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To me this just means the workers need to be able to negotiate for either a standard or driver-selected minimum shift duration for billing purposes, just like most independent contractors can achieve by negotiating the terms of their contracts when finding clients. Every time I hire a moving company the hourly rate bills a contractual minimum number of hours per job regardless of actual time needed. Nothing about this concept is incompatible with flexible gig work.

I realize that individual drivers have far less power in setting the terms of the relationships with Uber and Lyft than individual moving companies have over their client relationships, so drivers’ negotiations here will require either union-style collective action or advocacy for changes to NYC’s rules here.

> Nothing about this concept is incompatible with flexible gig work.

Your example (movers) assumes the workers are already paired up with a customer.

They don’t get paid if there isn’t a customer.

The analogy doesn’t hold. The only way to support minimum shift durations would be to average out fares collected and distribute them to everyone who was technically working a shift, even if they weren’t driving. So the people actually driving would receive less payment in order to subsidize the people not driving.

Once you open the door to paying people for not driving, the game becomes to find a way to park somewhere that allows you to participate in a shift while minimizing the number of customers assigned. Immediately, you’d get drivers strategically parking in far away locations to reduce their chances of picking anyone up, because if you’re getting paid for the time on shift you’d rather sit and do nothing than actually drive.

So actually, the concept is completely incompatible with gig work.

Nah, the idea just needs additional elaboration to protect it against gaming the system like you describe, without introducing systemic discrimination against passengers in less trendy areas.

Here is a quick brainstorm of one possible fix, without any promises I didn’t overlook a flaw in this idea: maybe the minimum wage per some suitably granular time period when not currently or recently driving a passenger could be made to vary somewhat depending on whether enough other vehicles from the fleet are in the area, and could then potentially have a percentage penalty subtracted for not accepting and timely arriving to a high enough percentage of offered ride opportunities.

Plus, of course, if some drivers game the system, Uber and Lyft can notice those abusive patterns in the data and stop working with them, disincentivizing other drivers from similar abuse. That’s the biggest countermeasure. The problem we are discussing is only Uber and Lyft abruptly locking out a driver mid-shift purely to save money. Nobody is objecting to Uber ending a relationship abruptly due to documented driver abuse or even doing so without driver misconduct but with reasonable notice.

And no, I don’t assume that movers are already paired up with customers. They present the minimum number of billable hours per visit as part of their standard terms during the first conversation with a new potential customer, and at least in the residential moving space, customers don’t generally argue with it.

The reason customers don’t argue with it is largely because movers can easily get another customer by doing almost nothing (at least in the big cities where I’ve lived) whereas it’s a hassle for customers to juggle too many different potential moving companies when planning the move.

But another factor is that the minimum hourly rate billings are reasonable, typically 1-3 hours per visit in my personal experience, likely because there is enough competition among moving companies that offering unreasonable terms will lose them customers.

I completely realize the power dynamic is different in the ride-sharing space, and I acknowledged that in my previous comment. But that just changes how the negotiation has to occur in order to balance out Uber and Lyft’s disproportionate power, not whether it can work in a gig worker context.

I'm not saying it shouldn't change. What I'm saying is this is more commonplace than what people believe. Hair stylists, auto mechanics, construction workers in many places, they all work under these conditions and have for many years. There's many more professions that offer flexibility that also work under these conditions.

Often times these same people because they're individuals do not have any collective bargaining to make a better deal. They simply take the deal that's available and hope to make it work. Often times it doesn't work but for some it does and works consistently.

I do think there's a general expectation that a flexible work when you want styled job should only be a benefit to the employee. They seem to feel that the employer shouldn't be able to tell them when their work is no longer required. Because there are other jobs besides Uber and if they wanted to work those less flexible jobs they could. Those less flexible jobs tend to come with the kind of contractual stability you're talking about.

For example your hiring of a moving company is something you can track for in advance. That contract is in place they can provide the laborers when and where they're needed. I don't believe it's a fair example to compare to Uber. Uber would be more akin to a pool of day laborers. Contractors show up they need five guys to roof a house. When they get to the job site maybe they realize that nothing is ready so they all go home with a pittance if anything at all. And that is the risk of the flexibility of day labor.

Is it right? Well that kind of flexibility in your work comes with risks and downsides. Because sometimes the contractor will show up and they'll need 25 guys to frame five houses that day but there's only a pool of 10 people. So that risk cuts both ways.

