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US Senator Introduces the First Bill To Give Gig Workers Benefits (techcrunch.com)
Virginia Senator Mark Warner has introduced a bill that will give basic benefits to gig workers. "Warner has just proposed the first-ever piece of national legislation aimed at helping on-demand and other non-traditional workers without traditional benefits, like paid sick days or a retirement plan, have some sort of a safety net," reports TechCrunch. "The bill asks the federal government to set aside $20 million in funding for organizations to use to look at the types of benefits programs individual workers could take with them from job to job." From the report: "[Portable benefits is] that emergency fund," Warner told BuzzFeed, which first reported news of the bill. "It might be a fund to take care of a disability if you get hurt. It might work with some existing retirement programs. Part of it would be, depending on what happens with Obamacare, an ability to help deal with health care expenses. I think there will be a variety of models." The funding wouldn't be enough to cover everyone, of course, but if it gets the green light a draft of the bill indicates it would earmark $5 million toward grants doled out by Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta for organizations already looking into portable benefits and $15 million for new programs.
..which specifically targets computer programmers from an era before the government allowed millions of Americans to lose their jobs to cheaper offshore labor and to foreign nationals imported to be trained as their replacements to work in America without even knowing how to use toilet paper, deodorant or having any loyalty to the country, intent to contribute in any way to the common good or even an ancestor who ever defended the world from tyranny.
Is running a sole proprietor business a "gig"? Or is that too formal to count? It's the same exact thing with even more volatility.
For the purposes of this plan, a "gig" is defined as any area of labor for remuneration where there is not enough money to feed political campaigns and lobbyists sufficient protection money to prevent government interference.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Marx did not propose ideas — to be implemented or not. He thought of his theories as laws of nature — like gravity — take it from someone, who was forced to study Marxism in high school and college...
His claim was, the workers' revolution is inevitable when the means of production develop beyond a certain point. That it did not actually happen in the US, UK, and other countries is proof, the asshole was a fool and wasted years of his life on a big mistake — while his wife brought up their children.
Or maybe we should, now that the realization is kicking in, stop this creep up of Communism and go back to having a drastically lower involvement of government in the citizens' daily lives? Something like this, perhaps?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
There already IS benefits 1099 contractors can take with them from job to job (gig to gig)...it's called learning to negotiate your bill rate so that you can pay (and be free to choose) your own health insurance, set up a nice HSA to sock away pre-tax money for routine medical needs, to pick and choose your own retirement, set up a SEP, sock away and invest your money as you wish...no, we can't have the vast majority of contractors be depended upon to put on their "big boy" pants and make their own choices in life, negotiate their gigs, have the freedom to move from job to job and be able to write of actual expenses of doing business (mileage, etc).
No...we throw the baby out with the bathwater, on something that has worked for a LONG time, now that there are some new twists on it out there.
No one holds a fucking gun to your head to work 1099. You have to either be a responsible (and talented enough to be in demand) adult, and know what jobs to take and how to negotiate, do paperwork and budget to be a contractor, OR...have it be something part time to add money to your regular "day job".
I"m sorry, but being an uber driver has never been about making a living at it full time, it is a part time job to make some side money.
But, here we go, likely ruining people that do "real" 1099 contracting, and balance the risks vs the rewards of this form of employment, and independence.
If you are a real 1099 contractor, you already budget your bill rate to pay you own benefits and vacation/sick time...and it is portable wherever you wish to work next....it already works without the Feds intruding even more into our work lives.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Nope. It is because he was wrong. Fundamentally...
According to him, for example, 8 hours of work by a ditch-digger is equally valuable as 8 hours of an engineer or a pastry-chef. Equally valuable and therefore to be equally rewarded. As I said, wrong .
The progressive movement of 1900 had little to do with what's known as "progressive" today. But if you are willing to defend, what those guys did, let's start with the Prohibition... :)
No. The reason was Capitalism's ability to produce wealth — more than any other regime — and enough of it to keep the workers and the farmers satisfied, to the dismay of the Marxists. It is this satisfaction they've been trying to erode with varying success ever since — with made-up "outrages" over non-issues like "gender equality"... See also Marxism 2.0.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.