8 ms·

Flexibility of choosing the type & the time of work seems like a win, in the gig (freelance) economy. However commoditization of such jobs could force the incom

Flexibility of choosing the type & the time of work seems like a win, in the gig (freelance) economy. However commoditization of such jobs could force the income down for many. This may result in the increase in the number of hours people work and that could result in health issues. With no health insurance & other benefits, overall quality of life could decrease for many. However Gig economy is here to stay. In these conditions how can workers, government & businesses collaborate to provide better working conditions for those involved?

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> In these conditions how can workers, government & businesses collaborate to provide better working conditions for those involved? Solid safety net. Universal/single payer healthcare. A living minimum wage. Social support when you're unable to assemble enough income to survive (its been proven that its cheaper to give the homeless housing than to pay for the resulting issues of not providing housing).
- asift 11y ago
  I'm a big fan of a basic income as a replacement to our existing welfare system, but this: >its been proven that its cheaper to give the homeless housing than to pay for the resulting issues of not providing housing is misleading and inaccurate. First, you could never prove something like this as the comparison is highly dependent upon the larger institutional framework a particular society is operating under. Second, even if it were demonstrably true in a given community at a particular point in time, there is no guarantee those same conditions would persist over time. That's not to say there aren't good arguments for providing housing or other forms of welfare, but we don't need to engage in overly sweeping or simplistic arguments to make that case.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    > but we don't need to engage in overly sweeping or simplistic arguments to make that case. Utah has shown, through data, that it is cheaper to provide housing directly to the homeless. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-so... http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free
    - asift 11y ago
      Your claim is sweeping because you're taking the results from one particular case study and extrapolating it out into a generic claim. It's overly simplistic because you're not acknowedging the reality that these conditions could change or may not be applicable in other situations (assuming there were no flaws in the underlying case study analysis to begin with). Edit: this comment was made in response to toomuchtodo's comment prior to editing stating their claim was neither sweeping nor overly simplistic
      - blawson 11y ago
        But isn't that how evidence in support of these these programs should be generated? If not, how else can these programs be accurately evaluated prior to implementing on a more generic scale? The idea is to find better solutions than we have now. The counterarguments you are raising sound to me like they could equally be applicable to any proposed solution. If we can't seriously consider something until we know it works in exactly the same conditions, I feel like nothing would ever change. Let me know if I've read you wrong though.
        asift 11y ago
        There's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing to empirical evidence to support a claim (in fact, that is an excellent thing to do!). The issue I have with the original claim is that it isn't proven that giving away housing is a cheaper long-term solution than other forms of welfare. I certainly don't think we need to wait until something is proven to have an opinion or move forward in trying to make the world a better place (if we did, we would never take action in most cases), but we shouldn't present research in a way that disingenuously overstates our knowledge.
        tosseraccount 11y ago
        Cherry picking is allowed in contentious political questions. Apparently.
      - cmdrfred 11y ago
- fennecfoxen 11y ago
  > A living minimum wage. Meh. The idea that "people should be able to earn a living wage" is fine but does not always imply that it should be illegal to work for less, and structuring the economy such that this is the case can have ill effects too: it can eliminate entry-level positions and worsen unemployment, which seriously damages one's ability to improve his career later. It also impacts youths and retirees, neither of whom are working as their primary means of support, and community organizations/nonprofits who might benefit from time to time from a little more manpower than a pure volunteer solution might be able to provide. Economic growth, and the employment opportunities it affords, are a far better way to improve economic opportunities than legislation is.
  - gohrt 11y ago
    > It can eliminate entry-level positions and worsen unemployment, which seriously damages one's ability to improve his career later. > It also impacts youths and retirees, neither of whom are working as their primary means of support These are old canards. The law already has adequate provision for limiting laws to the 21-65 age bracket, for probationary periods of employment, and for discounting wages based on value provided by the employer (example: students pay tuition for education, of which a large component is actually labor).
  - nosuchthing 11y ago
    Yes that's what the robber barons keep repeating, but why not think of businesses and employee wages in terms of percentage of the profits generated? Fast food employees earning $15 an hour can still be profitable [ http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/ http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/ ]
    - fennecfoxen 11y ago
      > Yes that's what the robber barons keep repeating, Screw the robber barons - and, while you're at it, screw the progressive politicians and labor unions too. This is what the goddamn labor economists keep repeating.
- s73v3r 11y ago
  So basically, things that will not happen in the US anytime soon.
anigbrowl 11y ago
Commoditization certainly will force incomes down. This has already happened in the arts, where most work is inherently project-based. The more accessible technology has become, the more people have been asked to work for free, because there's a perception that computers have made it all so easy, and more to the point, the ubiquity of computers means that specialist skills no longer seem exotic because they don't require the same sort of specialist equipment that they used to. The freedom and flexibility is nice, but gigging as a lifestyle can often feel like even more of a rat race because there's no concept of job security, and also because there's a flattening effect so that you have a small number of managers, a larger number of technicians, and a lot of workers. That means promotion and career advancement become heavily tiered. So if you drive for a ride-sharing service and want to get ahead in life, your choices are to drive every waking hour to get money or study programming or management in hopes of getting an entry level job in the company that operates the ride-sharing platform, where your time and dedication as a drive will be considered worthless, if not an active barrier to hiring. I predict that that while we will see flatter hierarchies than in the stereotypical 20th century organization, there'll be a re-emergence of Victorian-style class divisions, because management will be in no hurry to admit the most skilled servants to their ranks.
nosuchthing 11y ago
Unionization of skilled workers..?
humanrebar 11y ago
Stop tying health insurance to employment. One way or another, the tax loophole for health insurance needs to go away. This benefits both the salaried worker (easier to switch jobs and get a raise) and the freelance worker (doesn't have to unfairly pay higher rates).

