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<unpopular opinion> I worry that this bill will ultimately eliminate a unique niche in the job market. I have several family members who drive for Uber/Lyft an

<unpopular opinion> I worry that this bill will ultimately eliminate a unique niche in the job market. I have several family members who drive for Uber/Lyft and consider it a great way to make money. One of the aspects they like is how much independence they have: no manager, no set schedule, no need to work the same number of hours each week or each day. The pay is fine - not great - but the flexibility makes working for Uber much more appealing than e.g. working as a receptionist or taking another service job. Many drivers I've ridden with seem to value that component as well. If Uber switches to treating drivers as employees (which makes each driver have higher overhead) then they'll probably switch to.... well, treating them as employees: stricter rules about when you have to drive, how much you have to drive, and so on. The tradeoff will benefit some employees - basically those who are trying to make Uber into a full-time job - at the expense of others.

SOLAR_FIELDS 7y ago
I’ve been wondering this lately: when it comes to Uber contractors vs employees, it’s always presented as an all-or-nothing kind of option. I wonder if Uber might one day offer both an employee and contract option to satisfy both needs
bt848 7y ago
“Unique niches” of the job market that exploit the people filling them must be regulated out of existence. Uber drivers who very carefully manage their overhead generally still earn a pittance, near minimum wage or even below it. Uber mostly relies on the ignorance of their drivers who essentially accelerate the conversion of stored value in their vehicle into short-term earnings. Then when the first bill comes for brake pads, tires, shocks, CV joints and tie rod ends they pack it in. This is why their driver turnover rate is astronomical. The other side of the issue is the drivers who ignore such things and drive all over the place in under-maintained, under-insured cars, converting a public nuisance externality into Uber revenue and prolonged starvation wages.
- mrosett 7y ago
  The claim that Uber drivers aren't actually earning money but just engaging in "conversion of stored value in their vehicle into short-term earnings" is based on a clearly flawed study [0]. Even after subtracting out vehicle wear and tear, drivers make a modest (but not great) wage. You can rail about "exploitation" and "starvation wages" but the people I know who have worked for Uber generally thought the wage was decent and the conditions were better than most alternatives. Removing the option to "be exploited" by Uber doesn't leave them working a cushy 6-figure software job; it leads to doing work they like less. [0]: https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/an-analysis-of-ceeprs-paper-on-the-economics-of-ride-hailing-1c8bfbf1081d https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/an-analysis-of-ceeprs...
  - plink 7y ago
    Drivers who are aquainted with you may make a modest wage, and I’ll wager you know no drivers in Minneapolis nor Orlando, for their mileage rates cause their rideshare labor to be an entirely charitable endeavor.
    - docker_up 7y ago
      No one forces anyone to drive for Uber or Lyft. If they don't like the money they're making, they can go work at a regular job. With sub-4% unemployment there are PLENTY of jobs out there.
      - stochastic_monk 7y ago
        Funny — unemployment only appears so low because gig workers list themselves as employed full-time. [0] [0] https://axios.com/gig-economy-employment-economic-data-effect-d8ef97ff-1774-4223-9fd8-d50510fb3c9f.html https://axios.com/gig-economy-employment-economic-data-effec...
    - briandear 7y ago
      Are they indentured servants?
frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago
Well Uber could also go the other way and free the market that they oversee - allow drivers to set their own rates and make the cut that Uber takes transparent to both driver and rider.
- mrosett 7y ago
  I wouldn't object to that, although I imagine there would be challenges to making that system work.
- sneak 7y ago
  That’s already the case; drivers choose to sell their services to Uber at the rate Uber has offered, versus selling their services to anyone else that participates in the unskilled labor market.
qtplatypus 7y ago
Why would having a person classified as an employee turn it into a full time job? Like why would they hire managers and set schedules when it gives no benifit to Uber? To me this closes a loophole. As you say these people drive for Uber, uber is doing the employing. This is not like if a contracted a builder to renovate my kitchen. That is the class of employment that are real contractors.
- nathanvanfleet 7y ago
  The current scenario is that you can turn the app on and do work any time you want to do it. If you are an hourly-paid employee, you can't just choose the times that suit you, because it might not suit what's going on at that time. You can't just drive where you want, because it might not suit what's going on. So the only solution is going to be something like what you usually think of for employed work. Set hours and times etc.
  - justinjlynn 7y ago
    Why are your requirements strictly necessary? If you try to refute your own answer, it'll likely be a much more fruitful conversation.
    - docker_up 7y ago
      Because part of the equation for Uber is having enough workers out there to fill demand by random chance. If they have to pay a full-time employee, they can schedule the employee and force them to drive to a certain location, and do a certain number of trips, otherwise they would just fire them. They can squeeze out more efficiency from a single driver rather than hope that there's enough random drivers to fulfill all the demand.
      - whyenot 7y ago
        Why "random chance"? Instead, Uber could encourage more people to be "on the clock" at high demand times by increasing hourly wages during those times. It feels like you are making mountains out of molehills.
dmix 7y ago
I strongly doubt that would be an unpopular outside of HN/twitter. The solution is to update laws that reflect the future (ie, giving contractors better rights and better temporary unemployment social support) instead of protecting entrenched dying industries and their working hour/payment models, by forcing their business models to be the only one allowed. You also don't have to defend Uber directly, this type of stuff will affect the whole market including any future or present companies that are far better run than Uber. If you look at reviews for the old taxi companies in most cities they are all 1/5 stars. Plus they aren't shining beacons of worker protections or good pay either. Most taxi drivers were already contractors before Uber so I'm curious how these laws will affect them too.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > The solution is to update laws that reflect the future (ie, giving contractors better rights and better temporary unemployment social support) Agreed. Classifying them as employees, per this bill, doesn’t do this. Employment classification comes with a myriad of fixed costs. Particularly in California. Contractors lack these fixed costs—it’s all variable. That’s what makes them attractive for unpredictable workloads. We need a third category, a low fixed-cost zone between contractors and employees, that includes some employee rights but not others, and confers some employee restrictions but not others. That would be transformative to our economy, and strengthen it to boot. Unfortunately, that’s is not what the California legislature is discussing. (Surprise.)
