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My girlfriend tried out the Instacart gig for a while as she finally got her chronic low energy and fatigue addressed through B12 shots and wanted something to
by frotak 8y ago
My girlfriend tried out the Instacart gig for a while as she finally got her chronic low energy and fatigue addressed through B12 shots and wanted something to occupy her and give her a little extra spending money outside of what's budgeted.
That experience was absolutely demoralizing in terms of what she was able to actually make. Granted we live in a lower density city in the southeast so that result makes sense. But everything is very skewed toward the company in the case of Instacart...mileage reimbursement is from the store to the delivery...and you can be sent 10-15 miles from your point of origin to the store to purchase goods at.
I'm not surprised at all that Uber (and the gig economy as a whole) are squeezing their "independent contractor labor force" given that for them it's just a stepping stone toward a fully autonomous pipeline. The calculus here isn't toward establishing and maintaining a happy and committed workforce but bridging the gap between funding and profitability through autonomous solutions.
I don't know what the answer is but I couldn't imagine being in a position where one of the few viable options available for any sort of gainful employment was working as part of the "gig" economy.
edit: If that rate is intended to also cover fuel costs then fuel can easily eat up >10% of that $0.60/mi rate. Man.
- quadcore 8y agoI guess they should form a union and strike.
- xref 8y agoParagraph #2 > As independent contractors who can’t unionize, drivers are isolated from one another.
- frotak 8y agoI mean...if they could organize they could have the effective weight of a union - but the circumstances of Uber's employment scheme make that more difficult.
- frotak 8y agoI imagine that would only be orders of magnitude harder to manager in this circumstances than in previous generations. Especially for Uber who can incentivize payouts in an elastic fashion as the available labor pool shrinks. Service quality might decline a bit as available drivers decrease...but Uber won't even have to explicitly go out and find "scabs" - they can simply temporarily surge pricing to entice some of the drivers who either aren't striking or who aren't as committed. Difficult indeed to really cut at the heart of Uber in this case and really swing some leverage as organized labor. Especially with the setback face in U.S. court.
- creato 8y agoI mean, the surge in pricing wouldn't even be a thing someone has to do. It would just happen automatically. That's the whole problem with this issue: Uber has made the market for taxis/rides incredibly liquid, which has driven the prices down to pretty much exactly the marginal costs. There are plenty of people who have already sunk the cost of a car, and have nothing else to do, so it still makes economic sense to do this with their time. If the demand for unskilled labor doesn't increase, this will get worse.
- rightbyte 8y agoUber operates with a loss. The prices are under marginal cost. The drivers have no scale benefits like ordinary Taxi companies when it comes to buying cars or maintenance. It only makes economical sense to drive for Uber with the car if you can't sell it for a good price (you know the car is good and not abused, the buyer doesn't) and that you don't plan on buying a new car after the wheels fall off on the present one, or you need to liquidize your assets a little bit, i.e. getting approx. 100USD for decreasing the value of the car and buying gas driving for Uber for 100USD.
- hopler 8y agoThat's why effective unions, like every government, use the threat of violece to enforce the social contract. They can delegate completely to the government if they can win recognition as employees (they aren't ICs under a reasonable reading of law) and jump through the appropriate hoops to get a closed shop.
- qudat 8y agoOr just don't work for Instacart. The market will raise rates when they cannot find any runners for food.
- djeikyb 8y agoThat's what a strike is! The workers stop until the bosses acknowledge market value.
- pishpash 8y agoI mean, that's temporary. Are you saying all workers will agree that only say 20% of them work at a time (rotating) to artificially create scarcity, raising price of labor, then redistribute income amongst themselves in a communal fashion? Because that's strictly worse.
- EliRivers 8y agoThere will always be the hopelessly desperate just waiting to be taken advantage of. The market will not magically stop this happening. We must make the choice; maybe we'll choose to allow exploitation of the hopelessly desperate, maybe we won't, but praying to the market to magically fix it won't do a thing.
- pishpash 8y agoI think the government should step in with UBI, supplemental income, or some such, but it would be wrong to fix price of labor for one particular industry/market. The latter is just a hack.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoNo, there won’t. Wages are rising for all levels of employees. Driving a vehicle without dealing with coworkers or a “boss” just happens to be something many, many people can do so as a supplier, you have tons of competition, therefore the prices you can charge are lower. Work towards a position that requires you to be differentiated from others and see your ability to charge more go up.
- SN76477 8y agoMy company was bleeding money so I had to close it down over this past fall. Spent all of my savings and had to start making money asap. I turned to uber eats, grubhub, and doordash. None of the companies value the drivers. If anything it feels like the companies are trying to milk the drivers so that the company can profit. If the drivers are happy the customer will be happy and profits can be made. Raising rates for customers, lowering payouts for contractors is a bad idea short term. Automation of transportation is not close enough to discourage all of your contractors from working.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> If anything it feels like the companies are trying to milk the drivers so that the company can profit. That's probably particularly true of those companies, but it's also endemic to capitalism more generally.
- 14 8y agoI feel capitalism is such a bad thing for our earth. If I had a reset button that would equally distribute all the worlds wealth I would push it.
- jtms 8y agoAnd you think human nature would just magically change and everyone would be equally motivated to create things of value because you burnt down all the institutions? Hierarchy and inequality exist regardless of what political system you put in place. It is literally a law of nature. Every single system creates inequality, it’s just that capitalism also creates wealth, where as other systems historically can not compete in this regard. Humans are on average wealthier now than at any other point in history and this is a VERY good thing for creating the most good for the largest number of people possible.
- lotsofpulp 8y agoI also try to buy what I want or need at the lowest prices available, and so does everyone else I know.
- hopler 8y agoThis is nothing to do with self driving cars and everything to do with the imbalance of power when management acts an an organized team but labor doesn't.
- jtms 8y agoIt’s a good thing there is more than one organized team of management to pick from! Gainful employment is not a right, it’s a voluntary agreement by both parties. Vote with your feet and go elsewhere... they will feel the crunch.