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> That small status change is huge. These workers would suddenly get labor protections and benefits that all employees get, such as unemployment insurance, heal
by zaroth 7y ago
> That small status change is huge. These workers would suddenly get labor protections and benefits that all employees get, such as unemployment insurance, health care subsidies, paid parental leave, overtime pay, workers’ compensation, and a guaranteed $12 minimum hourly wage.
That’s an pretty optimistic take on the situation. What these new “employees” are going to get, is fired.
I know some people are OK with that, if the task isn’t profitable enough to pay a human full benefits to work on it, then it’s not profitable enough to employ a human to do it at all.
But there’s a lot of space to integrate under the employment curve for these types of super-low-skill jobs that people mostly use to fill in the gaps in their earnings. I think ultimately this does a huge disservice to the people who worked these gigs to earn some extra money, because it will no longer be possible to do that.
What will be left is full-time workers in these roles who have no other choice, who probably have a significantly shittier work experience doing jobs or working hours they previously would have passed on.
Which honestly is sad, because there is little to no advancement opportunity, so this is not supposed to be a career, and you’ve taken away the option for all these low friction ways to make up a financial gap that might come up one month to the next.
If someone finds themselves struggling to pay rent next week and they know they’ll be facing an eviction notice in 10 days, today they can jump on any number of apps and make up that couple hundred dollar shortfall. That’s not going to be possible if they’re classified as an employee.
- entropea 7y agoThis is always the right wing take on this, that they're going to get fired, create fear, uncertainty, doubt, and inject that right into others minds, repeat for the next issue that helps anyone except for a corporation. That FUD works really well on the general public too. Surely Uber wants to do business and make money in one of the worlds largest economies, California, right? Why would they fire all of their employees? It makes absolutely no sense. Surely they will adapt, AI cars are not currently a threat, drivers will still be needed and hired. When Seattle raised it's minimum wage to $15/hr the same FUD was being pushed, that all restaurants would fire all of their employee's, that Seattle would become literal hell and the local economy would crash. Didn't happen and restaurants now enjoy one of the top markets in the USA.
- conanbatt 7y agoWhere were the uber/lyft drivers before these companies existed?
- ac29 7y ago> What these new “employees” are going to get, is fired. If the choice is between raising prices to support higher employee expenditures, and firing all of their drivers and leaving the California market, you think they'll choose the latter? Or is there a third option I'm not thinking of?
- didibus 7y agoFiring some of their drivers, not all. And making it harder for someone to become a driver. Like say someone wants to drive 2 days a month, they won't be able too anymore. Uber will probably pick only the serious drivers willing to do it full time, fire all the others, and we have ourself a taxi industry again.
- lozenge 7y agoAlthough Uber touts their casual drivers, I'm sure that a huge % of the rides are actually served by very serious drivers working roughly full time.
- solidasparagus 7y agoBankruptcy? Uber and Lyft bleed money now, I can't imagine what it would be like if they had to add employee benefit costs on top of that.
- lozenge 7y agoThey'll raise prices (which will drop demand) and fire drivers (which will increase waiting time, and hence drop demand).