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California is cracking down on the gig economy

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Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#251

Post by jquery »

We finally have the closest thing to a guaranteed jobs program that's ever existed in the USA, and California (and New York) wants to destroy it? This is disgusting.

If I want to drive for Uber, all I have to do is pass a background check. When I want to drive for them, all I have to do is turn on an app. When I'm done, I turn off the app. I can work whenever I feel like it. Very low stress! I get wanting to "protect" workers but this ain't it. I want Uber/Uber-like things to exist so I can earn a few dollars here and there if I need to.

Ugh, sorry, this makes me so angry and other people have been much more eloquent on the subject.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#252

Post by jlarocco »

lbotos wrote: post #203
momokoko wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really get confused about this. I wonder if it is because I'm a bit older. Plenty of part time employment is like that. For example, many people that work retail or service part time have very flexible schedules. They typically have an availability chart and then if they need a day off last minute, they are often required to find someone else to cover for them. The reality is that the contractor part of this is to…

> Plenty of part time employment is like that. For example, many people that work retail or service part time have very flexible schedules. They typically have an availability chart and then if they need a day off last minute, they are often required to find someone else to cover for them. I think you are missing a large part of it. The "gig" economy is "on-demand" labor. There is no schedule to coordinate at the "wo…

That's orthogonal to whether the workers are contractors or employees.

Most companies don't let their employees work such flexible hours, but there's no reason why they couldn't.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#253

Post by Zak »

jlarocco wrote: post #252
lbotos wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plenty of part time employment is like that. For example, many people that work retail or service part time have very flexible schedules. They typically have an availability chart and then if they need a day off last minute, they are often required to find someone else to cover for them. I think you are missing a large part of it. The "gig" economy is "on-demand" labor. There is no schedule to coordinate at the "wo…

That's orthogonal to whether the workers are contractors or employees. Most companies don't let their employees work such flexible hours, but there's no reason why they couldn't.

> there's no reason why they couldn't.

Yes there is. Workers compensation insurance and other benefits have significant fixed costs per employee. If someone is treated as an employee, they'll be required to work a minimum number of hours to cover those costs.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#254

Post by AnthonyMouse »

momokoko wrote: post #206
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When anyone does the math with these gig jobs, they leave out risk. That's the difference. GrubHub is pushing the risk of long term disability, and other things like unemployment due to business slowdown, entirely onto you. As well as other risks they are free from if you are not an employee. It's generally quite the opposite. It's employer regulations hiding the cost of insurance from you. There is nothing stoppin…

I'm sorry, but this all just sounds like free market ideology. We are saying the same thing. You just think someone needs to be at fault and there are good guys vs bad guys. I'm talking to an individual. Please refer the comment I was replying to. I'm not trying to make generalized ideological debates about the gig economy or taxation or any other of the typically religious arguments people shout at each other about…

> I'm not trying to make generalized ideological debates about the gig economy or taxation or any other of the typically religious arguments people shout at each other about online.

You are in a discussion attached to an article about a piece of proposed legislation. It was a policy discussion from the start.

> To an _individual_ it is important for them to realize that they need to account for the risk involved in what they are doing.

That is true, but is it novel information that nobody is aware of? That seems to be the standard you want to apply.

> And absolutely no, you cannot get an individual workers compensation policy because it would cost more money than the income from the gig. Its absurd you would think that exists.

Disability insurance is typically 1-3% of your income because the payout in the event of a claim is proportional to your income. For the low income in most of these professions that comes to somewhere around $50/month. They may decide it isn't worth that much, but there is no basis to the idea that it would cost more than their overall compensation.

> Please do not go into online forums and just shoot idealism everywhere.

This feels like a double standard that in practice just means that you would prefer it if people with contrary opinions to yours would shut up.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#255

Post by momokoko »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #254
momokoko wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but this all just sounds like free market ideology. We are saying the same thing. You just think someone needs to be at fault and there are good guys vs bad guys. I'm talking to an individual. Please refer the comment I was replying to. I'm not trying to make generalized ideological debates about the gig economy or taxation or any other of the typically religious arguments people shout at each other about…

> I'm not trying to make generalized ideological debates about the gig economy or taxation or any other of the typically religious arguments people shout at each other about online. You are in a discussion attached to an article about a piece of proposed legislation. It was a policy discussion from the start. > To an _individual_ it is important for them to realize that they need to account for the risk involved in w…

> This feels like a double standard that in practice just means that you would prefer it if people with contrary opinions to yours would shut up.

