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Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

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Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#361

Post by chefandy »

ROTMetro wrote: post #293
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real fix is to just stop tying benefit requirements to who the employer is and what the employee's full time status is. A lot of these problems go away with just universal healthcare, and providing benefits beyond pay via society rather than via companies.

We have socialized healthcare in the USA, we just deliver it at the emergency room, the worst possible place. The more we get people to realize that we already have this the more we can reduce the resistance to expanding it in a sane way. America 100% has socialized medicine. Go to the emergency room and you will be treated.

I don't think that's a productive tactic-- it leads people to believe the situation isn't as bad as it is. The only people who get actually free care at the ER are too poor for debt collectors to bother harassing. There's no reality in which giving someone a bill for tens of thousands of dollars constitutes socialized medicine just because they don't have to pay upfront.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#363

Post by sharts »

outside1234 wrote: post #355
muttled wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your comment, I had the thought "I wonder if California's done it?" Turns out they've tried it 10 times. I'd imagine there's a lot of money being thrown against the initiative by for-profit insurance companies, which is an industry with a lot of cash to buy laws. https://stateofreform.com/featured/2023/05/california-seeks-...

The problem with doing it at the state level is that then all the sick will move to that state. Which won’t work from a risk pool perspective

It would seem unlikely that all sick people would move just for one perk. Most people do not take moving as a light decision.

Also most people that actually do move would likely have jobs with taxable wages that helps to subsidize things.

The real risk population is maybe the homeless sick that migrate. But those tend to be in a different category entirely (e.g mental illness, addiction, trafficking etc.)

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#364

Post by mbgerring »

CSMastermind wrote: post #219
esalman wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's political suicide for Republicans. Left leaning Democrats like Bernie are all for it.

What's to stop your local city government from increasing taxes to hire a doctor and provide them with a building and staff in order to provide medical services to locals residents? It seems to me that the problem is that everyone wants a federal solution to healthcare and the United States is generally structured to limit federal power. Fire departments are funded locally generally speaking, it didn't take a federal…

San Francisco started doing something like this in 2007: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_San_Francisco

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#365

Post by faeriechangling »

bfeynman wrote: post #2

This behavior of legal loopholes to discount workers should be made illegal. The definition of sub-contractor has got to change and/or have laws/policies in place that actually make sense in a sub contractor relationship. These are shell companies that spin up and exclusively deliver for amazon, they aren't gig workers delivering when they want, they have strict quotas.

The very system of contractors vs part time vs full time getting different levels of benefits is designed to avail employers of paying their employees benefit. The end to the loophole is simply ending these arbitrary classifications and it won’t happen without a serious fight because why would employers give up their right to hire employees at a discount? The modern day purpose of the system is to allow employers to misclassify their employees for the purpose of stealing their wages.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#366

Post by sharts »

sokoloff wrote: post #290
muttled wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading your comment, I had the thought "I wonder if California's done it?" Turns out they've tried it 10 times. I'd imagine there's a lot of money being thrown against the initiative by for-profit insurance companies, which is an industry with a lot of cash to buy laws. https://stateofreform.com/featured/2023/05/california-seeks-...

That reads like they've tried to try it 9 or 10 times. They haven't even gotten to the point of finding out what all might turn out differently in a US state than in an EU country surrounded by other EU countries, all with roughly similar approaches to public health care.

They haven’t actually tried it. The last time it was yanked from being voted on because politicians make promises to get elected and are then told by their donors not to dip into their profit pools.

But in many ways California already has it if you qualify based on income (Medi-Cal / Medicaid).

It actually works well which is why it won’t be made available to everyone. Stock prices and profit margins would drop too much.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#367

Post by sharts »

bravura wrote: post #320
cmh89 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in public health at a state government, in a western state. The biggest hurdle I see is that America has freedom of movement and residency. If my state creates truly affordable health care, we will of course have refugees from conservative states coming here for medical care. We'll probably end up with a public option of some kind that will somewhat function like health insurance but who knows.

This is an interesting point. And perhaps worse yet, high quality doctors will have the freedom to move out of your state. I'm an American living and Germany and sadly, my GP who is also a personal friend of mine, will be shutting down their practice at the end of the year because their small practice simply isn't financially sustainable. They will instead start treating the prison population, which apparently pays m…

Prices could probably drop if the market was saturated with doctors. And the best way to do that would be eliminating medical-school debt.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#368

Post by mbgerring »

umeshunni wrote: post #236
toomuchtodo wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.8 million voters over the age of 55 die every year in the US. 4 million voters turn 18. We're just arguing time horizon and cohort turn out rates. Bernie was just too early after Reagan, globalization, and deregulation. https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2018/03/01/1-generation... https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2019/01/17/generat... https://archive.is/iRyQE https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2014/…

Except that people also age out of far left ideas. The 18 year old who's like "hell yeah, ownership is theft, raise the taxes" feels differently when they turn 35 and have to pay those taxes.

Yeah sorry, this is wrong, I’m 35 and would not support a reduction in taxes even if it benefitted me. I want national health insurance, I want the total demolition of Prop 13 in California, and I would pay higher Federal taxes if it meant that we had a functional European-style social safety net. I have been a high income earner and have experienced nothing but frustration with our idiotic system of private provision of what ought to be public benefits.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#369

Post by wilg »

faeriechangling wrote: post #365
bfeynman wrote: post #2

This behavior of legal loopholes to discount workers should be made illegal. The definition of sub-contractor has got to change and/or have laws/policies in place that actually make sense in a sub contractor relationship. These are shell companies that spin up and exclusively deliver for amazon, they aren't gig workers delivering when they want, they have strict quotas.

The very system of contractors vs part time vs full time getting different levels of benefits is designed to avail employers of paying their employees benefit. The end to the loophole is simply ending these arbitrary classifications and it won’t happen without a serious fight because why would employers give up their right to hire employees at a discount? The modern day purpose of the system is to allow employers to…

I’d entertain a policy proposal that does this without too much damage to the ability to flexibly hire for part time and contract and freelance type work.

Re: Amazon doesn't 'employ' drivers, but hired firms to prevent them from unionizing

#370

Post by seanmcdirmid »

chefandy wrote: post #361
ROTMetro wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have socialized healthcare in the USA, we just deliver it at the emergency room, the worst possible place. The more we get people to realize that we already have this the more we can reduce the resistance to expanding it in a sane way. America 100% has socialized medicine. Go to the emergency room and you will be treated.

I don't think that's a productive tactic-- it leads people to believe the situation isn't as bad as it is. The only people who get actually free care at the ER are too poor for debt collectors to bother harassing. There's no reality in which giving someone a bill for tens of thousands of dollars constitutes socialized medicine just because they don't have to pay upfront.

We pay for a socialized healthcare system already, we just pay the same amount again of private overhead on top of an already socialized system. Our system is just a huge waste at this point.
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