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Uber CEO Urges 'Portable Benefits' for Gig Economy Workers (thehill.com)
An anonymous reader quotes The Hill:
Uber's chief executive is calling for Washington state to develop a "portable benefits system" to give contract workers in the so-called gig economy access to health care and retirement planning accounts. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi signed onto a letter with Service Employees International Union (SEIU) 775 President David Rolf and Seattle investor and workers rights advocate Nick Hanauer urging the state to take action.
Uber does not hire drivers as actual employees meaning the company does not offer them benefits beyond compensation. Khosrowshahi said having the state change laws so that contract workers can carry benefits between jobs would be preferable to Uber hiring them as full employees.
Uber does not hire drivers as actual employees meaning the company does not offer them benefits beyond compensation. Khosrowshahi said having the state change laws so that contract workers can carry benefits between jobs would be preferable to Uber hiring them as full employees.
Wasn't that the whole point of obama care. Economic mobility even when you have a pre-existing condition.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
This is more about Uber fighting yet another losing fight in trying to call their employees "contractors".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
call them part times jobs, thatâ(TM)s what they are
Because that is not what they are. A part time job means that you are an employee with reduced hours. A "gig" means you may set your own hours, decide for yourself which days to take off, work for Uber for one fare, and then take a Lyft fare 10 minutes later, etc.
All benefits should be portable. For everyone.
call them part times jobs, thatâ(TM)s what they are
Part-time? I work between 32 and 55 hours a week driving for Lyft.
This might be a great startup idea. Create a company that provides benefits with several standard packages. Companies could buy into a package for their employees. If an employee leaves, he could continue to pay his own portion of the package (optionally changing to a cheaper or more expensive package), but unlike Cobra, it would be the full benefits and could continue indefinitely. If starting a new job with another company that uses the same benefits company, there would be no changes in benefits.
I could see this mostly being a mix of small businesses and contract employees, but it could also be larger companies and government agencies if the system worked well enough.
Its already happening without government intervention. For several years I've been seeing contracts where a small company's healthcare package is that one's paycheck is your pay plus your payment to an exchanged based healthcare policy.
You do know that Uber is actually losing these case, because, as shocking as it may be, most taxation authorities have a set of tests to determine whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is about the worst thing to come out of Uber yet. Rather than support a single payer system (that they're afraid they might have to chip in for) they want 'portable' benefits. e.g. completely paid for by the (underpaid) drivers. The best part is this makes it sound like he's doing it for the little guy when all he's really doing is trying to divert attention away from the fact that his company broke one of the fundamental social contracts in America (to wit: "Work for us and we'll take care of your healthcare).
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The rest of the world used that system for 100 years or so, it seems to work.
http://www.oregon.gov/ODA/shar...
Too stupid to know actual law, because you are NOT a contractor nor have you ever been a contractor, otherwise you'd know THIS EXACT LAW.
Which is why your lying ass posted as AC.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
But the insurance company will cut you off when you get cancer, causing you to lose all of your life's savings paying for treatment and then bank will take your home so you can die penniless in the street. America, what a cuntry!
Most nations have it except for the USA.
Uber's chief executive is calling for Washington state to develop a "portable benefits system" to give contract workers in the so-called gig economy access to health care and retirement planning accounts.
Anybody can already sign up for an IRA or Roth on their own. What exactly is this CEO asking for?
I can't believe that I'm defending the scum.
But no, you were not punished for it. Uber offered you better weekly incentives if you were found to be working for Lyft. It was a way for them to undercut Lyft since they were bigger and had more funding than Lyft.
And since Lyft usually has less drivers, it's Lyft that looks bad to potential customers when Uber gives a fare to a driver who does both Lyft and Uber.
give contract workers in the so-called gig economy access to health care and retirement planning accounts
How about you just give them the money and let them select and pay for their own benefits? While we're on the subject, let's do that for all the salaried workers too.
There's no need (from first principles) for my employer to be involved with my personal health or finances in any way apart from paying me. Just give me the money you would have spent on my behalf and allow me to secure those services myself.