No. Those opinions on either side of the debate have been done to absolute death online. I can't imagine a single person you could find on this forum that could not list for you the common talking points(for and against) government taxation and regulation. That is what these comments are about. Not detailed, unique, and specific insight into this particular situation. Just mindless regurgitation of the same stuff we've all heard way more times than is needed.

> That is true, but is it novel information that nobody is aware of? That seems to be the standard you want to apply.

Most people I talk to about workers compensation do not realize how different the outcomes are for them between contractor and employee. The most common ones people are aware of is that they have to pay both sides of their social security. Unemployment insurance is also something that some people do not realize. During that last economic slowdown, the US government extended unemployment benefits for years to millions of US workers. Contractors will not be eligible for any of that assistance in the next economic downturn.

See how that information is relevant and specific to the original comment(not article) I was responding to? They discussed how they did not see many downsides with being a gig worker. I was bringing up a couple, especially workers compensation because of how dangerous driving jobs are.

I never said GrubHub should or should not provide that. I certainly never mentioned if the US government should do anything. I would recommend that you please go back to my original comment and the comment I was replying to originally for more information and context.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#256

Post by smacktoward »

kwcts wrote: post #73
freeflight wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those German worker rights, and strong ties between companies and unions were supposedly among the reasons why Walmart failed in Germany: “They didn’t understand that in Germany, companies and unions are closely connected,” Mr. Poschmann said. “Bentonville didn’t want to have anything to do with unions. They thought we were communists.” [0] [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/business/worldbusiness/02...

>In Germany, Wal-Mart stopped requiring sales clerks to smile at customers — a practice that some male shoppers interpreted as flirting — and scrapped the morning Wal-Mart chant by staff members. This is just fucking insane. That's not a supermarket, that's like a cult. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpPUUWp5sO4

It's one of those awful ideas that seems to bubble back up into the corporate mind periodically. IBM actually did the same thing back in the first half of the 20th century (see https://www.networkworld.com/article/2333702/a-history-of-si... for the full history), even going so far as to publish a songbook titled "Songs of the I.B.M": https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2014/08/tripp...

They kept it up into the 1950s, when Tom Watson died and control of the company passed to his son.

I like this note from the end of the Network World article, where they ask a Harvard Business School professor if there's anything similar going on in the contemporary tech world:

> "I don't think there is a Microsoft company song other than 'Get to the bank as fast as possible so you can deposit the check,' " Tedlow adds.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#257

Post by aiisjustanif »

ravenstine wrote: post #125

This last year, I drove for GrubHub for about 6 months in order to pay rent while trying to build a business as well as do web development contract work(I'm now employed full time). The whole time, I was active in various gig economy subreddits. There are some people out there who only want to drive for companies like GrubHub, but most of the drivers are people who already have jobs and are using the gig as supplemen…

Is the majority people who have other jobs and this is just their side job, or is their "gig job" their main job.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#258

Post by gowld »

brianchu wrote: post #31

I'm coming to the view that gig workers are neither employees nor independent contractors. Employees don't get to unilaterally set their own hours, and contractors don't get prices unilaterally dictated to them or barred from their profession if their rating falls too low. All this regulatory squabbling is arguing over whether a square peg fits a round hole or fits a triangular hole. We need a third classification fo…

This is of course correct. Classifying workers into exactly two categories is logically absurd, but that's what the old law does, at least in USA.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#259

Post by gowld »

kelnos wrote: post #249
mch82 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ridesharing is when a group of people rent a van through a ridesharing program and one of those people drives it. The driver is kind of like a school bus driver. Carpooling is when 2+ drivers ride together in a car one of them owns instead of everyone driving separately.

I've never heard of your ridesharing example before. When people do that I still hear it called carpooling, just perhaps, "we rent a van and carpool".

It's called vanpooling, often, obviously.

Re: California is cracking down on the gig economy

#260

Post by lisper »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #235
lisper wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's not an externality. The person starving to death is the same person who didn't buy insurance. It is an externality. Maybe you don't mind having the streets of your town full of homeless people, but I do. In fact, I mind it very much. When someone ends up on the street, that makes my life less pleasant even though I'm not the one who was uninsured.

That's the kind of thinking that leads to old policies like New York City rounding up all the homeless and putting them on a bus with a mandatory one way ticket to Pennsylvania. The person taking the brunt of the hardship is clearly the person suffering it and not the person with the misfortune of having to observe them, and they also have the best incentive to take steps to prevent that from happening. Forcing choic…

> The person taking the brunt of the hardship is clearly the person suffering

Of course that is true. That doesn't mean that the cost imposed on others is zero.

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