7 ms·

In my own life, I've found the total cultural embrace of "full-time" employment to be a vector for voluminous abuse. It's specifically because we draw income

In my own life, I've found the total cultural embrace of "full-time" employment to be a vector for voluminous abuse. It's specifically because we draw income from one company that they have leverage to abuse us. It saddens me how this (to me) plain fact is left out of the debate about gig workers and their protections. I think employee protections are crucial, but I think the notion that gigs are abusive in and of themselves is a misattribution of blame.

wool_gather 8y ago
> because we draw income from one company This is a fair contrary point to raise. You can see its effect most clearly in the U.S. in the fear people have around health insurance, because it's so closely tied to their employer. (Which is also its own ball of problems, of course.)
- jgust 8y ago
  If the US ever manages to separate the safety net (healthcare, basic living needs covered, retirement) from full time employment I can see the argument for a gig economy working. You may actually see "the market" compete for employees in a way that benefits them instead of how full time employment works today. Given the fact that corporations are far more effective at passing laws that benefit them vs. the American people, I'm not going to hold my breath.
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    This is a terrible way to look at it. If the labor pool is fractured into hundreds of millions of pieces, each acting in their own self-interest, how can you keep big businesses from exploiting them? We'd just be back to the wild west of employment law pre-1880s, except without even the meager fallback of employment contracts, everyone would be at the mercy of the owners.
    - jgust 8y ago
      There is a very real scenario for many workers that comes down to this: a) continue working this horrible job and survive b) quit working this horrible job and (lose healthcare/don't pay bill xyz/starve/insert outcome here) My argument is that if survival isn't tied to gainful employment, the nature of work and the market will shift.
chobeat 8y ago
With gig platforms you're free to get abused by many different companies. Yey!
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  Sure. But more importantly, you're free to work for many companies so that if one becomes abusive you can turn up your hours on another.
  - chillwaves 8y ago
    And if they are all abusive? You might ask how that can be so - but one clear example, the market dictates these jobs do not provide benefits, that is their competitive advantage even. So how can a different company competitively provide non abusive practices?
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      I work for a good platform. It's name is Textbroker. The positive part is in the name: it's a broker. It provides a marketplace for writers to find work. It mediates the relationship between writers and clients. I don't chase my pay. It takes me seconds to request my pay once a week. I don't fight with difficult, unreasonable clients trying to screw me over. I let Textbroker handle them. I have tried to promote their model as a good model. I have tried to suggest people should create businesses like it for other types of work. So far, it seems like no one is listening to me.
      - chillwaves 8y ago
        I'm glad to see there may be some workable models, I hope the business is sustainable.
  - raverbashing 8y ago
    Do you know how much an app "taxi" driver or an app food delivery person actually gets paid? (Also, it's not up to the person doing that to determine how much to charge)
pembrook 8y ago
The real problem, if you look at it from first principles, is the lack of US government protections/services for all workers. If our government provided healthcare, eduction, a real pension program, non-terrible unemployment programs, etc. (as it works in most other developed countries) it would not matter if you are a gig worker or full-time employee. There would be no way to exploit you and gain a competitive advantage by hiring you as a contract worker. Companies and workers would be free to arrange employment simply around money and time. Benefits would not matter, and thus, the employment market would become more efficient. The fact that US companies are wholly responsible for the quality of life of their employees is totally hilarious in a modern world where you don't work for the same company for your entire career. You can go from a 1st-world standard of living to a 3rd-world one simply by changing employers in the US. It's absurd.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > If our government provided healthcare, eduction, a real pension program, non-terrible unemployment programs, etc. (as it works in most other developed countries) it would not matter if you are a gig worker or full-time employee. The issue with most of these things is that governments, especially the US government, are generally worse at providing things than competitive businesses. For people who actually have health insurance, outcomes in the US system are better than in most other countries, the US higher education system is generally considered one of the best in the world, etc. The key is not to nationalize services, it's to provide a baseline of support. Pay everyone a UBI. Then if you need healthcare, you have money, go buy healthcare. If you want to go to school, go to school. You don't actually need the government to operate the school, and you especially don't need it telling people what to spend the money on. (See also student loans and home loan interest subsidies and the effect on education and housing costs.)
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    UBI is cargo cult finance. It's a broken mental model that will kill the system. Money doesn't have inherent exchange value per se. It's primary value is in reducing friction in trade. Injecting more money into a system without tying it to injecting more goods and services into the system is a known means to fuel inflation.
darpa_escapee 8y ago
If you're working on a gig platform, you're at the mercy of the platform itself. Since you aren't the paying customer, and the client is, platforms' incentives rarely inline with those of workers.
coldtea 8y ago
>It saddens me how this (to me) plain fact is left out of the debate about gig workers and their protections. That's because it's no really a solution. If everybody is made into an "entrepreneur" or "freelancer" or "consultant", then those gigs get just as shitty as employee, but without the extra protections.

