19 ms·

All these people making Uber money on the side ... the whole thing was possible in part due to the low friction in (and also complete disregard for) the regula

• dustinmoris 7y ago
  What do you expect from your studio assistant that you think might put you at risk of a number of lawsuits? Honestly, if you want to hire someone to do some work a few hours a week then you are basically hiring a part time employee. There's nothing dangerous around doing this and it's certainly not a minefield if you treat them with the respect that any employee deserves.
  • neltnerb 7y ago
    Well, other than the minor hassle that they need to know how to issue a W2 and get enrolled for workers comp insurance and pay their estimated taxes for them. None are super hard, but they are barriers for people who aren't used to hiring people, which is the case for I think a lot of self-employed people. I only finally bothered to learn how to do it all last year when I needed some extra help with projects for my consulting company. Prior to that I just paid a contract CFO to deal with it because it's what you don't know you don't know that gets you sued. So either it's expensive to hire a CFO just for that, or expensive in your time to learn it all when your main goal is to actually get work done that produces revenue.
    • dd36 7y ago
      Gusto will handle it all. Though I’m not a fan and we’re looking to switch. The never gave us our referral credits and while it’s NBD, it definitely left a bad taste.
      • cultofmetatron 7y ago
        been looking into gusto myself. what are the alternatives in this space?
    • donatj 7y ago
      This, 100% this. It makes the move from a single person company to a 2 person company terrifyingly complex, particularly for those of us without a background in business. It’s a literal chilling action on small business.
      • deleted 7y ago
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      • streb-lo 7y ago
        Terrifyingly complex? We're talking about a Google search and a few forms...
        • phil248 7y ago
          ...and completing all of those forms flawlessly, as a layperson, lest you open yourself to any number of lawsuits. Just the thought of it makes me nervous. It's why large companies have dedicated staff to dealing with such issues.
          • bwb 7y ago
            This is the weirdest thread I've seen on HN, just pay a little money to Gusto or similar to do this. You are talking about barely any cost to have someone else do it who does it all the time. If you don't have the money to pay $50 bucks then do it yourself and just worry less. The chance you mess up is so low it isn't even a thing.
• nickjj 7y ago
  > I’m in NYC and honestly can’t figure out how to legally hire a studio assistant for a few hours a week without being at risk for any of a number of lawsuit vectors. To my understanding (not a lawyer / accountant) if you hire someone part time like that you're not obligated to pay for their insurance or anything like that. You just write off what you paid them as a business expense and send them a 1099 at the end of the year (this is the official document stating how much money you gave them during the year -- your accountant will generate the form for you). Then it's up to them to file their taxes for that income, but this is out of scope for you. As long as you've sent them their 1099 you've done your job.
  • jeffasinger 7y ago
    Also not an accountant or lawyer, but I think that if you're paying someone by the hour, and directing them as to how they should do they job, they need to be classified as an employee, not a contractor. This means a W2 instead of a 1099, plus you need to pay them on a fixed schedule, pay social security and medicare taxes (and likely other taxes depending on jurisdiction) on their wages, deduct income taxes, do an I-9 verification at the beginning of employment, change your own liability insurance, etc. There is software as a service companies that help out with setting this up correctly, but I do see many ways you could do this incorrectly, and land yourself in trouble.
    • sk5t 7y ago
      > and directing them as to how they should do they job This is, to me, a very puzzling take. If you hire a contractor, you don't direct how they do the job, only what the job output is like. Hourly contractors are certainly a thing.
      • PorterDuff 7y ago
        I'm still confused how you can avoid tell someone how to do their job. A SW contractor can't be told which language to use or be connected to company source control or use existing company software libraries? A carpenter can't be directed in some fashion beyond: 'YOU, GO BUILD HOUSE FRAME'.
• dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  You could 1099 them but considering the likelihood of someone who's taking an entry level music job claiming the income on their taxes seems like a recipe for an audit for both parties. Realistically you should probably do what everyone else does in this situations and pay under the table. Think of the lost taxes as billing the government for making stupid laws that can't reasonably be followed even when you want to follow them.
  • gamblor956 7y ago
    Or instead, if you're really not willing to learn something you'll do with every future hire, you could just use a small business payroll service provider that specializes in this sort of stuff to do it for you so that you don't risk prison time. Payroll might be complicated to learn the first time. But it's like riding a bike, once you learn it's trivial to do.
    • dsfyu404ed 7y ago
      It's not about the complexity, it's the cost and risk exposure. Employees come with costs (workers comp being the big one) and risk exposure that 1099 workers do not have (and what the employer gets in the trade-off is more direct control). For someone doing menial work and getting industry experience on the side (most trades have entry level jobs like this) that additional cost/risk could be the difference between their position existing and just tacking the responsibility onto some other existing employee.
