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The Uber Economy Requires a New Category of Worker

• Animats 11y ago
  From the article: " But it would ameliorate one of the worst problems with the 1099 economy without fundamentally quashing the business model, namely pay that works out to less than the minimum wage." The entire purpose of labor law is to quash that "business model". Unions. The people who brought you the weekend.
  • hkmurakami 11y ago
    There's one area where hourly wages are way below minimum wages in a country you wouldn't expect: Animators in Japan. It's not uncommon for them to make ~$2/hour because they're paid "per sheet" that they draw. (I think minimum wages are 800 yen per hour, or roughly $6.50)
    • deciplex 11y ago
      Seeing that makes me wince. It was not long ago that you would have instead typed "or roughly $10". I'm not sure to what extent that's affected minimum-wage workers in Japan though, if at all.
  • fwn 11y ago
    The church & the productivity increase brought the weekend.
• littletimmy 11y ago
  Is this a joke? We do not need a new category of worker just because a few corporations decide that they do not want to provide their workers with benefits. The benefits that come with the employee designation are the bare minimum. A company that cannot afford to provide those to employees should not exist.
  • hkmurakami 11y ago
    Most retail places have been doing this sort of "just in time" hiring for years now. This just takes it one step further. :(
  • natrius 11y ago
    Imagine that we could eliminate Uber and connect drivers directly to riders with the same experience as Uber's app. Nothing has changed about the nature of the driver's work, but there's no entity to be an employer in the first place. Employee benefits for this kind of work just won't exist. Technology is making it easier for people to provide services for a wide pool of individuals without needing a company to employ them. The companies make an easy target for this sort of complaint today, but they are middlemen that will be eliminated by decentralized systems.
    • littletimmy 11y ago
      I've been thinking along those same lines. Is Uber the corporation in any way essential to Uber the service? I have a feeling this can be done via a worker's coop. But someone will need to take the initiative to start.
      • tracker1 11y ago
        There's also the overhead, but a $x fee/year for each driver/user (as part of the first ride fee) would probably cover that pretty easily...
    • deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    • makomk 11y ago
      Nothing would change, except that there'd no longer be an Uber controlling the prices they charge and the cars they use and taking a cut. In other words, the thing that would change is that they'd actually be independent contractors with control over their own working conditions.
    • 11y ago
• noja 11y ago
  The more I learn about Uber, the less I want an Uber Economy.
  • dylanjermiah 11y ago
    Talk to the actual drivers, not the press.
    • uptown 11y ago
      This is a good read from a driver's perspective: http://citypaper.net/uberdriver/ http://citypaper.net/uberdriver/
• higherpurpose 11y ago
  Is that category a robot?
• deegles 11y ago
  I don't see anyone besides Uber winning in the Uber economy. It's right in the name. Forcing Uber and other ride-sharing companies to classify their resources as employees will only give them further incentive to automate. Once that happens (5 years, 10 max) it will be a moot point how a driver would be classified. Very few people wake up in the morning and say "Gee, I'm so excited to drive for Uber today! I don't need the extra money, I just love it!" The sharing economy is only possible because of income inequality. Granted, ride-sharing is letting a tiny drip of income back into the driver's wallets, but it's temporary.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  • omonra 11y ago
    What % of jobs do you think people would do even if they didn't need the money?
    • collyw 11y ago
      I spoke with an old friend from university recently. Apparently his younger brother (also at university with us in the late 90's) struck it lucky with a company he helped start up, and is now rich enough that he doesn't need to work. He is planning on consulting part time, as he wants something to fill his days (other than just kayaking - we all met through the university kayak club).
      • omonra 11y ago
        Sure - I know a guy who retired from trading in mid 40s and is now a math teacher because he likes that. But if our society relied on people working because they chose to (as opposed to needed to) we probably wouldn't have one. That's one thought experiment I conduct - imagine we find out that a comet is going to approach Earth in 6 months. My main problem is us having to deal with 6 months of chaos (since nobody will be working) rather than instant annihilation.
  • bkor 11y ago
• wanderer2323 11y ago
  The downside of "the employee designation" for the business is having to pay the employee (the overtime, the insurance, etc). The downside for the employee is ... "far less workplace flexibility". Yeah, those things are totally equal. Tell you what: if it is important for a company to tap the segment of workforce that values "workplace flexibility", it can provide that flexibility on top of the benefits. Offer them less in terms of the salary if you have to and see if anyone bites. ("But I already don't plan to pay them more than minimum wage" Tough luck)
• modeless 11y ago
  Regular cab drivers are usually classified as independent contractors too. I didn't see a bunch of people lobbying for them to be employees before Uber came on the scene. I also don't see the people who are mad at Uber caring about regular cab drivers (e.g. this article doesn't mention that issue at all and neither do the comments here). This makes me cynically think that the source of all this recent noise about the issue is hardball political tactics from Uber's powerful and connected opponents. More generally I see a broad media campaign smearing Silicon Valley; spinning a narrative of tech companies as an out-of-touch new elite bent on oppressing the poor and middle class (e.g. the Google bus kerfuffle). That narrative seems popular even in tech circles these days. Perhaps it's an inevitable consequence of success.
