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Gig Economy Business Model Dealt a Blow in California Ruling (nytimes.com)

In a ruling with potentially sweeping consequences for the so-called gig economy, the California Supreme Court on Monday made it much more difficult for companies to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees. The New York Times: The decision could eventually require companies like Uber, many of which are based in California, to follow minimum-wage and overtime laws and to pay workers' compensation and unemployment insurance and payroll taxes, potentially upending their business models. Industry executives have estimated that classifying drivers and other gig workers as employees tends to cost 20 to 30 percent more than classifying them as contractors. It also brings benefits that can offset these costs, though, like the ability to control schedules and the manner of work. "It's a massive thing -- definitely a game-changer that will force everyone to take a fresh look at the whole issue," said Richard Meneghello, a co-chairman of the gig-economy practice group at the management-side law firm Fisher Phillips. The court essentially scrapped the existing test for determining employee status, which was used to assess the degree of control over the worker. That test hinged on roughly 10 factors, like the amount of supervision and whether the worker could be fired without cause.

258 comments

  1. Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by greenwow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    for a bad job. It's better to not have a job than one that doesn't pay a living wage.

  2. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by bobbied · · Score: 2

    for a bad job. It's better to not have a job than one that doesn't pay a living wage.

    Queue complaints about the federal minimum wage not being a "living wage" in California in 3.... 2.... 1....

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  3. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Having more people on the dole means more control so the government can take better caer of the people.

  4. What they should do by gurps_npc · · Score: 4, Informative

    Here is what they should do:

    You are an employee if ANY of the following are true:
    * They have any control over your clothing, besides requiring safety equipment
    * They control your hours, rather than give deadlines.
    * They can require you to do things using their method, rather than accepting any method.
    * They make any attempt to find out if you are working for other people, let alone prevent you from doing this.
    * They decide which sub-contractor does the work, rather than the head contractor.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
    1. Re:What they should do by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      You missed the most important one (and the one this case hinges on) - is what you do core to the business that's hiring you.

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    2. Re:What they should do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Any control" is a bit extreme; can I require my contractors to at least look professional when in my facility?
      Controlling hours is an IRS hard line for employee; you're right on that one
      Require you to use their method? That's way too generic. However, if they own the tools, you're an employee.
      Make an attempt to find out if you are working for other people ... so I shouldn't be able to see a risk of contractors leaking proprietary informtion?
      Decide which subs? There are legitimate cases for directed sub-contractors. Hell, even government contracting allows directed subs with proper oversight. While a good general idea, probably needs to be some more thought there.

      Here's the IRS's take, which isn't controlling for state law, but is a very well thought out set of guidelines.

      https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/understanding-employee-vs-contractor-designation

    3. Re:What they should do by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is one that I think is actually a challenge. Granted, the ruling only applies to CA DOL wage orders (effectively minimum wage plus a few associated items), but for my business we hire two very experienced mostly-retired engineers (72 and 77 years old). One of them goes away for a month or so at a time, and the other (older) one is easing into retirement. Both want flexibility, and it does provide each with a tax benefit. Neither wants any of our benefits, nor the pay penalty associated with them.

      So, should they be part-time employees? The primary business part of the equation means yes if they work for us, but no if they work directly for one of our clients. This seems arbitrary.

      A third person we work with just "retired," and does work for 5-6 other companies and likely well over 50 hours per week. Should he pay social security tax based on the base salary at each employer, or in aggregate as his own business?

      It doesn't really impact me as an employer-- it is barely $200k of pay per year, and paying an extra $15k in payroll taxes isn't a big deal, but the contractor arrangement is what makes their expertise available in the first place.

    4. Re:What they should do by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      A third person we work with just "retired," and does work for 5-6 other companies and likely well over 50 hours per week. Should he pay social security tax based on the base salary at each employer, or in aggregate as his own business?

      Umm.. aggregate. It's always aggregate. If he works for 6 jobs for two months each, and makes 200k at each of them, he only pays the limit for social security once. 6 jobs instead of contractor status would mean you'd have to get cash back instead of pay the money upfront.

      but for my business we hire two very experienced mostly-retired engineers (72 and 77 years old). One of them goes away for a month or so at a time, and the other (older) one is easing into retirement. Both want flexibility, and it does provide each with a tax benefit. Neither wants any of our benefits, nor the pay penalty associated with them. So, should they be part-time employees?

      It sounds like "yes". Sucks that it's a little less useful for both of you.

