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Comment by TulliusCicero | Hacker News Reader

Gig workers aren't quite contractors and aren't quite employees. Maybe need a third class of worker.

Paid per hour, free to chose their working hours, free to work for multiple employers at the same time, etc. How are they not contractors?

They're way more contractors than the contractors that were working 9 to 5, 5 days a week, for years, for my FAANG.

But the fee/payment is dictated by the company which takes away a significant part of autonomy I guess

What does this have to do with being a contractor vs employee. I negotiated my salary. Does that make me a contractor?

Although they have the ability to turn down a ride if the fee isn't high enough, and the price will go up until someone accepts it. I see Uber drivers do this a lot in geofenced areas to jack up the price

I do not think they can choose their working hours, their income does not allow this freedom. Not US, but I did some study on Ukraine immigrants in Poland, etc, they work as self-employed at factories, like LG and Samsung and even make some parts for Porsche cars. A luxury made by slavery, 12 h/day, 6 days a week and minimum hour rate.

Uber's website says:

Drive when you want, make what you need

Earn on your own schedule.

They can't force you to pick someone up.

You’re mistaking the difference between two ends of the world. I have lived and worked in both.

In the US a Lyft/Uber driver owns their vehicle, has an app they can log in and out of any moment they like. The license and registration is checked, the car is regularly inspected. (There are schemes where you can lease out the car but that is another subject). The driver has a chunk of their income taken by Uber/Lyft and they have to pay for fuel and other expenses. Everything is insured. The money isn’t great but it’s your business whether you are “free” doing it. I have done this.

In Poland, the car will often be owned by someone who owns a fleet. The account in the app will be fake. The immigrant driver will be working under another name for the “fleet” owner, and the car will (often) be an uninspected beater. Doing the whole Uber thing was also entirely illegal until a certain point (I don’t know where this is now). So who knows what kinds of corrupt slave relationships were/are going on there. I have not done this, but I live in a Polish city with one of those LG factories.

Factories and how shitty those are is a irrelevant to the topic of this thread.

they can't set their rates.

that's a huge part of being a contractor.

They can. Refusing to take some rides that they do not deem profitable is the same as "negotiating their rate".

If anything, they probably have a lot more power regarding compensation than if they were employees, all earning the same (definitely shitty) salary.

You’ve taken a narrow interpretation.

Drivers have zero ability to set their rate.

That's just refusing work at a given rate. A contractor can say "I used to charge $300/hr; I now charge $400/hr because $REASONS."

definitely agree on the drivers having more flex than employees, at least superficially. employees could always quit, though the mechanics of quitting are heavier for employers than terming a contractor are.

None of them work for multiple employers at the same time.

They are working multiple part-time jobs with shorter-than-customary on-the-clock times, but if they pick up a Lyft passenger, they're only being paid by Lyft for that time, and if they pick up an Uber passenger, they're only being paid by Uber for that time. There's no double-dipping.

The only difference between this arrangement and typical part-time jobs is that with typical PT work, we often think of shifts being measured in hours, whereas with these jobs, shifts are measured in minutes.

As for being able to choose their working hours, it sounds nice in the abstract, but the platforms actively punish drivers whose availability is limited.

> None of them work for multiple employers at the same time.

Just like no contractor bills the same hour to two employers.

> The only difference between this arrangement and typical part-time jobs is that with typical PT work, we often think of shifts being measured in hours, whereas with these jobs, shifts are measured in minutes.

Not at all. There are many differences, namely the ones I have already mentioned above.

> As for being able to choose their working hours, it sounds nice in the abstract, but the platforms actively punish drivers whose availability is limited.

Just like any company would not prioritize doing business with a software engineering contractor who is available an hour from 8 to 9 AM on Tuesdays and then an hour and a half every other Thursday night.

Spin it however you want, they are exactly the same as any other contractor.

“Hustler” economy

Better than unemployed all together

the closest analog i can think of are paid volunteers like people who take usability studies.

they have the flexibility of contractors (they can show up, work as much or as little as they want, and stop whenever they want) but their compensation is set by whomever requisitioned them.

That's still contract work, it's just shitty contract work. Do you think day laborers get to set their own rates? There is absolutely nothing unique about these operations in the US, except they have the sheen of SV exceptionalism.

But what properties and laws would apply to this class of worker?

The general rule in Europe is that "If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then we treat it like a duck." That is employment and tax authorities don't care what your and your employer call yourselves but they do care about the conditions under which you work. In the UK, for instance, if you are a contractor you can send someone else in your stead to do the work, if you are an employee you obviously can't. So that alone can distinguish between real contractors and actual employees.

I'm not a lawyer so take all this with the necessary quantities of salt.

IR35 is a ridiculous law.

"If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then we treat it like a duck."

I can walk and quack rather convincingly like a duck, but I'm not a duck and any casual observer would agree.

The metaphor provided puts the emphasis on the behaviour of the individual, whereas the behaviour of the hirer/employer is rarely considered... For example, can the contractor be promoted? Can they be given a disciplinary procedure with Union representation? If the contractor has an accident, does the insurance of the company pay for it or does the insurance of the contractor pay for it? Does the contractor have protections from bullying and discrimination?

The point of IR35 wasn't to make it easy for employers to relieve themselves of their usual obligations to people they demand exclusive full time work from by saying "sign this anti-Union waiver and you'll get tax breaks (and so will we!)"

And criteria like whether the nominal contractor has any choice of workplace and schedule is absolutely about the behaviour of the hirer/employer.

I doubt that, but feel free to upload a youtube video.

A separate set of dedicated laws of course.

Yeah people have real difficulty dealing with things that don't fit neatly into existing categories. I imagine when smartphones were first introduced people had debates about whether they were phones or computers.

Speaking for the rest of humanity: no, we did not have debates as to whether smartphones are phones or computers.

Yeah, but we can't possibly add a third category, we have to try and force everyone into one of 2 groups created in the 50s...

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