Uber, Postmates Sue California to Block Gig-Worker Law
bloomberg.com
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They're primarily fighting this because the employment-related taxes and costs are expensive.
What Uber/Lyft want is a new class of contractor that allows them to provide benefits to their workers without paying the taxes.
Part of this is due to the obstinate nature of some 8 US states that refuse to expand medicare, and part of it is due to multiple healthcare providers such as Kaiser walking out of the open marketplaces proposed by the Obama administration during his term. Then you have to look at what states are explicitly willing to cover as part of their expansion, or rather, what they wont cover. Abortion and contraceptive birth control come to mind, and certainly during the open drafting of the ACA these were outright muddled or restricted in nature. This means private/corporate insured people always have access to family planning, while those on the open market do not. It poses an uncomfortable class delineation.
If i had to postulate as to how US Healthcare will eventually reform, it would be with a whimper. Medicare will soon become large enough that the contraceptive mandate wont matter. Corporations (uber, lyft, amazon) are all becoming fairly callous to the idea that employees get anything at all, let alone healthcare, so its possible they will simply force the states hand.
Medicaid, not Medicare. Medicaid is the federally-subsidized state-run program for the medically indigent.
> part of it is due to multiple healthcare providers such as Kaiser walking out of the open marketplaces proposed by the Obama administration during his term
Kaiser has ACA plans at all levels from Bronze to Platinum in the California exchanges. If they've walked away in other states, it's probably because of state policy, not a fundamental corporate opposition to participating in ACA exchanges.
Does anyone know how well that works out in practice? Are Uber drivers dependent contractors in these countries?
If there were a middle ground between independent contractors and employees, where such "dependent contractors" e.g. worked exclusively for one client, I'd bet some drivers would pick teams.
A middle ground for contractors makes sense. It makes more sense than the status quo, where ersatz employees get no benefits. And it makes more sense than the Californian law, which effectively outlaws freelancing and part-time contracting.
Such a middle ground relationship would involve some obligations of employment (e.g. re-imbursement for expenses, paid sick leave and time off, basic health benefits) but not all (e.g. no retirement accounts, limited dismissal recourse, no training), just as it would entail some of the restrictions of employment (e.g. exclusivity), but not all of them (e.g. no gardening leaves, corporate NDAs, time management, et cetera).
Not sure how that plays out in terms of dependent contractors.
At the same time they just got hit with another ban in relation with their app[1]
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/19/ubers-ride-hailing-busines...
Idea for HN: the balance of downvotes and upvotes on an article is a useful piece of information in and of itself. It might not be a good idea to show that on each particular article, but an end-of-year analysis of what words in an article title often corresponded to lots of downvotes (relative to the upvotes), would be an interesting way to measure which topics are currently hot-button issues.
At this point, if someone isn't at least dubious of Uber and the gig economy's value, given everything that's been publicly determined about them, I don't feel like I have a lot of time to waste on a "balanced" discussion.
If you're not wanting to learn anything from the discussion, why even have it? It's not as if a flame thread on the internet is going to actually convince anyone of anything, or really accomplish much of anything.
I'm not suggesting a flame thread is more productive. I'm suggesting that a civility/debating club fetish keeps us rehashing basics and is itself an impediment to deeper learning.
The seeming less-regulated employment is in fact supported by a great deal of government safety net programs taxpayers. Many of these low paying / independent contractor / "gig economy" jobs are really only feasible due to government support. Given that, it seems more reasonable for the government to regulate.
IMO I would argue California's new law is not about protecting workers, who are actually able to earn more money as independent contractors, but about protecting higher tax revenues collected on employees.
In San Francisco where I live, we have almost no middle class primarily because it's so expensive to live. Thats right no middle class. We have effectively outlawed housing with 7 year approval cycles, and exclusionary zoning. It's nearly impossible to develop in California.
What does the data show? People are leaving California to move to states like Texas. Half of Californias are thinking of leaving the state. Poverty is shrinking everywhere except California where 18% of the population is living in poverty.
How many homeless people did they have to ignore to win a cheap political argument? (a lot)
My housing costs have gone from $700 to $3950 in 10 years.
If I wasn't one of the lucky few, I would be priced out. Hence my point we need much less regulation so that middle class people can afford to live in California.
We could 10x pay, but with the same stock of housing, the poor will do no better.
Middle class people can afford to live in plenty of California, just not in certain places like the bay area. The problems with housing are mostly caused by local NIMBYism not statewide regulation, which is an issue that doesn't have a specific political affiliation.
An unintended consequence.
A new ballot measure, sponsored by progressives on the board of supervisors this year, will further limit construction and tie commercial development to these affordable housing mandates. The result will be less overall development and increased cost of living. Sponsored by progressives.
What I see locally is progressives fighting development, and this hurts us all. Yes there is a NIMY component, but with a super majority in the state legislature - Democrats could easily overrule local laws. But they do not.
Japan is an example of a place with housing decisions made at the state level.
San Francisco is geographically limited. But San Francisco doesn't want to build up because of NIMBYism. That's the primary problem. It's not a left vs right thing.
> Democrats could easily overrule local laws.
The state government moving in and overturning local control is a big government progressive position. You are criticizing California for not being progressive enough.
This hurts us all. The economy would grow if people from poorer areas could participate in more productive economies such as the Bay Area. It's sad that the most productive cities consider themselves "fully developed" - when we are far from it.
You said California. Not San Francisco. The point is that it isn't the left leaning government of California that is making San Francisco expensive. It's a local problem.
https://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2017/jan/20...