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    5. Re:What they should do by Tom · · Score: 1

      basically, "independent" should mean exactly that and nothing else.

      That is basically what law makers have been trying to do for decades, except that they are also trying to not step on anyones feet, not upset business, consider the next elections, keep in mind their campaign contributors stakes in the whole thing, manage public relations and avoid tricky interview questions, negotiate with their fellow lawmakers over compromises and not forget about the impact on the small business of their wife or best friends.

      But that nothing serious gets done is because the opposition party blocks it.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    6. Re:What they should do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Uber & Lyft fear a central marketplace of available rides where drivers can bid/accept rides. They want to keep both sides (driver & rider) locked into their system.

    7. Re:What they should do by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      It's yet another situation where trying to enumerate all the things that identify something is doomed to failure and will always be full of loopholes.

      The only way to do it is to set out the general principals and let courts decide the rest, making adjustments to the principals as required when the decisions are not as intended.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:What they should do by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

      Please, no! Compliance is cheaper than litigating the vague crap. Even things that are "clearly" spelled out in wage orders still have a lot of vague areas that are subject to interpretation by people who are programmed with "Employer Bad, Employee Honest and Abused."

      We now have to have a fscking time clock for engineers without their EIT (non-exempt), which is completely stupid but needed for compliance. But at least the requirement is clear...

    9. Re:What they should do by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 1

      You are right; it is just the employers that end up paying additional payroll tax that would otherwise be exempted.

    10. Re:What they should do by stdarg · · Score: 1

      * They have any control over your clothing, besides requiring safety equipment

      No clothing related "safety equipment" is required to babysit for an evening, but obviously someone wearing a black lives matter shirt or a kkk shirt might reasonably be declined without that magically turning into an employer/employee relationship.

      * They control your hours, rather than give deadlines.

      If I want someone to come paint a room in my house, and I say "No, of course you can't come at 3am" then suddenly I'm an employer?

      * They can require you to do things using their method, rather than accepting any method.

      What is a method? If it's as generic as it sounds, then if I get a maid service to clean my house and I give them a priority list like "Start with the bathrooms, then the kitchen, then the bedrooms, and if there's time left then do whatever laundry is ready" now I'm an employer?

      * They make any attempt to find out if you are working for other people, let alone prevent you from doing this.

      This is one of the keys, to me. If you have the ability to work for multiple people within a reasonable timeframe then you're a contractor.

    11. Re:What they should do by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      but obviously someone wearing a black lives matter shirt or a kkk shirt

      Nice racist, false equivalency you have there, my dear.

    12. Re:What they should do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Here is what they should do:

      You are an employee if ANY of the following are true:
      * They have any control over your clothing, besides requiring safety equipment
      * They control your hours, rather than give deadlines.
      * They can require you to do things using their method, rather than accepting any method.
      * They make any attempt to find out if you are working for other people, let alone prevent you from doing this.
      * They decide which sub-contractor does the work, rather than the head contractor.

      You are an independent contractor if you sell a product other than yourself. You are an employee if you sell yourself.

    13. Re:What they should do by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "They have any control over your clothing, besides requiring safety equipment"
      So if you tell people that they have to wear a shirt and shoes when dealing with the public they should then be classified as an employee? What about prohibition on inappropriate clothing?

    14. Re:What they should do by stdarg · · Score: 1

      I don't think blm is equivalent to the kkk, but a t-shirt about either one is inappropriate to wear to any job.

  5. Re:E-verify coming next! by Daetrin · · Score: 1

    What is E-Verify and what does it have to do with this? There's no mention of it either in the blurb or in the article.

    Also Uber claims that they vet all their drivers. Such vetting would clearly weed out any "illegals", and Uber definitely wouldn't lie to us!

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    This Space Intentionally Left Blank
  6. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    potentially upending their business models

    Good.

    A company's business model should not be based on exploiting people who are desperate for work.

    Pay decent wages and benefits, or, GTFO.

  7. Re:E-verify coming next! by Narcocide · · Score: 1

    Can you imagine what this means to the illegals?

    Probably nothing, in practice, unless they currently work for Uber. I don't see any compelling evidence that any other companies will change their policies unless forced to directly in the same fashion. This isn't a new law, it's merely a new ruling on an old law that companies across the entire industry have been flouting for years. You'd think there would be some sort of organized backlash, but these same employers are also the primary source of most such employees' understanding of employment laws in the first place and they've engendered an entire culture of lying to them about their rights as well as their actual employment status.

