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What If the "Sharing Economy" Organized a Strike, and Nobody Came?
Nerval's Lobster writes "In Boston, a number of UberX drivers reportedly planned to strike yesterday afternoon in response to a rate cut. (UberX is a low-cost program from Uber, which is attempting to "disrupt" the traditional cab industry via a mobile app that connects ordinary drivers in need of cash with passengers who want to go somewhere.) Uber tried to preempt the strike with a blog posting explaining that the rate cut actually translated into more customers and thus more revenue to drivers, but it needn't have bothered: according to local media (the same media that reported a strike was in the making) a strike failed to materialize. Many of the biggest firms of the so-called 'sharing economy,' such as Uber and Airbnb, are locked in battle with some combination of deeply entrenched industries and government regulators. But if the 'labor' that drives the sharing economy becomes more agitated about its compensation, it could create yet another interesting wrinkle. The Boston strike may have fizzled, but that doesn't mean another one, in a different city, won't enjoy more success." Free (or freer) entry makes occupation-based roadblocks harder to enforce, though, so Uber and other crowd-sourcing matchmakers are tougher to pin down and disrupt in the way that more tightly controlled enterprises are. (Not that city councils and other bodies aren't trying to corral crowd-sourced undertakings into their regulatory purviews, putting a damper on some of that freewheeling disintermediation.)
As long as the money is concentrated in very few hands, the price of labor basically becomes fiat of the wealthy. You, as a first world citizen, can't compete on price and survive.
...having a Democracy and no one votes. But with less spin and less FOX news.
/. car analogy, tumblrwords, kitten photo link, memegenerator pic, #whogivesafuck
Obligatory
Quite the opposite of what happens when a government monopoly on things has their labor go on strike, like mail (pre-internet, when it was really needed) or public transportation of today, the consumer has plenty of other choices and they exercise them.
Unfortunately, in the case of cabs, the big alternative is a government enforced heavily restricted set of providers (a peek at the Boston version here).
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
Are they still trying to maintain the transparent fiction that this is anything but a taxi company that doesn't want to be called one, for regulatory purposes? They talk about driver earnings per hour, yet want to be treated like some college buddies carpooling home for thanksgiving break. It's a crock.
3/5 of links are back to slashdot
1/5 link to twitter ("according to local media")
1/5 link to a blog ("a blog posting") which I can't load at the moment.
While I do like seeing how slashdot stories interconnect, I would like to get outside opinions as well. Preferably more informative ones than a blog and twitter post.
To wit: strikes require firm, centralized control to take effect, because there are almost always defectors, people at the desperate end of the bell curve who will defect for personal gain.
Then again, the logic of a strike is such that either:
a) it's broadly sustainable, even with a few defections, because the working conditions/pay are bad enough that improvement is generally recognized to be needed, or
b) it's only sustainable with strongarm central enforcement, in which case a strike is more a matter of economic coercion than justice for the workers.
-Styopa
look at pizza where they pay low and don't really pay the costs of useing a car much less auto insurance that covers pizza drivers.
http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Texas-Family-Awarded-32M-in-Deadly-Dominos-Delivery-Crash-221784091.html
Nothing of substance to add.
Or maybe switch to an alternative sharing app?
The reason why there are unions – and their ultimate weapon the strike – is to redress the power balance between labor and the firm. The other choice is for workers to quite their current firm and join another but that is expensive. Need to find a new job, learn new skills, etc. And in the bad old days, worry about company towns, blacklists, etc.
I don’t see that high of a barrier to entry so I don’t see the firm having that much power. It’s the labor that’s got the capital (cars, spare rooms, etc.) in this example. If Uber cranks shafts labor it would not be that hard for a rival to launch another app. Yes, Uber would have some type of power due to it’s networking affects but those can crumble quickly.
Look, nobody likes taxes, licensing restrictions, having to clean your car, or requiring you don't just hang out at the airport where people will pay tons of money.
The reasons we have those is that unlicensed cabs were a big problem.
Unlicensed cabs were a big problem because cabs and customers were not regulated.