      • deleted 7y ago
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  • blisterpeanuts 7y ago
    The fact is, there's a lot of people paying under the table, for these very reasons. One estimate from 2012 of the underground economy in the U.S., i.e. transactions of goods and services other than illegal drug trade, was around $2 trillion[1]. That was during a severe recession; it's not clear whether the subsequent recovery has exacerbated the situation or encouraged more people to work "above ground". One thing is certain: as long as there is friction & obstacles to hiring part time help, there will be people trying to work/hire under the table. 1. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/032916/how-big-underground-economy-america.asp https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/032916/how-big...
• PopeDotNinja 7y ago
  One option is a temp agency.
• Quanttek 7y ago
  That "flexibility" means precarity as the majority of gig employees do this full-time: >In California, the legislation will affect at least one million workers who have been on the receiving end of a decades-long trend of outsourcing and franchising work, making employer-worker relationships more arm’s-length. Many people have been pushed into contractor status with no access to basic protections like a minimum wage and unemployment insurance. Ride-hailing drivers, food-delivery couriers, janitors, nail salon workers, construction workers and franchise owners could now all be reclassified as employees. Also, classifying them as employees doesn't mean that flexibility is gone: >Uber and Lyft have repeatedly warned that they will have to start scheduling drivers in advance if they are employees, reducing drivers’ ability to work when and where they want. >Experts said that there is nothing in the bill that requires employees to work set shifts, and that Uber and Lyft are legally entitled to continue allowing drivers to make their own scheduling decisions. >In practice, Uber and Lyft might choose to limit the number of drivers who can work during slow hours or in less busy markets, where drivers may not generate enough in fares to justify their payroll costs as employees. That could lead to a reduced need for drivers over all. >But Veena Dubal, a professor at the University of California Hastings College of the Law, said it would still generally be advantageous for Uber and Lyft to rely on incentives like bonus pay to ensure they had enough drivers on the road to adjust to customer demand much more nimbly than if they scheduled drivers in advance.
  • miracle2k 7y ago
    Of course they don't have to schedule them. But if Uber has to take them on as employees, then Uber might reasonably want to take advantage of their right as an employer to force them to work certain shifts.
    • infosec4life 7y ago
      Makes sense. I agree with you
    • aphextim 7y ago
      They may take a path of having employees be scheduled who opt in to have their hours/time be scheduled and get guaranteed hours/rides. If you don't opt in to be scheduled you may be lower on the priority list and not have as many rides, but your flexibility still is in your own hands. It would give incentive on the individual to want to opt in for the hours at the loss of personal freedom if that is what they want to choose.
• matchbok 7y ago
  Few hours a week? How would anyone, other than students, make that work?
  • deleted 7y ago
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• erdleerdle 7y ago
  New York State just overhauled farm labor in a similar manner that will prevent most small farms from hiring by season... and in agriculture seasons can be 2 weeks to 2 months... but now you have to cover FT, benefits, plus unemployment insurance. So in theory you can hire someone... they can work for 2 months and then collect unemployment after you run out of work for them because the earth's position changed and it's now winter. New York State already pays about 4% above the national average for farm labor. All costs will just be passed on to consumers. Industry groups estimate that consumers will need to eat $300m in additional food costs per year. The State Senator (from Queens) that authored the bill visited approximately 14 farms in NYS prior to writing the bill... and signed it in Manhattan... where farm labor money is now set to flow in the form of union fees being managed by hedge funds and banks.
  • UnFleshedOne 7y ago
    Farming kinda relies on exploiting under-payed workers. Historically those were sharecroppers (who created the myth of family farms), but lately they are undocumented immigrants. Why do "consumers" have a right to underpay for somebody's labor?
• magic_beans 7y ago
  Hire a paid "intern".
• buboard 7y ago
  "employee protection" lawmaking is popular and makes lawmakers seem caring and thus reelectable. Did uber drivers in the past leave uber to flock to taxi companies who do hire them? AFAIK no, and they know that legislation like this will probably cause them to lose their chances at a job/gig. Different people different motives
  • Loudergood 7y ago
    Taxi companies don't hire you, you're just another contractor for them as well.
• qzx_pierri 7y ago
  People need to stop treating “gigs” as full time employment and find a real job. No one asked any of the people being “exploited” to quit their job and work as Uber drivers. They knew the associated costs going in, and they could’ve stopped anytime they wanted. Sorry about the rant. I just smell a lot of entitlement within this situation.
