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'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive their wages

theguardian.com

101–107 of 107 posts

Re: 'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive their wages

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers don’t keep the extra amount. If that were the case, the workers would have no motivation to work or to get the supply/demand in balance. I don’t get to “choose” how much I make. I just get to choose whether the amount of money I’m being offered per hour is worth my time.

The point is, you're not the one deciding the split. You don't think the majority of the revenue goes to you over the ride share company, do you?

You know the split because it’s a ratio that scales with the price.

Just like when I sub contract as a W2 contractor with a third party firm. I know how much I’m going to net. The higher my asking rate is the more I’m going to make and the more the contracting firm is going to make.

Re: 'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive their wages

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, you're not the one deciding the split. You don't think the majority of the revenue goes to you over the ride share company, do you?

You know the split because it’s a ratio that scales with the price. Just like when I sub contract as a W2 contractor with a third party firm. I know how much I’m going to net. The higher my asking rate is the more I’m going to make and the more the contracting firm is going to make.

Oh, I didn't know that ride share companies allow the drivers to specify their rate!

Oh, right. They don't.

Re: 'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive their wages

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should have just expanded medicare to cover everyone Maybe the solution is to go piecemeal. We already have Medicaid for the poor--raise the limit on that. Expand Medicare to children and pregnant women. Et cetera . > that'd give too much power to the workers Medicare For All isn't popular [1]. There isn't a conspiracy, just people being cautious about a complicated and important topic. [1] https://news.gallup.com/…

I think if you put it to the American people as a referendum 'Hey, we're going to get rid of private insurance and put everyone on Medicare, here's the budget estimate from the CBO' I'm quite confident it would pass. The sheer earned disdain I've seen expressed for health insurance providers recently makes me hope this is some sort of 'Abe Moment' for the US where even conservatives can acknowledge the majority of Am…

> sheer earned disdain I've seen expressed for health insurance providers recently

"Americans' positive rating of the quality of healthcare in the U.S. is now at its lowest point in Gallup’s trend dating back to 2001," yet still, 71% rate the quality of their own healthcare excellent or good, with 65% saying the same about their coverage [1]. (I'm guessing the quarter to third minority that doesn't have a positive view of their own healthcare or coverage overlaps significantly with the one fifth who view Mangione very or somewhat positively [2].)

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/654044/view-healthcare-quality-...

[2] https://stratpolitics.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/UHC-Pol...

Re: 'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive their wages

#104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why do we pretend that gig workers don't deserve the same benefits and protections that proper employees do? Because some—in some cases, many—of them don’t. And in many cases, e.g. healthcare, it’s unclear why we’re still bundling something into employment that properly should be separate. Extending employment protection to gig workers is a simple solution. But it probably leaves many of them worse off than they ar…

> And in many cases, e.g. healthcare, it’s unclear why we’re still bundling something into employment that properly should be separate. This, one million times over. I read an account describing how things came to be as they are. Apparently, it all started during WW2. The Government controlled wages, and so some wages were too high and some too low, and for those set too low, it became difficult to get staff. To make…

The difficulty in staffing was because over the course of the war the army expanded from under 200k soldiers to over 8 million, and the navy expanded from under 400k to over 3.4 million.

That's almost 11 million people, which was around 12% of the civilian workforce, diverted to the military.

Re: 'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive their wages

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the split because it’s a ratio that scales with the price. Just like when I sub contract as a W2 contractor with a third party firm. I know how much I’m going to net. The higher my asking rate is the more I’m going to make and the more the contracting firm is going to make.

Oh, I didn't know that ride share companies allow the drivers to specify their rate! Oh, right. They don't.

No one gets to “specify their rate”. If I could, I would specify I want $700/hour when I do independent consulting.

The drivers can decide whether a given rate is worth it to them given other alternatives like anyone else that’s the entire purpose of surge pricing to convince more people to drive when there is more demand

Re: 'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive their wages

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I didn't know that ride share companies allow the drivers to specify their rate! Oh, right. They don't.

No one gets to “specify their rate”. If I could, I would specify I want $700/hour when I do independent consulting. The drivers can decide whether a given rate is worth it to them given other alternatives like anyone else that’s the entire purpose of surge pricing to convince more people to drive when there is more demand

Remember kids, recharging your battery reduces traffic.

Re: 'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive their wages

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much, but what was left off is the union demands for healthcare as an employment benefit that truly entrenched the practice in the US.

> Pretty much, but what was left off is the union demands for healthcare as an employment benefit that truly entrenched the practice in the US. This just doesn't make any sense—single payer would free up the union to fight for more. Literally just the sunk cost fallacy.

I don’t really follow your comment, but it is true that labor is a large part of the reason that jobs bundle healthcare.

Even in the modern day, they are one of the largest influential advocates for keeping this scheme: labor killed Obama’s cadillac tax which was designed to solve this problem.

Not that the cadillac tax was ever going to survive, the American people are not educated enough to understand why it is such an important policy.

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