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This is just such a weird fight. As someone who freelanced for long stretches of time, I think there are a lot of positives about freelance / gig work, and I al

This is just such a weird fight. As someone who freelanced for long stretches of time, I think there are a lot of positives about freelance / gig work, and I also think that the majority of people who take these jobs understand the position they’re in and are happy with it. They chose to freelance and drive for Uber for reasons. The legit concern is whether Uber or any other freelance company misleads its gig workers on their earnings, and to me the best solution to that is not to force reclassify them as employees or prohibit gig work, but to regulate transparency in compensation. For example, require freelance employers to include expense tracking and calculate workers earnings after expenses. That by itself would fix most of the problems for the percentage of gig workers who don’t realize they’re extracting depreciation from their car more so than getting paid by Uber. The other issues of healthcare, etc., the US needs to solve at a societal level, not an employer level. I think humans have a right to health care. But I don’t think people have a right to a particular job, nor an entitlement for that employer to provide a particular mix of benefits. This idea that we need to provide our social contract / safety net exclusively via employers is so strange to me, compared to simply owning that if we want these to be rights of our citizens then the government should be providing them as tax-paid services.

anigbrowl 6y ago
Thing is most of the regulatory infrastructure you describe already exists in employment law. The broad societal proposals you describe would necessitate a radical reappraisal of contract law and a lot of other things. To use the popular 'ship of state' metaphor, it would be sort of like dramatically reconfiguring an aircraft carrier while it's at sea.
- grok22 6y ago
  I guess that is what is happening here...fixing any problems using the existing model instead of trying to figure out new ways of fixing the problems to fix the new model of employment in some industries.
- jjk166 6y ago
  We elect lawmakers, not lawkeepers. It is their job to update the laws to keep pace with society, not restrict society so existing laws remain useful. In the 'ship of state' metaphor, we're never going to be closer to a drydock and we need a hospital ship not an aircraft carrier.
  - anigbrowl 6y ago
    I heartily agree, but the 2 and 4 year timeframes and existing imbalances in the current electoral system (gerrymandering, wildly varying senatorial electorates etc), make that terribly difficult to achieve in practice.
    - jjk166 6y ago
      That sounds like a very good argument for more reform, not less. The fact is those problems have always existed and aren't going away any time soon, so while waiting for better conditions before we tackle major societal problems might seem sensible in theory, in practice it just means letting the wounds fester indefinitely.
      - anigbrowl 6y ago
        Sure, but how are you going to achieve that? I'd like an entirely different constitutional order (a federalized wikiocracy, in a nutshell) but that would require either a wholesale redrafting or recission of the Constitution. Look at the current situation where there is a 50-50 tie in the Senate, but existing rules create a 60 vote threshold for most legislation. There are a whole lot of issues that I'd like to see reform on, but right now the votes are not there for either party to do so.
        jjk166 5y ago
        The constitution only requires a simple majority of the senate to pass a bill, and there is a tiebreaking vote. The 60 vote threshold is only because of a self-imposed extra-constitutional rule, one which can be abolished with a simple majority vote via the "nuclear option" [0] Effective lawmaking is not some impossible feat under our current system, it was commonplace until very recently. All that has changed is that we've grown complacent and now continue to vote for those who refuse to do their jobs. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option
lutorm 6y ago
No one's saying you can't freelance. But there are some pretty clear rules about what you should be able to do in order to really be a freelancer: choose which jobs you take, set your own hours, decide how you want to do the job, how you dress, etc. What's not OK is when the company wants all the advantages of having contractors but still wants to dictate all these things.
- briandear 6y ago
  The rules around that are pretty clear already. And in the case of Uber, you not only can drive when you want, you can drive for multiple providers at the same time.
  - paulpauper 6y ago
    I think uber has rules about declining rides that may not be as profitable despite being in close vicinity.
- tqi 6y ago
  I think it's less clear than one would expect. What does set your own hours look like? If I hire someone to mow my lawn, and want it to happen while I'm at the store, am I setting that person's hours? What does decide how you want to do the job look like? If I specifically want them to use an electric mower for noise reasons, am I deciding how they do the job for them? Ultimately I feel like we are trying to shoehorn a fundamentally new model into preexisting paradigms, and as a result we waste time haggling over who is what. It feels like instead we should just say this is a new thing, and create a new set of laws to regulate it in the way that we think is best.
  - hellomyguys 6y ago
    None of the your examples are relevant to how Uber and Lyft treats their employees.
  - dheera 6y ago
    > want it to happen while I'm at the store, am I setting that person's hours? > If I specifically want them to use an electric mower for noise reasons The fundamental difference is you, as a customer, can want these things, but the person doing the mower is self-employed and they can negotiate and figure out whether or not they can come to a mutual agreement with you. They could also just simply not come to an agreement with you and the worst that would happen is they don't get your money, and move on with their work and life. It's different than if there was Uber Mowing Co. that managed them and forced them to forgo their lunch and mow your lawn while you were at the store or be fired.
