4 ms·

This is something I think was really misguided about the big push to make gig workers “full employees” in various states. It felt like solving the issue of “so

This is something I think was really misguided about the big push to make gig workers “full employees” in various states. It felt like solving the issue of “so many benefits and taxes are tied to employment when they shouldn’t be” by simply forcing the new jobs into the same bad system, instead of figuring out how to make the system better overall. There are a lot of people out there for whom a regular job with a regular schedule are not a good fit for their life. The option to work when you can and not work when you can’t is a huge thing and we should be working on figuring out how to make that a more viable option rather than trying to tear it down because it can be abused. Especially when you consider that for many people in that position today all the security that supposedly comes with a regular job isn’t something they have because the only jobs they can take are minimum wage low skill jobs that usually come with no benefits anyway and will fire you the first time you call out. At least with the gig work, there’s no one calling you on the phone wanting to know where you are today and why you’re sick again.

slg 4y ago
> It felt like solving the issue of “so many benefits and taxes are tied to employment when they shouldn’t be” by simply forcing the new jobs into the same bad system, instead of figuring out how to make the system better overall. Do people deny this? The motivation for this approach is that it is easier to write one law than totally revolutionize our entire economic system. This complaint reminds me of the people who don't tip because they think the system is stupid. Sure, the ideal system would pay people a living wage and give them benefits from the start, but that system isn't here today and likely won't be here tomorrow. People need to live in the current system and they can't afford to wait. Refusing to try to help those people until we have the political will to change our entire economic system seems heartless to me.
- teaearlgraycold 4y ago
  People that like the wealth re-distribution of universal health care, UBI or other systemic ways to help the under-paid but don't tip are full of shit. Wealth re-distribution starts local and if you have more money than you need you should tip. I have a high paying job and no kids. I'll go 25%, sometimes 30%. It doesn't really matter to me but it does to the service worker.
  - fineIllregister 4y ago
    > Wealth re-distribution starts local and if you have more money than you need you should tip. Tipping isn't wealth redistribution. The server might be wealthier and make more money than me. Tips aren't income security or health care. I think it would be strange to call it "wealth" too. I'm not dropping enough money on the table to buy significant capital. I tip because that's how the service is expected to be paid for. The system is set up so that the server bears the risk. It's unfair stiff the person with the least ability to change that system.
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  > that system isn't here today and likely won't be here tomorrow And the more you prop the old system up by tipping the less likely it will be that the new system will ever arrive.
- AnthonyMouse 4y ago
  > People need to live in the current system and they can't afford to wait. Refusing to try to help those people until we have the political will to change our entire economic system seems heartless to me. Your way is to make the incumbent system just tolerable enough that it never changes. Under the existing system, you can take a job at a retailer making $10/hour, or you can work in a restaurant for $2/hour plus tips, which comes out to $10/hour again. Flip a coin. If some people stop tipping, the restaurant is now paying the equivalent of $9/hour after tips and the restaurant has to raise the base pay to $3/hour or the worker will quit and work for the retailer. If everyone stops tipping, the restaurant has to pay $10/hour. Workers can respond to this at the individual level in proportion to how much it happens. But if no one ever stops tipping, where does the change come from? The restaurants? No. So you get the status quo indefinitely.
  - slg 4y ago
