16 ms·

Honestly this is the worst part of contracting, when two consenting parties can't work together. If I prefer the gig economy and contract work to full-time empl

• marcinzm 6y ago
  >I have a skill that adds value to a company. They want to pay me to do it. I agree to the price. What's the problem? According to CA, a lot. Are you arguing that all labor laws, workplace safety laws, minimum wage laws, anti-compete laws and so on should be repealed? After all, they all get in the way of two consenting parties deciding to work together. If not then it's merely a question of where the line is drawn and that's a murky issue.
  • r29vzg2 6y ago
    All? No. Some if not most? Yes. There are many cases to be made against minimum wage laws and anti-compete laws. A laws designed to affect everyone but instead has hundreds of exemptions carved out has no place existing.
    • blackflame7000 6y ago
      There should be a law banning law exemptions..of which a select few will be exempt /s
    • xnyan 6y ago
      I know this will sound needling but it’s not, but have you ever been truly poor? By that I mean, have you been in a situation where you don’t know where your next meal is going to come from and you have no belief that anything in the future is likely to change such that that you would have confidence about where your next meal will come from? I will freely admit my bias: I have been very poor before and I lean towards protections for the most vulnerable in our society at the expense that some people will have to sacrifice somewhat between Uber and their other gig.
      • r29vzg2 6y ago
        I’ve never been poor. But I wasn’t exactly middle class. My parents were immigrants. Poverty is terrible, and I agree it should be dealt with. But how has this law helped? Uber and Lyft are more than willing to leave all of California rather than stay and deal with the regulation. They’ve made that clear. It’s more economical for them for halt business in California rather than adhere to the regulations. That’s a rather poor incentive set for on behalf of the California regulators. Regulations don’t exist in a vacuum.
        • viraptor 6y ago
          > Uber and Lyft are more than willing to leave all of California rather than stay and deal with the regulation. Ok. And why is that bad? The office work / engineers will stay. If there's need for transport, the drivers will work for transport in other ways. If nobody wants to pay for better conditions of drivers, then we just exposed the VC funding as unsustainable in a long run - it would happen sooner or later.
          • Hnaomyiph 6y ago
            >if there is a need for transport, the drivers will work for transport in other ways This is incredibly unlikely in any imaginable way.
          • usaar333 6y ago
            Why are the drivers driving for Uber and not say being Instacart shoppers where they can be employees?
          • ChrisLomont 6y ago
            Wage floors push the most vulnerable out of the workforce. Is that bad?
            • XMPPwocky 6y ago
              If somebody is vulnerable, I'd say it seems like a very bad thing to make them work by threatening them with homelessness and poverty, enforced by men with guns. So no, I don't think it is.
    • eli_gottlieb 6y ago
      >A laws designed to affect everyone but instead has hundreds of exemptions carved out has no place existing. Then let's get rid of the exemptions, not the law.
  • blackflame7000 6y ago
    At first I was inclined to agree with the parent comment, but your counter-argument is something I didn't consider. While there is unquestionably a role for government in consumer and child protection, to what degree should the government be able to limit freedom for safety. I personally believe freedom includes the freedom to be stupid so long as it doesn't hurt anybody else however others would disagree.
    • lumost 6y ago
      Historic evidence shows that most workers do not have the ability to negotiate with their employers on workplace safety, and that many workers are sufficiently economically constrained to accept high long-term health, and short-term accident risks at a job. Competitive companies will rarely make decisions that lower worker productivity. So the case of "freedom to be stupid" tends to lead to a race to the bottom on safety standards, as companies cut safety to increase productivity - and workers get dragged along for the ride.
      • parineum 6y ago
        > Historic evidence shows that most workers do not have the ability to negotiate with their employers on workplace safety I wonder how the perception of these laws would change under a more unionized workforce. As an example, professional sports players unions are fairly powerful and the risk of injury is pretty high, much higher than I'd expect to be acceptable under OSHA, and people seem pretty comfortable with it as long as the players are informed of the risk (CTE disclaimer).