grok22 6y ago
As someone who doesn't have any skin in this game, I too think the about the same things. That we are going towards fixing any problems by forcing companies to make gig-workers employees instead of fixing the systemic problems in the gig-economy in other ways. To me having the freedom to freelance while making decent money seems to be a tremendous benefit giving people lots of flexibility.
bpodgursky 6y ago
It makes sense if you realize that the current US Labor Secretary is a product of union politics (he was as union leader, and most of the political goal of classifying gig workers as employees is to make it easier for the AFL/CIO and Teamsters to unionize them.
- pempem 6y ago
  Sure that may be true, but to what end? To allow workers to ask for better rights rather than being at the whim of a microeconomy created by a company like Uber or others with their own control over "surges" and "down times"? (new account, long time reader, victim of poorly self-managed passwords)
- minimuffins 6y ago
  > US Labor Secretary is a product of union politics The man heading state labor policy is a "product" of the labor movement. Is that supposed to be a scandal? > easier for the AFL/CIO and Teamsters to unionize them Good.
  - svieira 6y ago
    It's not an unmitigated good - unions are just as capable of becoming "another boss" as any other human institution. Simply supporting "unions" without asking "what kinds of unions" is opting people into being harmed coming and going.
    - minimuffins 6y ago
      Unions are good inasmuch they allow labor to bargain with capital by underwriting demands for better pay and conditions with the threat of work stoppage. If unions aren't doing that because they are compromised or sclerotic or whatever, then they aren't much use. Who would argue.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  The previous secretary of labor (the late Justice Scalia’s son) was an anti-worker ideologue who did everything possible to undermine/block the department’s mission, including helping firms to not provide health benefits, steal workers’ overtime pay, discriminate against women and minorities, avoid occupational safety rules, unlawfully block union organizing, etc. It is a good thing for the leader of a government department to have ideological goals broadly aligned with the mission of the institution.
briandear 6y ago
> For example, require freelance employers to include expense tracking and calculate workers earnings after expenses. Should that be up to the freelancer? Ever Uber driver I’ve ever known knows their costs down to the cent. That’s what freelancing is all about. What would be more valuable is required financial literacy courses as a condition of high school graduation. And restricting predatory student loans. But the Big University lobby would stomp that effort out quickly. Education has had higher inflation than even health costs — due almost entirely to the funny money from essentially unlimited student loan availability.
- burlesona 6y ago
  This is a fair point. I honestly don’t know the exact details that would make the best solution, but it seems like we should be seeking to regulate this kind of “platform work” to specifically target the problems that it has, rather than sweeping it all under the broad brush of “freelance vs employee.”
dragontamer 6y ago
Coming out of high school, one of my first jobs (during my college years) was selling knives as a gig. Since we weren't employees, they couldn't necessarily say "come in on these hours", but there were meetings scheduled at the beginning of the day (where we'd get the next list of customers to call and/or sell knives to), among other stuff. ------- There are also lots of Barbers who have to basically come in at certain hours to keep the barbershop open. Barbers however, are largely "gig" work by technicality. You're technically an independent contractor. Etc. etc. These sorts of positions are only "gig" because the companies are exploiting those workers. You really can't choose your hours in sales and/or barbershops. You gotta come in when the customers come in. You gotta close up shop and/or open up in the morning, (kinda like open / close employees / managers). But they're "gig" because the companies want to avoid paying social security taxes, among other taxes associated with proper employment. ---------- Freelancing probably is a "proper gig". That's not the segment of the economy that people are talking about. There are true gig workers. And then there's the huge number of "non-employee / gig-work" where its just a collection of companies avoiding social security taxes.
- abunuwas 6y ago
  That's a good point. One suspects tho that governments are more interested in getting the "proper freelancers" to be treated as employees, since they usually have higher earnings and therefore offer higher revenue possibilities. The UK is going through a similar reform process right now and lots of people are being classed as employees and therefore taking massive pay cuts. End the end, you end up with temporary workers who're taxed as employees but have almost none of the benefits of permanent employees (in the UK at least).
  - dragontamer 6y ago
    In the USA: the government gets its cut no matter what. Employees are taxed 6.2% by the government, and 6.2% to the Employer. Gig workers are taxed 12.4% by the government ("self employed" tax). So in US-law, the government gets its money either way. That's why a "gig-worker in name only" is such an advantage to companies in the USA. It allows companies to cut out 6.2% of its taxes and shove it to the gig-worker instead.
matsemann 6y ago
Freelancing or being a contractor cannot be compared to being a gig worker. All discussion based on "I prefer being a contractor instead of employed" and then extrapolating that to gig workers is meaningless. For instance, a gig worker can't set their own rates, choose clients, no upwards mobility, often in an exploitable position etc.
- Enginerrrd 6y ago
