Tech cos, labor advocates, think tanks call for reforms to social safety net | Hacker News Reader

Tech cos, labor advocates, think tanks call for reforms to social safety net

washingtonpost.com

14 pointsFuturebot15 comments

If we want all workers to have these benefits, why aren't we doing a 'single payer' style system where contributing to it is a form of tax dependent on worker utilization?

Yup, generally speaking in Canada self-employed people still can contribute to and get health care, (un)employment insurance, and a government-run pension.

Basic income is the only solution in the medium to long term, we might as well start planning the foundation for it now.

If they can deny climate change, you can bet your bottom dollar they can deny the necessity of basic income. If only people had a 'be bloody logical for one God damned moment' switch on the back of their heads...

One way to do this for the "gig economy" is to provide benefits through a union. That's how Hollywood works.[1][2] Employment is short term, but pension credits build up with the union.

But most of these new "gig economy" operations are ordinary employers. Few people, if any, drive for Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, and FedEx Ground on different days. FedEx just lost on this issue.

[1] https://www.iatsenbf.org/assets/IATSE-Pension-Plan-C-SPD.pdf [2] http://iatse.net/us-organizing/your-health

But many drive for lyft and uber at the same time. Or 4 different delivery companies at a time. They have multiple apps open at once, and once they get a job turn off the other apps until they are ready for their next job.

So if you job dispatch from multiple corporations, work for a random 2-60 hours per week, provide your own car and determine your scheduling, then what are you?

Don't both Lyft and Uber try and discourage you from working for both, as well as penalizing people who work too few hours a week through their fee schedule, and completely controlling the prices customers pay drivers?

I have no idea, I'm just going on my experience from conversations & observations as a customer. People do definitely use multiple apps.

As far as a controlled price, that is why you want multiple apps, so there is competition pushing for efficiency.

As a customer it would be far more annoying to use the app if you had to screw around with a price auction every time you wanted a pickup. If I set a price too low, I could be waiting a long time for a ride, if I set a price too high I lose money. The automatic price system makes it far faster.

>One way to do this for the "gig economy" is to provide benefits through a union.

Uber hates unions: http://venturebeat.com/2014/05/20/uber-claims-new-app-based-...

"If an Uber driver wants to make a change they can talk to us directly — they don’t need a bogus organization like this to do that."

Or you know, just do social democracy properly like most of the western world.

The lawsuits are nothing to do with these companies wanting to provide more benefits and everything about them not classifying their workers as employees because they don't want to provide benefits.

This is just Uber et al. wanting to escape legal culpability for their regulatory arbitrage.

If you read the article, you'll clearly see that they want to provide something, as long as it doesn't obligate them to provide a huge package. I assume their reasons for wanting this are to compete for employees.

See, the current regulation is a very odd copenhagen theory of ethics type mess. It bans providing a small packages of benefits - either provide a big one or provide nothing.

>If you read the article, you'll clearly see that they want to provide something

I know they said that. I just don't believe it for a second.

They want a new legal designation for their employees that does not require them to provide any benefits at all. They claim that despite this new-found freedom from legal culpability they will definitely provide some benefits. Honest.

But don't force us to provide benefits or anything.

The current status of their drivers as contractors opens them up to an awful lot of legal risk which they'd like to mitigate, ideally without it costing them anything other than an easily broken promise.

People irrationally overvalue benefits (relative to money). Plus many benefits are tax advantaged aUnd they are also easier for big players to provide.

If they were allowed to provide limited benefits without being obligated to provide full benefits, it would provide a barrier to entry for competitors. How will Gett (a little guy competing with Uber in Manhattan below 110th only) find drivers if it can't provide benefits?

Economics >> moral posturing.

>People irrationally overvalue benefits

People giving their own opinions irrationally undervalue citations.

>Plus many benefits are tax advantaged aUnd they are also easier for big players to provide.

I guess that explains why Uber is fighting tooth and nail not to provide any benefits at all rather than embracing a new competitive advantage. Oh wait.

>If they were allowed to provide limited benefits without being obligated to provide full benefits, it would provide a barrier to entry for competitors.

As opposed to the regulatory arbitrage they do where their early entrance to new markets depends upon the vast amount of cash they spend on lobbying and unchallenged legal loopholes.

>Economics >> moral posturing.

What passes for supposedly objective economics these days is mostly disguised moral posturing. Some entire schools including Monetarism and Chicago pretty much only do that which is why they have a horrible prediction record.

Other supposedly objective economic reasoning leads to bizarre conclusions like the idea that Uber would lobby hard against legal reforms that would give them a competitive advantage.

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