<story><title>Uber drivers “employees” for unemployment purposes, NY labor board says</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/uber-drivers-employees-for-unemployment-purposes-ny-labor-board-says/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hobls</author><text>This is important. We’re at risk of the “gig economy” undoing over a century of hard fought gains in workers rights. Minimum wage laws, unemployment, etc, these are good things that should be preserved.&lt;p&gt;Uber has clearly shown that they’re happy to be as exploitative as they’re allowed to be. (And that even when they’re specifically disallowed they’ll do everything they can to ignore it and fight the laws.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>koolba</author><text>&amp;gt; This is important. We’re at risk of the “gig economy” undoing over a century of hard fought gains in workers rights.&lt;p&gt;There&amp;#x27;s definitely work to be done to modernize our employment laws with the changes to the economy. It&amp;#x27;s not a clear cut &amp;quot;&lt;i&gt;Everybody is an employee&lt;/i&gt;&amp;quot; though.&lt;p&gt;If someone drives for Uber for 1-ride per month should Uber pay $1000&amp;#x2F;mo for that driver&amp;#x27;s health insurance? How about 1-ride per week? How about if they have the app &amp;quot;on&amp;quot; but never accept a ride? Should they be paid for the time they didn&amp;#x27;t do any driving?&lt;p&gt;Clearly the driver isn&amp;#x27;t an employee in the traditional sense of the word. But they also aren&amp;#x27;t a totally independent contractor either as their livelihood is so closely tied to the platform of a private entity. My gut says to err on the side of not imposing restrictions  or mandates until we figure out the right balance.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Minimum wage laws, unemployment, etc, these are good things that should be preserved.&lt;p&gt;Unemployment insurance, as it&amp;#x27;s implemented in the USA through effectively a tax collected by a private entity, is a scamola. A better idea would be having the employee get their own private unemployment insurance. That would also lead to lower costs of insurance for workers that are less likely to be discharged.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Uber has clearly shown that they’re happy to be as exploitative as they’re allowed to be. (And that even when they’re specifically disallowed they’ll do everything they can to ignore it and fight the laws.)&lt;p&gt;Nobody is forcing drivers to drive for Uber. An argument may be that they were enticed with higher rates that were subsequently lowered in some markets. There&amp;#x27;s also the argument that a lot of the drivers don&amp;#x27;t under the total costs involved (double payroll tax, depreciation, etc) but by itself offering work in the &amp;quot;gig economy&amp;quot; isn&amp;#x27;t exploitation. Uber (and Lyft, and ...) should be lauded for (net) creating thousands of jobs.</text></comment>
<story><title>Uber drivers “employees” for unemployment purposes, NY labor board says</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/07/uber-drivers-employees-for-unemployment-purposes-ny-labor-board-says/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hobls</author><text>This is important. We’re at risk of the “gig economy” undoing over a century of hard fought gains in workers rights. Minimum wage laws, unemployment, etc, these are good things that should be preserved.&lt;p&gt;Uber has clearly shown that they’re happy to be as exploitative as they’re allowed to be. (And that even when they’re specifically disallowed they’ll do everything they can to ignore it and fight the laws.)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Cthulhu_</author><text>Yes they are; the idea of the gig economy is great, like, doing the odd job in your own time and earn some money, but there&amp;#x27;s so many people that went ahead and are doing it full time as their primary source of income. The employees then compete with each other, driving the price down. And Uber&amp;#x27;s laughing all the way to the bank because they don&amp;#x27;t need to care about it, they&amp;#x27;ll make money either way. In fact I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be surprised if Uber was lowering the prices to get more consumers to use ubers more often.</text></comment>