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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? Wh

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.)
- ahallock 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. You've been lucky then. I have that now, but previously, it was pretty rigid. > 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. I see what you're saying, and we don't want to repeat history. I just find it hard to believe with the agility of startups and ever-decreasing technological barriers that Uber won't have serious competition in the next few years. Anyway, I appreciate the history of labor law and explanation of dead-weight loss.

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.)

ahallock 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. You've been lucky then. I have that now, but previously, it was pretty rigid. > 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. I see what you're saying, and we don't want to repeat history. I just find it hard to believe with the agility of startups and ever-decreasing technological barriers that Uber won't have serious competition in the next few years. Anyway, I appreciate the history of labor law and explanation of dead-weight loss.