wool_gather 8y ago

> because we draw income from one company This is a fair contrary point to raise. You can see its effect most clearly in the U.S. in the fear people have around health insurance, because it's so closely tied to their employer. (Which is also its own ball of problems, of course.)

jgust 8y ago
If the US ever manages to separate the safety net (healthcare, basic living needs covered, retirement) from full time employment I can see the argument for a gig economy working. You may actually see "the market" compete for employees in a way that benefits them instead of how full time employment works today. Given the fact that corporations are far more effective at passing laws that benefit them vs. the American people, I'm not going to hold my breath.
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  This is a terrible way to look at it. If the labor pool is fractured into hundreds of millions of pieces, each acting in their own self-interest, how can you keep big businesses from exploiting them? We'd just be back to the wild west of employment law pre-1880s, except without even the meager fallback of employment contracts, everyone would be at the mercy of the owners.
  - jgust 8y ago
    There is a very real scenario for many workers that comes down to this: a) continue working this horrible job and survive b) quit working this horrible job and (lose healthcare/don't pay bill xyz/starve/insert outcome here) My argument is that if survival isn't tied to gainful employment, the nature of work and the market will shift.

chobeat 8y ago

With gig platforms you're free to get abused by many different companies. Yey!

erikpukinskis 8y ago
Sure. But more importantly, you're free to work for many companies so that if one becomes abusive you can turn up your hours on another.
- chillwaves 8y ago
  And if they are all abusive? You might ask how that can be so - but one clear example, the market dictates these jobs do not provide benefits, that is their competitive advantage even. So how can a different company competitively provide non abusive practices?
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    I work for a good platform. It's name is Textbroker. The positive part is in the name: it's a broker. It provides a marketplace for writers to find work. It mediates the relationship between writers and clients. I don't chase my pay. It takes me seconds to request my pay once a week. I don't fight with difficult, unreasonable clients trying to screw me over. I let Textbroker handle them. I have tried to promote their model as a good model. I have tried to suggest people should create businesses like it for other types of work. So far, it seems like no one is listening to me.
    - chillwaves 8y ago
      I'm glad to see there may be some workable models, I hope the business is sustainable.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  Do you know how much an app "taxi" driver or an app food delivery person actually gets paid? (Also, it's not up to the person doing that to determine how much to charge)

pembrook 8y ago

The real problem, if you look at it from first principles, is the lack of US government protections/services for all workers. If our government provided healthcare, eduction, a real pension program, non-terrible unemployment programs, etc. (as it works in most other developed countries) it would not matter if you are a gig worker or full-time employee. There would be no way to exploit you and gain a competitive advantage by hiring you as a contract worker. Companies and workers would be free to arrange employment simply around money and time. Benefits would not matter, and thus, the employment market would become more efficient. The fact that US companies are wholly responsible for the quality of life of their employees is totally hilarious in a modern world where you don't work for the same company for your entire career. You can go from a 1st-world standard of living to a 3rd-world one simply by changing employers in the US. It's absurd.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago
> If our government provided healthcare, eduction, a real pension program, non-terrible unemployment programs, etc. (as it works in most other developed countries) it would not matter if you are a gig worker or full-time employee. The issue with most of these things is that governments, especially the US government, are generally worse at providing things than competitive businesses. For people who actually have health insurance, outcomes in the US system are better than in most other countries, the US higher education system is generally considered one of the best in the world, etc. The key is not to nationalize services, it's to provide a baseline of support. Pay everyone a UBI. Then if you need healthcare, you have money, go buy healthcare. If you want to go to school, go to school. You don't actually need the government to operate the school, and you especially don't need it telling people what to spend the money on. (See also student loans and home loan interest subsidies and the effect on education and housing costs.)
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  UBI is cargo cult finance. It's a broken mental model that will kill the system. Money doesn't have inherent exchange value per se. It's primary value is in reducing friction in trade. Injecting more money into a system without tying it to injecting more goods and services into the system is a known means to fuel inflation.

darpa_escapee 8y ago

If you're working on a gig platform, you're at the mercy of the platform itself. Since you aren't the paying customer, and the client is, platforms' incentives rarely inline with those of workers.

coldtea 8y ago

>It saddens me how this (to me) plain fact is left out of the debate about gig workers and their protections. That's because it's no really a solution. If everybody is made into an "entrepreneur" or "freelancer" or "consultant", then those gigs get just as shitty as employee, but without the extra protections.