  8. Re: Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by cyber-vandal · · Score: 1

    Cue*

  9. Sounds reasonable to me by EndlessNameless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Half of the gig economy is companies trying to cheap out on traditional worker benefits. Uber is one of them, and they can suck it up.

    A worker-centric gig economy isn't managed by the platform: the workers should decide whether/how they deliver the goods or services, have some meaningful control over prices/profits, and be able to accrue a meaningful reputation.

    If the gig platform forces its workers to behave 90% like employees, then yeah, round that number up and call them employees.

    --

    ---
    According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
    1. Re:Sounds reasonable to me by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Half of the gig economy is companies trying to cheap out on traditional worker benefits

      Half? I was going to object that it seems like that's 100%, but then I remembered the other half is avoiding taxi/hotel/[whatever industry] regulations. It's not like Hyatt couldn't have (technically) converted apartments to rentals, it's that they have to obey the law (well, not flout it that blatantly.)

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re:Sounds reasonable to me by jwymanm · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Screw your company benefits. They are what corporations use to keep pay down and explain "ohh but your benefits." You know what is a better benefit than 401k or cheaper dental? Being able to ACTUALLY FUCKING WORK. And only work when you work. And keeping costs down. There is room for both kinds of enterprises, just ask Fedex and UPS. Go screw yourselves with trying to regulate people out of work. I personally still want to be able to use Uber and pay lower rates while providing a method for random people to pay their car bill and keep lights on. Uber isn't even close to slavery. Corporate life is closer to slavery. Requiring 8-5, micro managing every move someone makes, hanging cheese in front of peoples faces so they jump higher for the right to be promoted.. that to me is worse. But then we all have an opinion and your opinion seems to want to take rights away from these people earning an honest living and providing an awesome lower cost more approachable service than taxis/buses ever could.

    3. Re:Sounds reasonable to me by mjwx · · Score: 1

      Half of the gig economy is companies trying to cheap out on traditional worker benefits. Uber is one of them, and they can suck it up.

      A worker-centric gig economy isn't managed by the platform: the workers should decide whether/how they deliver the goods or services, have some meaningful control over prices/profits, and be able to accrue a meaningful reputation.

      If the gig platform forces its workers to behave 90% like employees, then yeah, round that number up and call them employees.

      Half?

      I think that is a very conservative estimate. The entire "gig" economy is about moving costs from the employer onto the employee, traditionally with contracting you were paid a huge premium over the full time equivalent salary for giving up your rights (paid holidays, pensions and what not) and job security (a contractor can be shown the door at any time, for any reason). The "gig" economy is trying to make everyone a contractor without giving them the benefits of a contractor.

      But the "gig" economy isn't making money, not the employees, not the employers. So this ruling will simply hasten its inevitable demise.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
    4. Re:Sounds reasonable to me by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      You know what is a better benefit than 401k or cheaper dental?

      If you need dental care, and want to retire? Nothing.

  10. Stuff your talking points by goombah99 · · Score: 1

    "right to work" is just talking point brainwashing. It's all about a right to negotiate collectively.

    --
    Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
    1. Re:Stuff your talking points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The $15/hour minimum wage, the gender wage gap that ignores the actual variables, etc are all about collective bargaining. Unions are dying and in a last gasp, they want to remove any resemblance of merit based pay. Once merit based pay is gone, there's no reason for individuals to negotiate/earn their own salaries and unions once again have a place. It's all about money. And it's not about money in the average worker's pocket, but about money flowing in to union coffers and enriching union leadership.

    2. Re:Stuff your talking points by slinches · · Score: 1

      There's nothing stopping you from collectively negotiating in "right to work" states. You just can't force those who wish to negotiate on their own to participate in your group.

      --
      Knowledge Brings Fear
    3. Re:Stuff your talking points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ummm, yes there is: You're fired. Employers are under no obligation to negotiate with you. Take it or leave it. That's the fucking problem.

    4. Re:Stuff your talking points by ScentCone · · Score: 2

      Employers are under no obligation to negotiate with you. Take it or leave it. That's the fucking problem.

      Why should they be? Should they be obligated to take a losing deal that ends their company, and thus provides no jobs? Who says which negotiations they must take on? Do you think YOU should be forced to negotiate until you don't get what you need out of the job? Should you be forced to work for somebody because somebody else struck a deal with them? No? Why not? Should you be able to walk away and pursue something else? Of course you should. Just like a business owner should. If they don't want to offer enough money, they won't get decent people to work for them, and they lose. What's wrong with that?

