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Lots of HN comments are here like "I know people who prefer to be contractors", "My sister's neighbours little brother actually doesn't want to be treated with

Lots of HN comments are here like "I know people who prefer to be contractors", "My sister's neighbours little brother actually doesn't want to be treated with respect by Uber", blah This is utter nonsense. Being a contractor means being self employed. You don't get paid leave or sick pay. It's a risk taking and doesn't make any sense in the gig economy where the wages are close to minimum rates. If you are truly self employed then you have a skill which you can market, you can charge fees which allows one to put money aside for things like unpaid leave or sick days. If you are truly self employed then part of your job is building customer relationship, building up recurring customers, increasing your business through marketing, word of mouth, etc. You actually have to do entrepreneurial shit. Uber drivers are NONE of this. They clock into an app which belongs to someone else and they have no share in. They can't hand out business cards to customers or market their services on a board somewhere. They sit and wait until their master (Uber/Lyft) assigns a ride to them. Then they have merely the chance to accept/decline it. They can't even negotiate their own fees. That itself is fucked up. It's complete nonsense in extremely disingenuous by anyone here to suggest that an Uber driver is a self employed contractor and that this is good for them. They get paid shit and can't save up like a real self employed person, because they also have no say in the ride prices. Fuck the gig economy. All gig workers are slaves and we should treat each other with more dignity and upgrade them to employees. It's our bloody duty as a decent human being.

