Hacker News Reader

Comment by EdJiang | Hacker News Reader

Your post has a lot of misinformation I'd like to correct. What you're stating about the current situation is factually incorrect.

1. Prop 22 gives app-based workers healthcare, minimum wage, and other protections and benefits. From the text: "For an average of 25 hours or more per week of engaged time in the calendar quarter, a payment greater than or equal to 100 percent of the average ACA contribution for the applicable average monthly Covered California premium for each month in the quarter." 15-25 hours would require a 50% payment.

https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/22/

2. The companies are exploring other options to stay in California, which is actually required as part of the appeal which happened recently. The current publicly proposed model is franchising out to local businesses: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/technology/uber-lyft-fran...

Disclaimer: I work @ Uber but I do not work on driver-related stuff

View on HN

Thanks for surfacing the info on health care.

EdJiang, please note this isn't to you directly (either as a poster or Uber employee), my engineer-brain is sort of thinking of loopholes and unintended consequences. I'm not expressing an opinion here.

How many "real" working hours does it take to get 25 working hours? I only found one reference (Berkeley Law) that estimated 1/3 of the time is downtime, so very roughly 40 hours a week? Of course depends on location, chosen time of work, and much more.

More cynically, would these companies be able to distribute work such that rides are given to drivers with more "buffer" before hitting these ACA payouts?

Again, not at Uber, Lyft and others specifically but the USA is a country where if we mandate workers with 30 hours get healthcare, employers may try to schedule for 29. I think it's unfortunate, but that's the incentive.

(opinion mode on: we need to fix healthcare as a country; the current state of affairs and likely the state after the Supreme Court hears Texas v. California in three weeks is ridiculous)

>More cynically, would these companies be able to distribute work such that rides are given to drivers with more "buffer" before hitting these ACA payouts?

We already know the answer to this, from how Walmart and others schedule their employees to just under full-time status in order to avoid paying them benefits. If Walmart is doing it, it will be considered to be an orthodox business practice and Uber/Lyft/DoorDash/etc. have probably already planned for it as a contingency.

Good point. The amount of downtime definitely depends on local market conditions. For instance if you go online at 3AM in Tracy, CA, you might have way lower utilization than someone at 6pm in downtown San Francisco.

I see your point about locking people out of access once they get past a certain number of hours. I think there are two reasons why this is probably not realistic. (1) the hourly count is over a quarterly basis, so harder to track. If a user has 25 engaged hours in week 1, why lock the app if week 2 or 3 the user may have 0 engaged hours? (2) the apps commonly have "bonuses" for hitting certain trip count goals, and you don't see apps trying to lock users out before they hit that goal.

However, Uber has put out a proposal asking governments to establish a "benefits fund" that all gig-companies are required to deposit into, on an hourly basis. That way someone working 5 hours on one app and 20 hours on a second would get benefits partially paid from both companies, without an incentive for any company to shirk their duties.

See the following link, under page 12 - "we want to contribute to funds that workers can individually direct toward the benefits that matter most to them. We are asking states to require our industry to accrue such funds":

https://ubernewsroomapi.10upcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/...

I appreciate your response but respectfully disagree. (1) you posted above completely miss-states the facts. From the voter pamphlet text itself;

"A YES vote on this measure means: App-based rideshare and delivery companies could hire drivers as independent contractors. Drivers could decide when, where, and how much to work but would not get standard benefits and protections that businesses must provide employees."

If you drive full time you deserve full time benefits. That means more than a 50% payment of ACA (which is downright offensive to suggest someone can live off of while making minimum wage).

The text I quoted is directly from the ballot measure. If you click my link then click on "Text of Proposed Law (PDF)" in the sidebar, you will find:

> 7454. Healthcare Subsidy. (a) Consistent with the average contributions required under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a network company shall provide a quarterly health care subsidy to qualifying app-based drivers as set forth in this section. An app-based driver that averages the following amounts of engaged time per week on a network company’s platform during a calendar quarter shall receive the following subsidies from that network company:

> (1) For an average of 25 hours or more per week of engaged time in the calendar quarter, a payment greater than or equal to 100 percent of the average ACA contribution for the applicable average monthly Covered California premium for each month in the quarter.

> (2) For an average of at least 15 but less than 25 hours per week of engaged time in the calendar quarter, a payment greater than or equal to 50 percent of the average ACA contribution for the applicable average monthly Covered California premium for each month in the quarter.

No matter the nuances, the 7/8th modification provision is a deal-breaker, period. It casts the whole measure in a crooked light, which history advises us should come as no surprise.

> If you drive full time you deserve full time benefits. That means more than a 50% payment of ACA

You might have misread the parent comment, as it said full time drivers must get at least 100% payment of ACA.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com