    >If some people stop tipping, the restaurant is now paying the equivalent of $9/hour after tips and the restaurant has to pay $3/hour or the worker will quit and work for the retailer. But it isn't a straight $9/hr. It is $10/hr some hours, $5/hr some hours, $3/hr some hours, etc. And as these studies suggest, that will literally kill people. We can't just say "here is the position we want to be and here is the quickest way to get there". We need to care about the people who are caught in the transition from one system to the next. Trying to enact this change through a grassroots effort of refusing to tip is the most painful way to accomplish this for the people who are currently stuck in that system. >But if no one ever stops tipping, where does the change come from? The same type of legislation that people here are complaining about. If you want to change the system for the altruistic reasons you suggest, put your effort into talking to your politicians. When the only work for change is withholding your money, it certainly seems like the motivation is selfishness covered with a thin facade of concern for the service workers.
    - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
      > But it isn't a straight $9/hr. It is $10/hr some hours, $5/hr some hours, $3/hr some hours, etc. It's basic arithmetic to add up how many total dollars you make in a week, divide it by the number of hours and compare it to what other jobs pay. Then threaten to quit unless your boss pays you as much as you could get elsewhere, or take the other job if they won't. > And as these studies suggest, that will literally kill people. Renegotiating base pay or changing jobs will literally kill people? These studies are correlational. They equally suggest that people with preexisting health problems take more flexible jobs. > The same type of legislation that people here are complaining about. But that's the legislation that upholds the status quo. > When the only work for change is withholding your money, it certainly seems like the motivation is selfishness covered with a thin facade of concern for the service workers. Those are the things that work best, because the incentives are aligned. If your plan relies on people acting against their own interests, how often does that work?
- tpmoney 4y ago
  The problem with this argument for me is is seems to rest on the assumption that all of these gig workers would somehow otherwise be eligible for benefits at some other job and they are being duped into taking the gig work. I just don’t think that’s true. I think gig workers are mostly the same people that already don’t have good job with benefits prospects and whether they’re working for Uber or Walmart or a real taxi company would be in the same place. So the argument that we must do this quick thing that continues to prop up a bad and failing system as opposed to doing something else that moves the needle on improving the system seems like false urgency. You also don’t need to change the whole system, just one part of it. I find it hard to believe that in a state like California it was easier to get support for “all contract employees are now w2 employees, except for this long list of arbitrary exclusions” (which may or may not actually result in those employees getting benefits) than it would have been for “all people who earn at least 70% of their income from 1099 income are now eligible for MediCal and/or subsidized market place plans and unemployment insurance.” Heck if you really wanted to “stick it to” the gig jobs you could even add a new tax to cover this on any company that employs more than 50 (or some other number) or more 1099 employees in the state. Instead we seem more focused on trying to make gig jobs work more like “real jobs” and that to me actively harms people who benefit from having gig jobs be available. And we know there’s demand for that sort of work, so why try and throw it out just because we’re too lazy to make real changes
  - slg 4y ago
    >The problem with this argument for me is is seems to rest on the assumption that all of these gig workers would somehow otherwise be eligible for benefits at some other job and they are being duped into taking the gig work I don't know where this assumption is coming from. I support this type of law because I think people deserve benefits. >I find it hard to believe that in a state like California it was easier to get support for “all contract employees are now w2 employees, except for this long list of arbitrary exclusions” (which may or may not actually result in those employees getting benefits) than it would have been for “all people who earn at least 70% of their income from 1099 income are now eligible for MediCal and/or subsidized market place plans and unemployment insurance.” Heck if you really wanted to “stick it to” the gig jobs you could even add a new tax to cover this on any company that employs more than 50 (or some other number) or more 1099 employees in the state. It would take someone who pays a lot more attention to California politics than me to fully explain this. All I can do is say that one was made a law and one wasn't. From this layman's perspective, it seems like the one that was made a law was easier to make a law. And for the record, I would support your proposed law too, because I think people deserve benefits.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