neetrain 6y ago
Meanwhile in Japan, We never get sick pay (treated as leave pay) nor usually leave pay even when employed...
- dustinmoris 6y ago
  Meanwhile Japan is also the only country which has an actual word in the dictionary to describe "Death through overwork". It's called Karoshi. No modern society should have such a common problem that you have to invent a specific word for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi
- miganga 6y ago
  That's basically abuse.
- piva00 6y ago
  Japan is a far cry from a role model of work environment, this is just another signal to it...
- jacquesm 6y ago
  The fact that Japan is abusive to its workers doesn't in any way reduce the OPs point. Japan should - and I realize that this won't make any difference - get with the times and start treating people like they are something else than lemons that need to be squeezed. It's a cultural problem. No reason why they both can't be fixed. At least this judge got it right.
- nix23 6y ago
  I really hope for the Japanese people that this changes with a new generation where family is family, and business is business, and that the former is more important than the latter.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
JaceLightning 6y ago
I vehemently disagree. I used to tutor for Chegg tutors on the side--outside my main job. They paid ~$20/hr and for 5-10 hours I week I could bring in some extra money for food and rent. They shut it down in my state because they reclassified them as employees, and Chegg was not going to do all that leg work to bring people on as part-time employees. I didn't need benefits like sick days or unpaid leave since it was just a gig I did online for extra money. I didn't need health insurance, since my main job provided that. I didn't need job security that was provided by the inability to fire people. I was just trying to make some extra money online. And now I can't because Big Government decided I can't. You know who it really hurts? The kids I was tutoring. Now there is a huge tutor shortage and kids that need help aren't getting it. There was ALREADY a tutor shortage before they cut off several states from being tutors. If it's the law, then it's a stupid law and needs to be changed. It's telling that Uber/Lyft drivers weren't the ones asking for this. They were fine the way they are. No Uber/Lyft driver was saying "Wouldn't it be nice if we were REAL employees??". It's the bloody taxi companies trying to get back at Uber because taxi drivers ARE real jobs that require real benefits, and they can't compete with a better business model. Fuck California.
- rideontime 6y ago
  If you care so much about the kids you were tutoring, why didn't you continue tutoring them yourself, without the rent-seeking middleman?
  - frockington1 6y ago
    There is a lot of regulation and paperwork/fees to start your own business. Makes it hard to justify if you only want to tutor a few hours a week
  - JaceLightning 6y ago
    Chegg provided the kids (and rightfully took a cut for it). What am I supposed to do? start cold calling college students asking if they need help? lol Yeah, I could start my own tutoring business, but imagine the costs: I'd have to start a website, take payments, advertise, advertise, advertise. It'd be great if someone did all that for me and I just could log in to tutor when I wanted.
karlakush 6y ago
> All gig workers are slaves This is a pretty disgusting thing to say. You realize slaves were forced to work for no pay, could not change companies, could not even leave company property, and were physically beaten when they refused to work? This does not describe Uber drivers at all. If you really think turning Uber drivers into minimum wage employees instead of contractors is going to improve their lives at all, you're in for a rude awakening.
mcrad 6y ago
Agreed mostly with you about negative impact of the gig economy. However, not seeing how the slavery element goes away with your proposal. Better regulations YES, but wouldn't you just be reinforcing the power of the slavemaster by converting his temp labor to perm?
jasode 6y ago
>All gig workers are slaves and we should treat each other with more dignity and upgrade them to employees. It's our bloody duty as a decent human being. Lyft/Uber can upgrade them to employees but the arithmetic of bottom-up economics means Uber has to raise prices to cover full employment benefits. The raised fares conflict with what passengers are willing to pay. E.g. even though yellow medallion taxis often cost more than Uber (especially for suburb trips) -- those yellow cab drivers were not employees with benefits like unpaid leave and healthcare. I believe what this really comes down to is that society is not willing to pay the higher prices for drivers to be treated as employees. Same situation as not willing to paying higher prices at hair salons so hair stylists are full employees (instead of being contractors) with healthcare. It does seem like constantly blaming Uber for mis-categorizing employees conveniently shifts the blame from the society/customers. The extra money to pay the drivers comes from the passengers. Let's look at comparison cases: The city of Austin TX temporarily banned Uber from operating there. A non-profit rideshare (RideAustin[1]) was formed. Even though they don't have to implement the same business practices as Uber/Lyft, it's interesting that the RideAustin drivers are also independent contractors and not employees with full benefits. Also as far as I can tell, there is no worker co-op owned by the drivers anywhere in the world that treats members/drivers as employees with benefits. Why is that? Serious question about the framing of ethics: if (some) drivers see an arbitrage opportunity because potential passengers think Uber-with-employee-drivers "charges too much" so drivers willingly choose a rideshare co-op that treat them as contractors to undercut Uber, are the co-op drivers being unethical towards the Uber-drivers-as-employees? Yes, a judge can force Uber to convert everyone to employees but that same judge can't force potential customers to pay higher prices. The alternative entities of RideAustin and driver co-ops shows there's a limit to prices that ride shares can charge. [1] http://www.rideaustin.com/ http://www.rideaustin.com/
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
  >Lyft/Uber can upgrade them to employees but the arithmetic of bottom-up economics means Uber has to raise prices to cover full employment benefits. The raised fares conflict with what passengers are willing to pay Then the business is not profitable enough to exist. Simple as that.
jquery 6y ago
Slaves, mmm.... yes I remember the first day that jackbooted thugs from Uber forced me to drive for the company. Every day that I felt like driving instead of doing literally anything else, these Uber slavemasters would show up with their chains and their whips. The horror... I hope Uber goes out of business so I can finally go back to my old life...
- piva00 6y ago
