6 ms·

Negotiating with clients on freelance sites is more involved than requesting a ride on Uber, so I don't think that comparison fits.

kefka 11y ago
Correct. Freelance sites' negotiation shows that there is due consideration and discussion, along with a meeting of the minds. oDesk isn't selling you out to X company and saying if you don't, they're going to lower your rates. They simply provide the portal in which to make the deal. Uber relies on skirting regulation, as well as misdirecting their employees of what the risks truly are. If I'm hurt on the job, workmans comp takes care of it. What if I'm hit while running an uber run? What if a customer sues for getting hit while in the car? What if it's illegal to run as a cab in my state without a chauffeurs license? Uber counts on you not knowing the logical and legal landscape, as well as skirts employee protections. All to make a buck.
- ahallock 11y ago
  > All to make a buck. Really? > Correct. Freelance sites' negotiation shows that there is due consideration and discussion, along with a meeting of the minds. Yes, so what? That's the nature of freelance marketplaces. So those types of businesses don't even belong in a discussion about Uber. They involve different business transactions. I'm not signing NDAs with my passengers. > They simply provide the portal in which to make the deal. These sites aren't just invisible portals with no QA or control over who uses them. There are ratings and I'm sure there are consequences to putting out crappy work or scamming people. I remember signing up with eLance and I had to go through an interview process to get the verified badge. I mean it sounds like your idea of a freelance site is an open chat room where anything goes. How is that adding value?
  - jdmichal 11y ago
    > Yes, so what? That's the nature of freelance marketplaces. So those types of businesses don't even belong in a discussion about Uber. They involve different business transactions. I find it somewhat humorous that you don't realize that this is the entire point. "Contractors" are supposed to have these freedoms, however Uber workers do not. The differences exactly like these are why their workers are being force-reclassified to "employees".
    - ahallock 11y ago
      Do the workers get a say in how they're classified? If we really care about the workers, then maybe they should have a choice in what they want. Instead it's "force-reclassified" because authoritarians and lawyers know best.
      - kefka 11y ago
        Ah. A libertarian. Being an employee is strictly better because you are protected many ways. You get workers comp for on the job injuries, overtime law, OSHA compliance, unemployment compensation, along with not paying the employers' tax yourself. The gig economy is the starting of stratifying out undesirable people to a less-than-minimum-wage employee. And this is disgusting and wrong. We as a citizenry deserve better.
nostrademons 11y ago
But that's the distinction between contractor and employee, right? A contractor "contracts" for work, i.e. they negotiate the terms and prices individually. An employee is "employed" - their employer tells them what to do and gives them money in return. That's why two of the main tests in contractor-classification lawsuits are "Can the contractor set prices?" and "How much control does the employer have over how the work is done?"
- ahallock 11y ago
  I don't know, gov rules and regs are unclear and create this type of divisiveness, winners & losers, etc. I would only ask, do the Uber drivers get a choice? What if I value my flexible work schedule over setting my own price. Maybe I'm fine with the price Uber sets and I don't want to worry about it, but I do value being able to work certain hours so I can visit my grandmother at a certain time. If I'm an employee, I don't get the luxury anymore.
  - nostrademons 11y ago
    You actually do at a wide variety of places - every job I've ever had had no problem letting me duck out in the middle of the day to do errands, visit my grandmother, celebrate my anniversary with my girlfriend, etc. Anyway, this is a pretty interesting case historically, legally, and economically. The reason we have labor laws is because way back in the 1800s, the pendulum swung the other way. Early merchants paid their suppliers by piece-work, and negotiated each shipment individually. During the industrial revolution, corporations found it more economical to dictate exactly how employees performed their jobs, with set hours and assembly-line processes, and gradually this contracting turned to employment, under terrible terms (because workers had no bargaining power for their newly-unskilled jobs). Over time, we got the organized labor movement, which managed to say that "If you're going to dictate how we do our jobs, what's in it for us? You might as well provide us with security and decent wages," which is how we got employee benefits. Every regulation creates a dead-weight loss: that's the share of transactions that would have occurred in a free market, but which don't because either party now finds it too much of a hassle with the regulations. Uber and other sharing economy companies have stepped into the dead-weight loss created by labor laws: they fill the share of transactions that would have occurred if companies in these industries were not required to provide employee benefits. All well and good for Uber & its drivers, and not so good for competitors. The problem comes down the road, where Uber etc. have outcompeted everyone else in the industry, and all the jobs are independent contractor ones with prices set by the app. Then you're pretty much forced to accept whatever bargain they provide - and without legal protections, it probably won't be a good one. So no, Uber drivers don't really get a choice. Hope they're happy with the one Uber provides. (This is all just analysis, and I don't really have a personal position one way or another. I've generally found it a lot more fruitful to work on things lots of people want and not many people can do, because then you have negotiating leverage and can demand flexible hours regardless of what your employer wants. I think that many of the sharing-economy contractors are working against their own long-term interests, but I'm not one of them, so it doesn't personally affect me.)