        • Talanes 6y ago
          Isn't that just the Nordic model? No minimum wage, but omnipresent collective bargaining for every field.
      • whiddershins 6y ago
        Safety standards could be addressed by insurability, and this is really a very separate concept from wage. Look up the Underwriters Laboratory for a real life example of this happening without government, it’s successes are all around us.
  • Shivetya 6y ago
    Hyperbole does not make for a valid argument and this is what the laws supporters seem to always resort to. Throwing up absurd requests that those with an opposing view are not requesting. No, no one is asking to throw out worker protections. You would think this site would be free of such shit but at times this place is worse than reddit That California further manipulated the law at the last moment to excuse certain professions over others should be a red flag to how politically targeted this originally was. That taxi drivers are not protected by the law because cities and counties can choose to not apply it should be a big hint here. love the cry babies that were offended, but HN is no better than reddit and the amounts of hyperbole here is astounding
    • marcinzm 6y ago
      >Hyperbole does not make for a valid argument and this is what the laws supporters seem to always resort to Neither does saying "oh how dare they interfere in the sacred ability of two consenting parties to work together." All I did was point out that the ship has sailed long ago and using that form of moral argument doesn't fly.
      • whiddershins 6y ago
        No, because that moral argument still matters. Just because it hadn’t been adhered to in a purist sense doesn’t mean we’ve all agreed to, for example, a centrally managed economy, which would be the extreme on the other end. This California law is by my estimation very invasive and bad. I come to that conclusion in part based on how much it violates the moral right to engage in commerce.
    • dang 6y ago
      Could you please make your substantive points without breaking the site guidelines? There's interesting information in your comment but it's drowned out by the name-calling and dissing of the community. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • Hnaomyiph 6y ago
    The line should be drawn at where pay is discussed.
  • baryphonic 6y ago
    > Are you arguing that all labor laws, workplace safety laws, minimum wage laws, anti-compete laws and so on should be repealed? After all, they all get in the way of two consenting parties deciding to work together. If not then it's merely a question of where the line is drawn and that's a murky issue. We should repeal every minimum wage law, yes. They were created a century ago with racist intentions, their effects are still racist and yet today they are defended as being "anti-racist." The actual minimum wage is and always has been $0, and more people get to (not) work for this wage in the minimum wage regime than would without it. I have yet to see a reason why a body of torts and collective bargaining would not be completely effective at resolving the real issues that need solutions in labor law and workplace safety. (I'm not sure what you mean by "anti-compete" laws in a labor relations context.) The existing regime where administrative bureaucracies are essentially intermediaries with perverse incentives to reduce exchange between two otherwise consenting parties seems like the worst possible world. To reframe your question, I think the solution is not "no laws," but laws that encourage more exchange but in a way that reduces power imbalances between consenting parties and give the parties a solid basis of legal (or equitable) recourse for undeniable wrongs that happen that were not anticipated by the contract.
    • kittiepryde 6y ago
      1 person vs a large company is a power imbalance. The company doesn't even need you to survive. You need it.
      • WalterBright 6y ago
        It follows from that that Microsoft/Google/Etc would be paying all their employees minimum wage.
        • marcinzm 6y ago
          You mean they’d do something like form a cartel with each other to keep wages down in unison?
          • 6y ago
  • unishark 6y ago
    > Are you arguing that all labor laws, workplace safety laws, minimum wage laws, anti-compete laws and so on should be repealed? The implication being that without such laws, enslavement of children, poisoning and maiming of workers, and other horrors would be totally legal in America? Perhaps the real problem is the mess that occurs when governments recognize and try to control abstractions like corporations to protect people from liability.
    • michaelmrose 6y ago
      Liability is not sufficient when a sufficient power imbalance exists.
      • cft 6y ago
        So the civil law system is not sufficient when the power balance exist? That's a Marxist argument. The results have been demonstrated.