      --
      Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    5. Re:Stuff your talking points by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 2

      A- wealthy people can outwait starving people.
      B- it becomes a horrific dystopia when there is a labor glut
      C- No money getting to the bottom stifles the economy
      D-Leading to instability, violence, murder, and overthrow of the government fairly frequently. When that fails, usually genocide.

      --
      She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
    6. Re:Stuff your talking points by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      In any negotiation where you aren't just as willing to walk away as the other party you have no power.

      If it is easy for you to find another job you have negotiating power regardless if you are employed or contracting.

      If your work opportunities are slim and you need a particular employer they have power over you, regardless if you are employed or contracting.

    7. Re:Stuff your talking points by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      That alone doesn't undermine collective bargaining. In an environment with collective bargaining, saying 'you're fired' without just cause would mean a strike by every other member of the collective. If this is not happening in 'at will' states, then that's a separate failure.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    8. Re:Stuff your talking points by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      In any negotiation where you aren't just as willing to walk away as the other party you have no power.

      More than that - you can't have a free market (in this case, the labor market) if participants aren't free and able to decline a given deal. While one can argue that workers are FREE to walk away, the necessity of paying for food, water, shelter, transportation, and medical care means they typically are not ABLE to do so.

    9. Re:Stuff your talking points by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      I keep hearing that positions go unfilled and "it is so hard to find people." Keep bumping up the pay...problem goes away.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  11. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    potentially upending their business models

    Good.

    A company's business model should not be based on exploiting people who are desperate for work.

    Pay decent wages and benefits, or, GTFO.

    Well, those companies will GTFO moron and then those unemployed workers can look to a doofus like you for a job. Wait, you live in your parent’s basement, don’t you?

  12. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by thesupraman · · Score: 1

    Care to give ANY reason for that?

    When I worked my way through university, I worked two jobs. Neither of which paid me a 'living wage', and without which I would have left carrying one hell of a lot more debt.

    Is it your position that it is better to live of the state (which of course means other people who can be bothered working) than work?
    Is it your position that people who dont have enough skills to get 'a living wage' dont deserve a job?

    Of course the Gig economy is also a festering pile of crap, however in any sensible state there are suitable regulations in place, and they are enforced.
    If that is not happening, look to your state as the problem though, not the employers.
    If the state wont do sensible things, then organise a union - it may not be easy, but thats actually what they are for!
    If the state is in effect sponsoring people through other payments to do the job and undercutting you, then take it up with the state.

    However, if other people are willing to do the job cheaper than you, then dont gripe about that.

  13. Save it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Having more people on the dole means more control so the government can take better caer of the people.

    Save it the Libertarian/Conservative fairy tale shit.

    The housing market has broken from the labor market. In the olden days, housing prices were limited by people's incomes.

    No more. Thanks to cheap money for the last decade, hedge funds looking for returns, they have used that cheap money to buy housing; which subsequently pushed housing prices out of the reach of many people.

    All over the country.

    However, the market for labor - all up and down the food chain - hasn't kept up because unlike housing (and land), you can offshore labor one way or another (H1-bs, anyone?)

    That's why in Silly Valley you can make what would be awesome money in most parts of the country and yet live pay check to pay check.

    And that's why we're becoming a renters society.

    1. Re:Save it. by rogoshen1 · · Score: 2, Funny

      jesus christ AC. If you're going to post insightful and correct things, please log in next time.

    2. Re:Save it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Housing can only sell/rent for what people can afford. Empty units make no one money (although they can save money when there are oppressive rental controls exerted). The issue has nothing to do with greedy people with too much money, but has everything to do with supply and demand. Constrained demand, often caused by over regulation, burdensome fees/taxes and good old fashioned nimbyism is the true reason for expensive housing. If there's one house available and 10 people want it, the person willing/able to pay the most will get it. If you want prices to come down, you need to have 11 houses available for those 10 people. The way you do that is to have government policy that encourages and expedites building more units.

      Many of the housing supply issues are the direct result of liberal environmental policy, anti-sprawl planning and just plain big government getting in the way. Of course the Left's response to something being broken by their policy is to further add more government on top to try to correct the issues caused by the last bit of meddling they did which was to correct previous meddling.

    3. Re:Save it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All valid points, AC - in select markets. But it doesn't apply on a national level.

      And in the case of Silly Valley, your argument doesn't apply. The City of San Fransisco, partly so (Yes, I have seen the articles in the Economist and I disagree with them). But the whole Silly valley? No.

