Slashdot Mirror
App Companies Propose New Model For Worker Benefits (cio.com)
itwbennett writes: In late October, four delivery drivers for the app-based Amazon Prime Now service filed a class-action lawsuit alleging the company misclassifies its workers as contractors. In June, the California Labor Commission ruled that Uber drivers are employees, not contractors. Now, worker advocacy groups, companies offering services through apps (including Lyft, Etsy, Care.com, and Instacart), a variety of policy experts, and venture capitalists are proposing a new model for worker benefits that will be "portable" across the number of jobs they do in the new on-demand economy. "Self-employed workers choosing to engage in flexible work may also encounter unforeseen work disruptions or other hardships without the protections and benefits that may be provided through full time employment," the group said in a statement posted on Medium.
Right now when something is being built the builders call up the local unions and say "I'm going to need 5 Union plumbers and 2 Union electricians for 6 weeks".
Present a single front to all companies needing developers for work weeks, salary and benefits.
Just call it a Union. (And that's not a bad thing).
There never will be an ideal. That's why it's an ideal, it's a fictional asymptote that never be reached.
This is why I am in favor of single-payer. Remove the concept of insurance altogether, it isn't insurance that people need, it's the ability to go to the damn doctor or hospital. Worried about fraud? The current system already has loads of fraud in the form of the screwed-up billing, fraud against the patient. Make fraud by the billing-entity (ie, the clinic or doctor) a federal crime.
With medical care decoupled from the workplace, employers would have less incentive to restrict employee hours to the numbers needed to legally be part-time. More people that struggle to find full-time work could actually work full time in jobs that of-late have been part-time, like retail. It still has its downsides but if employees now can actually afford to make rent by working one job then quality of life is much improved.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
The model of relying on a business to provide benefits to its employees in lieu of the government or the employees themselves turns the employee into a serf
Indeed. In Maoist China, each factory ran their own schools. So if you changed jobs, your kids had to switch to a new school. This is clearly idiotic, but our system of employer provided healthcare/pensions is just as dumb. There are advantages and disadvantages to privatized and socialized healthcare and pensions, but the third option, of employer provided benefits, gives the worst of both, with the benefits of neither. Employees should be paid with money and only money. Benefits should be provided privately or by the government. They should not be tied to employers. That would be better for workers and companies.
And they were — until the US government imposed limits on salaries during the Second World War. Employers wanting to attract employees invented the "benefits packages" of various kind, that circumvented the government-imposed maximum wage limits.
As the consumers of and payers for services became different entities, the prices started to rise. Attempts at finding a government-based solutions to the government-created problem further exacerbated it, as always happens. And continue to.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.