  Ok, but the legislation in CA that was aimed at uber already negatively impacts me and my work as a freelancer consultant in a variety of ways and ironically uber is now exempt. In my small shop of guys, we ended up having to all independently form our own corporations just so that we can share work amongst eachother to better serve the various clients we each bring in without having to do stupid things like write 3 separate contracts with the client. We don't meet the new ABC test because we all perform a similar scope, so whereas before, it was trivial to just write a 1099 for eachother at the end of the year, now we have to have all the corporate infrastructure which is a huge PITA. It's not unlike the gun laws in CA... People that don't like guns and know nothing about them write meaningless and often incredibly arbitrary legislation that doesn't address the problem they are really meaning to address but makes things a pain for everyone else. So, I don't really buy the argument that these types of complaints should just be dismissed. The reality is it's really hard to target "gig" work very specifically without roping in a BUNCH of other contractors that aren't really of interest but will have to comply with the law anyway.
  - IX-103 6y ago
    I think there's a factor that people are missing when they try to define these gig workers: marketability -- who directly benefits from the reputation from customers if a worker does a good job? If the worker does a good job does that impact their marketability -- enable repeat customers and advertising for them specifically (such as via word of mouth) or does it reflect more on the company they are "contracted" to? In the case of Uber and Lift and Instacart, the platform practically prohibits customers from preferring certain providers that have provided good service in the past, so all of the reputation goes to the platform provider. Things would be a lot fuzzier if these platforms provided matching services and would depend on how competitive these markets effectively are. The market for transportation from point A to point B with pickup in the next 10 minutes is inherently limited by providers that can be at point A in the next 10 minutes, so this market may not be competitive for all sources and destinations. In general, contractors should not be interacting with their hiring company's customers on the company's behalf. Only employees should represent the company, since the benefits of those interactions reflect on the company and not on the worker performing the interaction.
nerdponx 6y ago
This idea that we need to provide our social contract / safety net exclusively via employers is so strange to me, compared to simply owning that if we want these to be rights of our citizens then the government should be providing them as tax-paid services. This is the big problem that no policymaker wants to address, because there is a huge amount of money being made off of the status quo. And decades of bad-faith "big government" rhetoric plus "starve the beast" policy have soured the public on it.
- acdha 6y ago
  > This is the big problem that no policymaker wants to address, because there is a huge amount of money being made off of the status quo. The people trying to pass things like Medicare for all would disagree with the “no policymaker” part. Not a majority but they exist and are generally vocal about mentioning this exact point.
  - conductr 6y ago
    I think they had a chance until they started calling it Medicare for all, it’s horrible branding since “good doctors” are known for not accepting Medicare
    - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
      Democrats have had terrible branding for longer than I've been alive. It's harder to maintain a good brand when your competition is shameless and lies through their teeth about fabricated realities more than they tell the truth.
sbarzowski 6y ago
I agree. Just wanted to note that there are systems which are not tax-paid and still avoid the problems that you have in the US. E.g. in Switzerland health insurance is private, but the variables that can be used to determine the price are regulated. The employers cannot directly provide health insurance as a benefit (some provide a cash supplement, but that's effectively a higher salary). This way big companies don't get preferential treatment. You can be a freelancer and have the exact same health insurance as people in big tech.
- burlesona 6y ago
  That makes sense to me: I specifically think that employer provided health insurance is problematic because it means the wealthy and powerful in the US have no idea how painful it is for the “average joe” to deal with insurance. If all the executives in the US had to buy their own coverage via our system, I think there would suddenly be a new huge and well-backed lobby for reform.
awillen 6y ago
Couldn't agree more. If it were up to me, we'd get rid of the minimum wage, let employers pay whatever they want, and then provide UBI to make sure people have their basic needs fulfilled. We came up with this agreement as a society that people should be able to survive and have their basic needs met, and then we forced businesses to actually make it happen through minimum wage (and to a lesser degree insurance, pre-Obamacare). If we came up with it as a society, our society (as represented by our elected government) should be the one actually charged with making that agreement a reality.
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  The problem with this is that corps basically have full knowledge of the market, what they can afford, how much they can pay overall, but employees know none of that. That's were the minimum wage comes in to provide a floor. I know that in your scenario that UBI covers that, but if UBI is equivalent to 40hrs of $15 an hour a LOT of people aren't going to do anything other than play vidya games all day as the rest of us support their addiction.
  - chongli 6y ago
    Let them play video games! By exiting the labour market, they force employers to pay more for the people actually willing to work. This is the main idea behind UBI: instead of forcing people to work undesirable jobs just to feed themselves and then forcing employers to pay a minimum wage for those jobs, we feed people directly and let the market decide how much to pay for those shitty jobs.
    - 29083011397778 6y ago
      > By exiting the labour market, they force employers to pay more for the people actually willing to work I suspect this instead leads to companies determining "nobody is willing to work at the prices we're happy to pay. Therefore there is a labour shortage; we need more immigrants, and we're happy enough to sponser them for a time" Note they don't raise prices, they instead increase the applicant pool.