      Again, save the Libertarian/Conservative talking points and think for yourself. You're better than a parrot.

    4. Re:Save it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He said stop it with the Libertardian bullshit! Cutting regulations are not the defacto answer to all your problems.

    5. Re:Save it. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      Housing can only sell/rent for what people can afford. Empty units make no one money

      This is not true. Well, the second part, anyway. In a boom / bubble, the appreciation on an asset like a house can be significantly more than the rental income. A lot of properties are being bought with no intention of renting them (tenants may decrease the resale value by increasing wear on the interiors) so that they can be sold in a few years for a large profit. This happens in any market where a large proportion of the participants are speculators, rather than producers or consumers. The US used to have regulations that limited the number of speculators in commodities markets (you need some to improve liquidity and reduce risk), but Goldman Sachs successfully lobbied to have them removed. There were never any such regulations on real estate.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    6. Re:Save it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and if people in silly valley were to stop working those jobs, the companies that rely on those people would either need to pay more to attract people to work them, or the housing market would have to recover and adjust downward because now that people aren't working those jobs, demand for housing goes down, resulting in the market having to adjust prices down to garner interest.

      you can also blame socialfornia's taxes and policies which do nothing to help, and are partially the cause for some of these issues.

    7. Re:Save it. by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

      Housing can only sell/rent for what people can afford.

      If real estate were a consumable product like toilet paper, where there is no point in having more than you can use, that would apply. But real estate is not a consumable. It's call REAL estate specifically because it is immovable. That makes it a good store of value, thus giving very wealthy individuals a strong incentive to purchase more than they can use - even if it sits empty, it still holds value. And just like what happens whenever you have too many investment dollars chasing too few good investments, prices get divorced from what consumers can afford.

    8. Re:Save it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another thing that should be mentioned is that if housing prices are extremely inflated, you still have the option of purchasing an empty lot, buying the materials, and constructing the house. The prices of raw materials is not tied to the housing market. In those incredibly overcrowded markets, it is generally the price of land this is outrageous. In my mind, this is supply and demand working perfectly. There are parts of California that are basically a paradise -- if everyone could afford to live there, it would become an overcrowded nightmare. There are parts of the country where you can purchase an acre of land for $800. You can purchase an improved lot (power and water available to it) for about $10,000. You can get a mobile home for around $20,000. You can have shelter that you own for $30,000. I've seen even cheaper options.

      The labor market cannot possibly keep up with housing prices in great locations. The affordability of these places is limited to a certain population, and will always be limited to the upper X% of wealth-holders. So even if tomorrow a magic wand was waved, and everyone was earning an extra $100,000 per year, the prices of houses in those highly desirable places would go up such that only the same X% of people could afford to purchase one.

    9. Re:Save it. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      I've been saying this since the crash after 9/11. Cheap borrowing jacks up prices.

      Keep in mind the same thing is happening in college education with double-digit cost increases for 20 years. Congress could shut that down overnight by refusing to guarantee any loans to any students at universities that increase costs more than 1.5% a year. And keep it up to drag costs back down.

      They won't, but they should.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    10. Re:Save it. by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

      He can't be bothered, he is counting his pay checks!

      --
      Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  14. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thank god someone here is finally brave enough to speak up for the Silicon Valley billionaire-leech class.

  15. What the Left/Right wing wants.. by thesupraman · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    That is mostly because they want voters.

    Many people have lost tough with one base truism of the right/left wing political process.

    'Successful' people, especially those who made their own way to success, are generally right wing voters, to try and protect what they have.
    'Unsuccessful' people are generally left wing voters, because they want more 'give me'.
    Both sides want more voters.
    So the right wing generally wants to improve things for the middle classes and try to life people into the middle classes.
    The left wing generally wants more people on state support, so does their best to force and trap people down to that level.

    This is completely sensible from a power point of view, as it gives the two sides more support, more votes, and more chance at power.

    THIS folks is the big picture. Politicians care about little else than votes, and while they tend to be rather short sighted, their parties often play
    the longer game, and do realise this.

    A *LOT* of policy makes much more sense when you look at the reality of the voter pools.

    1. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by rogoshen1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      So the right wing generally wants to improve things for the middle classes and try to life people into the middle classes.

      Citation sorely fucking needed.

      It seems it's more akin to:

      left: you have yours, we're going to take it from you and give to someone else.
      right: i have mine, fuck you.

    2. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      A *LOT* of policy makes much more sense when you look at the reality of the voter pools.

      Reality would require you to get off the narrative path you're blindly walking.