The government stepped in and cleaned up the cabs, enforcing a standard of quality control of the cabbies but not the customers. It's the "regulation" model, and it was appropriate for its time, but it only addressed half the issue: a customer could jump out and run away without paying, could slit the seat, could vomit in the seat, or do other unsavory things.
Over time the regulation became less enforced, watered down, corrupt, and fewer people cared. This has resulted in the situation we have now, where many cabs are filthy and disgusting, the cabbie will screw you out of money in various ways (jimming the meter, taking the long route, &c), and it's not particularly safe.
In game theory terms, it's two kids dividing a cake: mom tells one kid to divide the cake equally, then leaves.
With the rise of ubiquitous communication we can now go to a newer model: both cabbies and customers can be vetted by the system. The cabbies are reviewed by the feedback of customers, and the customers are reviewed by the cabbies. Anyone who slits a seat or vomits will get a bad review and won't have access to the drivers in the future. Anyone who drives a filthy car will get a bad review and not have access to passengers in the future.
The game-theory model is different. Instead of one side promising to obey regulation, it's two sides regulating each other. It's the "one child divides the cake, the other child chooses which piece to eat" model.
This is an example of bad regulation which stifles innovation. Cab regulation ensured quality and was done with the best of intentions, but it's been subverted and there's now a better way.
We should embrace the better way.
...what the hell any of this is or means. What is Uber? What is it doing that's illegal? What is a sharing economy? Who's giving out free cab rides? I'm someone who lives in a 100,000 person city where you just call the damn cab company on the phone and they show up and 99.9% of cars on the road are not cabs.
It's funny how none of this on either side mentions what the actual rates are.
Anybody know?
The free market (a subset of freedom, and, as China is showing, possibly the single most important one, if measuring increasing lifespans is your primary metric, as all caring folk do) responds to inefficiencies.
Once again the difference between the concepts of freedom and democracy appears.
You regularly see politicians talk about the holiness of spreading democracy, and rarely of freedom, because freedom means freedom from them. "Democracy" is just the modern twist where they have an additional vote layer to jump thru before wielding power they shouldn't.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Unions were created when employers would rather kill 10 workers than spend $100 on a safety widget. And when strikes happened, the employers would call in private security with a license to kill. That the union bosses had to be more ruthless than mob bosses to deal with the amoral employers is the fault of the employers. They got the unions they deserved, and no worse.
It's always hilarious to me when the free market nutjobs defend corporations as freedom to assemble and such, but unions should be illegal. What, you shouldn't be free to assemble workers, only free to assemble capital?
Learn to love Alaska
I don't think anybody wants unions to be illegal. My personal opinion is that you shouldn't be forced to contribute to their political lobbying (union dues invariably do this) as a condition of employment, nor should you be forced to strike if you as an individual don't want to.
Those two are freedom of speech and assembly respectively, yet not going along with them can cost you your job if you're in a union shop.
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1. Everything is politics. Just by existing, a union is being political;
2. Freedom of assembly MUST mean that employees have a right to agree not to work with someone who isn't in the union - otherwise it isn't freedom of assembly;
3. Nobody can force you to strike. But the rest of the workforce can refuse to work with those who won't take part in an agreed strike. Again, freedom of assembly.
You can't say, "I agree with unions except to the extent that they decide to do stuff I don't like." It's not up to you. They're choosing to assemble freely, and will do so as they please.
nor should you be forced to strike if you as an individual don't want to.
If you sign a contract (in a right to work state) indicating that if the union votes to strike, you will strike, you should never be held to the contract you signed of your own free will? Why do you hate contracts?
Learn to love Alaska
Resort to force.
Here in Spain something similar happened.
The air traffic controllers had been negotiating some working conditions for a year, after such the government(state run ariports) essentially said "you get nothing and what are you going to do ,uh?".So the air controllers went on strike.
What follows is a massive propaganda campaign demonicing them and saying they are overpayed and basically cheating everyone else out of their tax money.