agogdog 6y ago
This isn't about outlawing freelancing, it's outlawing the practice of freelancing as a method to reduce benefits for people who would otherwise be considered full-time workers. I agree that there are bigger problems at a societal level, but it does make sense to go after employers that are intentionally abusing the system. It's starting to get to a scale where it impacts entire sectors of the economy right now... if universal healthcare were passed tomorrow it would still take quite amount of time for it to exist. They're related problems, but there's no reason to not solve one while we're figuring out the other.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
throwaway189262 6y ago
Most gigs jobs are exploitative. You're not setting your own rates. You can't choose which rides you take. You can't follow your own rules. Remember when Uber was giving back to back rides to drivers that had Lyft driver app installed so they couldn't effectively drive for both? That doesn't sound like freelance work to me. Much of the pay structure is based on hitting a certain number of rides per week. So to get "decent" pay rate you need to work a certain number of hours. Sometimes the company even owns your car and leases it to you contingent on doing a certain number of rides. And you have no input on which rides you get once you go online. It's nothing like traditional freelance work. It's more like high tech pizza delivery driver. And those workers are all considered employees.
- wavepruner 6y ago
  Uber driver here. > You're not setting your own rates. You can't choose which rides you take. You can't follow your own rules. As of a few years ago you can choose which rides you take without penalty. This is effectively how you negotiate rates as well. Only drive during busy times and accept high rate rides. > Remember when Uber was giving back to back rides to drivers that had Lyft driver app installed so they couldn't effectively drive for both? That doesn't sound like freelance work to me. The back-to-back ride thing has nothing to do with having the Lyft app installed or not. It's a great feature that allows you to have your next ride lined up while on the current ride. It dramatically increases profit and efficiency (which also means less dead-miles -> less gas wasted -> less emissions). You can decline these "back-to-back" rides just like any other ride request. > Much of the pay structure is based on hitting a certain number of rides per week. So to get "decent" pay rate you need to work a certain number of hours. If you drive when it's busy the incentives don't matter. My take home-profit (even after depreciation of vehicle) is $15-30/hr for about 20 hours per week. > Sometimes the company even owns your car and leases it to you contingent on doing a certain number of rides. I don't know any Uber drivers in my city who lease their cars from Uber. Never heard of this happening. > And you have no input on which rides you get once you go online. You get all the ride requests near you. You can decline at will with no penalty.
  - sundaeofshock 5y ago
jimmygrapes 6y ago
In general this is a result of the mindset which says "I know better than you how your earnings should be allocated" combined with the idea that employers are much easier to regulate top down (through regulations, fines, licensure, etc.) than individual employees are. Taxation/governmental revenue boards or organizations struggle as is to keep individuals honest, and adding the burdens and complexities of business income/expense reporting to individuals is just begging for more (unintentional) disconnect between what they expect to receive vs what an individual expects to pay. Not sure either direction (employee vs contractor) is a good solution here. More likely a simplification of the system is needed.
barrkel 6y ago
How about a different perspective. Freelancers doing gig work are a drain on society if they fall back on to social safety nets when not employed. It's not in society's interest to have these people paying taxes only when they feel like it, especially if it ends up cannibalising slightly less efficient industry which reliably keeps people employed and paying taxes. Not entirely serious - I do have sympathy for the position that gig work puts otherwise idle labour to good use - but I do think Uber and many similar companies are extracting efficiencies that hadn't been locked out with laws only because the tech to extract them hadn't been invented yet, a kind of regulatory arbitrage on a functional status quo.
- Dracophoenix 6y ago
  In response to your first paragraph, I quote Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand: “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.” In response to your second paragraph, regulatory arbitrage is efficiency seeking. I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase "vote with your feet". It's not like people move to a new job out of a state or out of country with the expectations that the laws remain same. In a similar fashion, Uber isn't obligated to base it's behavior on laws or regulations that don't exist. The same could be said of Paypal, Youtube, AirBnB and more recently with cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The way you phrase your sentences seems to suggest you classify pursuing economic freedom as a preemptive regulatory evasion.
  - barrkel 6y ago
    > In response to your first paragraph, I quote Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand: “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.” This is completely irrelevant. I'm talking about policy-making. I'm talking about the motivations behind making the rules, not how you work within the rules. > regulatory arbitrage is efficiency seeking That's right. I think that's what I said. > economic freedom as a preemptive regulatory evasion No, but policy-makers are free to take that approach, because they create the rules. If the rules don't cover new behaviour, the motivation - the original political will - behind previous rules often, and in fact usually, creates political will to introduce new rules. That's ok, it's the system working. It's why we have governments on an ongoing basis, and don't just stop once we have one set of laws.