Yes, I realize there is presently a discount for group insurance (or rather a penalty for individual policies), but that's only because it's expected that people will obtain their insurance through their company. If everybody arranged their personal health insurance personally, no such penalty/discount would exist.
So.. Dara Khosrowshahi probably has a fantastic benefits package, but those who "work for him" cant have one?
Do you mind giving a rough estimate for a typical week? Or for a 'great' week with a convention in town?
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
By the way, I meant dollar or pay estimate. Not hours again.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
The idea of "benefits" being attached to your job is a holdover from the wage & price controls enacted during World War II. Unable to increase wages, factories offered non-cash benefits like health care to attract skilled workers, and later the courts ruled that these health benefits were not taxable income. In the most extreme example, a shipyard started a medical clinic to provide medical care for shipyard workers and their families. Now the shipyard is long gone, but the medical clinic has grown into its own hospital chain; Kaiser.
Abolish all that! Allow fraternal organizations to offer medical insurance. Let everybody pay for their own insurance, and pensions, and other "fringe benefits", and you eliminate the problem of "pre-existing conditions". A young adult would choose his/her own fraternal organization such as the Kiwanis or Knights of Columbus or Masons or Odd Fellows. You could go from employer to employer, and NEVER lose your health insurance.
because if it existed they'd have to pitch in tax dollars to pay for it. If it were they could jump on Bernie Sander's Medicare for All bandwagon. What they want is a system where their drivers pay for the benefits Of course, we have that now; only the drivers aren't paid well enough to afford health care on their own. This is a dodge. A distraction meant to keep single payer from happening. Nothing more.
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Post part time jobs want 50 hours of availability any given week (telling you what 20 you get the Thursday before).
They also frown upon deciding you want two weeks off with 30 seconds notice.
The gig economy is different (and better) than part time work.
Probably not better than full time in most instances though.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Uber does not hire drivers as actual employees...
Although Uber hires drivers as actual employees, it refuses to recognise them as such. In many countries and some states this is illegal.
There, I fixed that for you.
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
If Uber is honest about this, they should accept to pay for contractor unemployment insurance. And of course the more they would let unemployed, the most expensive for them it would be.
The US concept that health insurance is tied to your employer is simultaneously anti-capitalistic and anti-socialist. In this system, nobody wins. We don't do it with anything else in our society: Not your car insurance, homeowners insurance, flood insurance, liability insurance, internet, telephone, food, electricity, or anything else. "Portable" insurance isn't some crazy idea, it just means "treat insurance like every other thing in society."
"Khosrowshahi said having the state change laws so that contract workers can carry benefits between jobs would be preferable to Uber hiring them as full employees."
I wonder whose preference this is. Perhaps the contract employees would rather be full-time employees.
befor ACA the ER was the only place for some both poor and others who where sick that they went to the only place that takes them and gives medical care with out checking if you can pay.
This determination is important because for all practical purposes, a dollar received by a contractor is worth less than a dollar received by an employee. Payroll tax rates (Social Security and Medicare) are 12.4% and 2.9% respectively (there's a ceiling of $128,400 for social security, but it doesn't affect most people).
The net result is that a dollar paid to a contractor is worth 7.65% less than a dollar paid to an employee, because the contractor has to pay an extra 7.65% of it to the IRS as what would otherwise be the employer's share of these payroll taxes. This is one of the big mistakes people make when they first start working for themselves. They used to be paid $70k as an employee with $10k worth of benefits. The company offers to pay them $85k as a contractor and they jump at it. Only to discover later that they now owe an extra $6500 in payroll taxes which means their net take-home pay is less than before, plus the company can now fire them at any time without termination benefits. Meanwhile the company pats themselves on the back for turning an employee who used to cost them $86.5k ($70k salary, $10k benefits, $6.5k employer's share of payroll taxes) into a $85k contractor.
What Uber is asking for is basically a loosening up of the IRS classification guidelines, so contractors can be given benefits. That would allow them to exploit the fact that most people don't grok that contractor pay is worth 7.65% less than employee pay, and they mistakenly equate $50k as an employee with $50k as a contractor. So by doing this, Uber can appear to be paying their contractors the same as employees and even offering them benefits, when in reality they'd be paying them less than if they just bit the bullet and made them an employee.