        • throwanem 6y ago
          You're right, they have. Unfortunately, having failed to retain the lessons of the first Gilded Age, we're now well into a second, and closer to its inevitable failure and collapse than to its "morning in America" beginning. So it goes.
          • cft 6y ago
            First Guilded Age is what made America wealthy. I would not call what we have now a Guilded Age- look at the debt. We have been squandering that first Guilded Age's wealth since 1933, but these things have a lot of inertia.
            • throwanem 6y ago
              Only on Hacker News.
            • 6y ago
  • luxurycommunism 6y ago
    This is Ycombinator. A lot of people are trying to rationalize why they're being squeezed by startup companies instead of fighting for their dignity and labor rights.
  • vibrio_bobtail 6y ago
    This issue does not seem murky at all. The legislators way over reached when writing this bill. There are absolutely people who are being exploited as independent contractors like uber drivers and other gig economy workers. If the law focused on these areas I would have no problem. But they took it much further and legislated entire industries of professionals. Specifically both my wife, a freelance writer, and my mother, a court reporter, have been negatively impacted by this law. I know more about the writer point of view and it is clear the legislators didn't both to understand the industry when placing the 35 article limit per client. My wife has multiple clients whom she writes a weekly blog post for. This is now illegal to do and my wife has lost clients over it. This area of the law is totally backwards the only time my wife has been exploited was as an employee. She went from making 40k as a full time employee to a range of 120k-150k as a freelancer. We are definitely planning on leaving the state over this and will be voting republican (except president) for the first time in our lives over this law. The TLDR of this law is that arrogant legislators decided to write a bill about dozens of industries they didn't bother to learn anything about.
    • corrys 6y ago
      I, of course, don’t have all the context of your wife’s situation. However, it seems like she could register a company that provides writing services - and, therefore, be unaffected by this law? If a person is actually engaged in a business independently, they won’t have to change their status. Lyft and Uber drivers don’t own independent businesses. “The person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.”
    • IG_Semmelweiss 6y ago
      Hot tip: If your public views conflict with your private practice, it invalidates your public views, not your private practice. You cant be in favor of a law in a public forum and then repudiate it from a personal viewpoint
  • curryst 6y ago
    The fundamental problem is that those laws exist to protect vulnerable workers, but they also inadvertently affect non-vulnerable workers. Someone should not have to work for less than minimum wage because they have less bargaining power than a corporation. On the other hand, if someone has a full time job with benefits and wants to drive for Uber in their spare time for nothing more than the price of wear and tear on their car, morally, they should be allowed to in my opinion. Hypothetically, if Bill Gates wanted to drive for Uber for free, he should (morally) be allowed to, right? If so, then we would agree that there exists some group of people that should be allowed to waive those rights. It's just a question of how large that group is and on what criteria people are a part of it. What I can't figure out is how to allow non-vulnerable workers to waive those protections without affecting the vulnerable workers. The non-vulnerable workers come with a lot of cost advantages, which makes them more appealing than the vulnerable workers and creates pressure to make the non-vulnerable conditions the new "normal". Or worse yet, the jobs would only be available to people who already have primary employment (further reinforcing class discrepancies).
• heavyset_go 6y ago
  AB-5 would only affect you if for some reason your consultant roles don't pass the ABC test, and you're effectively working for only one client without offering your services for others to hire you.
  • novok 6y ago
    No you can still work for multiple companies and still not pass the ABC test for both of them. Ex: Doordash & Grubhub
    • heavyset_go 6y ago
      I agree, but I am talking about traditional consulting roles, not whatever gig economy roles DoorDash and GrubHub invented to get out of paying taxes. With traditional consulting roles, you're typically sole proprietor of your business, or have a similarly structured operation. Your relationship with your clients are closer to business-to-business relationships. AB-5 stirred the pot because professional consultants were worried that their business relationships would be reclassified as employer-employee relationships in CA. I am pointing out that for your typical tech consultant, AB-5 won't change much, mostly because the ABC test was already a part of CA case law and consultants typically put themselves on the market to be hired by more than one client. Not only that, most professional consultant roles are explicitly exempted from AB-5 altogether.