toomuchtodo 11y ago

> In these conditions how can workers, government & businesses collaborate to provide better working conditions for those involved? Solid safety net. Universal/single payer healthcare. A living minimum wage. Social support when you're unable to assemble enough income to survive (its been proven that its cheaper to give the homeless housing than to pay for the resulting issues of not providing housing).

asift 11y ago
I'm a big fan of a basic income as a replacement to our existing welfare system, but this: >its been proven that its cheaper to give the homeless housing than to pay for the resulting issues of not providing housing is misleading and inaccurate. First, you could never prove something like this as the comparison is highly dependent upon the larger institutional framework a particular society is operating under. Second, even if it were demonstrably true in a given community at a particular point in time, there is no guarantee those same conditions would persist over time. That's not to say there aren't good arguments for providing housing or other forms of welfare, but we don't need to engage in overly sweeping or simplistic arguments to make that case.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > but we don't need to engage in overly sweeping or simplistic arguments to make that case. Utah has shown, through data, that it is cheaper to provide housing directly to the homeless. http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-solution-to-homelessness-utah http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/02/housing-first-so... http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/22/home-free
  - asift 11y ago
    Your claim is sweeping because you're taking the results from one particular case study and extrapolating it out into a generic claim. It's overly simplistic because you're not acknowedging the reality that these conditions could change or may not be applicable in other situations (assuming there were no flaws in the underlying case study analysis to begin with). Edit: this comment was made in response to toomuchtodo's comment prior to editing stating their claim was neither sweeping nor overly simplistic
    - blawson 11y ago
      But isn't that how evidence in support of these these programs should be generated? If not, how else can these programs be accurately evaluated prior to implementing on a more generic scale? The idea is to find better solutions than we have now. The counterarguments you are raising sound to me like they could equally be applicable to any proposed solution. If we can't seriously consider something until we know it works in exactly the same conditions, I feel like nothing would ever change. Let me know if I've read you wrong though.
      - asift 11y ago
        There's absolutely nothing wrong with pointing to empirical evidence to support a claim (in fact, that is an excellent thing to do!). The issue I have with the original claim is that it isn't proven that giving away housing is a cheaper long-term solution than other forms of welfare. I certainly don't think we need to wait until something is proven to have an opinion or move forward in trying to make the world a better place (if we did, we would never take action in most cases), but we shouldn't present research in a way that disingenuously overstates our knowledge.
        tosseraccount 11y ago
        Cherry picking is allowed in contentious political questions. Apparently.
    - cmdrfred 11y ago
fennecfoxen 11y ago
> A living minimum wage. Meh. The idea that "people should be able to earn a living wage" is fine but does not always imply that it should be illegal to work for less, and structuring the economy such that this is the case can have ill effects too: it can eliminate entry-level positions and worsen unemployment, which seriously damages one's ability to improve his career later. It also impacts youths and retirees, neither of whom are working as their primary means of support, and community organizations/nonprofits who might benefit from time to time from a little more manpower than a pure volunteer solution might be able to provide. Economic growth, and the employment opportunities it affords, are a far better way to improve economic opportunities than legislation is.
- gohrt 11y ago
  > It can eliminate entry-level positions and worsen unemployment, which seriously damages one's ability to improve his career later. > It also impacts youths and retirees, neither of whom are working as their primary means of support These are old canards. The law already has adequate provision for limiting laws to the 21-65 age bracket, for probationary periods of employment, and for discounting wages based on value provided by the employer (example: students pay tuition for education, of which a large component is actually labor).
- nosuchthing 11y ago
  Yes that's what the robber barons keep repeating, but why not think of businesses and employee wages in terms of percentage of the profits generated? Fast food employees earning $15 an hour can still be profitable [ http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/ http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/ ]
  - fennecfoxen 11y ago
    > Yes that's what the robber barons keep repeating, Screw the robber barons - and, while you're at it, screw the progressive politicians and labor unions too. This is what the goddamn labor economists keep repeating.
s73v3r 11y ago
So basically, things that will not happen in the US anytime soon.

anigbrowl 11y ago

Commoditization certainly will force incomes down. This has already happened in the arts, where most work is inherently project-based. The more accessible technology has become, the more people have been asked to work for free, because there's a perception that computers have made it all so easy, and more to the point, the ubiquity of computers means that specialist skills no longer seem exotic because they don't require the same sort of specialist equipment that they used to. The freedom and flexibility is nice, but gigging as a lifestyle can often feel like even more of a rat race because there's no concept of job security, and also because there's a flattening effect so that you have a small number of managers, a larger number of technicians, and a lot of workers. That means promotion and career advancement become heavily tiered. So if you drive for a ride-sharing service and want to get ahead in life, your choices are to drive every waking hour to get money or study programming or management in hopes of getting an entry level job in the company that operates the ride-sharing platform, where your time and dedication as a drive will be considered worthless, if not an active barrier to hiring. I predict that that while we will see flatter hierarchies than in the stereotypical 20th century organization, there'll be a re-emergence of Victorian-style class divisions, because management will be in no hurry to admit the most skilled servants to their ranks.

nosuchthing 11y ago

Unionization of skilled workers..?

humanrebar 11y ago

Stop tying health insurance to employment. One way or another, the tax loophole for health insurance needs to go away. This benefits both the salaried worker (easier to switch jobs and get a raise) and the freelance worker (doesn't have to unfairly pay higher rates).