anigbrowl 6y ago

Thing is most of the regulatory infrastructure you describe already exists in employment law. The broad societal proposals you describe would necessitate a radical reappraisal of contract law and a lot of other things. To use the popular 'ship of state' metaphor, it would be sort of like dramatically reconfiguring an aircraft carrier while it's at sea.

grok22 6y ago
I guess that is what is happening here...fixing any problems using the existing model instead of trying to figure out new ways of fixing the problems to fix the new model of employment in some industries.
jjk166 6y ago
We elect lawmakers, not lawkeepers. It is their job to update the laws to keep pace with society, not restrict society so existing laws remain useful. In the 'ship of state' metaphor, we're never going to be closer to a drydock and we need a hospital ship not an aircraft carrier.
- anigbrowl 6y ago
  I heartily agree, but the 2 and 4 year timeframes and existing imbalances in the current electoral system (gerrymandering, wildly varying senatorial electorates etc), make that terribly difficult to achieve in practice.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    That sounds like a very good argument for more reform, not less. The fact is those problems have always existed and aren't going away any time soon, so while waiting for better conditions before we tackle major societal problems might seem sensible in theory, in practice it just means letting the wounds fester indefinitely.
    - anigbrowl 6y ago
      Sure, but how are you going to achieve that? I'd like an entirely different constitutional order (a federalized wikiocracy, in a nutshell) but that would require either a wholesale redrafting or recission of the Constitution. Look at the current situation where there is a 50-50 tie in the Senate, but existing rules create a 60 vote threshold for most legislation. There are a whole lot of issues that I'd like to see reform on, but right now the votes are not there for either party to do so.
      - jjk166 5y ago
        The constitution only requires a simple majority of the senate to pass a bill, and there is a tiebreaking vote. The 60 vote threshold is only because of a self-imposed extra-constitutional rule, one which can be abolished with a simple majority vote via the "nuclear option" [0] Effective lawmaking is not some impossible feat under our current system, it was commonplace until very recently. All that has changed is that we've grown complacent and now continue to vote for those who refuse to do their jobs. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option

lutorm 6y ago

No one's saying you can't freelance. But there are some pretty clear rules about what you should be able to do in order to really be a freelancer: choose which jobs you take, set your own hours, decide how you want to do the job, how you dress, etc. What's not OK is when the company wants all the advantages of having contractors but still wants to dictate all these things.

briandear 6y ago
The rules around that are pretty clear already. And in the case of Uber, you not only can drive when you want, you can drive for multiple providers at the same time.
- paulpauper 6y ago
  I think uber has rules about declining rides that may not be as profitable despite being in close vicinity.
tqi 6y ago
I think it's less clear than one would expect. What does set your own hours look like? If I hire someone to mow my lawn, and want it to happen while I'm at the store, am I setting that person's hours? What does decide how you want to do the job look like? If I specifically want them to use an electric mower for noise reasons, am I deciding how they do the job for them? Ultimately I feel like we are trying to shoehorn a fundamentally new model into preexisting paradigms, and as a result we waste time haggling over who is what. It feels like instead we should just say this is a new thing, and create a new set of laws to regulate it in the way that we think is best.
- hellomyguys 6y ago
  None of the your examples are relevant to how Uber and Lyft treats their employees.
- dheera 6y ago
  > want it to happen while I'm at the store, am I setting that person's hours? > If I specifically want them to use an electric mower for noise reasons The fundamental difference is you, as a customer, can want these things, but the person doing the mower is self-employed and they can negotiate and figure out whether or not they can come to a mutual agreement with you. They could also just simply not come to an agreement with you and the worst that would happen is they don't get your money, and move on with their work and life. It's different than if there was Uber Mowing Co. that managed them and forced them to forgo their lunch and mow your lawn while you were at the store or be fired.

grok22 6y ago

As someone who doesn't have any skin in this game, I too think the about the same things. That we are going towards fixing any problems by forcing companies to make gig-workers employees instead of fixing the systemic problems in the gig-economy in other ways. To me having the freedom to freelance while making decent money seems to be a tremendous benefit giving people lots of flexibility.

