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Comment by sschueller | Hacker News Reader

Good.

Uber is trying to weasel out of this in Switzerland by letting drivers set price but it won't fly.

I don't think of that as "weaseling out of" at all. If anything, I've been arguing that the single primary thing that nullifies Uber's "they're all just contractors!!" argument is that drivers have no involvement in setting the price. If drivers can set the price though, and actually put in fair bids that they believe are necessary to pay their costs and make an acceptable profit, then it does become much more of a true marketplace and the "all drivers are employees" argument holds a lot less water IMO.

Then why isn't this the policy across all territories? Weaseling out sounds correct if they are only doing it to get around local laws.

If the laws are not strong enough for them to be forced to do this in bigger markets, then perhaps the laws should be changed?

Depending on companies to self govern is not sustainable even if Uber does not exploit this, the next company will. Such loopholes need to be closed, putting on pressure on some companies is just band aid if they actually change, if not just effort wasted on the wrong thing.

I don't buy regulatory capture as a valid argument either.

To make sure companies do the right thing strong regulations and laws need to be in place, to make sure regulatory bodies and lawmakers are not influenced, people should have more power in government than money does.

I agree with pretty much all you said.

Mainly, I do not find it very genuine that they only implemented this policy, likely with extra effort, in one territory. This feels like a play to capture market share and increase growth, even if it doesn't match their existing business model.

Yes, many times this. The gig economy right now is just a ruse to circumvent labor laws in many countries, incredible bad how it took this long for countries to regulate this.

What should the distinction be between an employee and contractor then?

There is a lot of legal precedent for this distinction that depends on your jurisdiction, but largely boils down to how much control the worker has over the work.

Uber and the like claim the workers choose when to work, how much, whether to accept gigs etc. But this is part of the problem: offering gigs at a set rate as take it or leave it is insufficient control. A real contractor would be able to negotiate and adjust this rate.

Uber drivers are employees delivering services core to the function of the business.

>Uber and the like claim the workers choose when to work, how much, whether to accept gigs etc. But this is part of the problem: offering gigs at a set rate as take it or leave it is insufficient control. A real contractor would be able to negotiate and adjust this rate.

Isn't it already built into the system though? If no one drives, surge pricing goes up until someone accepts the ride.

Honestly I see no way individual workers setting the price wouldn't lead to lower prices than you see now. Drivers would have the option to either sit and make 0 money or cut their rate by 10 cents and make some money. The way Uber sets prices pretty much mandates a minimum. If the minimum doesn't cover your maintenance costs, you shouldn't be driving for Uber.

This is where the whole discussion spirals out of control usually.

Uber maintains its business isn't transportation - it's facilitating a market place for transportation. Nonsense, say its detractors, you're running a car service.

It's clear that Uber has gotten into some activities that undermine its own story, like loans for drivers to buy cars and insurance.

It's also clear that Uber drivers don't look like regular employees in many ways - like: they decide their own hours; they can refuse trips; they can contract with other, competing ride-share companies simultaneously.

I don't know how people generate certainty in their opinions on this topic.

They tell you what route to take, what car you can drive, how long you can wait for pickup, and so on and so on and so on.

You don't tell the person building your home how many employees he's allowed to have, and how new his tools must be.

> A real contractor would be able to negotiate and adjust this rate.

To be clear, I agree with everything you’re saying. However, if I say I’m willing to pay $100 for a website and will deny all counteroffers, is the person who I hire to make my website a contractor or an employee?

But the GP comment is saying that drivers that can set rates for themselves still shouldn't be called contractors. Hence my question

I am really really afraid this will make governments consider IT contractors employees. I hate this.

Why are you afraid of this?

Presumably because companies will be much less willing to hire on contractors because of the extra costs for benefits etc.

Not everyone wants to be an employee.

You can make more money as a contractor. The deal is contractors get paid more to take in the risk of being fired. If you are ok with this, you get as liquid money the cash that would have gone to benefits.

So I bill for about 200k USD. My wife gets our medical insurance. I take home about 140k after taxes. If I were an employee, I’d only take home 100k after taxes.

There's only a very small group of workers like in it who could benefit from being a contractor. But there is a vast number of lowly paid workers who are devestated because they can't get benefits. How do we trade off these things?

My answer is to allow the market to float with as little regulation as possible. What perverse incentives exist due to regulatory externalities?

> allow the market to float with as little regulation as possible

That sounds like a recipe for a race to the bottom that ends in Dickensian sweatshops.

I don’t think so. Denmark or Sweden lacks a minimum wage. People are free to not work with Uber. They are free to work with them. If there is labor that will accept Uber’s terms, let them. Allow competition. Remove the regulations around taxis having medallions that cost 100k.

> My answer is to allow the market to float with as little regulation as possible. [...] Denmark or Sweden

When I think of markets with "as little regulation as possible", Denmark and Sweden don't really cross my mind...

