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Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

nytimes.com

321–330 of 357 posts

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#321
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. 2. Employers start giving their employees the money they pay on their behalf. 3. People shop for the health insurance they want/need. In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.

You left out step 4, without which 1-3 would just make everything worse for everyone: just like with car insurance, everyone would be legally required to purchase health insurance up to some minimal level of coverage. Not for their own sakes, but for everyone else’s, otherwise you end up with even more uninsured people seeking treatment, which is how we got into this mess to begin with. Any plan which doesn’t minimiz…

> You left out step 4, without which 1-3 would just make everything worse for everyone: just like with car insurance, everyone would be legally required to purchase health insurance up to some minimal level of coverage.

So just like with car insurance, that minimal level of coverage would only include health care costs incurred by others as a result of your actions? The minimal required car insurance isn't there for you, it's there to ensure that others can recover their costs from you in the event of an accident. Unless you're paying extra for comprehensive coverage, the insurance company won't pay out for your own treatment or the repair of your own vehicle.

The only thing that might come close in the domain of healthcare would be mandatory coverage against the possibility of accidentally transmitting a contagious disease. It wouldn't cover the cost of your treatment, but rather the cost of treating others whom you accidentally infect. The premiums would be minimal (so long as one is vaccinated) and it wouldn't look anything like traditional health insurance.

Of course, even the "minimum" level of car insurance is only mandatory in connection with driving on public roads. Putting aside the minor issues of a power imbalance sufficient to imply duress at the best of times and the fact that you'll be paying taxes for those roads whether or not you're allowed to use them, this is somewhat analogous to terms and conditions for use of someone else's property. What you're proposing amounts to mandatory insurance just for being alive—essentially on the basis that denying you healthcare you can't or won't pay for might make others feel bad—which is a rather different proposition.

Really, though, a better question is what penalty you propose for not buying whatever "minimal level of coverage" you think people should have. My suggestion is simple and doesn't require any special intervention: If you're not insured, can't pay for it yourself, and can't convince anyone else to pay for it for you as a voluntary act of charity, you don't receive treatment. That is the natural punishment for not buying health insurance. There is no need for any other.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does "freedom and flexibility to work on their own time" have anything to do with whether they are employees of the company or not? Both can easily be true together.

If you’re an employee then you’ll be driving at least 8 hours a day with a shift start and end time and no choice on rides or location. That’s not very flexible.

Where does it say an employee has to have fixed 8 hour day? It's a false dicotomy.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are saying that venture capitalists and naive investors are paying for part of my ride each time I take an Uber why wouldn’t I want to get as many subsidized rides in as I can before they go broke? How am I as a consumer not gaining every time this happens?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Predatory_pricing The idea is that while it is nice to enjoy subsidized rides at the moment, as a consumer you may suffer in the future due to Uber establishing a monopoly.

Uber can only compete on price, they have nothing novel that can't be replicated. Hard to imagine how they could control the supply in a meaningful way.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#324
post #76
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suggestion 1 has been looked at. They've found it doesn't work.

It's not so much "doesn't work" as "people in the insurance business have reasons why they would take advantage to the detriment of consumers"

That's a pretty good definition of "doesn't work" in the context of lifesaving medical care

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#325
post #213
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's a common talking point. Have you looked into it? It's an honest question, who has the onus of responsibility for research? OP or me?

The thing that feels bizarre whenever this comes up is the US willingness to pretend the many dozen cheaper systems that provide universal coverage doesn't exist. The US spends more tax money on Medicare and Medicaid alone than what some countries spend per capita on providing universal healthcare.. Maybe copy one of the systems proven to work. They come in many flavours, many of which do include private insurers and…

But then republicans would have a harder time preaching "free market fixes all" as holy doctrine.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#326
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government can literally force healthcare providers to accept prices if it's the only payer. It can even write laws forcing them to accept those prices. It would take some time to adjust, but eventually you would ask win. Right now you both have the most expensive in total, expensive in median and the most unfair. http://time.com/2888403/u-s-health-care-ranked-worst-in-the-...

I don’t have any doubt they could do such things, just as they’ve done for driver and vehicle licensing. When I or a family member needs medical care, I don’t look forward to a DMV-like experience.