>Contractors show up they need five guys to roof a house. When they get to the job site maybe they realize that nothing is ready so they all go home with a pittance if anything at all.

I worked in construction for about a decade, including with companies that supplemented crews with day labour when required, and we were always required to pay at least 4 hours (even if we sent them home after 5 minutes).

Hair stylists, auto mechanics, construction workers [..] all work under these conditions

Please specify under what conditions you mean here, because I know of no hair stylists nor construction workers that work by only doing the jobs that are allocated to them by a single company yet have no employment contract with that company. Either they own the hair salon/garage, or they get paid whenever they are available for work at said hair salon/garage by said owner.

>because I know of no hair stylists nor construction workers that work by only doing the jobs that are allocated to them by a single company yet have no employment contract with that company.

Can't a rideshare driver work for both uber and lyft? Moreover, how much job hopping actually happens for hair stylists or auto mechanics?

For a long time I used a hairdresser (aka barber or hair stylist - but I’m male with simple short hair) who worked at two salons (aka barber shop from the mindset of customers like me) every week. It definitely happens. A typical model in that area (NYC) for hairdressers who didn’t own the salon was to rent a chair at a salon, but they weren’t employees and were totally allowed to do part-time chair rentals at multiple salons at once.

Her contract with my salon prevented her from telling me her other salon, so I had to switch hairdressers instead of staying with her when she stopped working at that salon.

The other hairdresser I switched to later bought the salon from the previous owner when he retired, complete with a rename of the salon from his name to hers. I still use her when I need a haircut and am in NYC. And yes, there are still other hairdressers working there, presumably each renting a chair as she previously did.

There isn't an "Uber driver" in that sense any more than there is a "person". Early on it was part-time and more gig labor. When you're being leased the vehicle via Uber themselves [https://www.uber.com/us/en/drive/vehicle-solutions/] it's definitely pushing towards real job. I wonder how many of those locked-out drivers are paying for those cars on the lease program, or if they get preference.

Take a taxi, people!

Taxis suck swamp ass. Until they can’t scam you by taking circuitous routes, they are severely inferior.

Tangential, but about three years ago my wife and I went to Mexico for two weeks to deal with some immigration stuff. We made very liberal use of the "Didi" app, which I actually recommend because it was generally quite good, and most drivers would take us on direct paths and it was fine.

One day, when returning back to the hotel from Walmart, which was about a 15 minute drive, we got a Didi, the driver came, and it took more than 45 minutes because he was taking the longest path he could find. There was no traffic as far as I could tell, and Didi would still pay a "per mile" charge.

The exchange rate in Mexico is so in your favor as a US citizen that I didn't really complain about it because it only ended up being an extra $6 or so, but I did feel a little taken advantage of.

I greatly prefer knowing my cost before I get in the cab.

But you're acting like this is an "on an iPhone" experience that's new to the world. The idea of being leased equipment from someone for contract or gig labor is not new and hasn't been new for many many decades.

So if you're complaining about the idea that companies who hire contract labor or gig work style labor can also lease out equipment necessary to do that labor, should the person choose to lease it from them, then where have you been for the past 50 60 years or more. Because no one is required to lease equipment from Uber in order to work for Uber it's just an option. There are great many professions that work like this and have for much longer than Uber has been a thing. Often times mechanics are this way. They can lease their tools through an employer-sponsored program but they have no control on whether the employer needs them to work every day and if they'll get paid in many situations. Because often times that that work is also gig work if no one needs their car fixed you can show up and not get anything. That's only one of a great many examples of jobs that are like this. When you have flexibility your employer has flexibility as well.

I think there's a great many jobs that have stupid conditions on employment and I wouldn't work them unless I absolutely had no other option. Uber is one of those things. People like the flexibility but flexibility can cut both ways. Often I hear Uber drivers talking about how they're their own Boss but if you're accepting work orders from someone else you're at the mercy of them for the work. This is the same thing in many salons. To work there you have to buy a seat and pay for that and pay for equipment oftentimes that is on a loan or a lease and you're your own Boss but you have a very limited control on when or if you will get customers. Which is another job that I wouldn't work unless I had no choice at all.

So this is not pushing toward a real job in any sense anymore than any of these other flexible gig work style jobs which permeate our society. So if you're against this as a whole then you should have been against it for the past 70 plus years. But if you feel this is some new Uber phenomenon you are greatly mistaken and need to learn how many of the jobs in the market work.