      Here's another example for you:

      The right is full of "unsuccessful" people who are convinced that they're being taken advantage of by people on the left who have been "successful" at their expense.

      That is why the right is dogmatically insistent that it is only liberals, minorities, and especially the "illegals" who get welfare, completely ignoring how many of them take from welfare, and that includes those who steal from the coffers.

      That's why the right has to point its accusatory finger, so their own offenses aren't noticed. It's always somebody else who stole the cow.

    3. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by sjames · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Your characterization doesn't hold. The right is also full of people who are dirt poor but still think their ship will come in. Meanwhile, there's some crazy wealthy people leaning left out there. Also a lot of people who work for a living that couldn't be called unsuccessful.

      Most of the trap aspect of the safety net is the result of the right trying to push people out of the net before they're quite able to land on their feet.

    4. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Balial · · Score: 1

      A *LOT* of policy makes much more sense when you look at the reality of the voter pools.

      God forbid a democracy take into account the will of the voters!

    5. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Right is more along the lines of, "I earned mine, you go earn yours". Part of that is setting policy that enables and rewards achievement. Not putting up roadblocks to keep people from advancing. Not bucketing people, not creating victim culture and not promoting mediocrity. Letting people keep what they earn and not giving handouts to those that don't try. Promoting the concept of being responsible for yourself.

    6. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You just blew many minds with that post. I personally thought it was great.

    7. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by youngone · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The Right is more along the lines of, "I earned mine, you go earn yours".

      What, the Republican Party? Really? Do you mean the people who enthusiastically shovel tax money at whichever industry happens to be funding their reelection campaign?

      Or maybe you mean the Democrats who basically do the same thing.

      Please don't pretend there's any left wing in US politics, because there is not.

    8. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I see the left as that homeless guy who'd give you his very last dollar if he thought it'd improve your day.

      I see the right as the people who'd come to this homeless guy and sell him something he doesn't need, to get that last dollar, as if it were the last one on earth.

      Most folks on the right are self-starters, independent, etc, not without compassion or morals. But they're DRIVEN by these factors. They earned every dollar that they have and are mighty protective of what they have. They earned it, they shouldn't be required to share ANY. They're more likely to teach someone how to do something before they'd give that someone -anything- of value. Self-reliance is a pillar of this mindset. If you can't make it on your own, well, like when a hatchling bird leaves the nest, fly or not, you're on your own. Sink or swim, and all that.

      Most folks on the left are self-starters, independent, etc, not without compassion or morals, but they're DRIVEN by these factors. They make enough money to get by, and beyond that, they probably give excess money to those who need it and/or volunteer their excess time to worthy causes. And you know, some days, it just doesn't all go right and they're not afraid to ask a stranger for a hand up. Herd mentality and health seems is a pillar of the left. We're all in this together. Sometimes the herd health overrides personal health and considerations, the left understands this, or at least appears to.

      Somewhere between these two extremes is the majority of Americans.

    9. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      The Right is more along the lines of, "I earned mine, you go earn yours". Part of that is setting policy that enables and rewards achievement. Not putting up roadblocks to keep people from advancing. Not bucketing people, not creating victim culture and not promoting mediocrity. Letting people keep what they earn and not giving handouts to those that don't try. Promoting the concept of being responsible for yourself.

      Actually, that sounds more libertarian than right wing. I believe GP's summary was quite accurate:

      Right: "I've got mine, fuck you."
      Left: "Fuck you, I want what you have."

    10. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The problem with many companies is that as soon as people are employed as engineers under a management hierachy, that hierarchy starts getting being put under pressure to assign people in a variety of ways; we want the [brightest|most qualified|whoever knows the most about the project|whoever has been here the longest] on task X. Some engineers may have accepted the job on the basis that they would do work on task Y or Z. If task X is something like maintenance, then the engineers will start leaving. Mathematicians might leave if they end up doing kernel work . A whole team will leave once only bug fixing is left. Then there is the rivalry of getting the "interesting work" so everyone starts picking short simple tasks until the longer more interesting tasks become available. Working as a contractor cuts through all that bullcrap.

    11. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by q_e_t · · Score: 2

      I'm a liberal. I'd much rather more people were successful so that they didn't need to be on state support.

    12. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      A big issue with the safety net is having it done so horribly that in order to have the net you basically have to throw everything away. To be on food stamps you cannot have ANY savings. Having just a little in your account gets you kicked off food stamps, you can lose housing assistance, etc. Why are the poor underbanked? Because of this.