They have high taxes instead of regulations. In USA companies are forced to provide all of these benefits to its employees, in Sweden you pay taxes and the government provides them instead. The end result is that companies has to do less and workers don't have to worry about companies trying to trick them into not getting those benefits.

No min wage can make sense without a good social safety net. The us doesn't really have anything like those other countries.

In favour of the vast number of low-paid workers who could really use decent employment benefits.

If the trade-off is that the IT guy billing six-figure sums ends up with a bit less cash in his pocket, because he's required to contribute more to the system that takes care of everyone, well... I won't be losing any sleep over that.

You shouldn’t pervert justice just because someone is poor. If you’re ok with not following justice, but rather an emotional sense of vengeance, then why allow income at all? Let the state provide the needs and have the citizens provide the ability? At some point you either have to admit that you’re ok with theft by the state for the greater good or that you have created some arbitrary line in the sand where theft is not linger okay. The second option is hypocritical, but own that too.

> At some point you either have to admit [...] or that you have created some arbitrary line in the sand

Life in a society is full of arbitrary lines in the sand. When is a person allowed to drink alcohol? Where does your lot of land end and your neighbor's begin? How fast are you allowed to drive on this particular piece of road? Why do you consider the tax rate, of all things, to be so arbitrary?

For a functional society, you have to draw the line somewhere. Ideology instead of pragmatism is a recipe for failure. Being pragmatic is not hypocritical.

I actually want to see most of the lines you cite removed. Property lines are not arbitrary they are contractual. Now where the ruling body politic set those contractual lines might be arbitrary but that is beside the point.

You’ve constructed a straw man. You say your view is practical and mine is idealistic. I say yours is idealistic and mine is practical because mine will allow people to practice more freely.

Equivalently those people on average salaries will tend to think one shouldn't pervert justice to cater for people like us on well above average incomes.

"I might go from making an absurd amount of money to making a slightly less absurd amount of money."

Cry me a river. There are tech workers barely getting by because they're being forced into being considered "contractors".

You have designated yourself as a moral authority by sheer force of your existence. I simply explained the benefit and risks of being a contractor. You have decided that I should not be allowed to sell my labor at a rate I and my client accepts.

Some people like the flexibility that a contractor role provides. Forcing everyone to become an employee with benefits adds costs that many places will forego by hiring on only a handful of contractors or removing the role entirely.

The point is that the people who end up "reclassified" as employees by these kind of decisions are people who are already de-facto employees in that they do not have the flexibility that genuine contractors do.

No, I have the flexibility, and I have chosen to work for one client. This new unforeseen interpretation of my business contracts (are you even aware of the ramifications for my financial planning, insurance, etc?) is forcing me into things I don't want to do nor my client is interested in, thus making me less flexible, and forces me to pay for things I am absolutely not interested in.

Where are you that has rules that prevents you from being treated as a contractor if you genuinely have the flexibility?

Most places that force these kind of treatments tends to do so only when people have no ability to set their schedule or no realistic prospect of negotiating terms etc. in ways that makes them indistinguishable from employees.

Most of the time there are ways out of this and/or all that ends up being required is for you to be an employee of your own company rather than exploit tax loopholes that were never intended to be used this way. Eg. this is the case in the UK where the dreaded IR35 closed tax loopholes that let people avoid paying themselves a salary for their contracting and instead cut costs by taking out dividends or making their spouses directors etc.. The change did not in any way stop contracting even for a single client, but it prevented people from using it as a way of avoiding tax.

In most of those instances "forcing you pay for things you're not interested in" boils down to not forcing society to take risks on your behalf because people are using contracting as a means to avoid e.g. social service payments and the like.

I'm sure there are places that are exceptions where some people get caught out, and that's a shame, but most of the time these rules benefit far more people, because of the extensive use of "contracting" as a way for employers to get out of obligations with people who have no effective leverage.

I am in Czechia. I am paying less social security (and am getting proportionally less in return) and exactly the same healthcare insurance as everyone else.

If I was to be an employee, I would (or rather, my employer) be forced to do everything based on the employment law, which has severe restrictions on me as well as on my employer and on the kind of relationship we have, which causes extreme loses to me (as I like to be paid proportionally to returns) + paying more for things I don't want and up until now wasn't required to have.

Because I planned and built my life around being a contractor. I have zero use for and zero interest in any of the "benefits", much less from the government; I want the government to leave me alone to do my business as I want - I am not doing anything wrong. I have built my life as I like it, with my own benefits such as flexible lifestyle, my own hardware and office, and financial freedom, and I don't want anyone to trash my hard work. Who will give me back the lost money and time I would've spent with my family? Who will give me back the opportunities I lost? Why is it always me losing something because of some absolutely unrelated issues like Uber drivers, and why is it always handwaved away with "whatever, you have a little less money, cry me a river"?

Here in Norway it works something like this: if you are a contractor full time for the same company for three years (or is it five?) then you are considered an employee by the tax authorities and the company is required to either drop the contract or take you on as an employee.

I've probably got the details wrong but that's the general idea.

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