bpodgursky 6y ago

It makes sense if you realize that the current US Labor Secretary is a product of union politics (he was as union leader, and most of the political goal of classifying gig workers as employees is to make it easier for the AFL/CIO and Teamsters to unionize them.

pempem 6y ago
Sure that may be true, but to what end? To allow workers to ask for better rights rather than being at the whim of a microeconomy created by a company like Uber or others with their own control over "surges" and "down times"? (new account, long time reader, victim of poorly self-managed passwords)
minimuffins 6y ago
> US Labor Secretary is a product of union politics The man heading state labor policy is a "product" of the labor movement. Is that supposed to be a scandal? > easier for the AFL/CIO and Teamsters to unionize them Good.
- svieira 6y ago
  It's not an unmitigated good - unions are just as capable of becoming "another boss" as any other human institution. Simply supporting "unions" without asking "what kinds of unions" is opting people into being harmed coming and going.
  - minimuffins 6y ago
    Unions are good inasmuch they allow labor to bargain with capital by underwriting demands for better pay and conditions with the threat of work stoppage. If unions aren't doing that because they are compromised or sclerotic or whatever, then they aren't much use. Who would argue.
jacobolus 6y ago
The previous secretary of labor (the late Justice Scalia’s son) was an anti-worker ideologue who did everything possible to undermine/block the department’s mission, including helping firms to not provide health benefits, steal workers’ overtime pay, discriminate against women and minorities, avoid occupational safety rules, unlawfully block union organizing, etc. It is a good thing for the leader of a government department to have ideological goals broadly aligned with the mission of the institution.

briandear 6y ago

> For example, require freelance employers to include expense tracking and calculate workers earnings after expenses. Should that be up to the freelancer? Ever Uber driver I’ve ever known knows their costs down to the cent. That’s what freelancing is all about. What would be more valuable is required financial literacy courses as a condition of high school graduation. And restricting predatory student loans. But the Big University lobby would stomp that effort out quickly. Education has had higher inflation than even health costs — due almost entirely to the funny money from essentially unlimited student loan availability.

burlesona 6y ago
This is a fair point. I honestly don’t know the exact details that would make the best solution, but it seems like we should be seeking to regulate this kind of “platform work” to specifically target the problems that it has, rather than sweeping it all under the broad brush of “freelance vs employee.”

dragontamer 6y ago

Coming out of high school, one of my first jobs (during my college years) was selling knives as a gig. Since we weren't employees, they couldn't necessarily say "come in on these hours", but there were meetings scheduled at the beginning of the day (where we'd get the next list of customers to call and/or sell knives to), among other stuff. ------- There are also lots of Barbers who have to basically come in at certain hours to keep the barbershop open. Barbers however, are largely "gig" work by technicality. You're technically an independent contractor. Etc. etc. These sorts of positions are only "gig" because the companies are exploiting those workers. You really can't choose your hours in sales and/or barbershops. You gotta come in when the customers come in. You gotta close up shop and/or open up in the morning, (kinda like open / close employees / managers). But they're "gig" because the companies want to avoid paying social security taxes, among other taxes associated with proper employment. ---------- Freelancing probably is a "proper gig". That's not the segment of the economy that people are talking about. There are true gig workers. And then there's the huge number of "non-employee / gig-work" where its just a collection of companies avoiding social security taxes.

abunuwas 6y ago
That's a good point. One suspects tho that governments are more interested in getting the "proper freelancers" to be treated as employees, since they usually have higher earnings and therefore offer higher revenue possibilities. The UK is going through a similar reform process right now and lots of people are being classed as employees and therefore taking massive pay cuts. End the end, you end up with temporary workers who're taxed as employees but have almost none of the benefits of permanent employees (in the UK at least).
- dragontamer 6y ago
  In the USA: the government gets its cut no matter what. Employees are taxed 6.2% by the government, and 6.2% to the Employer. Gig workers are taxed 12.4% by the government ("self employed" tax). So in US-law, the government gets its money either way. That's why a "gig-worker in name only" is such an advantage to companies in the USA. It allows companies to cut out 6.2% of its taxes and shove it to the gig-worker instead.

matsemann 6y ago

Freelancing or being a contractor cannot be compared to being a gig worker. All discussion based on "I prefer being a contractor instead of employed" and then extrapolating that to gig workers is meaningless. For instance, a gig worker can't set their own rates, choose clients, no upwards mobility, often in an exploitable position etc.