Ah, they also declared state of emergency, for the sacond time since 1975, and called the ARMY in to force the controllers back to work.Which they did,
Uhm, the 'license to kill' thing you are referring to was the Pinkertons ... and a strike and what they did have no relation. They didn't go to anyones homes and shoot people, they shot at the mob breaking the fence down at the factory they were striking in front of.
Today, we'd just let the cops shoot them for destruction of property.
If you think modern unions are a good thing, you're an idiot to stupid to realize you're just feeding someone else money to use you as their pawn in a game of politics.
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Uhm, you need to get a clue. 'Right to work' does EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE of what you're implying.
You can still sign those contracts in right to work states. What you can't do in right to work states is fire someone for quitting the union. When you learn the meanings of the big words, feel free to come back and play.
Learn to love Alaska
Modern unions are what corporations deserve for past evils. Unions exist *solely* because of worker mistreatment at the hands of employers. You are just upset because unions generally vote the opposite of your personal preference. You are no less political, you just oppose the unions because their ideas conflict with yours, not how they do it.
Learn to love Alaska
Because standing up to employers got you shot, unions started out as political organizations. OSHA and such wouldn't exist if unions didn't petition for them. Separating unions from politics is as easy as separating the Democrats or Republicans from politics.
Actually that's not how they started nor is it why. The first unions formed along racial lines by white people who were tired of minorities (mainly Chinese or "yellow" people) taking their jobs for lower wages:
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/LaborUnions.html
Not surprisingly, therefore, black leader Booker T. Washington opposed unions all his life, and W. E. B. DuBois called unions the greatest enemy of the black working class. Another interesting fact: the “union label” was started in the 1880s to proclaim that a product was made by white rather than yellow (Chinese) hands. More generally, union wage rates, union-backed requirements for a license to practice various occupations, and union-backed labor regulations such as the minimum wage law and the Davis-Bacon Act continue to reduce opportunities for black youths, females, and other minorities.
And OSHA has never actually proven to be beneficial. Workplace accidents were on a very linear decline both before and after OSHA was formed, but merely because the trend continued, people in favor of OSHA just assumed that OSHA was the cause when in reality it was not. That trend began when employers for the most part realized that they could attract more talent if they would make their work environment safer. This started rather famously with the DuPont black powder manufacturing (which was very dangerous work) in the mid 1800's. There never was a government mandate for safety in that case; it was entirely a voluntary decision by a corporation (and we all know corporations are evil, right?)
If you sign a contract (in a right to work state) indicating that if the union votes to strike, you will strike, you should never be held to the contract you signed of your own free will? Why do you hate contracts?
To call that a straw man would be quite an understatement. That last bit aside: First, in a right to work state there is never a requirement to sign such a contract to begin with unless they want to, so nobody really does. Second, people can and do strike in right to work states (I remember Qwest doing that 8ish years ago here in Arizona) so it isn't as if you have to pay dues to some union boss just for the privilege of being able to do so.
And just by that last example alone, you can pretty plainly see that people don't have to answer to two separate bosses and forfeit part of their paycheck in order to seek redress against an employer that they see as being unfair. They can if they'd like to as well, by the way, as those workers did formalize a union and had another strike in 2012 (at this time the company was named CenturyLink.)
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2. Freedom of assembly MUST mean that employees have a right to agree not to work with someone who isn't in the union - otherwise it isn't freedom of assembly;
Absolutely, and they have the right to quit their job if they don't like you, but forcing you to leave at their behest is definitely crossing the line. This is actually the basis upon which the first successful unions were formed in the 1800's - keeping Chinese laborers from taking their jobs, later extended to keeping blacks from taking their jobs.
The nice thing about a right to work state is that unions don't have the power to force you out of a job. If the union itself doesn't like it, it is free to leave. Unions can and do exist in right to work states, they even have strikes on occasion. In right to work states unions are focused on being a collective rather than being focused on having power over both their members and their employers. Some say unions are toothless in right to work states, and I would say that is also correct because they don't have the ability to bite their own members - nor should they anyways.
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The union should just make their own app.
New things are always on the horizon
I don't understand why forcing you to leave is crossing the line, sorry - as long as the "force" is simply refusing to work with you. The language is off: to use a car analogy, because /. seems to find them funny, it's like saying I'm "forcing" you not to use my car just because I won't give you the keys. In fact, I have the privilege to simply not give you the keys - it's my car!