      How do you dig yourself out of being on welfare, by saving money. But when having $500 in the bank* means you lose the $500 of food stamps for your family of 5, how can anyone ever save themselves out of poverty? If they were putting aside $100/mo for 5 months, then lose $500 of benefits for having the audacity to save money you create an unpenetrable barrier for the poor to pass through, with the only possible way to find a job that increases your income by more than the benefits you lose.

      With this method there is no way for them to have an emergency fund, no way to pay for car repairs, or to buy a nice pair of shoes that will last a year rather than a few months. It gets expensive to be poor, taking out payday loans, or suffering from the repeating late fees that are stacking up.

      As a middlish class person (I really have no idea what class I belong to) so many things come free. I don't pay for banking, I never have late fees, hell, I can even travel hack with credit cards throwing $500 at me every month for signing up and travel internationally for free. Things like this are beyond the reach of those on welfare. Why might one have a shiny iPhone, because the $600 phone doesn't get their $500 food stamps taken away, whereas that same money in a bank account would.**

      The Republicans want to make this system worse, have higher requirements for it, make the time people can collect shorter, screen out as many people as possible.

      TL;DR I agree with you.

      * It might be $2k, I'm not sure, but the point is still the same
      ** I don't know how many on welfare have one, or if this is the exact logic they used

    13. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

      That is why the right is dogmatically insistent that it is only liberals, minorities, and especially the "illegals" who get welfare

      This is true. Only people on the left receive welfare. People on the right receive well-deserved subsidy and financial assistance.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    14. Re: What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Iâ(TM)ve never seen any homeless guy on a freeway offr-amp with a sign asking if he could give anybody money. You must live in a very interesting place.

    15. Re: What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Type44Q · · Score: 2

      Please don't pretend there's any left wing in US politics, because there is not.

      The problem... is stupid-fuck, meaningless, divisive terms like "left" and "right" but to be fair, they fool a rather large proportion of otherwise seemingly intelligent people.

      As for "liberal" and "conservative," these words are also rather meaningless, as a traditional "European conservative" believed that power should be retained by the feudal aristocracy (allowing the peasants to own arms and defend themselves would be, by this defintion, as "left wng" as it gets.

      However, over here in the States, a certain idealogical debate gripped the nation, with Jefferson espousing a "conservative interpretation of the powers granted to the federal gov't by the Constitution" (as progressive of a position as one could take), while Hamilton, being in favor of traditional European "values," thought the idea of empowering the masses was insane, and thus chose a "liberal interpretation of the powers granted to the gov't by the Constitution," thus coming closest to resembling a traditional European "conservative."

      It's really too bad about what passes for "education" - on both sides of the ocean; everyone should already know this shit.

    16. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by houghi · · Score: 0

      So you think that around 50% of the US are self starters or independent (And I assume you are talking real independent, not pushed into it, so their employers can save a few dollars in responsibility). Could you back that up with some numbers, or is it just that you have the impression that that is the case?

      It is also funny/sad that you think that these two are the extremes and that politics is only left to right and choice is on a line. In reality it is a lot more complex than that.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    17. Re: What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Type44Q · · Score: 3, Informative

      This freethinking, gun-owning vegetarian apologizes, in advance, for any cognitive duress experienced by our clearly 'well-intentioned but otherwise government-educated' brethren in the UK - lay off the soy, boys; the effects of phytoestrogen are showing... ;)

    18. Re: What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll just leave this here for all you liberal rightward

      https://www.mrc.org/articles/liberal-kristof-admits-conservatives-more-generous-liberals

    19. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which is why a secretary pays more in income taxes than a hedge fund manager who is taxed only on capital gains, right? Such BS.

    20. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by painandgreed · · Score: 2

      So the right wing generally wants to improve things for the middle classes and try to life people into the middle classes.

      Citation sorely fucking needed.

      It seems it's more akin to:

      left: you have yours, we're going to take it from you and give to someone else. right: i have mine, fuck you.

      The way I see it is:

      Left: We'll educate the embetter the poor and we'll have a better economy with worker that will make more and spend it and a rising river lifts everybody
      Right: If we give more money to the rich, they'll buy more stuff, which will require more workers and lift the economy

      From there, it's just a matter of which one you think will work.

    21. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The right is also full of people who are dirt poor but still think their ship will come in.