The situation wouldn't have arisen if the government had just been up-front and deducted all of the payroll taxes from the employee's paycheck, instead of trying to be cute and hide some of it by having the employer pay for it. But that's water under the bridge now, and the system we have today is the system we're stuck with. And one of the consequences of that system is that a dollar received by a contractor is worth less than a dollar received by an employee.
Increase dues to cover it, and negotiate increased hourly rates to offset the employer not paying the insurance. Let them manage the pension too. I'm sure they would be happy to take that on as well.
If you've ever wondered what a blatant attempt to privatise profits while socialising costs looks like, look no further.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Make PERSONAL health care expenses at ANY level fully deductible, just like they are for businesses. Right now, tax laws make it beneficial for workers to have the company pay for health insurance, and that not only screws independent/part-time workers, but it also breaks the entire concept of the consumer actually paying for what they are consuming (health care).
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
"Let everybody pay for their own insurance, and pensions, and other "fringe benefits", and you eliminate the problem of "pre-existing conditions""
no you don't eliminate this with private insurance. They have no reason to keep people insured which have such pre existing problem. The only way to eliminate this is to have a fix sum of money to be paid by everybody thus the healthy covering the sick: in other word UHC. Whether you want it governemental, or private due to the american allergy to some words, is up to you. But at least governemental UHC is a proven conept. Private HC without U, is a broken concept as the US prove times and times again.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
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visit randi.org
... the CEO of Uber wants to nationalize the overheads and expenses of having Gig workers [and get private tax-payers to pay for it], but wants to privatize the profits.
My, what a complete surprise...
This is not "millennials" trying to rename anything.
This is one of the many age old practices of employers trying to fuck over their workers.
In this case, the so-called "gig economy" is just piece-work or day-labour - ripping off the workers by attempting to falsely classify employees as independent sub-contractors so that they can weasel out of the wages and conditions they're obligated to provide to employees.
Are you an idiot sociopath indulging in some victim blaming, or a corporate shill doing a bit of paid astro-turfing?
Letâ(TM)s fix it by deregulation, not more regulation. When I switch jobs there is no impact on my life insurances, homeowners insurance, and car insurance. I simply buy these on my own. But health and disability insurance are only deductible if your employer provides them which is just dumb. Employers started providing healthcare during WW2 to attract and retain employees when the government froze wages.
Idiot can't read. That "one state" is quoting Federal law directly.
And apparently you don't know how these legal tests work, so you're still just as stupid as before.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
No, what this scum bag is really admitting is that his company doesn't pay livable wages, isn't about to, and wants tax payers to come to the rescue.
Driving someone you don't know, to a place you're not going, for money, is NOT a ride share, that is the definition of a taxi. Uber is skimming money off the backs of the lowest workers and trying to call it profit. A taxi service costs more because it's a real business, with real benefits, that PAYS it employees real wages.
Stop using uber/lyft and use a real taxi. Support workers.
The only thing worse than having my health benefits tied to a job I could be fired from, would be to have them tied to a fraternal organization that might release me from being a member because my religious or political beliefs vary from theirs.
That anyone should ever have to participate in the economy, know how the game works and how to play it. Good heavens, what would we do if people were proactive and entrepreneurial instead of "i can has job gimme"?
I was only 27 when my tiny startup rose up to $500k/year gross income. It's what happens when freelancers are competent.
Some Uber drivers I have stumbled upon, started their own business and have already grown it to 2 or 3 cars.
Benefits are already "portable". There are plenty of options for self employed people to get insurance - there isn't a law against it. The problem is these plans are prohibitively expensive because they have not been negotiated by a group. If everyone could "port" their plans, then group negotiated rates would no longer work... It would result in higher prices for all...
What these people should be looking into is plans under their local Chambers of commerce. These groups usually have group negotiated plans SPECIFICALLY designed for small businesses and self employed.