Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 48 posts

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#11

Post by lm28469 »

gruez wrote: post #8
lm28469 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fro…

> Gig workers can accept jobs from multiple apps and log on anytime they want.

That's what I'm saying, not only you can but you're obligated to in most cases. Otherwise it's most likely a scheme for you and/or the employer to get out of various legal processes

If you do 9 to 5 everyday for the same company for long uninterrupted periods it's not a gig anymore

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#12

Post by lm28469 »

bwb wrote: post #9
lm28469 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worker…

> so what is preventing these companies from forcing the uber/delieroo drivers to be freelance solo classification?

Right now nothing, that's why they want to change it.

You just have to set the rules. For example when I get an uber I often check the driver profile, someone with 27 000 trips in 3 years isn't a gig worker. When you have a student delivering food 3 hours a week to pay his friday night bar trip it's completely different. Right now both are in the same category

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#13

Post by gruez »

lm28469 wrote: post #11
gruez wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 fro…

> Gig workers can accept jobs from multiple apps and log on anytime they want. That's what I'm saying, not only you can but you're obligated to in most cases. Otherwise it's most likely a scheme for you and/or the employer to get out of various legal processes If you do 9 to 5 everyday for the same company for long uninterrupted periods it's not a gig anymore

Going back to gig workers, it sounds like you agree that they're actually contractors and shouldn't be classed as employees? All the stuff you described isn't very applicable to gig workers.

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#14

Post by gruez »

lm28469 wrote: post #12
bwb wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 worker…

> so what is preventing these companies from forcing the uber/delieroo drivers to be freelance solo classification? Right now nothing, that's why they want to change it. You just have to set the rules. For example when I get an uber I often check the driver profile, someone with 27 000 trips in 3 years isn't a gig worker. When you have a student delivering food 3 hours a week to pay his friday night bar trip it's com…

So it's only gig working if you work full time? What about other freelancers that work full time? Should they be classed as employees too, or are we singling out gig workers here?

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#15

Post by gruez »

lm28469 wrote: post #7
hunglee2 wrote: post #2

This 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…

> 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.

All of this is applicable to contract work in general, not just gig work. Why not fix it for all contractors rather than only gig workers?

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#16

Post by lm28469 »

gruez wrote: post #15
lm28469 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. All of this is applicable to contract work in general, not just gig work. Why not fix it for all contractors rather than only gig workers?

Because some people are genuinely contractors while others are disguised employees.

I also don't see the inherent problem with contractors, some jobs require it, some people want the flexibility. The issue with "gig workers" is that a lot of them end up with all the disadvantage of being employe, all the disadvantage of being contractors, and none of the benefits of either.

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#17

Post by lm28469 »

gruez wrote: post #14
lm28469 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so what is preventing these companies from forcing the uber/delieroo drivers to be freelance solo classification? Right now nothing, that's why they want to change it. You just have to set the rules. For example when I get an uber I often check the driver profile, someone with 27 000 trips in 3 years isn't a gig worker. When you have a student delivering food 3 hours a week to pay his friday night bar trip it's com…

So it's only gig working if you work full time? What about other freelancers that work full time? Should they be classed as employees too, or are we singling out gig workers here?

> So it's only gig working if you work full time?

Nope

> What about other freelancers that work full time? Should they be classed as employees too, or are we singling out gig workers here?

These questions are answered in the article

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#18

Post by gruez »

janrito wrote: post #4
hunglee2 wrote: post #2

This 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.

>If you cannot provide food deliveries whilst paying your employees fairly, then you should not be in business.

This doesn't address the parent poster's point:

>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.

Changes like these aren't a free lunch. If they're too onerous companies reduce their workforce, which would leave their workers worse off. Presumably the reason why they were working there in the first place was that it was their best option.

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#19

Post by lm28469 »

gruez wrote: post #13
lm28469 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gig workers can accept jobs from multiple apps and log on anytime they want. That's what I'm saying, not only you can but you're obligated to in most cases. Otherwise it's most likely a scheme for you and/or the employer to get out of various legal processes If you do 9 to 5 everyday for the same company for long uninterrupted periods it's not a gig anymore

Going back to gig workers, it sounds like you agree that they're actually contractors and shouldn't be classed as employees? All the stuff you described isn't very applicable to gig workers.

Some are some aren't. The uber driver with 10k trips per year isn't, the student delivering food on saturday is.

Re: Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees

#20

Post by gruez »

lm28469 wrote: post #17
gruez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it's only gig working if you work full time? What about other freelancers that work full time? Should they be classed as employees too, or are we singling out gig workers here?

> So it's only gig working if you work full time? Nope > What about other freelancers that work full time? Should they be classed as employees too, or are we singling out gig workers here? These questions are answered in the article

The article says

>It also sets rules that mean digital platform workers will be considered employees if at least two of the following five conditions are met:

>* If the employer caps worker payments;

>* If the employer supervises worker performance, directly or electronically;

>* If the employer has control over the distribution or allocation of tasks;

>* If the employer has control over working conditions and working hours;

>* If the employer limits discretion about how work is done, appearance, or conduct.

None of these are valid reasons to differentiate between "someone with 27 000 trips in 3 years" and "a student delivering food 3 hours a week to pay his friday night bar trip"

Post reply on HN