  - jonny_eh 7y ago
    > I agree with this. But classifying them as employees doesn’t do this. Umm, I think you both agree. There's no disagreement that I see.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
- pfooti 7y ago
  This isn't about protecting the taxi industry- as you rightly point out, many taxi drivers are also contractors. Instead, this is about properly pricing labor. The gig economy works now because companies like Uber (and many others) externalize the real cost of hiring labor. It doesn't make sense to pay people low wages to the point where they need governmental assistance in the form of food stamps and BMR housing, and then pass on the savings to private companies who do their best to avoid paying the taxes that fund those programs. It ends up being other, traditionally employed FTEs who subsidize this business model via their own tax bills.
WalterBright 7y ago
The Uber drivers I've talked to all seemed to like that they could drive for Uber and get paid whenever they felt like it and had some free time.
- m463 7y ago
  That's a self-selecting sample, and possibly you've not talked to people who have had problems and/or quit working for uber
  - malandrew 7y ago
    Your statement applies to pretty much all jobs.
    - m463 7y ago
      yes, keep that in mind when interviewing. Asking the interviewer "Do you like working here?" will always return skewed answers.
WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
The Gig economy jobs are a race to the bottom of the pay scale now. You can get the least expensive services by using workers that have no insurance, vacations, sick days or any type of benefits but is that the work environment that we want to encourage? I get it. It's nice to be independent but it's even better to have a job that lets you have at the very least a satisfactory life. Technology can give us jobs that free us from the traditional chains that we all know but we also need to figure out how to make sure those workers don't get exploited. Technology is just part of the answer. We also need to have social and political changes. So we can have the jobs that we want without destroying the worker protections that our previous generations have fought so hard to gain. Making sure that there are laws that protect workers is the start. The answer to the right pay for the gig economy workers will come. But we can't do it by removing all benefits from the workers and not have any other way for them to get them. I know one thing. What Uber and Lyft provide is needed so companies will figure out how to provide it even with new laws.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  I’m kind of a techie social activist myself, and you’re very right about technology not being the whole solution. I think people forget that no technology can solve all of our problems. The technology is a tool but we also need to organize with one another in the human sphere and decide what is fair and what is not - what rules we want to play by. And I’m with you that we should question whether we want to live in a world where so many workers lack basic benefits. In the long term I want to see us end employment-based social programs, but we’re not there yet. Until we get there, we definitely should make sure workers are treated as workers with all the legal benefits that entails. Have you ever read Murray Bookchin?
  - WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
    >Have you ever read Murray Bookchin? I have not but it sounds like it's someone I should. Thx.
    - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
jaaron 7y ago
Why would the bill eliminate this niche market? The bill does NOT say, Uber drivers need to change the way they work. The bill does say, the way Uber drivers work is considered employment with respect to the law. It changes the definition of employment to include the type of flexible work Uber drivers are currently doing. In other words, Uber (or any similar gig-economy business) could keep working with their employees as they always have, it's just that they'll now have to provide those employees with a bunch of benefits they currently do not provide and pay a number of taxes they currently do not pay. The idea that "employee" means particular way of scheduling hours is false. The bill doesn't say that. The law doesn't say that. There's nothing that requires that. These newly defined employees could keep all the flexibility they've had. If Uber reduces that flexibility, that's Uber's decision.
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  Ok but let’s consider the left end of the distribution — someone who drives four hours a week — is it really sensible for Uber it any gig platform to pay benefits? What about a single Amazon Mechanical Turk hIt — would that also carry benefits? This wouldn’t be cost effective. I think over half these problems go away with government issued healthcare. Companies and workers can be more dynamic.
  - jonny_eh 7y ago
    Is that addressed in the bill?
    - mikekchar 7y ago
      I think that the objection is not that the bill is unclear about this situation. It's that the increased cost of treating Uber drivers (or similar work) as employees will mean that it is infeasible to hire people as they do now. The bill doesn't address (I assume -- I haven't read the bill) because it's not a think the bill is intended to address. If I understand correctly, the bill is intended to address the situation where large companies are avoiding paying employment tax and benefits because they hire the majority of their employees to do piecemeal work. Will it really result in the side effect that piecemeal work will cease to exist if workers have to be hired as employees? I don't know, but I think that's what's being suggested.
kisstheblade 7y ago
"great way to make money". Do they really make enough money to pay for their food, housing in the city they work, health care, pension, kids and kids education? If not these sorts of jobs (or with this pay) should be banned. Else it's just subsidies from taxpayers who need to pay for these things through government "subsidies". Where I live (a nordic country) eg. taxi drivers used to be able to live a very comfortable life with their pay. And the taxi service was excellent. Not even that expensive if you think about having a private chauffeur driving you around. Now they changed the rules (to enable "gig economy") and most of the taxi drivers don't pay proper taxes or know any address without gps, and they don't get paid nearly enough to get by without government handouts/social security, or have any pension accruing so they will need even more government/tax money when they are old.
- kisstheblade 7y ago
  Jeez, I don't get hacker news downvoting (and yes whining about it is against the rules I guess). Was there some fundamental flaw in my argument, was it too "mean" or did someone just disagree and downvote because of that.
atoav 7y ago
I don’t see why that wouldnlt be feasible. I worked in flexible student jobs myself while beeing officially an employee. If I were to work for the same company constantly as an freelancer the state would rightfully assume that it is to avoid the costs connected with employment. And as a freelancer I can choose my dates myself as well. I don’t see why a more flexible scheduling system should allow you to avoid paying into a system that is there for a reason.