kefka 11y ago

Correct. Freelance sites' negotiation shows that there is due consideration and discussion, along with a meeting of the minds. oDesk isn't selling you out to X company and saying if you don't, they're going to lower your rates. They simply provide the portal in which to make the deal. Uber relies on skirting regulation, as well as misdirecting their employees of what the risks truly are. If I'm hurt on the job, workmans comp takes care of it. What if I'm hit while running an uber run? What if a customer sues for getting hit while in the car? What if it's illegal to run as a cab in my state without a chauffeurs license? Uber counts on you not knowing the logical and legal landscape, as well as skirts employee protections. All to make a buck.

ahallock 11y ago
> All to make a buck. Really? > Correct. Freelance sites' negotiation shows that there is due consideration and discussion, along with a meeting of the minds. Yes, so what? That's the nature of freelance marketplaces. So those types of businesses don't even belong in a discussion about Uber. They involve different business transactions. I'm not signing NDAs with my passengers. > They simply provide the portal in which to make the deal. These sites aren't just invisible portals with no QA or control over who uses them. There are ratings and I'm sure there are consequences to putting out crappy work or scamming people. I remember signing up with eLance and I had to go through an interview process to get the verified badge. I mean it sounds like your idea of a freelance site is an open chat room where anything goes. How is that adding value?
- jdmichal 11y ago
  > Yes, so what? That's the nature of freelance marketplaces. So those types of businesses don't even belong in a discussion about Uber. They involve different business transactions. I find it somewhat humorous that you don't realize that this is the entire point. "Contractors" are supposed to have these freedoms, however Uber workers do not. The differences exactly like these are why their workers are being force-reclassified to "employees".
  - ahallock 11y ago
    Do the workers get a say in how they're classified? If we really care about the workers, then maybe they should have a choice in what they want. Instead it's "force-reclassified" because authoritarians and lawyers know best.
    - kefka 11y ago
      Ah. A libertarian. Being an employee is strictly better because you are protected many ways. You get workers comp for on the job injuries, overtime law, OSHA compliance, unemployment compensation, along with not paying the employers' tax yourself. The gig economy is the starting of stratifying out undesirable people to a less-than-minimum-wage employee. And this is disgusting and wrong. We as a citizenry deserve better.

nostrademons 11y ago

But that's the distinction between contractor and employee, right? A contractor "contracts" for work, i.e. they negotiate the terms and prices individually. An employee is "employed" - their employer tells them what to do and gives them money in return. That's why two of the main tests in contractor-classification lawsuits are "Can the contractor set prices?" and "How much control does the employer have over how the work is done?"

ahallock 11y ago
I don't know, gov rules and regs are unclear and create this type of divisiveness, winners & losers, etc. I would only ask, do the Uber drivers get a choice? What if I value my flexible work schedule over setting my own price. Maybe I'm fine with the price Uber sets and I don't want to worry about it, but I do value being able to work certain hours so I can visit my grandmother at a certain time. If I'm an employee, I don't get the luxury anymore.
- nostrademons 11y ago
  You actually do at a wide variety of places - every job I've ever had had no problem letting me duck out in the middle of the day to do errands, visit my grandmother, celebrate my anniversary with my girlfriend, etc. Anyway, this is a pretty interesting case historically, legally, and economically. The reason we have labor laws is because way back in the 1800s, the pendulum swung the other way. Early merchants paid their suppliers by piece-work, and negotiated each shipment individually. During the industrial revolution, corporations found it more economical to dictate exactly how employees performed their jobs, with set hours and assembly-line processes, and gradually this contracting turned to employment, under terrible terms (because workers had no bargaining power for their newly-unskilled jobs). Over time, we got the organized labor movement, which managed to say that "If you're going to dictate how we do our jobs, what's in it for us? You might as well provide us with security and decent wages," which is how we got employee benefits. Every regulation creates a dead-weight loss: that's the share of transactions that would have occurred in a free market, but which don't because either party now finds it too much of a hassle with the regulations. Uber and other sharing economy companies have stepped into the dead-weight loss created by labor laws: they fill the share of transactions that would have occurred if companies in these industries were not required to provide employee benefits. All well and good for Uber & its drivers, and not so good for competitors. The problem comes down the road, where Uber etc. have outcompeted everyone else in the industry, and all the jobs are independent contractor ones with prices set by the app. Then you're pretty much forced to accept whatever bargain they provide - and without legal protections, it probably won't be a good one. So no, Uber drivers don't really get a choice. Hope they're happy with the one Uber provides. (This is all just analysis, and I don't really have a personal position one way or another. I've generally found it a lot more fruitful to work on things lots of people want and not many people can do, because then you have negotiating leverage and can demand flexible hours regardless of what your employer wants. I think that many of the sharing-economy contractors are working against their own long-term interests, but I'm not one of them, so it doesn't personally affect me.)