      • awb 6y ago
        > I am pointing out that for your typical tech consultant, AB-5 won't change much, mostly because the ABC test was already a part of CA case law and consultants typically put themselves on the market to be hired by more than one client. Not only that, most professional consultant roles are explicitly exempted from AB-5 altogether. Unfortunately that hasn't been my experience. Maybe it's employers not understanding the law (or perhaps I don't), but there's been a lot more scrutiny with my personal contracts and I've been privy to multiple contract decisions where business owners have explicitly instructed not to award a contract to CA individuals because of the state's employment laws.
• gscott 6y ago
  I wish it were that simple. Since 1998 I have worked for companies full-time and on-site as a "contractor". Everytime I would start a new position I was hoping I was going to become an employee instead they always tell me they are not going to make me an employee but instead pay me as a 1099 contractor but treat me like an employee. This new law may finally put an end to that. These are the only positions I can find and so I just have to accept it or otherwise live on the street.
• zulfazli 6y ago
  I guess an easy way out is to make these laws to only apply for individuals being paid below a certain threshold. If, for example, you are being paid 10x minimum wage, you are very likely not being in an oppressed position hence the statue would not apply to you. Win win?
  • dannyw 6y ago
    Then low wage workers get shafted while the rich gets richer.
    • gruez 6y ago
      How so? Isn't the whole premise that working as a contractor is bad for low wage workers?
      • nybble41 6y ago
        Sure, that's the premise. The reality is somewhat different. Contracting positions are more flexible (you decide your own benefits) and can be more lucrative if you manage them correctly. They're not for everyone, of course. It's similar to deciding between DIY vs. COTS—the former requires more skill and personal investment but may give better results than the generic store-bought product under the right circumstances. If you don't want to work a job, contract or otherwise, paying less than some arbitrary "living wage", then don't. No one is forcing you to take the job. You are free to set your own personal minimum wage. But if you think the solution to your woes is to make it so that no one else can take the job either, at least be honest and admit that what you are really trying to do is to improve your own bargaining position by hobbling the competition.
        • pas 6y ago
          The real complication is that such markets' equilibrium point is hard to shift once it gets stuck in a low wage. Currently there's a big oversupply of labor, especially for low-wage positions. ( https://economics.mit.edu/files/11563 https://economics.mit.edu/files/11563 ) And thus this becomes the classic coordination problem. While minimum wage is necessarily problematic, because there are many who happen to have some time to earn a bit of extra by doing gigs - which is pretty efficient from a raw economic point of view, but it doesn't help those who are not in it for that bit of extra. Basically we'd like to change the labor share of income for low wage jobs. (I think a robust safety net and/or a Negative Income Tax UBI would be much better than direct minimum wage laws.)
• TheBobinator 6y ago
  You are referring to the impacts of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 which removed save harbor provisions for companies employing engineers as contractors. It has nothing to do with CA. In the 1960's we used to have a income tax that would tax 100% of your income if it were too high to act as a way to stop fat cats from taking all the company profits. The response was to provide them with perks and highly paid employee's with things like health insurance. Fast forward 30 years, we removed the cap and the benefits stuck. Fast foward another 20, and now the fat cats are getting bailed out while people are going homeless, losing pensions, losing 401k, losing everything. Fast foward another 10, and you now have people in the streets being radicalized by foreign socialist psyops shooting up tandom people while spraying "We can never loot as much as you stole" on monuments ready to throw the whole governmental system out the door because the economy crashed and they do not believe they have a future. Bitchy emotional article about how the legal system is dealing with unprecidented employment fraud attracts bitchy emotional person who tries to phrase their writing in a way to make it sound legit like a cogent argument. Stop doing that. Joseph Stack already did it on this subject specifically. Get your facts straight before you post something bitchy and emotional please. Nobody wants to read that shit.
  • dang 6y ago
    Posting like this will get you banned on Hacker News. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on.