<story><title>Uber/Lyft drivers say they were misled into petitioning against workers rights</title><url>https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/27/18759387/uber-lyft-drivers-misled-companies-political-campaig</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wutbrodo</author><text>This is a pretty disgusting level of paternalist condescension towards workers that&amp;#x27;s unfortunately all too common in these discussions. Believe it or not, not all blue-collar workers are stupid ignorami who don&amp;#x27;t understand what labor regulations means for them. As the article says:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Plenty of drivers said they understood Uber’s and Lyft’s political messaging. And some drivers who spoke to Recode made an articulate case for why they want to remain independent contractors. (A poll of 1,200 drivers by independent blog The Rideshare Guy last year showed that about 76 percent of respondents wanted to remain independent contractors rather than become employees.)&lt;p&gt;That isn&amp;#x27;t to say that there isn&amp;#x27;t an issue with deceiving workers: Uber and Lyft hardly have a reputation for ethical business practices, and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if their messaging was intentionally unclear here. On top of that, it&amp;#x27;s possible that restrictions on labor can be positive and I&amp;#x27;m not ruling out any degree of labor paternalism as valuable to society.&lt;p&gt;But your reductionist framing of blue-collar workers as simpletons who couldn&amp;#x27;t possibly disagree with you about _the way their own lives and employment should work_ is despicable. And frankly, the doublespeak involved in labeling restrictions on labor relationships as rights (and thus obviously and unambiguously positive) says much more about your ignorance than theirs.</text></item><item><author>hannasanarion</author><text>It is shockingly easy to convince workers that rights are bad for them. The same thing happens at many blue collar jobs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>braythwayt</author><text>If I strip the outrage and emotional rhetoric from your comment, what I’m left with is a suggestion that not all workers were deceived into opposing labour regulation.&lt;p&gt;Well, ok.&lt;p&gt;And then there’s a suggestion that people talking about labourers are looking down their noses at labourers. Well, that is a thing. As is people looking down at “Apple fanboys,” or looking down at “People who buy whatever marketing tells them to buy,” or “People believing whatever Fox tells them to believe.”&lt;p&gt;That is absolutely a thing, and it goes across almost all discussions about almost all topics. You can’t bring up interviewing without a bunch of people confidently stating that everyone else is doing it wrong and stupidly cargo-culting.&lt;p&gt;But I don’t see the OP talking about the way that disinformation and political dark patterns as framing labourers as simpletons.&lt;p&gt;If you want reductionism, when it comes to humans persuading other humans to do things, we are all simpletons. We all have what amount to zero-day vulnerabilities. We all can be stunningly brilliant in one area of our lives, but thicker than a block of wood in another.&lt;p&gt;I don’t think there&amp;#x27;s anything condescending or paternalistic about saying this.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber/Lyft drivers say they were misled into petitioning against workers rights</title><url>https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/6/27/18759387/uber-lyft-drivers-misled-companies-political-campaig</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>wutbrodo</author><text>This is a pretty disgusting level of paternalist condescension towards workers that&amp;#x27;s unfortunately all too common in these discussions. Believe it or not, not all blue-collar workers are stupid ignorami who don&amp;#x27;t understand what labor regulations means for them. As the article says:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Plenty of drivers said they understood Uber’s and Lyft’s political messaging. And some drivers who spoke to Recode made an articulate case for why they want to remain independent contractors. (A poll of 1,200 drivers by independent blog The Rideshare Guy last year showed that about 76 percent of respondents wanted to remain independent contractors rather than become employees.)&lt;p&gt;That isn&amp;#x27;t to say that there isn&amp;#x27;t an issue with deceiving workers: Uber and Lyft hardly have a reputation for ethical business practices, and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if their messaging was intentionally unclear here. On top of that, it&amp;#x27;s possible that restrictions on labor can be positive and I&amp;#x27;m not ruling out any degree of labor paternalism as valuable to society.&lt;p&gt;But your reductionist framing of blue-collar workers as simpletons who couldn&amp;#x27;t possibly disagree with you about _the way their own lives and employment should work_ is despicable. And frankly, the doublespeak involved in labeling restrictions on labor relationships as rights (and thus obviously and unambiguously positive) says much more about your ignorance than theirs.</text></item><item><author>hannasanarion</author><text>It is shockingly easy to convince workers that rights are bad for them. The same thing happens at many blue collar jobs.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>swift532</author><text>Sorry for the aside and the patronizing tone, but it&amp;#x27;s actually ignoramuses and not ignorami, as the word comes from the Latin verb meaning &amp;quot;we are ignorant&amp;quot;, so it has no plural form.</text></comment>