  Slavery doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation, if so there wouldn't be classifications of work analogous to slavery. Don't be so shallow minded...
  - true_religion 6y ago
    Not direct physical subjugation but if force isn’t uses somewhere along the responsibility chain then it can’t be called slavery. Debt slavery for example, relies on debts being permanent and the state jailing people who do not pay. If a debt can be discharged in an easy bankruptcy, you can simply do that instead of becoming a slave to someone.
  - tasubotadas 6y ago
    >Slavery doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation from dictionary: slavery - the state of being a slave. slave - a person who is _the legal property of another_ and is forced to obey them. The fact that you use "slavery" as a synonim to hard work and/or high dependance, doesn't make "doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation" true.
    - DanBC 6y ago
      Use a better dictionary. slavery, n. (ˈsleɪvərɪ)Forms: 6-7 slauerie, 6-8 slaverie, 7 slauery, 7- slavery.[f. slave n. 1 + -ery. Cf. MDu. slaverie (Du. slavernij), LG. slaverei (Da. slaveri, Sw. slafveri), G. scl-, sklaverei (skl-, schlaverey).] slavery, n. 1. Severe toil like that of a slave; heavy labour, hard work, drudgery. 1551: Robinson More's Utopia ii. v. (1895) 161 “In this hal, all vyle seruice, all slauerie,..is done by bondemen.” 1603: Owen Pembrokeshire (1891) 43 “Digginge of Coles, and other slaueryes and extreame toyles.” 1698: Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 34 “Asses which they use..to carry Packs,..and any other Slavery.” 1712: J. James tr. Le Blond's Gardening 65 “To give them continual Waterings..is a very great Slavery and Expence.” 1897: Daily News 13 Sept. 6/7 “Such people..ought never to keep servants, but do their own slavery.”
tasubotadas 6y ago
That's like your opinion... vs the needs of the drivers. They are free not to work there. The fact that plenty of people still work there, means that it works OK. I mean, they (unqualified workers) can always go to work to MacDonalds or something like that but they stick with Uber.
wccrawford 6y ago
While I agree with your overall message, I have met an Uber driver that was handing out cards. They really did suggest I call them back directly at any time during our stay in San Francisco. He had an actual mini-bus, not just a car or mini-van. So that guy, at least, was self-employed. But for the vast majority of Uber's drivers, I think you're correct.
eie73hrhdje 6y ago
>... we should treat each other with more dignity... You mean like respecting their decision to engage in gig work despite every other available option? That kind of dignity? The whole issue is pretty rich coming from California. If people are struggling the answer is never that the cost of living is too high due to rediculous zoning and environmental regulations, clearly it's the greedy companies that are the problem. The whole living wage issue in California reeks of doing every gymnastic available to avoid political introspection that might lead to admitting a lot of well intentioned things aren't working. Never mind that the state suddenly becomes mute about living wages when discussing its many illegal immigrants who work for /below/ the minimum wage. We apparently don't talk about that because leeching off desperate individuals "is complicated" and something that only companies do. If a large number of workers prefer gig work the problem isn't that they aren't making enough money the problem is that catering to them would undermine all of the previous "benefits" that they obviously don't view as a priority in their current situation. Heaven forbid that we let the actual workers decide how they want to associate.
- newsclues 6y ago
  Do people do gig work out of choice or necessity? Just because people choose or are forced to do a job doesn’t mean they do not deserve respect
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    I don't see the ‘respect’ and ‘dignity’ in being prohibited from taking work because it is aesthetically displeasing to the 1%.
    - eie73hrhdje 6y ago
      I feel like you're disagreeing with me but I'm unclear what we are disagreeing on.
      - microcolonel 6y ago
        You are mistaken, I'm not even replying to you.
sokoloff 6y ago
> doesn't make any sense in the gig economy where the wages are close to minimum rates. It makes sense if it’s better than your next best option. If the value you are able to bring to an employer is under what minimum wage requires, an employer faces the decision to employ you at a loss to them or to not employ you. Many choose the latter.
bhupy 6y ago
> Lots of HN comments are here like "I know people who prefer to be contractors", "My sister's neighbours little brother actually doesn't want to be treated with respect by Uber", blah It's a willful misrepresentation to characterize these merely as anecdotes. Polls/surveys show that drivers overwhelmingly share this sentiment[1]. > This is utter nonsense. Being a contractor means being self employed. You don't get paid leave or sick pay. It's a risk taking and doesn't make any sense in the gig economy where the wages are close to minimum rates. This is not a prerequisite for being a "contractor". That the rates are "close to minimum rates" is a reflection of the market demand for the labor. > If you are truly self employed then you have a skill which you can market, you can charge fees which allows one to put money aside for things like unpaid leave or sick days. Again, this is nice in theory, but not necessarily true for all self employed contractors. > If you are truly self employed then part of your job is building customer relationship, building up recurring customers, increasing your business through marketing, word of mouth, etc. Again, this is nice in theory, but not necessarily true for all self employed contractors. > Uber drivers are NONE of this. Correct, but that doesn't change the fact that they are not employees. > They clock into an app which belongs to someone else and they have no share in. This was true before Uber/Lyft, where taxi drivers had to pay for the privilege of driving a car with a medallion that belonged to someone else. They were independent contractors under that arrangement. Today, Uber/Lyft drivers report to no boss and can decide to drive whenever they want on a whim. They can drive 20 hours one week, 2 hours the next, and then take a vacation indefinitely with no repercussions. When Uber/Lyft announce layoffs for cost cutting, drivers are notably not affected. Insofar as drivers have experienced less work during COVID, it’s because there are fewer riders requesting rides, which suggests a rather direct rider-to-driver relationship. > They can't even negotiate their own fees. That itself is fucked up. Yes, Uber drivers can’t really set their own rates (this is changing soon), but that’s also not really a prerequisite for independence. There are loads of platforms where the intermediary only buys services by providers at set rates and sells them to a buyer, where the providers are not literally employees of the platform provider, eg: health insurance. This was also true of taxi drivers before Uber/Lyft came around. > It's complete nonsense in extremely disingenuous by anyone here to suggest that an Uber driver is a self employed contractor and that this is good for them. This is a borderline rule breaking content on its face, but just to engage with it, how do you know what's good for them? Maybe get off your high horse and speak for yourself. [1] https://www.cadriversurvey.com/ https://www.cadriversurvey.com/