Enginerrrd 6y ago
Ok, but the legislation in CA that was aimed at uber already negatively impacts me and my work as a freelancer consultant in a variety of ways and ironically uber is now exempt. In my small shop of guys, we ended up having to all independently form our own corporations just so that we can share work amongst eachother to better serve the various clients we each bring in without having to do stupid things like write 3 separate contracts with the client. We don't meet the new ABC test because we all perform a similar scope, so whereas before, it was trivial to just write a 1099 for eachother at the end of the year, now we have to have all the corporate infrastructure which is a huge PITA. It's not unlike the gun laws in CA... People that don't like guns and know nothing about them write meaningless and often incredibly arbitrary legislation that doesn't address the problem they are really meaning to address but makes things a pain for everyone else. So, I don't really buy the argument that these types of complaints should just be dismissed. The reality is it's really hard to target "gig" work very specifically without roping in a BUNCH of other contractors that aren't really of interest but will have to comply with the law anyway.
- IX-103 6y ago
  I think there's a factor that people are missing when they try to define these gig workers: marketability -- who directly benefits from the reputation from customers if a worker does a good job? If the worker does a good job does that impact their marketability -- enable repeat customers and advertising for them specifically (such as via word of mouth) or does it reflect more on the company they are "contracted" to? In the case of Uber and Lift and Instacart, the platform practically prohibits customers from preferring certain providers that have provided good service in the past, so all of the reputation goes to the platform provider. Things would be a lot fuzzier if these platforms provided matching services and would depend on how competitive these markets effectively are. The market for transportation from point A to point B with pickup in the next 10 minutes is inherently limited by providers that can be at point A in the next 10 minutes, so this market may not be competitive for all sources and destinations. In general, contractors should not be interacting with their hiring company's customers on the company's behalf. Only employees should represent the company, since the benefits of those interactions reflect on the company and not on the worker performing the interaction.

nerdponx 6y ago

This idea that we need to provide our social contract / safety net exclusively via employers is so strange to me, compared to simply owning that if we want these to be rights of our citizens then the government should be providing them as tax-paid services. This is the big problem that no policymaker wants to address, because there is a huge amount of money being made off of the status quo. And decades of bad-faith "big government" rhetoric plus "starve the beast" policy have soured the public on it.

acdha 6y ago
> This is the big problem that no policymaker wants to address, because there is a huge amount of money being made off of the status quo. The people trying to pass things like Medicare for all would disagree with the “no policymaker” part. Not a majority but they exist and are generally vocal about mentioning this exact point.
- conductr 6y ago
  I think they had a chance until they started calling it Medicare for all, it’s horrible branding since “good doctors” are known for not accepting Medicare
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 6y ago
    Democrats have had terrible branding for longer than I've been alive. It's harder to maintain a good brand when your competition is shameless and lies through their teeth about fabricated realities more than they tell the truth.

sbarzowski 6y ago

I agree. Just wanted to note that there are systems which are not tax-paid and still avoid the problems that you have in the US. E.g. in Switzerland health insurance is private, but the variables that can be used to determine the price are regulated. The employers cannot directly provide health insurance as a benefit (some provide a cash supplement, but that's effectively a higher salary). This way big companies don't get preferential treatment. You can be a freelancer and have the exact same health insurance as people in big tech.

burlesona 6y ago
That makes sense to me: I specifically think that employer provided health insurance is problematic because it means the wealthy and powerful in the US have no idea how painful it is for the “average joe” to deal with insurance. If all the executives in the US had to buy their own coverage via our system, I think there would suddenly be a new huge and well-backed lobby for reform.

awillen 6y ago

Couldn't agree more. If it were up to me, we'd get rid of the minimum wage, let employers pay whatever they want, and then provide UBI to make sure people have their basic needs fulfilled. We came up with this agreement as a society that people should be able to survive and have their basic needs met, and then we forced businesses to actually make it happen through minimum wage (and to a lesser degree insurance, pre-Obamacare). If we came up with it as a society, our society (as represented by our elected government) should be the one actually charged with making that agreement a reality.

stjohnswarts 6y ago
The problem with this is that corps basically have full knowledge of the market, what they can afford, how much they can pay overall, but employees know none of that. That's were the minimum wage comes in to provide a floor. I know that in your scenario that UBI covers that, but if UBI is equivalent to 40hrs of $15 an hour a LOT of people aren't going to do anything other than play vidya games all day as the rest of us support their addiction.
- chongli 6y ago
  Let them play video games! By exiting the labour market, they force employers to pay more for the people actually willing to work. This is the main idea behind UBI: instead of forcing people to work undesirable jobs just to feed themselves and then forcing employers to pay a minimum wage for those jobs, we feed people directly and let the market decide how much to pay for those shitty jobs.
  - 29083011397778 6y ago
    > By exiting the labour market, they force employers to pay more for the people actually willing to work I suspect this instead leads to companies determining "nobody is willing to work at the prices we're happy to pay. Therefore there is a labour shortage; we need more immigrants, and we're happy enough to sponser them for a time" Note they don't raise prices, they instead increase the applicant pool.

