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.

Comments

Yeah it's called being self-insured

[Anonymous Coward]

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, unable to leave in fear of losing their benefits. COBRA was the last grand experiment in government meddling in "portable" healthcare benefits and it was by all accounts a miserable failure.

Re:Yeah it's called being self-insured

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:Yeah it's called being self-insured

[Pseudonymous Powers]

It's a nice idea, but Weather Generator operations are actually a very small part of the COBRA budget.

Many armchair accountants are surprised to learn that, by far, COBRA's major expenditures are, simply, blue lasers. Laser weapons capable of blowing up a aircraft in flight and compact enough to be wielded by a common foot soldier are almost impossibly expensive, and COBRA loses at least four hundred of these in every single engagement. When you add to this fact that not a single COBRA laser blast has ever managed to inflict a human casualty, it really exposes how desperately overdue they are for a shakeup in their tactics.

Re:Yeah it's called being self-insured

[mi]

Employees should be paid with money and only money.

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.

So... they reinvented the union.

[0100010001010011]

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).

Benefits my ass

[PopeRatzo]

Stop calling them "benefits" and just call them what they are, which is compensation. Corporations (and politicians) have used the term "benefits" to be the equivalent of the corporations giving their employees welfare. They've actually used this term, "benefits" in PR campaigns to steal employees retirement packages.

If you get health insurance, sick days, retirement, it's because you earned them. They are yours. It's not company largesse.

Re:Benefits my ass

[PopeRatzo]

In Wisconsin, for example, vacation days [ehow.com] are pretty much down to company largesse. They can set nearly any policy they want; use it by X or lose it, we're not going to pay it out if you leave, taking vacation has to be approved by two levels of management on forms submitted in triplicate, etc.

Wisconsin got what Wisconsin voted for, an anti-worker governor and legislature.

They'll learn.

Re:This is game playing

[TWX]

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.

Re:Fuck the unions.

[Chris Johnson]

Meritocracy only works if it's not a lie. It doesn't magically happen out of nowhere, it's a consequence of a system that can cull bad actors.

Real life is not that system. In real life, bad actors, con artists and CEOs run amok exactly as much as they're allowed to.

Completely deregulate and go full retard (to use what ought to be, but isn't, a more politically correct and inoffensive term for 'free market') and you only guarantee without a shadow of a doubt that your OCRACY is the farthest possible thing from MERIT.

In the best of all possible hypothetical worlds, the best you could hope for is that merit is not actively a disadvantage: nobody's penalized for wasting time and effort getting good. In this world, that's time better spent learning to con people, or building up a social media herd of suckers to fleece, and choose wisely.

Please never all-capitalize meritocracy again. As it is a malicious lie in the absence of a serious and well-organized and administered system with coherent goals and definitions of 'merit', it doesn't deserve even one capital letter, really.

Next you'll be telling me Google, and YouTube, are meritocracy in action. Or Uber.

Re:Universal Healthcare

[Moof123]

Best compliment I've gotten all day.

Portable health care

[sjbe]

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, unable to leave in fear of losing their benefits.

Which is I think a part of why Republicans seem to hate "Obamacare" so much. They've lost their leverage to keep people subservient.

COBRA [dol.gov] was the last grand experiment in government meddling in "portable" healthcare benefits and it was by all accounts a miserable failure.

It wasn't a failure. COBRA did more or less what it was designed to do. It was designed to be a bridge, not ongoing portable insurance. The system around it was the failure. Used to be that if you lost your job you lost your health insurance too so you were doubly screwed. COBRA gave an (expensive) safety net option but it couldn't possibly solve the actual problem that was eventually solved with the Affordable Care Act. I've used COBRA insurance twice and it was fine for what it was.