California is cracking down on the gig economy • Hacker News Board

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#181

Post by CydeWeys » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:03 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #137

e40 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's clear it will cause a lot of contractors in the software industry to be reclassified as employees. To me, the real test is what will happen is this passes. Will it move hiring to other states and offshore? I'm in CA and I haven't hired someone from CA in a long time. Poland and Ukraine are the main places. The last 3 candidates wanted more than the CEO makes. We're small and can't afford Bay Area salarie…

That's an interesting angle I didn't think of. As someone who lives in California and has gotten to where they are now through various forms of contract work, I feel like this bill is potentially a bad idea, but I can see how it can also shift the "balance of power", if you will, away from California, which would probably be a good thing for the rest of world. Still, I'm not a fan of losing more freedom, which is wha…

The bill exempts a number of professions explicitly (including engineers), but for some reason it doesn't do the obvious thing of exempting by pay. I think it'd be reasonable to include an exemption for >$100k in annualized revenue, regardless of industry. If you're paying someone that much or more, which works out to roughly $50/hour, then I don't see any reason to automatically classify them as FTEs, especially against their will.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#182

Post by dmode » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

manfredo wrote: post #32

dmode wrote: post #19

While I am sympathetic to Uber and Lyft drivers and other gig economy workers, I am wondering if anyone has the done the calculus on job losses vs. making something. And whether making something is better than being jobless. I met a Uber driver the other day who drives 5000 miles per month. Clearly that is close to exploitation. But if Uber is forced to pay drivers 100% more surely there will be fewer drivers. And ma…

> I met a Uber driver the other day who drives 5000 miles per month. Clearly that is close to exploitation. Averaging 30 miles an hour, that's 166 hours a month.

166 hours of driving can mean 8 hrs of driving for 20 days. This is very different than 8 hrs of sitting in front of a computer. I get tired driving 2 hrs every day back and forth from work. Not to mention that that hours can be way more in an urban area as most rides are short distances and traffic is very tight

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#183

Post by CydeWeys » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:05 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #160

ravenstine wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I didn't think much about wear-and-tear and I probably should have. When I calculated it, it was way below a dollar per mile, which makes me curious how you arrived at $4.5 per hour of operation. That sounds like an awful lot. Are you talking USD? Just curious because you used the dollar sign as a suffix. It's certainly possible that I'll end up paying down the road for the increase in wear and tear from wh…

$/hr is sort of an odd way to measure depreciation that is mostly mileage based. In the US, IRS reimbursement for business driving is 58 cents per mile and that's probably not a bad estimate to start with for vehicle costs. (It probably overstates it if you would own a car anyway and you have a vehicle that's more efficient/cheaper to operate than average, but it's a reasonable stake in the ground.)

You're probably aware, but it bears repeating that a lot of that mileage figure goes towards fuel costs, and there have been emergency/out-of-band updates to the figure when fuel costs have increased significantly in the middle of a year.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#184

Post by dmode » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

jeremyjh wrote: post #131

dmode wrote: post #19

While I am sympathetic to Uber and Lyft drivers and other gig economy workers, I am wondering if anyone has the done the calculus on job losses vs. making something. And whether making something is better than being jobless. I met a Uber driver the other day who drives 5000 miles per month. Clearly that is close to exploitation. But if Uber is forced to pay drivers 100% more surely there will be fewer drivers. And ma…

eBay and Airbnb sellers are using their own capital to buy and sell goods that they own. They are not selling their labor in any sense. Uber drivers use their own cars but they are primarily selling their labor.

Does it matter whether labor or capital is sold ? The ABC test doesn’t check for that. Uber drivers also use their own capital to buy cars. The major difference is setting prices

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#185

Post by 0xffff2 » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:07 PM UTC

biesnecker wrote: post #140

e40 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's clear it will cause a lot of contractors in the software industry to be reclassified as employees. To me, the real test is what will happen is this passes. Will it move hiring to other states and offshore? I'm in CA and I haven't hired someone from CA in a long time. Poland and Ukraine are the main places. The last 3 candidates wanted more than the CEO makes. We're small and can't afford Bay Area salarie…

Are you in the Bay Area though? If you are, then the people applying may well not be able to afford living without Bay Area salaries.