scarface74 6y ago
Well. There have been stories of independent truck drivers that are being forced to leave California because they can’t be independent any more. Jason Snell, a long time editor of Macworld, was let go years ago and decided to do podcasting and blogging full time, but he still wanted to do freelance writing. The new laws passed in California made it more difficult. The only reason the gig economy is bad is because we have an ass backwards system where your health insurance, unemployment insurance, etc is tied to your employer.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Yes, a number of freelance writers I know, many of whom have been happily doing it for decades, were very unhappy about the California law.
- mmsimanga 6y ago
  Your comment reminds me of this comment[0] on HN from a developer who was complaining he couldn't accept donations in Finland because of the laws of that country. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615853
lr4444lr 6y ago
I don't exactly agree with your conclusions but I upvoted you anyway because you got me realizing what about the whole arrangement of Uber/Lyft really makes me uncomfortable with the "independent contractor" definition: the companies actively impede the self-sufficiency of drivers to cultivate a client base. This would be like if a massive home improvement company which subcontracted all of its labor to smaller outfits had the workers wear some kind of monitoring to watch every step the on site guys did, make sure the sub company wasn't promoting its own signage, or doing any custom work above and beyond to satisfy the client. That doesn't fly in my book. If you subcontract work, your value add is the market penetration that gets the clients in the door, and that's it. If the outfit doing the work is not an employee, then the relationship ends with the fee paid upward. If you believe that business entities have rights, which I am sure Uber's board does, why should it be legally binding in a contract for a business to sign those away any more than an individual can sign away his own?
jdhn 6y ago
>All gig workers are slaves If gig workers are slaves, then we must conclude that slavery isn't that bad. Nobody is forcing people to sign up to drive for these companies, and if they don't like it, then they can choose to drop out by tapping on their screen to indicate that they're out of service.
- maxehmookau 6y ago
  > Nobody is forcing people to sign up to drive for these companies No single person, sure. But the inceasing lack of secure, reliable income sources remove most other choices. "gig" work should not be the norm. It should (and always used to) be the job that the teenager does (delivering newspapers, etc) or someone does for a bit of extra cash. But they're becoming pervasive, normalized and this should be rejected.
dominotw 6y ago
> Then they have merely the chance to accept/decline it. But isn't the definition of contractor vs employee. Can they still reject if they are converted to an employee, because then it would be weird.
mathattack 6y ago
Should people have the ability to choose to be contractors? For example, “Accept wage X as an employee, work these set hours, and you have to bring in some multiple of X to justify your employment. Or stay a contractor, work when you want, get the benefit of surge pricing and keep a fixed % of your revenue” As a consumer of Uber and Lyft, what differentiates them from Taxis is the ability for them to react to changes in demand. (Try finding a taxi in the rain) I can’t see them pulling this off without some portion of the workforce being contingent.
driverdan 6y ago
> All gig workers are slaves This is repulsive. You denigrate all people who have suffered in actual slavery. Follow your "bloody duty as a decent human being" and learn what slavery is actually like.
- pinkfoot 6y ago
  And you are unable to recognise a metaphor.
mumblemumble 6y ago
My guess is that the full story is this: Most Uber/Lyft drivers say they don't want to be considered employees because, for most of them, this isn't actually their job. It's just a side gig. I can't really speak to larger urban areas because I tend to prefer public transit when it's a viable option, but, in the smaller cities where I take most my rideshare rides, a pretty large percentage of the drivers I chat with end up mentioning their day job somewhere in the course of the conversation. I agree that these folks, by virtue of lacking any viable way to independently contract work, cannot reasonably be described as independent contractors. But they don't quite fit the mold of "employee", either. Then there is another portion of drivers who really are doing this full time. I am guessing that they are a small minority of individual drivers, but that, in larger cities, they may account for a majority of rideshare capacity. Anyway, if this is how it shakes out, then, regardless of the ratios, it doesn't really make sense to speak about "ridehsare drivers" as if they're a homogeneous unit whose needs can reasonably be met with a one-size-fits-all classification. Perhaps there needs to be a tiered designation, comparable to the various employee sub-designations such as "full time", "part time", "exempt", "non-exempt", etc., that states codify.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > Most Uber/Lyft drivers say they don't want to be considered employees because, for most of them, this isn't actually their job. It's just a side gig For some, sure. Most of my rides have been with Indian/African/East European drivers who do it basically full time. Easily 90% or more. A small number have been part-timers, mostly stay-at-home moms and retired people. One was a retired bartender and he did Uber mostly because his joints gave out which made standing hard, and Uber allowed him to make some petty cash while talking to people. But hands-down, these were the exceptions, not the rule.
  - banannaise 6y ago
    This also heavily implies that online discourse skews away from the full-timers, because: 1. They tend to be from less-online demographics 2. If 90% of rides come from drivers working 50 hours a week, and 10% come from drivers working 5 hours a week, then more than half of the drivers work 5 hours a week. Those 5-hour drivers also probably have a lot more time and energy to discuss things on the internet.
chrischen 6y ago
I don't think they're necessary treating them like "slaves" because they want to. It's a tradeoff between more jobs or fewer jobs and better pay.