That's a strange take. Please provide evidence for how I'm acting? I wondered about something, that's all I see.

I think Uber is a pain to many for both making a market and setting the terms. Let the market decide what the prices and availability should be, that would be more "ride-sharing". They're just a super-informal taxi company. The fact that they weren't prosecuted for breaking laws along the way shows what hold money has on policy-making.

A driver is a contractor of some form to Uber, Uber sets the prices. Uber can screw around as much as they like, because they set all the terms. I'm not disagreeing with the day labor analogy, though it's not even a day here, it's just whenever Uber throws them a bone. You can say the drivers are all stupid if they thought it should be any different. I'd never be an Uber driver except if I thought I could get someone to split gas money with me for some trip, actual "ride sharing".

How was that comment acting like this is an "on an iPhone" experience that's new to the world?

I begrudgingly take a taxi whenever I leave the Seattle airport (it's significantly faster than Uber/Lyft because they're already queued). I'm continuously blown away by how it's still a dice roll to see if we're going to do the "credit card machine no work" game at the end. Pair that with the general disgusting state of the cars and, yeah, I ain't takin' no taxi unless it's the only option.

Obviously, what people want is full time jobs. That's what the whole political battle over these platforms is about.

Not everyone though - freelancers and contractors in particular want to work on their terms.

I think the issue is that in this case the drivers want to work on their terms, and Uber/Lift want to be able to limit the number of drivers at certain times (i.e.: work their terms) in order not to pay minimum wage to lot of drivers when there are too many drivers logged-in (and thus just sitting around).

There are aspects that are unfair for both parties... and this is exactly the sort of situation that Uber/Lift have setup: it is going to be exploitive to someone. The companies just thought it could always be them doing the exploiting.

Some people do, some certainly do not

"If you want a steady job get a steady job if you want day labor work you show up and sometimes you get picked for the day labor and sometimes you go home broke."

If it was that easy right?

Nobody wants to be 'day labor', that is only done in countries with a large surplus of labor (desperate to live labor) that allows companies to treat humans more like cattle.

Dude, nobody wants the instability of a gig job. It’s just all there is at the bottom. Uber will actually pay you something, unlike other taxi or driver jobs which have dried up. It’s folks fighting over crumbs: I bet you Uber drivers would love a stable taxi job, there just isn’t one.

You're setting an incredibly low bar for what we should accept. We're talking about people's livelihoods here - their ability to put food on their family's table.

Companies are not obliged to hire people so they can feed themselves.

More nihilistically/pragmatically, reality is not obliged to ensure humans can live happy lives or even survive.

(And the difference between reality and fantasy is that reality asserts itself even if you don't accept it.)

Maybe all of these issues would be solved of they were salaried employees, who could drive when they wanted...

What?!? Would you employee people full-time and let them work whenever they felt like it?

Salaried !== full-time.

Millions of people in the UK are legally salaried workers on "zero-hours" contracts, where they aren't even guaranteed a minimum number of hours. Paid through PAYE (payroll), have workers rights, just not a guaranteed number of hours.

Most can choose when they work, many have more than one of these jobs.

It's not a good way to live but it's at least possibly a better way to live than the gig economy.

I think you just misunderstand what salary means? If you do not have guaranteed hours you are not a salary employee, salary means you get paid the same amount on a certain schedule. You are describing hourly employees

Yes but the UK has the NHS, it's not possible in the US where employees have to healthcare benefits by federal mandate.

You can't have an employee on the payroll costing $1,500 a month in benefits who can choose to work 0 hours in a month.

I think you are missing a part of the Federal Healthcare Insurance Mandate (part of the ACA): the mandate is on the worker, not the employer. Many employers have no insurance benefits for their employers.

And then the other part of it: the penalty for not having healthcare insurance was deducted to $0 at the end of 2018. So there is currently no penalty at all (other than the massive ones if you get sick) to not carrying insurance.

This is simply not true. Any employer with 50 employees has a mandate to provide healthcare for employees.

By your reasoning literally every job is “gig work”.

It’s very different from day laborers in that day laborers get to work for a day; and these drivers get to work until Uber says so. And one can guess that Uber is trying to minimize the hours worked per driver due to regulatory concerns.

The day laborer knows when they’re not picked to work. The Uber driver needs to keep checking all day presumably

With day labour the clue is in the name, you get hired for the day. They can't send you home halfway through, or at least they still have to pay you a full day.