slg 4y ago

> It felt like solving the issue of “so many benefits and taxes are tied to employment when they shouldn’t be” by simply forcing the new jobs into the same bad system, instead of figuring out how to make the system better overall. Do people deny this? The motivation for this approach is that it is easier to write one law than totally revolutionize our entire economic system. This complaint reminds me of the people who don't tip because they think the system is stupid. Sure, the ideal system would pay people a living wage and give them benefits from the start, but that system isn't here today and likely won't be here tomorrow. People need to live in the current system and they can't afford to wait. Refusing to try to help those people until we have the political will to change our entire economic system seems heartless to me.

teaearlgraycold 4y ago
People that like the wealth re-distribution of universal health care, UBI or other systemic ways to help the under-paid but don't tip are full of shit. Wealth re-distribution starts local and if you have more money than you need you should tip. I have a high paying job and no kids. I'll go 25%, sometimes 30%. It doesn't really matter to me but it does to the service worker.
- fineIllregister 4y ago
  > Wealth re-distribution starts local and if you have more money than you need you should tip. Tipping isn't wealth redistribution. The server might be wealthier and make more money than me. Tips aren't income security or health care. I think it would be strange to call it "wealth" too. I'm not dropping enough money on the table to buy significant capital. I tip because that's how the service is expected to be paid for. The system is set up so that the server bears the risk. It's unfair stiff the person with the least ability to change that system.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
> that system isn't here today and likely won't be here tomorrow And the more you prop the old system up by tipping the less likely it will be that the new system will ever arrive.
AnthonyMouse 4y ago
> People need to live in the current system and they can't afford to wait. Refusing to try to help those people until we have the political will to change our entire economic system seems heartless to me. Your way is to make the incumbent system just tolerable enough that it never changes. Under the existing system, you can take a job at a retailer making $10/hour, or you can work in a restaurant for $2/hour plus tips, which comes out to $10/hour again. Flip a coin. If some people stop tipping, the restaurant is now paying the equivalent of $9/hour after tips and the restaurant has to raise the base pay to $3/hour or the worker will quit and work for the retailer. If everyone stops tipping, the restaurant has to pay $10/hour. Workers can respond to this at the individual level in proportion to how much it happens. But if no one ever stops tipping, where does the change come from? The restaurants? No. So you get the status quo indefinitely.
- slg 4y ago
  >If some people stop tipping, the restaurant is now paying the equivalent of $9/hour after tips and the restaurant has to pay $3/hour or the worker will quit and work for the retailer. But it isn't a straight $9/hr. It is $10/hr some hours, $5/hr some hours, $3/hr some hours, etc. And as these studies suggest, that will literally kill people. We can't just say "here is the position we want to be and here is the quickest way to get there". We need to care about the people who are caught in the transition from one system to the next. Trying to enact this change through a grassroots effort of refusing to tip is the most painful way to accomplish this for the people who are currently stuck in that system. >But if no one ever stops tipping, where does the change come from? The same type of legislation that people here are complaining about. If you want to change the system for the altruistic reasons you suggest, put your effort into talking to your politicians. When the only work for change is withholding your money, it certainly seems like the motivation is selfishness covered with a thin facade of concern for the service workers.
  - AnthonyMouse 4y ago
    > But it isn't a straight $9/hr. It is $10/hr some hours, $5/hr some hours, $3/hr some hours, etc. It's basic arithmetic to add up how many total dollars you make in a week, divide it by the number of hours and compare it to what other jobs pay. Then threaten to quit unless your boss pays you as much as you could get elsewhere, or take the other job if they won't. > And as these studies suggest, that will literally kill people. Renegotiating base pay or changing jobs will literally kill people? These studies are correlational. They equally suggest that people with preexisting health problems take more flexible jobs. > The same type of legislation that people here are complaining about. But that's the legislation that upholds the status quo. > When the only work for change is withholding your money, it certainly seems like the motivation is selfishness covered with a thin facade of concern for the service workers. Those are the things that work best, because the incentives are aligned. If your plan relies on people acting against their own interests, how often does that work?
tpmoney 4y ago
The problem with this argument for me is is seems to rest on the assumption that all of these gig workers would somehow otherwise be eligible for benefits at some other job and they are being duped into taking the gig work. I just don’t think that’s true. I think gig workers are mostly the same people that already don’t have good job with benefits prospects and whether they’re working for Uber or Walmart or a real taxi company would be in the same place. So the argument that we must do this quick thing that continues to prop up a bad and failing system as opposed to doing something else that moves the needle on improving the system seems like false urgency. You also don’t need to change the whole system, just one part of it. I find it hard to believe that in a state like California it was easier to get support for “all contract employees are now w2 employees, except for this long list of arbitrary exclusions” (which may or may not actually result in those employees getting benefits) than it would have been for “all people who earn at least 70% of their income from 1099 income are now eligible for MediCal and/or subsidized market place plans and unemployment insurance.” Heck if you really wanted to “stick it to” the gig jobs you could even add a new tax to cover this on any company that employs more than 50 (or some other number) or more 1099 employees in the state. Instead we seem more focused on trying to make gig jobs work more like “real jobs” and that to me actively harms people who benefit from having gig jobs be available. And we know there’s demand for that sort of work, so why try and throw it out just because we’re too lazy to make real changes
- slg 4y ago
  >The problem with this argument for me is is seems to rest on the assumption that all of these gig workers would somehow otherwise be eligible for benefits at some other job and they are being duped into taking the gig work I don't know where this assumption is coming from. I support this type of law because I think people deserve benefits. >I find it hard to believe that in a state like California it was easier to get support for “all contract employees are now w2 employees, except for this long list of arbitrary exclusions” (which may or may not actually result in those employees getting benefits) than it would have been for “all people who earn at least 70% of their income from 1099 income are now eligible for MediCal and/or subsidized market place plans and unemployment insurance.” Heck if you really wanted to “stick it to” the gig jobs you could even add a new tax to cover this on any company that employs more than 50 (or some other number) or more 1099 employees in the state. It would take someone who pays a lot more attention to California politics than me to fully explain this. All I can do is say that one was made a law and one wasn't. From this layman's perspective, it seems like the one that was made a law was easier to make a law. And for the record, I would support your proposed law too, because I think people deserve benefits.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]