3 ms·

> prohibit me from doing that As far as I can tell, no one is talking about prohibiting temporary contract work. What most people seem to be saying is, you sh

> prohibit me from doing that As far as I can tell, no one is talking about prohibiting temporary contract work. What most people seem to be saying is, you shouldn't be able to pretend that people are temporary contract workers when they really aren't.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
If it had taken me 12 months of working that job to get me by while I found a new permanent one, I would have done it for 12 months, and been quite grateful to have it. I should be the person who has the greatest say in whether I’m a contract worker or not, and exactly what you are talking about is prohibiting me from doing that.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  Semi-related question. Do you think that: (a) It is self-evident that Uber and Walmart workers are reasonably compensated, because they agreed to their wages in a market transaction; or (b) There are structural forces that compel Uber and Walmart workers to capture as income an unreasonably low fraction of the benefit they provide the market; or (c) Something else
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    I don’t think anything can be self evidently reasonable, because reasonable is intrinsically an opinion, and an opinion is intrinsically not a self evident fact. One thing that is self evident is that Uber and Walmart workers have found an employment arrangement that they prefer to have over unemployment, so I’d guess most of them wouldn’t be happy with that being taken from them, and being given unemployment in return. Your point b also invokes that reasonableness opinion, but makes a further mistake of presuming that remuneration is determined by value provided (by whatever metric it is that you think that should be judged). Wages are set by supply and demand, for a price to be high there needs to be more people wanting to buy something than there is people wanting to sell it. That is why unskilled labor is worth so little. It’s also why oxygen (incredibly valuable) is free, and why some bureaucrats (incredibly not valuable) can end up being paid quite a lot. But you’re right. That is not a relevant question. What you’re talking about is taking jobs away from people, and replacing them with nothing. The anti-contractor laws don’t just affect low paid jobs either. Which is why every Vox journalist in California was so surprised to see themselves laid off after AB5 passed. Thankfully I don’t live in a jurisdiction that’s considering such legislation, but if I did, I would leave. I’ve been on an endlessly revolving short term contract with the same organisation for nearly 3 years now. They would love it if I didn’t have the option to contract, because I earn at least 3x what an equivalent permanent team member would. I’m sure they would be very grateful if somebody were to prohibit me from engaging in such an arrangement with them.
    - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
      You appear to think that people preferring working in Walmart to dying of starvation means that you shouldn't improve their working conditions by associating for them above their extraordinarily wealthy management/owners. >They would love it if I didn’t have the option to contract, because I earn at least 3x what an equivalent permanent team member would. // Who is suggesting you can't contract work? If the law stated that contract workers total pay could not be less than the gross business cost of employee workers (+ a percentage?) would that somehow affect you negatively? That aside: You're seriously going to argue people who can't afford basic healthcare shouldn't be helped financially because you might lose your 3x good income (~$300,000 would be triple the median California programmers wage, apparently)?

AmericanChopper 6y ago

If it had taken me 12 months of working that job to get me by while I found a new permanent one, I would have done it for 12 months, and been quite grateful to have it. I should be the person who has the greatest say in whether I’m a contract worker or not, and exactly what you are talking about is prohibiting me from doing that.

rmrfstar 6y ago
Semi-related question. Do you think that: (a) It is self-evident that Uber and Walmart workers are reasonably compensated, because they agreed to their wages in a market transaction; or (b) There are structural forces that compel Uber and Walmart workers to capture as income an unreasonably low fraction of the benefit they provide the market; or (c) Something else
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  I don’t think anything can be self evidently reasonable, because reasonable is intrinsically an opinion, and an opinion is intrinsically not a self evident fact. One thing that is self evident is that Uber and Walmart workers have found an employment arrangement that they prefer to have over unemployment, so I’d guess most of them wouldn’t be happy with that being taken from them, and being given unemployment in return. Your point b also invokes that reasonableness opinion, but makes a further mistake of presuming that remuneration is determined by value provided (by whatever metric it is that you think that should be judged). Wages are set by supply and demand, for a price to be high there needs to be more people wanting to buy something than there is people wanting to sell it. That is why unskilled labor is worth so little. It’s also why oxygen (incredibly valuable) is free, and why some bureaucrats (incredibly not valuable) can end up being paid quite a lot. But you’re right. That is not a relevant question. What you’re talking about is taking jobs away from people, and replacing them with nothing. The anti-contractor laws don’t just affect low paid jobs either. Which is why every Vox journalist in California was so surprised to see themselves laid off after AB5 passed. Thankfully I don’t live in a jurisdiction that’s considering such legislation, but if I did, I would leave. I’ve been on an endlessly revolving short term contract with the same organisation for nearly 3 years now. They would love it if I didn’t have the option to contract, because I earn at least 3x what an equivalent permanent team member would. I’m sure they would be very grateful if somebody were to prohibit me from engaging in such an arrangement with them.
  - pbhjpbhj 6y ago
    You appear to think that people preferring working in Walmart to dying of starvation means that you shouldn't improve their working conditions by associating for them above their extraordinarily wealthy management/owners. >They would love it if I didn’t have the option to contract, because I earn at least 3x what an equivalent permanent team member would. // Who is suggesting you can't contract work? If the law stated that contract workers total pay could not be less than the gross business cost of employee workers (+ a percentage?) would that somehow affect you negatively? That aside: You're seriously going to argue people who can't afford basic healthcare shouldn't be helped financially because you might lose your 3x good income (~$300,000 would be triple the median California programmers wage, apparently)?