neetrain 6y ago

Meanwhile in Japan, We never get sick pay (treated as leave pay) nor usually leave pay even when employed...

dustinmoris 6y ago
Meanwhile Japan is also the only country which has an actual word in the dictionary to describe "Death through overwork". It's called Karoshi. No modern society should have such a common problem that you have to invent a specific word for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoshi
miganga 6y ago
That's basically abuse.
piva00 6y ago
Japan is a far cry from a role model of work environment, this is just another signal to it...
jacquesm 6y ago
The fact that Japan is abusive to its workers doesn't in any way reduce the OPs point. Japan should - and I realize that this won't make any difference - get with the times and start treating people like they are something else than lemons that need to be squeezed. It's a cultural problem. No reason why they both can't be fixed. At least this judge got it right.
nix23 6y ago
I really hope for the Japanese people that this changes with a new generation where family is family, and business is business, and that the former is more important than the latter.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

JaceLightning 6y ago

I vehemently disagree. I used to tutor for Chegg tutors on the side--outside my main job. They paid ~$20/hr and for 5-10 hours I week I could bring in some extra money for food and rent. They shut it down in my state because they reclassified them as employees, and Chegg was not going to do all that leg work to bring people on as part-time employees. I didn't need benefits like sick days or unpaid leave since it was just a gig I did online for extra money. I didn't need health insurance, since my main job provided that. I didn't need job security that was provided by the inability to fire people. I was just trying to make some extra money online. And now I can't because Big Government decided I can't. You know who it really hurts? The kids I was tutoring. Now there is a huge tutor shortage and kids that need help aren't getting it. There was ALREADY a tutor shortage before they cut off several states from being tutors. If it's the law, then it's a stupid law and needs to be changed. It's telling that Uber/Lyft drivers weren't the ones asking for this. They were fine the way they are. No Uber/Lyft driver was saying "Wouldn't it be nice if we were REAL employees??". It's the bloody taxi companies trying to get back at Uber because taxi drivers ARE real jobs that require real benefits, and they can't compete with a better business model. Fuck California.

rideontime 6y ago
If you care so much about the kids you were tutoring, why didn't you continue tutoring them yourself, without the rent-seeking middleman?
- frockington1 6y ago
  There is a lot of regulation and paperwork/fees to start your own business. Makes it hard to justify if you only want to tutor a few hours a week
- JaceLightning 6y ago
  Chegg provided the kids (and rightfully took a cut for it). What am I supposed to do? start cold calling college students asking if they need help? lol Yeah, I could start my own tutoring business, but imagine the costs: I'd have to start a website, take payments, advertise, advertise, advertise. It'd be great if someone did all that for me and I just could log in to tutor when I wanted.

karlakush 6y ago

> All gig workers are slaves This is a pretty disgusting thing to say. You realize slaves were forced to work for no pay, could not change companies, could not even leave company property, and were physically beaten when they refused to work? This does not describe Uber drivers at all. If you really think turning Uber drivers into minimum wage employees instead of contractors is going to improve their lives at all, you're in for a rude awakening.

mcrad 6y ago

Agreed mostly with you about negative impact of the gig economy. However, not seeing how the slavery element goes away with your proposal. Better regulations YES, but wouldn't you just be reinforcing the power of the slavemaster by converting his temp labor to perm?