That's kind of the point, right? We in the bay area have basically priced ourselves out of the remote work market because that "making ends meet" salary here is much higher than practically anywhere else in the world.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#186

Post by CydeWeys » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

dmode wrote: post #182

manfredo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I met a Uber driver the other day who drives 5000 miles per month. Clearly that is close to exploitation. Averaging 30 miles an hour, that's 166 hours a month.

166 hours of driving can mean 8 hrs of driving for 20 days. This is very different than 8 hrs of sitting in front of a computer. I get tired driving 2 hrs every day back and forth from work. Not to mention that that hours can be way more in an urban area as most rides are short distances and traffic is very tight

Yeah, but that's what it is to be a full-time driver. It's no different than commercial truck drivers (long-haul or short haul), taxi drivers, limousine drivers, or really just anyone else whose job amounts to "driver".

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#187

Post by thechao » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:20 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #160

ravenstine wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, I didn't think much about wear-and-tear and I probably should have. When I calculated it, it was way below a dollar per mile, which makes me curious how you arrived at $4.5 per hour of operation. That sounds like an awful lot. Are you talking USD? Just curious because you used the dollar sign as a suffix. It's certainly possible that I'll end up paying down the road for the increase in wear and tear from wh…

$/hr is sort of an odd way to measure depreciation that is mostly mileage based. In the US, IRS reimbursement for business driving is 58 cents per mile and that's probably not a bad estimate to start with for vehicle costs. (It probably overstates it if you would own a car anyway and you have a vehicle that's more efficient/cheaper to operate than average, but it's a reasonable stake in the ground.)

The mechanics I lived with were boat & big diesel. Those engines (and aircraft) are maintained on an hourly basis. In fact, your car is too: you change your oil every 3000 miles or 3 months. The idea being that there is an expected speed, and you’ve accumulated (say) 100 operating hours after driving 3000 miles, or in any 3 month period. As such, all these guys computed engine/vehicle life in terms of cost-per-hour.

It’s weird to me that just about every piece of mechanical equipment you’ve ever heard of is measured in terms of operating hours, but not cars? Color me skeptical.

As to the 0.58$/mile: an hour at 55mph would be, what? 31.90$?

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#188

Post by ghaff » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:23 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #183

ghaff wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$/hr is sort of an odd way to measure depreciation that is mostly mileage based. In the US, IRS reimbursement for business driving is 58 cents per mile and that's probably not a bad estimate to start with for vehicle costs. (It probably overstates it if you would own a car anyway and you have a vehicle that's more efficient/cheaper to operate than average, but it's a reasonable stake in the ground.)

You're probably aware, but it bears repeating that a lot of that mileage figure goes towards fuel costs, and there have been emergency/out-of-band updates to the figure when fuel costs have increased significantly in the middle of a year.

I don't think the IRS officially breaks it out but the estimates I've seen say that gas is about 20-30% of the total. (30 mpg @$3/gal is 10 cents/mile.)

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#189

Post by edoceo » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:26 PM UTC

zrail wrote: post #173

amluto wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the exchange plans are, nonetheless, dramatically worse at a given price point than employer plans. The primary reasons appear to be the giant tax subsidy for employer plans and the fact that insurers aggressively discriminate against people who don’t have employer plans.

It's not that they actively discriminate. It's because ACA plans are lumped into one big risk pool per market and ACA plans, by nature, attract more expensive people.

But what if it had everyone in the USA in the plan? It seems this, bigger, lumpier pool could aggregate the costs and reduce burden for everyone.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#190

Post by NotSammyHagar » Sat, Jun 01, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #124

augstein wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How could you compare someone voluntarily engaging in employment to slave labor? The gig workers I talked to basically told me „it’s either that gig job or starving“, so I‘m not so sure about the voluntariness anymore.

>it’s either that gig job or starving You could say the same about every American living paycheck to paycheck. Are they all slaves?

There are some people who are not well educated and they can't get other jobs. So yes, that might be the only job where they can work around limitations on child care or whatever.