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Anyone else see these and think about how maybe there should be some other type of worker other than employee or contractor? Those are hard definitions, and cre

Anyone else see these and think about how maybe there should be some other type of worker other than employee or contractor? Those are hard definitions, and creating laws to reflect this type of worker is incredibly difficult considering people and companies figure out loopholes, but really feels like there should be another category to go with this type of work that's going to become more and more common.

nradov 8y ago
Another alternative would be to decouple health insurance and retirement plans from employment.
- FakeComments 8y ago
  Are retirement plans coupled to employment? Neither social security nor 401Ks are, in that you can often keep and almost always rollover (to a personal) 401K when departing. Pensions were, but as I understand it, those basically don’t exist anymore.
  - nradov 8y ago
    You can't really contribute to a 401(k) plan unless your employer sponsors one. When you leave the job you can roll it over to an IRA. Some independent contractors can contribute to an IRA, but it's inferior because the annual contribution limit is only $6000, and the income limits are lower. And of course employer matching contributions aren't available to independent contractors.
    - mercutio2 8y ago
      Independent contractors can contribute up to $43k to a solo-401k.
dkashbfldls 8y ago
Any alternative to employees is even more inhumane and enables explicit exploitation, as uber and lyft do (aka the gig economy). What would you suggest as a meaning for this third type of workin class?
- scarface74 8y ago
  How about we have universal health care like every other industrialized nation?
  - AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
    A universal health insurance may be unfair, non-american, going against a free market ideology and endorsing nanny state. But it would relieve so many problems, from homelesness to our overly litigious society, that I'd vote for it with both hands.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      So why do we feel that it is “Unamerican” to not let people die on the street because they can’t afford health insurance? I thought we were suppose to be a “great moral Christian nation”? There is nothing about the American health care system that has anything to do with the free market. Before the ACA, if you had any type of pre-existing condition, you could not buy health insurance at any price.
      - AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
        Very rarely religion shapes the moral, rather than just encloses and protects the existing state of things. I guess the roots of this "American" morale is those times when you arrive to the New World, you disembark the ship, and nobody owes you anything. You don't owe anyone anything either. If you don't like it, don't board the ship. The times have changed. The morale, as it often happens, lags behind.
btown 8y ago
Something like “A contractor who accepts tasks through electronic communications generated by an automated system, and where the automated system could reasonably collect sufficient data to know how much time is spent exclusively on that task by the contractor, shall be entitled to at least minimum wage and ... for the time spent on the task.” We don’t want to remove the ability for a true contractor to work on spec, or for non-cash remuneration, when they can negotiate with a human counterparty. But if you’re being given orders by an inhuman system, you deserve at least some of the protections employees receive against inhumane employers. Unfortunately, this wipes out e.g. U.S. based Mechanical Turkers, some of whom have health or other restrictions preventing them from getting minimum wage jobs. Haven’t figured out a solve for that yet. But hopefully the actual drafters of legislation would! (Also, this really makes me want an IDE to crowdsource lawmaking, linting to make the legalese exact, with verified lawyers reviewing PRs. Give the crowd the same ability that lobbyists have to spoon-feed legislation to lawmakers.)
- viscanti 8y ago
  > But if you’re being given orders by an inhuman system, you deserve at least some of the protections employees receive against inhumane employers. Why? If there were better options out there then Lyft wouldn't have any drivers. Lyft has over one million drivers, which means that for those people there weren't any better opportunities. Lyft isn't profitable even at that lower level without benefits or the extra protections you're arguing for, but still over a million people choose to drive for them. Why take away the best opportunity those people have? Why not put the blame on literally every other company out there, because they all failed these Lyft drivers, leaving Lyft as their best work opportunity.
  - username223 8y ago
    Haven't I read this somewhere before? Oh, yes: "Are there no prisons?" "Plenty of prisons..." "And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?" "Both very busy, sir..." "Those who are badly off must go there." "Many can't go there; and many would rather die." "If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."
AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
Like... what?
denormalfloat 8y ago
There's a non-trivial chance there will only be two jobs: employee and robot. Waymo and Uber are definitely betting on this model.
michaelmrose 8y ago
Maybe employees with all of the costs and none of the benefits of being independent just shouldn't be a category? Why is it a given that its going to be more common or shall I say allowed to become more common. Crack would be more common if we didn't keep locking up dealers.
- kccqzy 8y ago
  Don't be too quick to say "none of the benefits of being independent" though. I've talked to plenty of Lyft drivers who say the biggest benefit is being able to work any hours at any time they want. Want to sleep in and only drive in the afternoon? No problem doing that. Or being a student and having wildly different schedule depending on the day of the week and the week of the semester? Sure. And many know that they are taking a pay cut in exchange for this freedom.

nradov 8y ago

Another alternative would be to decouple health insurance and retirement plans from employment.