jasode 6y ago

>All gig workers are slaves and we should treat each other with more dignity and upgrade them to employees. It's our bloody duty as a decent human being. Lyft/Uber can upgrade them to employees but the arithmetic of bottom-up economics means Uber has to raise prices to cover full employment benefits. The raised fares conflict with what passengers are willing to pay. E.g. even though yellow medallion taxis often cost more than Uber (especially for suburb trips) -- those yellow cab drivers were not employees with benefits like unpaid leave and healthcare. I believe what this really comes down to is that society is not willing to pay the higher prices for drivers to be treated as employees. Same situation as not willing to paying higher prices at hair salons so hair stylists are full employees (instead of being contractors) with healthcare. It does seem like constantly blaming Uber for mis-categorizing employees conveniently shifts the blame from the society/customers. The extra money to pay the drivers comes from the passengers. Let's look at comparison cases: The city of Austin TX temporarily banned Uber from operating there. A non-profit rideshare (RideAustin[1]) was formed. Even though they don't have to implement the same business practices as Uber/Lyft, it's interesting that the RideAustin drivers are also independent contractors and not employees with full benefits. Also as far as I can tell, there is no worker co-op owned by the drivers anywhere in the world that treats members/drivers as employees with benefits. Why is that? Serious question about the framing of ethics: if (some) drivers see an arbitrage opportunity because potential passengers think Uber-with-employee-drivers "charges too much" so drivers willingly choose a rideshare co-op that treat them as contractors to undercut Uber, are the co-op drivers being unethical towards the Uber-drivers-as-employees? Yes, a judge can force Uber to convert everyone to employees but that same judge can't force potential customers to pay higher prices. The alternative entities of RideAustin and driver co-ops shows there's a limit to prices that ride shares can charge. [1] http://www.rideaustin.com/ http://www.rideaustin.com/

2OEH8eoCRo0 6y ago
>Lyft/Uber can upgrade them to employees but the arithmetic of bottom-up economics means Uber has to raise prices to cover full employment benefits. The raised fares conflict with what passengers are willing to pay Then the business is not profitable enough to exist. Simple as that.

jquery 6y ago

Slaves, mmm.... yes I remember the first day that jackbooted thugs from Uber forced me to drive for the company. Every day that I felt like driving instead of doing literally anything else, these Uber slavemasters would show up with their chains and their whips. The horror... I hope Uber goes out of business so I can finally go back to my old life...

piva00 6y ago
Slavery doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation, if so there wouldn't be classifications of work analogous to slavery. Don't be so shallow minded...
- true_religion 6y ago
  Not direct physical subjugation but if force isn’t uses somewhere along the responsibility chain then it can’t be called slavery. Debt slavery for example, relies on debts being permanent and the state jailing people who do not pay. If a debt can be discharged in an easy bankruptcy, you can simply do that instead of becoming a slave to someone.
- tasubotadas 6y ago
  >Slavery doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation from dictionary: slavery - the state of being a slave. slave - a person who is _the legal property of another_ and is forced to obey them. The fact that you use "slavery" as a synonim to hard work and/or high dependance, doesn't make "doesn't come only through the form of physical subjugation" true.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    Use a better dictionary. slavery, n. (ˈsleɪvərɪ)Forms: 6-7 slauerie, 6-8 slaverie, 7 slauery, 7- slavery.[f. slave n. 1 + -ery. Cf. MDu. slaverie (Du. slavernij), LG. slaverei (Da. slaveri, Sw. slafveri), G. scl-, sklaverei (skl-, schlaverey).] slavery, n. 1. Severe toil like that of a slave; heavy labour, hard work, drudgery. 1551: Robinson More's Utopia ii. v. (1895) 161 “In this hal, all vyle seruice, all slauerie,..is done by bondemen.” 1603: Owen Pembrokeshire (1891) 43 “Digginge of Coles, and other slaueryes and extreame toyles.” 1698: Fryer Acc. E. India & P. 34 “Asses which they use..to carry Packs,..and any other Slavery.” 1712: J. James tr. Le Blond's Gardening 65 “To give them continual Waterings..is a very great Slavery and Expence.” 1897: Daily News 13 Sept. 6/7 “Such people..ought never to keep servants, but do their own slavery.”

tasubotadas 6y ago

That's like your opinion... vs the needs of the drivers. They are free not to work there. The fact that plenty of people still work there, means that it works OK. I mean, they (unqualified workers) can always go to work to MacDonalds or something like that but they stick with Uber.

wccrawford 6y ago

While I agree with your overall message, I have met an Uber driver that was handing out cards. They really did suggest I call them back directly at any time during our stay in San Francisco. He had an actual mini-bus, not just a car or mini-van. So that guy, at least, was self-employed. But for the vast majority of Uber's drivers, I think you're correct.

