiday seasons by hiring temp workers and call centers are always doing this.

I'll agree normal HR is not well tuned for quickly hiring large amounts of people, so the Uber model of deploying an app, and letting people "hire themselves" is interesting case study in ways to quickly ramp up your operations, but the I think enough has been said about how this is essentially exploitation of workers.

Re: The Modern Workforce

#18

Post by Delmania »

eldavido wrote: post #16
doki_pen wrote: post #9

Turning ordinary employees in to independent contractors is a disturbing trend that is eliminating traditional workers rights. Although some new companies have legitimate reasons for hiring contractors, for most it's not part of some new amazing model of labor, it's simply a way to save money. Usually it's illegal, but the IRS is being destroyed by budget cuts and can no longer enforce the law. Filing against your em…

Right, except (1) it's your obligation to change the law as a voter and (2) profit-maximizing companies have every obligation to act in their shareholder's best interests, within the bounds of the law . So really, it's up to us as citizens to decide what's fair, and get the appropriate legislation passed to change it.

With regards to (1), I'll leave this here: http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

The vast majority of people who are effected by this in a negative fashion do not have the money needed to get their officials to listen.

Re: The Modern Workforce

#19

Post by yummyfajitas »

gaius wrote: post #11
bernardlunn wrote: post #10

Can we please call BS on the sharing economy name. It is is the "squeeze cash out of spare personal resources economy" (resources being time, car, house etc).

It's also the screw-your-neighbour economy. If your little AirBnB money-spinner increases wear-and-tear on the common areas of the building, it's the other tenants who will pick up the costs of the extra maintenance. In time it will come to be seen as profoundly anti-social. Not to mention, if you're running a business you should be paying business rates and taxes... Remind me where is the "sharing"?

If I leave town and rent out my flat, wear and tear on the elevator goes up relative to me not leaving town?

Re: The Modern Workforce

#20

Post by trhway »

gaius wrote: post #11
bernardlunn wrote: post #10

Can we please call BS on the sharing economy name. It is is the "squeeze cash out of spare personal resources economy" (resources being time, car, house etc).

It's also the screw-your-neighbour economy. If your little AirBnB money-spinner increases wear-and-tear on the common areas of the building, it's the other tenants who will pick up the costs of the extra maintenance. In time it will come to be seen as profoundly anti-social. Not to mention, if you're running a business you should be paying business rates and taxes... Remind me where is the "sharing"?

pretty much agree with sentiments and don't like or use Uber/AirBNB, yet one can't not notice that "sharing" economy rise was caused in most part because of the practically unsolvable problems in "traditional" economy - people do want to stay in normal housing instead of hotel chicken coups in tourist "ghetto"s, people do need reliable transportation from point A to point B - the functionality which existing taxi system has failed spectacularly and it has no way of fixing it (when medallions hit $1M it is become crystal clear that all incumbents are in for continuation of business as usual and nobody is interested in change). Uber/AirBNB are basically classical showcases of dialectic in application to economy (people who had "marxism"/"materialism" in their curriculum would recognize it immediately).
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