SOLAR_FIELDS 7y ago

I’ve been wondering this lately: when it comes to Uber contractors vs employees, it’s always presented as an all-or-nothing kind of option. I wonder if Uber might one day offer both an employee and contract option to satisfy both needs

bt848 7y ago

“Unique niches” of the job market that exploit the people filling them must be regulated out of existence. Uber drivers who very carefully manage their overhead generally still earn a pittance, near minimum wage or even below it. Uber mostly relies on the ignorance of their drivers who essentially accelerate the conversion of stored value in their vehicle into short-term earnings. Then when the first bill comes for brake pads, tires, shocks, CV joints and tie rod ends they pack it in. This is why their driver turnover rate is astronomical. The other side of the issue is the drivers who ignore such things and drive all over the place in under-maintained, under-insured cars, converting a public nuisance externality into Uber revenue and prolonged starvation wages.

mrosett 7y ago
The claim that Uber drivers aren't actually earning money but just engaging in "conversion of stored value in their vehicle into short-term earnings" is based on a clearly flawed study [0]. Even after subtracting out vehicle wear and tear, drivers make a modest (but not great) wage. You can rail about "exploitation" and "starvation wages" but the people I know who have worked for Uber generally thought the wage was decent and the conditions were better than most alternatives. Removing the option to "be exploited" by Uber doesn't leave them working a cushy 6-figure software job; it leads to doing work they like less. [0]: https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/an-analysis-of-ceeprs-paper-on-the-economics-of-ride-hailing-1c8bfbf1081d https://medium.com/uber-under-the-hood/an-analysis-of-ceeprs...
- plink 7y ago
  Drivers who are aquainted with you may make a modest wage, and I’ll wager you know no drivers in Minneapolis nor Orlando, for their mileage rates cause their rideshare labor to be an entirely charitable endeavor.
  - docker_up 7y ago
    No one forces anyone to drive for Uber or Lyft. If they don't like the money they're making, they can go work at a regular job. With sub-4% unemployment there are PLENTY of jobs out there.
    - stochastic_monk 7y ago
      Funny — unemployment only appears so low because gig workers list themselves as employed full-time. [0] [0] https://axios.com/gig-economy-employment-economic-data-effect-d8ef97ff-1774-4223-9fd8-d50510fb3c9f.html https://axios.com/gig-economy-employment-economic-data-effec...
  - briandear 7y ago
    Are they indentured servants?

frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago

Well Uber could also go the other way and free the market that they oversee - allow drivers to set their own rates and make the cut that Uber takes transparent to both driver and rider.

mrosett 7y ago
I wouldn't object to that, although I imagine there would be challenges to making that system work.
sneak 7y ago
That’s already the case; drivers choose to sell their services to Uber at the rate Uber has offered, versus selling their services to anyone else that participates in the unskilled labor market.

qtplatypus 7y ago

Why would having a person classified as an employee turn it into a full time job? Like why would they hire managers and set schedules when it gives no benifit to Uber? To me this closes a loophole. As you say these people drive for Uber, uber is doing the employing. This is not like if a contracted a builder to renovate my kitchen. That is the class of employment that are real contractors.

nathanvanfleet 7y ago
The current scenario is that you can turn the app on and do work any time you want to do it. If you are an hourly-paid employee, you can't just choose the times that suit you, because it might not suit what's going on at that time. You can't just drive where you want, because it might not suit what's going on. So the only solution is going to be something like what you usually think of for employed work. Set hours and times etc.
- justinjlynn 7y ago
  Why are your requirements strictly necessary? If you try to refute your own answer, it'll likely be a much more fruitful conversation.
  - docker_up 7y ago
    Because part of the equation for Uber is having enough workers out there to fill demand by random chance. If they have to pay a full-time employee, they can schedule the employee and force them to drive to a certain location, and do a certain number of trips, otherwise they would just fire them. They can squeeze out more efficiency from a single driver rather than hope that there's enough random drivers to fulfill all the demand.
    - whyenot 7y ago
      Why "random chance"? Instead, Uber could encourage more people to be "on the clock" at high demand times by increasing hourly wages during those times. It feels like you are making mountains out of molehills.

dmix 7y ago

I strongly doubt that would be an unpopular outside of HN/twitter. The solution is to update laws that reflect the future (ie, giving contractors better rights and better temporary unemployment social support) instead of protecting entrenched dying industries and their working hour/payment models, by forcing their business models to be the only one allowed. You also don't have to defend Uber directly, this type of stuff will affect the whole market including any future or present companies that are far better run than Uber. If you look at reviews for the old taxi companies in most cities they are all 1/5 stars. Plus they aren't shining beacons of worker protections or good pay either. Most taxi drivers were already contractors before Uber so I'm curious how these laws will affect them too.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> The solution is to update laws that reflect the future (ie, giving contractors better rights and better temporary unemployment social support) Agreed. Classifying them as employees, per this bill, doesn’t do this. Employment classification comes with a myriad of fixed costs. Particularly in California. Contractors lack these fixed costs—it’s all variable. That’s what makes them attractive for unpredictable workloads. We need a third category, a low fixed-cost zone between contractors and employees, that includes some employee rights but not others, and confers some employee restrictions but not others. That would be transformative to our economy, and strengthen it to boot. Unfortunately, that’s is not what the California legislature is discussing. (Surprise.)
- jonny_eh 7y ago
  > I agree with this. But classifying them as employees doesn’t do this. Umm, I think you both agree. There's no disagreement that I see.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
pfooti 7y ago
This isn't about protecting the taxi industry- as you rightly point out, many taxi drivers are also contractors. Instead, this is about properly pricing labor. The gig economy works now because companies like Uber (and many others) externalize the real cost of hiring labor. It doesn't make sense to pay people low wages to the point where they need governmental assistance in the form of food stamps and BMR housing, and then pass on the savings to private companies who do their best to avoid paying the taxes that fund those programs. It ends up being other, traditionally employed FTEs who subsidize this business model via their own tax bills.

WalterBright 7y ago

The Uber drivers I've talked to all seemed to like that they could drive for Uber and get paid whenever they felt like it and had some free time.

m463 7y ago
That's a self-selecting sample, and possibly you've not talked to people who have had problems and/or quit working for uber
- malandrew 7y ago
  Your statement applies to pretty much all jobs.
  - m463 7y ago
    yes, keep that in mind when interviewing. Asking the interviewer "Do you like working here?" will always return skewed answers.