eie73hrhdje 6y ago

>... we should treat each other with more dignity... You mean like respecting their decision to engage in gig work despite every other available option? That kind of dignity? The whole issue is pretty rich coming from California. If people are struggling the answer is never that the cost of living is too high due to rediculous zoning and environmental regulations, clearly it's the greedy companies that are the problem. The whole living wage issue in California reeks of doing every gymnastic available to avoid political introspection that might lead to admitting a lot of well intentioned things aren't working. Never mind that the state suddenly becomes mute about living wages when discussing its many illegal immigrants who work for /below/ the minimum wage. We apparently don't talk about that because leeching off desperate individuals "is complicated" and something that only companies do. If a large number of workers prefer gig work the problem isn't that they aren't making enough money the problem is that catering to them would undermine all of the previous "benefits" that they obviously don't view as a priority in their current situation. Heaven forbid that we let the actual workers decide how they want to associate.

newsclues 6y ago
Do people do gig work out of choice or necessity? Just because people choose or are forced to do a job doesn’t mean they do not deserve respect
- microcolonel 6y ago
  I don't see the ‘respect’ and ‘dignity’ in being prohibited from taking work because it is aesthetically displeasing to the 1%.
  - eie73hrhdje 6y ago
    I feel like you're disagreeing with me but I'm unclear what we are disagreeing on.
    - microcolonel 6y ago
      You are mistaken, I'm not even replying to you.

sokoloff 6y ago

> doesn't make any sense in the gig economy where the wages are close to minimum rates. It makes sense if it’s better than your next best option. If the value you are able to bring to an employer is under what minimum wage requires, an employer faces the decision to employ you at a loss to them or to not employ you. Many choose the latter.

bhupy 6y ago

> Lots of HN comments are here like "I know people who prefer to be contractors", "My sister's neighbours little brother actually doesn't want to be treated with respect by Uber", blah It's a willful misrepresentation to characterize these merely as anecdotes. Polls/surveys show that drivers overwhelmingly share this sentiment[1]. > This is utter nonsense. Being a contractor means being self employed. You don't get paid leave or sick pay. It's a risk taking and doesn't make any sense in the gig economy where the wages are close to minimum rates. This is not a prerequisite for being a "contractor". That the rates are "close to minimum rates" is a reflection of the market demand for the labor. > If you are truly self employed then you have a skill which you can market, you can charge fees which allows one to put money aside for things like unpaid leave or sick days. Again, this is nice in theory, but not necessarily true for all self employed contractors. > If you are truly self employed then part of your job is building customer relationship, building up recurring customers, increasing your business through marketing, word of mouth, etc. Again, this is nice in theory, but not necessarily true for all self employed contractors. > Uber drivers are NONE of this. Correct, but that doesn't change the fact that they are not employees. > They clock into an app which belongs to someone else and they have no share in. This was true before Uber/Lyft, where taxi drivers had to pay for the privilege of driving a car with a medallion that belonged to someone else. They were independent contractors under that arrangement. Today, Uber/Lyft drivers report to no boss and can decide to drive whenever they want on a whim. They can drive 20 hours one week, 2 hours the next, and then take a vacation indefinitely with no repercussions. When Uber/Lyft announce layoffs for cost cutting, drivers are notably not affected. Insofar as drivers have experienced less work during COVID, it’s because there are fewer riders requesting rides, which suggests a rather direct rider-to-driver relationship. > They can't even negotiate their own fees. That itself is fucked up. Yes, Uber drivers can’t really set their own rates (this is changing soon), but that’s also not really a prerequisite for independence. There are loads of platforms where the intermediary only buys services by providers at set rates and sells them to a buyer, where the providers are not literally employees of the platform provider, eg: health insurance. This was also true of taxi drivers before Uber/Lyft came around. > It's complete nonsense in extremely disingenuous by anyone here to suggest that an Uber driver is a self employed contractor and that this is good for them. This is a borderline rule breaking content on its face, but just to engage with it, how do you know what's good for them? Maybe get off your high horse and speak for yourself. [1] https://www.cadriversurvey.com/ https://www.cadriversurvey.com/

scarface74 6y ago

Well. There have been stories of independent truck drivers that are being forced to leave California because they can’t be independent any more. Jason Snell, a long time editor of Macworld, was let go years ago and decided to do podcasting and blogging full time, but he still wanted to do freelance writing. The new laws passed in California made it more difficult. The only reason the gig economy is bad is because we have an ass backwards system where your health insurance, unemployment insurance, etc is tied to your employer.