FakeComments 8y ago
Are retirement plans coupled to employment? Neither social security nor 401Ks are, in that you can often keep and almost always rollover (to a personal) 401K when departing. Pensions were, but as I understand it, those basically don’t exist anymore.
- nradov 8y ago
  You can't really contribute to a 401(k) plan unless your employer sponsors one. When you leave the job you can roll it over to an IRA. Some independent contractors can contribute to an IRA, but it's inferior because the annual contribution limit is only $6000, and the income limits are lower. And of course employer matching contributions aren't available to independent contractors.
  - mercutio2 8y ago
    Independent contractors can contribute up to $43k to a solo-401k.

dkashbfldls 8y ago

Any alternative to employees is even more inhumane and enables explicit exploitation, as uber and lyft do (aka the gig economy). What would you suggest as a meaning for this third type of workin class?

scarface74 8y ago
How about we have universal health care like every other industrialized nation?
- AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
  A universal health insurance may be unfair, non-american, going against a free market ideology and endorsing nanny state. But it would relieve so many problems, from homelesness to our overly litigious society, that I'd vote for it with both hands.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    So why do we feel that it is “Unamerican” to not let people die on the street because they can’t afford health insurance? I thought we were suppose to be a “great moral Christian nation”? There is nothing about the American health care system that has anything to do with the free market. Before the ACA, if you had any type of pre-existing condition, you could not buy health insurance at any price.
    - AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
      Very rarely religion shapes the moral, rather than just encloses and protects the existing state of things. I guess the roots of this "American" morale is those times when you arrive to the New World, you disembark the ship, and nobody owes you anything. You don't owe anyone anything either. If you don't like it, don't board the ship. The times have changed. The morale, as it often happens, lags behind.

btown 8y ago

Something like “A contractor who accepts tasks through electronic communications generated by an automated system, and where the automated system could reasonably collect sufficient data to know how much time is spent exclusively on that task by the contractor, shall be entitled to at least minimum wage and ... for the time spent on the task.” We don’t want to remove the ability for a true contractor to work on spec, or for non-cash remuneration, when they can negotiate with a human counterparty. But if you’re being given orders by an inhuman system, you deserve at least some of the protections employees receive against inhumane employers. Unfortunately, this wipes out e.g. U.S. based Mechanical Turkers, some of whom have health or other restrictions preventing them from getting minimum wage jobs. Haven’t figured out a solve for that yet. But hopefully the actual drafters of legislation would! (Also, this really makes me want an IDE to crowdsource lawmaking, linting to make the legalese exact, with verified lawyers reviewing PRs. Give the crowd the same ability that lobbyists have to spoon-feed legislation to lawmakers.)

viscanti 8y ago
> But if you’re being given orders by an inhuman system, you deserve at least some of the protections employees receive against inhumane employers. Why? If there were better options out there then Lyft wouldn't have any drivers. Lyft has over one million drivers, which means that for those people there weren't any better opportunities. Lyft isn't profitable even at that lower level without benefits or the extra protections you're arguing for, but still over a million people choose to drive for them. Why take away the best opportunity those people have? Why not put the blame on literally every other company out there, because they all failed these Lyft drivers, leaving Lyft as their best work opportunity.
- username223 8y ago
  Haven't I read this somewhere before? Oh, yes: "Are there no prisons?" "Plenty of prisons..." "And the Union workhouses." demanded Scrooge. "Are they still in operation?" "Both very busy, sir..." "Those who are badly off must go there." "Many can't go there; and many would rather die." "If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

AlexTWithBeard 8y ago

Like... what?

denormalfloat 8y ago

There's a non-trivial chance there will only be two jobs: employee and robot. Waymo and Uber are definitely betting on this model.

michaelmrose 8y ago

Maybe employees with all of the costs and none of the benefits of being independent just shouldn't be a category? Why is it a given that its going to be more common or shall I say allowed to become more common. Crack would be more common if we didn't keep locking up dealers.

kccqzy 8y ago
Don't be too quick to say "none of the benefits of being independent" though. I've talked to plenty of Lyft drivers who say the biggest benefit is being able to work any hours at any time they want. Want to sleep in and only drive in the afternoon? No problem doing that. Or being a student and having wildly different schedule depending on the day of the week and the week of the semester? Sure. And many know that they are taking a pay cut in exchange for this freedom.