• jdc 7y ago
  It doesn't have to be black or white. Why don't regulators make a third category of worker between employee and contractor? Such a policy could reflect what people are already doing and give them some protection against abuse.
• chongli 7y ago
  The way to protect workers is to shift the burden of health care and other costly benefits onto the government, supported by taxes. Then there is no risk to hiring a new employee beyond the wages you pay them. The US public does not want this, though, and the war of words over universal health care has led to incredibly deep entrenchment on the side of those opposed. All this despite the mountain of evidence from other countries, showing the greatly reduced total costs and improved life expectancy as well as a lack of bankruptcy and financial ruin for those caught in an emergency.
  • bernawil 7y ago
    I can think of several countries with universal healthcare where hiring is still complicated to say the least. Not arguing it would still help, though!
    • ancorevard 7y ago
      Welcome to Europe.
  • HillaryBriss 7y ago
    > Then there is no risk to hiring a new employee beyond the wages you pay them. but you must not forget the additional administrative/accounting overhead, the risk from the wide variety of lawsuits one is vulnerable to as an employer, the risks of employee injury on the job, and costs associated with the possibility of laying off employees in the future. surely there are more costs than just wages.
    • jher17 7y ago
      Sure. But this is the responsibility an employer must take on in order to hire someone’s labor.
  • intortus 7y ago
    > The US public does not want this A majority does, in fact, want this. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/03/most-continue-to-say-ensuring-health-care-coverage-is-governments-responsibility/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/03/most-contin...
• jforman 7y ago
  Here's a quick guide to employer regulation in NYC. With one part-time employee you would be exempt from many statutes: https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/labor-employment/b/labor-employment-top-blogs/posts/which-new-york-employment-laws-apply-to-my-small-business https://www.lexisnexis.com/legalnewsroom/labor-employment/b/... Also, part of the purpose of incorporation is to provide a personal liability shield as a catch-all. Any policy has benefits and drawbacks. Yes, somebody is losing out on beneficial employment with you. But somebody else is being saved from being paid $5/hr under dangerous conditions without workers comp.
• TYPE_FASTER 7y ago
  I would highly recommend you reach out to local educational institutions to see if they have intern/co-op programs. You might be able to get some help with the administrative parts of the process.
• dangxiaopin 7y ago
  Even though it does not look this way now, I think this is a seminal legislation that in time will move small startup scene out of California for good, due to what you have described. I have the same experience, bootstrapping a software company that initially could not afford an employee payroll and administrative/legal burden. Where do we go next to start non-VC companies? Oregon? Texas?
  • opportune 7y ago
    What if you just incorporate in Delaware and contract remotely out of less restrictive states in the US? I think this will only apply to employees working within CA
• kerkeslager 7y ago
  Your sob story has a number of holes: 1. An employee working, in your words, "a few hours a week" has literally nothing to do with an Uber driver working full time. 2. As a society, do we need more cable-coiling jobs? I don't think we do. With respect to your experience, there are a lot of people in the music industry (and most industries) willing to mentor people without also expecting them to do menial labor for minimum wage. You're not being benevolent or providing some integral service to the community. 3. There are a large variety of services which make it easy to hire an employee, which cost a small fraction of what the employee is going to cost. If you actually wanted to do what you say you want to do, I'm sure you could figure out how to do it.
• Vraxx 7y ago
  I feel as though that ire ought to be directed at the companies who knowingly walk in the gray areas to make profits where simpler laws might suffice for common sense. It's the same arms race that plays out in many other instances, if abuses didn't happen then we wouldn't need to codify into the law that those things are indeed abuses. With every round of this game we play, it gets harder for smaller businesses to step around the collateral damage, but it's not as though the right answer is to give up on worker protections. The worst part of it all in my opinion is that after a gray area is ruled on after years of extracting profits, there's literally no consequences for a business forcing that gray area to get codified into law. Of course these vague in-between areas will be exploited and eventually refined into more and more meticulous law, there's a bounty on every one of these areas. The system we have will trend towards this unless we give up on worker protections (obviously not good) or reorganize this system so the winning move isn't to force more legislation
• KirinDave 7y ago
  Why don't you just hire people part time? That still exists and it exists for a reason.
• deleted 7y ago
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• bagelbagel 7y ago
  I'm a student at a music school in NYC, I wonder if I could help? send me an email at robert.diack [at] gmail if you're interested.
• iamgopal 7y ago
  Life goes in a cycle. A new tech, invention ( e.g. Bitcoin ) comes and blooms until it starting to affect government revenue, from that point onwards people in power find a way to regulate it for greater good. The tech becomes boring, intelligence search for more novel solutions. History repeats itself.