26 ms·

I guess they should form a union and strike.

by quadcore 8y ago

xref 8y ago
Paragraph #2 > As independent contractors who can’t unionize, drivers are isolated from one another.
- frotak 8y ago
  I 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 ago
I 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    Uber 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 ago
  That'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 ago
Or just don't work for Instacart. The market will raise rates when they cannot find any runners for food.
- djeikyb 8y ago
  That's what a strike is! The workers stop until the bosses acknowledge market value.
  - pishpash 8y ago
    I 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 ago
  There 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 ago
    I 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 ago
    No, 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.

I guess they should form a union and strike.

xref 8y ago

Paragraph #2 > As independent contractors who can’t unionize, drivers are isolated from one another.

frotak 8y ago
I 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 ago

I 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 ago
I 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 ago
  Uber 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 ago
That'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 ago

Or just don't work for Instacart. The market will raise rates when they cannot find any runners for food.

djeikyb 8y ago
That's what a strike is! The workers stop until the bosses acknowledge market value.
- pishpash 8y ago
  I 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 ago
There 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 ago
  I 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 ago
  No, 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.