Any democracy will end up creating compromises which don't please the minority. The union is a trade-off, where the workers enjoy power in numbers, but some workers will sometimes lose out short term on some things. Overall, the labour movement has benefitted workers. As with any power structure, Churchill's maxim still applies: it is the worst, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
Modern unions have outlived their usefulness. I agree there was worker mistreatment at the hands of employers, and if that kind of mistreatment returns, then bring back the unions. Currently they are just leeches sucking the lifeblood out of the workers they are supposedly in place to protect.
If you insist on a car analogy: Your boss has 10 cars. As part of the conditions of your job, you, and 9 other people, need to use 1 to get your work done. Those 9 people form a club, and make a club rule that for anyone to drive for your boss, they must be a dues paying member of that club. Not to mention, they also make rules that your boss can't have those cars maintained by anyone not a member of that club, or one similar. And they all walk out, until their demands are met.
Well, at this point I would argue that a co-op structure would be betterthen a union structure. After all, at this point there is not much "managment".
Unions were created when employers would rather kill 10 workers than spend $100 on a safety widget.
Employers would still rather do that, except that now they know re-staffing workers is expensive; and now we have government regulations and inspectors that make safety failures crippling (OSHA will shut down your business immediately, the minute the inspector decides it can't function as-is, until the issue is resolved and they have inspected and signed off on it).
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And the problem is what, exactly?
The boss' strength is in owning 10 cars - the workers' strength is in being able to bargain collectively. Even with your example of a most degenerate union, which does nothing but require membership and collect dues, there is no force: it's still voluntary freedom of assembly. You can say that it's short of optimal productivity, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to arrange it - just as Microsoft shovels out shit by the fuckton, but that doesn't mean we say they shouldn't. The workers are offering their labour, and whatever redresses the balance in their favour is up to them to decide.
In practice, of course, unions do way more than the above.
The 9 members of the club have no deficit of power. The boss has no deficit of power, if he doesn't like the terms he can fire the 9 workers (assuming that this is a toy example and he is not liable to be sued for discrimination and so forth).
The deficit of power in the story obviously belongs to the 1 guy who doesn't want to associate himself with the club because he wants to make money while the other guys prevent him from doing so while they negotiate with the boss. That guy, gets screwed.
In the right to work environment (which exists in a considerable number of non-right-to-work states for certain industries), that guy gets what he wants, while the union gets what they want (namely, the employer negotiating for terms, or else firing them and getting new workers, or whatever -- obviously the latter is a risk of collective bargaining).
In the *non* right to work environment, such as that seen for some public industries in many blue states (for instance, many teachers unions), everyone is required to be unionized and it tends to be true that the union is out of control.
In spite of being leftish in the grand scheme of things, my public school education with so many unionized teachers that were utterly incompetent, but protected from being fired for seniority or disability reasons, leaves me utterly unsympathetic towards the plight of organized labor. I hear occasionally from older people that I "don't understand how hard it is," that career stability is important and it would be heartless to simply fire the underperforming school teachers. Guess what, the younger generation is broke too. Of course, the root of the selfishness is the assumption that education is teacher-centric, and that therefore it is ok for public services to suffer just so that teachers who taught me nothing and wasted my time can retain their employment. This is a pervasive assumption among unions and people who defend unions.
It is worth saying here that not all unions are evil and corrupt bastards. But enough of them are that I'd rather just smash them all and start over.
Not unlike corporations, sucking their 10% out of the economy at the cost of the workers.
Learn to love Alaska
Even in a right to work environment, nobody has taken away the ability to bargain collectively. Rather, they can't say "Ok, we strike because we want this guy removed, and now you aren't allowed to let us go either; you're stuck with us, and further we're also going to harass anybody who chooses to continue to work".
I maintain that
A) The employer should have the right to let those workers go.
B) Those who continue to work shouldn't be subject to tyranny of the mob.
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You know, when this grandmother died, I said that this kid could have been my son.