I routinely have spent less than half an hour at the DMV doing anything I need to, with productive and helpful staff who seemed educated about rules, requirements, and best practices.

I didn't even get a bill in the mail for it!

It's almost like some states/municipalities actually fund things and care about it, and they have good results.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people do not follow this, but https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe... > You have a household employee if you hired someone to do household work and that worker is your employee. The worker is your employee if you can control not only what work is done, but how it is done. If the worker is your employee, it does not matter whether the work is full time or part time or that you hired the w…

> The worker is your employee if you can control not only what work is done, but how it is done. What does 'how it is done' mean? If I ask a gardener to prune a bush he's a contractor, but if I have a conversation with him about how I want him to prune it is he then suddenly an employee? Seems like it's very easy to accidentally make someone an employee by requesting they do something in a particular way.

It is hard to navigate and there’s lawyers and accountants who make a lot of money figuring that out.

I interpret it as directing work as a supervisor would exert “behavioral control.” For employees you control behavior. For contractors you control outcomes.

So if you give a step by step plan on how to prune to your gardener and require it precisely, that’s probably a contractor. If you require that he prune the bushes and don’t care how it’s done, then that’s likely a contractor.

I used work with programmers quite a bit. There are a few tests where you shouldn’t provide exact tools, set break times, set specific hours, exclusivity of work, require methods of pay for contractors as that is only possible with employees.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No one can agree if a given minimum wage increase results in a workforce reduction, and if it does by how much. It's certainly not a nice analytic function, but clearly the higher the minimum wage, the fewer jobs make economic sense. If I could pay someone a couple of bucks a day to open and close my garage door, I could afford that. But the minimum wage is far beyond that, so I got an electric door opener instead.

There are 2nd order effects though. Higher minimum wage has a direct impact on the income velocity of money because it tends to move money towards lower income workers, who spend money faster. This effect can actually result in more jobs overall.

If they buy more things, then surely it depends highly on where those things are produced though. Of course it'll mean a bit more jobs in the retail sector, but with most being online, won't the primary increase be at the production end?

If it allows more people to buy iPhones then most of the jobs created by that is made in China, which doesn't help local economy much.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are 2nd order effects though. Higher minimum wage has a direct impact on the income velocity of money because it tends to move money towards lower income workers, who spend money faster. This effect can actually result in more jobs overall.

If they buy more things, then surely it depends highly on where those things are produced though. Of course it'll mean a bit more jobs in the retail sector, but with most being online, won't the primary increase be at the production end? If it allows more people to buy iPhones then most of the jobs created by that is made in China, which doesn't help local economy much.

Online sales are only projected to account for about 12% of retail in 2020, and retail is only a small percentage of the overall economy.

>If it allows more people to buy iPhones then most of the jobs created by that is made in China

Only a small part of the value of an iPhone is captured by China. Not much of it goes to the local economy either, but luxury electronics are also a small fraction of the economy.

Dining out, groceries, retail, housing, transportation, entertainment, travel, child care, home repair, cell phone repair, medical care etc... the local economy captures a large percentage of all of those.

Re: Uber Drivers Are Contractors, Not Employees, Labor Board Says

#330
post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're confusing poorly paid contractors with highly paid and sought contractors. The latter can indeed leave at any time and be fine. Perhaps take a sabbatical at the sea side. The former will have their livelihood threatened if they make use of that flexibility, hence they have in reality no flexibility at all. They dance to the tune of Uber, Amazon and other bullies.

Surely they "dance to the tune" because in reality their work just isn't worth enough to allow them that freedom of choice? That's hardly Ubers fault and I don't see why Uber should have to suffer to make up for that.

The state sets lower limits to what work should be worth, in order to avoid unpleasant social outcomes, such as worker abuse. It also sets a minimum of benefits companies should offer, in order to fulfil their side of the social contract - being allowed to safely do business and have access to capital, workers, etc.

If Uber, or any other company invents a type of work which cannot be compensated according to those rules, then they do not have a viable business and will go bankrupt or be fined out of existence.

In practice, they've managed to find enough loopholes to survive, while making the lives of many of their employees miserable.

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