agogdog 6y ago

This isn't about outlawing freelancing, it's outlawing the practice of freelancing as a method to reduce benefits for people who would otherwise be considered full-time workers. I agree that there are bigger problems at a societal level, but it does make sense to go after employers that are intentionally abusing the system. It's starting to get to a scale where it impacts entire sectors of the economy right now... if universal healthcare were passed tomorrow it would still take quite amount of time for it to exist. They're related problems, but there's no reason to not solve one while we're figuring out the other.

deleted 6y ago

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throwaway189262 6y ago

Most gigs jobs are exploitative. You're not setting your own rates. You can't choose which rides you take. You can't follow your own rules. Remember when Uber was giving back to back rides to drivers that had Lyft driver app installed so they couldn't effectively drive for both? That doesn't sound like freelance work to me. Much of the pay structure is based on hitting a certain number of rides per week. So to get "decent" pay rate you need to work a certain number of hours. Sometimes the company even owns your car and leases it to you contingent on doing a certain number of rides. And you have no input on which rides you get once you go online. It's nothing like traditional freelance work. It's more like high tech pizza delivery driver. And those workers are all considered employees.

wavepruner 6y ago
Uber driver here. > You're not setting your own rates. You can't choose which rides you take. You can't follow your own rules. As of a few years ago you can choose which rides you take without penalty. This is effectively how you negotiate rates as well. Only drive during busy times and accept high rate rides. > Remember when Uber was giving back to back rides to drivers that had Lyft driver app installed so they couldn't effectively drive for both? That doesn't sound like freelance work to me. The back-to-back ride thing has nothing to do with having the Lyft app installed or not. It's a great feature that allows you to have your next ride lined up while on the current ride. It dramatically increases profit and efficiency (which also means less dead-miles -> less gas wasted -> less emissions). You can decline these "back-to-back" rides just like any other ride request. > Much of the pay structure is based on hitting a certain number of rides per week. So to get "decent" pay rate you need to work a certain number of hours. If you drive when it's busy the incentives don't matter. My take home-profit (even after depreciation of vehicle) is $15-30/hr for about 20 hours per week. > Sometimes the company even owns your car and leases it to you contingent on doing a certain number of rides. I don't know any Uber drivers in my city who lease their cars from Uber. Never heard of this happening. > And you have no input on which rides you get once you go online. You get all the ride requests near you. You can decline at will with no penalty.
- sundaeofshock 5y ago

jimmygrapes 6y ago

In general this is a result of the mindset which says "I know better than you how your earnings should be allocated" combined with the idea that employers are much easier to regulate top down (through regulations, fines, licensure, etc.) than individual employees are. Taxation/governmental revenue boards or organizations struggle as is to keep individuals honest, and adding the burdens and complexities of business income/expense reporting to individuals is just begging for more (unintentional) disconnect between what they expect to receive vs what an individual expects to pay. Not sure either direction (employee vs contractor) is a good solution here. More likely a simplification of the system is needed.

barrkel 6y ago

How about a different perspective. Freelancers doing gig work are a drain on society if they fall back on to social safety nets when not employed. It's not in society's interest to have these people paying taxes only when they feel like it, especially if it ends up cannibalising slightly less efficient industry which reliably keeps people employed and paying taxes. Not entirely serious - I do have sympathy for the position that gig work puts otherwise idle labour to good use - but I do think Uber and many similar companies are extracting efficiencies that hadn't been locked out with laws only because the tech to extract them hadn't been invented yet, a kind of regulatory arbitrage on a functional status quo.

Dracophoenix 6y ago
In response to your first paragraph, I quote Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand: “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.” In response to your second paragraph, regulatory arbitrage is efficiency seeking. I'm sure you're familiar with the phrase "vote with your feet". It's not like people move to a new job out of a state or out of country with the expectations that the laws remain same. In a similar fashion, Uber isn't obligated to base it's behavior on laws or regulations that don't exist. The same could be said of Paypal, Youtube, AirBnB and more recently with cryptocurrencies and NFTs. The way you phrase your sentences seems to suggest you classify pursuing economic freedom as a preemptive regulatory evasion.
- barrkel 6y ago
  > In response to your first paragraph, I quote Supreme Court Justice Learned Hand: “Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes.” This is completely irrelevant. I'm talking about policy-making. I'm talking about the motivations behind making the rules, not how you work within the rules. > regulatory arbitrage is efficiency seeking That's right. I think that's what I said. > economic freedom as a preemptive regulatory evasion No, but policy-makers are free to take that approach, because they create the rules. If the rules don't cover new behaviour, the motivation - the original political will - behind previous rules often, and in fact usually, creates political will to introduce new rules. That's ok, it's the system working. It's why we have governments on an ongoing basis, and don't just stop once we have one set of laws.