Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
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Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#2This is probably bad news on aggregate
The positive intent to give citizens greater protections is laudable but gig working is not always a straight forward 'capitalism bad' exploitation as it is often characterised.
For many, it is the only type of job / income they can secure (i.e recent immigrant) and otherwise would be locked out of the legal economy altogether and will transition into the _illegal_ economy for want of options. For others, gig work provides the sort of flexibility not available in many traditional blue collar FTE (i.e they are primary carers, maybe can't commit to rigid schedule). For yet others it is an opportunity to _escape_ the obligations of badly paid, physically challenging FTE - last Uber I took was in Eindhoven, driver was a long time resident in Netherlands. Left Phillips factory line job to Uber - better hours, sees his kid, doesn't break his back.
All types of workers need better protections all round, but legislating to eliminate a category which is self evidently popular with _some_ workers is not the way to do it
Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#3This is probably bad news on aggregate The positive intent to give citizens greater protections is laudable but gig working is not always a straight forward 'capitalism bad' exploitation as it is often characterised. For many, it is the only type of job / income they can secure (i.e recent immigrant) and otherwise would be locked out of the legal economy altogether and will transition into the _illegal_ economy for w…
but the whole point is that they are effectively used as full time workers but not given the benefit, security or basic dignity.
most gig workers don't have the luxury to do this as a part time side job. it's their main source of income as you already said.
and allowing companies to exploit people because they're immigrants is not good for anyone in the labour market.
this is a win. those VC douchebags can get f*ked.
Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#4This is probably bad news on aggregate The positive intent to give citizens greater protections is laudable but gig working is not always a straight forward 'capitalism bad' exploitation as it is often characterised. For many, it is the only type of job / income they can secure (i.e recent immigrant) and otherwise would be locked out of the legal economy altogether and will transition into the _illegal_ economy for w…
Why should we as a society, or even worse, poor immigrats, subsidise a company's bad business model.
If you want to compete for labour and customers in a society, you should follow the rules.
If you cannot provide food deliveries whilst paying your employees fairly, then you should not be in business.
Even worse if you are skimming minimum-wage worker's pay to produce a 10X VC return.
Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#5What is the difference between a gig worker versus a freelancer? Is this going to hurt your ability to be freelance? I would love to understand this better in the proposal as it wasn't clear to me how they define this difference.
Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#6What is the difference between a gig worker versus a freelancer? Is this going to hurt your ability to be freelance? I would love to understand this better in the proposal as it wasn't clear to me how they define this difference.
I think the subtitle summarises it pretty good: "If it looks like a job, and is supervised like a job, it'll be classified as a job". The bullet points down the article make it even clearer.
Freelancing implies some independence/freedom which most uber or deliveroo drivers don't have in practice.
For example in France you can't declare yourself as a freelancer if you have a single client which dictates your working hours and employs you for very loosely defined missions, because for all intent and purpose you'd be an employee.
Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#7This is probably bad news on aggregate The positive intent to give citizens greater protections is laudable but gig working is not always a straight forward 'capitalism bad' exploitation as it is often characterised. For many, it is the only type of job / income they can secure (i.e recent immigrant) and otherwise would be locked out of the legal economy altogether and will transition into the _illegal_ economy for w…
The problem is that they don't contribute nearly as much to the system and they're in very precarious situations: no contribution to retirement, no paid vacations, no parental leave, no unemployment benefits, &c.
It really depends on how you see the problem, from the individual perspective or from the community perspective. In the short term individual POV gig work is amazing, in the long term community POV it's disastrous
Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#8What is the difference between a gig worker versus a freelancer? Is this going to hurt your ability to be freelance? I would love to understand this better in the proposal as it wasn't clear to me how they define this difference.
I think the subtitle summarises it pretty good: "If it looks like a job, and is supervised like a job, it'll be classified as a job". The bullet points down the article make it even clearer. Freelancing implies some independence/freedom which most uber or deliveroo drivers don't have in practice. For example in France you can't declare yourself as a freelancer if you have a single client which dictates your working h…
>Freelancing implies some independence/freedom which most uber or deliveroo drivers don't have in practice.
>For example in France you can't declare yourself as a freelancer if you have a single client which dictates your working hours and employs you for very loosely defined missions, because for all intent and purpose you'd be an employee.
Is this some European thing I'm no aware of? Gig workers can accept jobs from multiple apps and log on anytime they want.
Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#9What is the difference between a gig worker versus a freelancer? Is this going to hurt your ability to be freelance? I would love to understand this better in the proposal as it wasn't clear to me how they define this difference.
I think the subtitle summarises it pretty good: "If it looks like a job, and is supervised like a job, it'll be classified as a job". The bullet points down the article make it even clearer. Freelancing implies some independence/freedom which most uber or deliveroo drivers don't have in practice. For example in France you can't declare yourself as a freelancer if you have a single client which dictates your working h…
Gotcha, so what is preventing these companies from forcing the uber/delieroo drivers to be freelance solo classification?
IE, where are the teeth?
The problem with saying "like x" is it requires court cases and means enforcement is impossible. Because the gov has to challenge and challenge and challenge because it is so vague as "like x".
Could they not just tax gig workers on an hourly basis and then comp the workers with "employment" like services?
Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees
#10This is probably bad news on aggregate The positive intent to give citizens greater protections is laudable but gig working is not always a straight forward 'capitalism bad' exploitation as it is often characterised. For many, it is the only type of job / income they can secure (i.e recent immigrant) and otherwise would be locked out of the legal economy altogether and will transition into the _illegal_ economy for w…
The problem is that they don't contribute nearly as much to the system and they're in very precarious situations: no contribution to retirement, no paid vacations, no parental leave, no unemployment benefits, &c. It really depends on how you see the problem, from the individual perspective or from the community perspective. In the short term individual POV gig work is amazing, in the long term community POV it's disa…
Ya agreed, I would think taxing gig work to compensate for those things is a better solution. IE, you pay 7 euros an hour, on the backend you pay the government 7 euros to cover health care, pension, etc.
This seems like a tracking problem and easier to tax it at the source by the company... as if a gig worker has 10 clients and sporadic work, they are not able to manage the complexity, nor should they have too.
Kinda like taxing HFT, you tax it and then comp society for the danger it creates.