  • bkor 11y ago
    > This makes me cynically think that the source of all this recent noise about the issue is hardball political tactics Above attitude is pretty poor. There are many reasons why Uber(Pop) is not acceptable from a European perspective. In various countries in Europe the attitude is more about employees and social security. E.g. if I read the article I just arguments for customers and companies. But who is going to pay taxes? Who is protecting the employees? With UberPop Uber actively tries to either break laws or skirt them. E.g. they're contractors, but they won't work with the government to ensure that the employees/contractors pay their taxes. Social security requires taxes to be paid. Ensuring that this happens requires cooperation and cross checks. Airbnb is similar. Assume it is not their responsibility. Such attitudes totally conflict. I work in an international company, following local laws is standard business practice. It's not a "OMG difficult". If it is too difficult, do it anyway. In most articles I see Uber described as a "ride-sharing" company, while it is a taxi company. IMO there's a heavy pro Uber bias including the usual assumptions that the taxi situation is the same all over the world.
    • pgeorgi 11y ago
      In Europe it's not just the social security angle. There are laws and there's a US company ignoring these laws, with more money than is good for them (much larger and powerful than "Uber's powerful and connected opponents" that the GP spoke of). That matches every stereotype of US companies that try to force the American Way onto Europe. I can't think of many ways to make it easier for the media to produce a scandal (which is how they make their money). And to some degree it looks plausible: Uber is larger than most of the incumbents (I'm pretty sure that they're larger than any of the existing taxi companies in Germany). They're handed injunctions against the way they operate all the time. They don't seem to care to work within the legal framework (There might have been options in Germany - but they require some amount of good will by elected officials, something that probably dried up by now), but simply want to destroy it.
• dimitar 11y ago
  Aren't Uber drivers basically franchise operator or franchisees?
• lsc 11y ago
  the problem is that the "independent contractor" category, as most of us know it, doesn't really exist. Nearly all "independent contractor" jobs, in the eyes of the IRS, are actually employee jobs, if you get audited. Now, employers still want to treat employees like independent contractors, right? So what does this mean? As a computer nerd, this means that if I work as an independent contractor for a company with a legal department, I have to go through a body shop, a company that takes 30-50% off the top, and then wants to hire me as a W2, of course, but without benefits. Which is a pain in the ass, because that means the benefits I buy for myself need to come out of post-tax money. (Now, if you find an especially shady body shop, they will often let you go "corp-to-corp" - usually they tell you that they will be telling the client that you are a W2, as that provides better protection to the client. But you can find some honest body shops that will let you go corp to corp, especially if you can demonstrate insurance and revenue for your company that isn't you.) Of course, labor laws are there to protect the low end, and driving is one of the most dangerous jobs that you can get in a modern economy, so I certainly agree that uber drivers need some sort of "workers comp" like disability insurance, just because their job is so dangerous. I'm just pointing out that telling companies that they can't hire contractors directly doesn't always end up working out better for the employees.
• acd 11y ago
  Another pets.com I do not understand what is so revolutionary about Uber especially in countries which as good Taxi companies. For me Uber is a hyped glorified black taxi. $50 billion valuation for a taxi company common!
  • fineman 11y ago
    Yeah, the valuation is all in the trademark. "New Economy". There's nothing preventing Uber2 from taking over (except a big ugly pink mustache.) But the customer service of Uber/etc is night and day different than Taxis. There's no question the takeover will happen. Taxi drivers and taxi companies seem to see medallions as a license to cheat and steal. Good riddance.
• lioness 11y ago
  More like a new category of businesses: publicly transparent entities (PTEs); Blockchain accounting; transaction level transparency
• jacquesm 11y ago
  I'm of two minds about all this. From a European perspective Uber, AirBNB and so on are a setback. But in some (not all) cities taxi services are ridiculously expensive. Some regulation of this industry is good, if Uber (and AirBNB for that matter) are willing to get their drivers/vehicles on the same footing as the competition and if they ensure that their contractors are not going to skip out on paying taxes and background checks then I'm fine with it. The thing that bugs me is that the way both these entities position themselves they essentially leave others to hold the bag while they rid to riches and that's an issue. The new middle men are in that sense not better or worse than the old middle men, they're just different people.