WheelsAtLarge 7y ago

The Gig economy jobs are a race to the bottom of the pay scale now. You can get the least expensive services by using workers that have no insurance, vacations, sick days or any type of benefits but is that the work environment that we want to encourage? I get it. It's nice to be independent but it's even better to have a job that lets you have at the very least a satisfactory life. Technology can give us jobs that free us from the traditional chains that we all know but we also need to figure out how to make sure those workers don't get exploited. Technology is just part of the answer. We also need to have social and political changes. So we can have the jobs that we want without destroying the worker protections that our previous generations have fought so hard to gain. Making sure that there are laws that protect workers is the start. The answer to the right pay for the gig economy workers will come. But we can't do it by removing all benefits from the workers and not have any other way for them to get them. I know one thing. What Uber and Lyft provide is needed so companies will figure out how to provide it even with new laws.

TaylorAlexander 7y ago
I’m kind of a techie social activist myself, and you’re very right about technology not being the whole solution. I think people forget that no technology can solve all of our problems. The technology is a tool but we also need to organize with one another in the human sphere and decide what is fair and what is not - what rules we want to play by. And I’m with you that we should question whether we want to live in a world where so many workers lack basic benefits. In the long term I want to see us end employment-based social programs, but we’re not there yet. Until we get there, we definitely should make sure workers are treated as workers with all the legal benefits that entails. Have you ever read Murray Bookchin?
- WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
  >Have you ever read Murray Bookchin? I have not but it sounds like it's someone I should. Thx.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago

jaaron 7y ago

Why would the bill eliminate this niche market? The bill does NOT say, Uber drivers need to change the way they work. The bill does say, the way Uber drivers work is considered employment with respect to the law. It changes the definition of employment to include the type of flexible work Uber drivers are currently doing. In other words, Uber (or any similar gig-economy business) could keep working with their employees as they always have, it's just that they'll now have to provide those employees with a bunch of benefits they currently do not provide and pay a number of taxes they currently do not pay. The idea that "employee" means particular way of scheduling hours is false. The bill doesn't say that. The law doesn't say that. There's nothing that requires that. These newly defined employees could keep all the flexibility they've had. If Uber reduces that flexibility, that's Uber's decision.

TuringNYC 7y ago
Ok but let’s consider the left end of the distribution — someone who drives four hours a week — is it really sensible for Uber it any gig platform to pay benefits? What about a single Amazon Mechanical Turk hIt — would that also carry benefits? This wouldn’t be cost effective. I think over half these problems go away with government issued healthcare. Companies and workers can be more dynamic.
- jonny_eh 7y ago
  Is that addressed in the bill?
  - mikekchar 7y ago
    I think that the objection is not that the bill is unclear about this situation. It's that the increased cost of treating Uber drivers (or similar work) as employees will mean that it is infeasible to hire people as they do now. The bill doesn't address (I assume -- I haven't read the bill) because it's not a think the bill is intended to address. If I understand correctly, the bill is intended to address the situation where large companies are avoiding paying employment tax and benefits because they hire the majority of their employees to do piecemeal work. Will it really result in the side effect that piecemeal work will cease to exist if workers have to be hired as employees? I don't know, but I think that's what's being suggested.

kisstheblade 7y ago

"great way to make money". Do they really make enough money to pay for their food, housing in the city they work, health care, pension, kids and kids education? If not these sorts of jobs (or with this pay) should be banned. Else it's just subsidies from taxpayers who need to pay for these things through government "subsidies". Where I live (a nordic country) eg. taxi drivers used to be able to live a very comfortable life with their pay. And the taxi service was excellent. Not even that expensive if you think about having a private chauffeur driving you around. Now they changed the rules (to enable "gig economy") and most of the taxi drivers don't pay proper taxes or know any address without gps, and they don't get paid nearly enough to get by without government handouts/social security, or have any pension accruing so they will need even more government/tax money when they are old.

kisstheblade 7y ago
Jeez, I don't get hacker news downvoting (and yes whining about it is against the rules I guess). Was there some fundamental flaw in my argument, was it too "mean" or did someone just disagree and downvote because of that.

atoav 7y ago

I don’t see why that wouldnlt be feasible. I worked in flexible student jobs myself while beeing officially an employee. If I were to work for the same company constantly as an freelancer the state would rightfully assume that it is to avoid the costs connected with employment. And as a freelancer I can choose my dates myself as well. I don’t see why a more flexible scheduling system should allow you to avoid paying into a system that is there for a reason.