ghaff 6y ago
Yes, a number of freelance writers I know, many of whom have been happily doing it for decades, were very unhappy about the California law.
mmsimanga 6y ago
Your comment reminds me of this comment[0] on HN from a developer who was complaining he couldn't accept donations in Finland because of the laws of that country. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615853 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23615853

lr4444lr 6y ago

I don't exactly agree with your conclusions but I upvoted you anyway because you got me realizing what about the whole arrangement of Uber/Lyft really makes me uncomfortable with the "independent contractor" definition: the companies actively impede the self-sufficiency of drivers to cultivate a client base. This would be like if a massive home improvement company which subcontracted all of its labor to smaller outfits had the workers wear some kind of monitoring to watch every step the on site guys did, make sure the sub company wasn't promoting its own signage, or doing any custom work above and beyond to satisfy the client. That doesn't fly in my book. If you subcontract work, your value add is the market penetration that gets the clients in the door, and that's it. If the outfit doing the work is not an employee, then the relationship ends with the fee paid upward. If you believe that business entities have rights, which I am sure Uber's board does, why should it be legally binding in a contract for a business to sign those away any more than an individual can sign away his own?

jdhn 6y ago

>All gig workers are slaves If gig workers are slaves, then we must conclude that slavery isn't that bad. Nobody is forcing people to sign up to drive for these companies, and if they don't like it, then they can choose to drop out by tapping on their screen to indicate that they're out of service.

maxehmookau 6y ago
> Nobody is forcing people to sign up to drive for these companies No single person, sure. But the inceasing lack of secure, reliable income sources remove most other choices. "gig" work should not be the norm. It should (and always used to) be the job that the teenager does (delivering newspapers, etc) or someone does for a bit of extra cash. But they're becoming pervasive, normalized and this should be rejected.

dominotw 6y ago

> Then they have merely the chance to accept/decline it. But isn't the definition of contractor vs employee. Can they still reject if they are converted to an employee, because then it would be weird.

mathattack 6y ago

Should people have the ability to choose to be contractors? For example, “Accept wage X as an employee, work these set hours, and you have to bring in some multiple of X to justify your employment. Or stay a contractor, work when you want, get the benefit of surge pricing and keep a fixed % of your revenue” As a consumer of Uber and Lyft, what differentiates them from Taxis is the ability for them to react to changes in demand. (Try finding a taxi in the rain) I can’t see them pulling this off without some portion of the workforce being contingent.

driverdan 6y ago

> All gig workers are slaves This is repulsive. You denigrate all people who have suffered in actual slavery. Follow your "bloody duty as a decent human being" and learn what slavery is actually like.

pinkfoot 6y ago
And you are unable to recognise a metaphor.

mumblemumble 6y ago

My guess is that the full story is this: Most Uber/Lyft drivers say they don't want to be considered employees because, for most of them, this isn't actually their job. It's just a side gig. I can't really speak to larger urban areas because I tend to prefer public transit when it's a viable option, but, in the smaller cities where I take most my rideshare rides, a pretty large percentage of the drivers I chat with end up mentioning their day job somewhere in the course of the conversation. I agree that these folks, by virtue of lacking any viable way to independently contract work, cannot reasonably be described as independent contractors. But they don't quite fit the mold of "employee", either. Then there is another portion of drivers who really are doing this full time. I am guessing that they are a small minority of individual drivers, but that, in larger cities, they may account for a majority of rideshare capacity. Anyway, if this is how it shakes out, then, regardless of the ratios, it doesn't really make sense to speak about "ridehsare drivers" as if they're a homogeneous unit whose needs can reasonably be met with a one-size-fits-all classification. Perhaps there needs to be a tiered designation, comparable to the various employee sub-designations such as "full time", "part time", "exempt", "non-exempt", etc., that states codify.

blaser-waffle 6y ago
> Most Uber/Lyft drivers say they don't want to be considered employees because, for most of them, this isn't actually their job. It's just a side gig For some, sure. Most of my rides have been with Indian/African/East European drivers who do it basically full time. Easily 90% or more. A small number have been part-timers, mostly stay-at-home moms and retired people. One was a retired bartender and he did Uber mostly because his joints gave out which made standing hard, and Uber allowed him to make some petty cash while talking to people. But hands-down, these were the exceptions, not the rule.
- banannaise 6y ago
  This also heavily implies that online discourse skews away from the full-timers, because: 1. They tend to be from less-online demographics 2. If 90% of rides come from drivers working 50 hours a week, and 10% come from drivers working 5 hours a week, then more than half of the drivers work 5 hours a week. Those 5-hour drivers also probably have a lot more time and energy to discuss things on the internet.

chrischen 6y ago

I don't think they're necessary treating them like "slaves" because they want to. It's a tradeoff between more jobs or fewer jobs and better pay.