      Are you sure? I know some of those people are Republicans, but if you listen to them talk and watch what they do, they seem pretty left of center. They tend to advocate for bigger, more intrusive government than, say, hippies do. They're anti-free-market (and voted for Trump because he is too). When factories spew pollution into their own property, they don't freak out because "property" isn't an important concept to them. Except for the 2nd amendment (which they actually are conservative about) they think it's ok for government to ignore the bill of rights and they don't feel like it's the people's place to do anything about it. They favor mystic dogma over practical experience, so they reject science in favor of faith. Lordy, they're big on religion.

      I think you have Republicans mixed up with their near-political-opposite, conservatives.

    22. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Agreed. Both parties are leftist at this point.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    23. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is an extremely small number of people that fit in that loophole. It's an exaggerated example cherry picked. The reasons are not to give a big break to those few people. It's to make the trading system work efficiently for everyone else so things like 401ks can earn more. A few people just happened to personally fit within those boundaries. The proposed "fixes" I've seen would make investing for the average person much more expensive. Best to not create stricter taxes to impact a few that would break things for the many. Sometimes you just have to accept some outliers.

    24. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      You can't save but you can buy $200 worth of soda each month with tax dollars. Getting an $800 food stamp allotment also makes it easier to pay for a $120 cable bill. Both of these are standard home expenses for welfare recipients. Most of the time they also have an unreported income living in the house as well (boyfriend).

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    25. Re: What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And don't forget, the left subsidizes all that rural lifestyle the right loves so much.

    26. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by david_thornley · · Score: 1

      Do you have a citation for that that won't fizzle out if I dig into it? Alternatively, how many welfare recipients have you known, and how varied were they?

      --
      "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
    27. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HAHAHA the only thing to the right of American politics are the Nazi's and the extreme right edge of US politics is pretty close to indistinguishable from them, like most Americans, you wouldn't know a real leftist if one bit you.

      ps. I come from a pretty right leaning country, and to ME US politics is hard right

    28. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Leftist are feckless spongers, but Ayn Rand was just temporarily down on her luck.
      --
      roman_mir

    29. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The thing is, the gains of the few in the cited example are "That Which is Seen" and the investments NOT made because of the regulatory "fixes" are "That Which is Not Seen" (http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html). Most people only take the former into account or, at best, pay lip service to the latter because it cannot be quantified and is therefore somehow less "objective".

    30. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      They shouldn't be required to "share" any. I don't think that one 'shares' when one pays taxes. That's appropriation - that's the nature of taxes. I know many, many right wing people who share quite a lot, actually.

    31. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      If the left's idea is to embetter the poor through education, why have the left AND the right made education so much more difficult?

    32. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by wyHunter · · Score: 1

      And this is where the Democratic party has deviated from the liberal idea of freedom, wealth, and free markets. As I see it, the left is always playing victim politics, rather than genuinely trying to make people more successful. It's a terrible tragedy, actually. We have reached a point in the country where both parties are the same, advocating a state that is supreme, an individual that is nothing, having no rights, just occasional privileges. It's absolutely horrible.

    33. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah yes, trying to disprove something with a few outliers.

      That is, after all, how they win elections, looking at the exceptions, rather than the rule.

    34. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by sjames · · Score: 1

      Low to lower middle income people voting for the Rs (against their own interests) because they are "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" is the bulk of the constituency. That's why they pay lip service to the fundies.

    35. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      You can't save but you can buy $200 worth of soda each month with tax dollars.

      In some world where Santa is real, sure.

    36. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      left: we'll repo what was taken from you via graft and exploitation and return it

      Fixed.

    37. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by q_e_t · · Score: 1

      The Democratic Party is, by world standards, centre right, and not at all left.

    38. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by painandgreed · · Score: 1

      If the left's idea is to embetter the poor through education, why have the left AND the right made education so much more difficult?

      Well, let's be honest. There's essentially no politically active left in the US, just center right and far right.

    39. Re:What the Left/Right wing wants.. by sjames · · Score: 1

      Like it or not, that's what passes for conservative these days.

  16. Re: Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by bobbied · · Score: 1

    Touché.... I should know better.. My bad..

    Homonyms, Eye due knot no witch two right off ten.

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  17. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by thesupraman · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I am just wondering what business model that employs any significant number of people you think is NOT based on exploiting people desperate for work?
    Of course, there is desperate and there is desperate, but that is pretty much why it is called work, not fun, and its not easy to be paid to have fun.

    Of course the translation of what you are saying is actually:
    'I am set up enough to have a solid job with prospects, and I see no reason why people who are not should have a job, because they cannot earn enough to make it worthwhile in my view'
    And that is pretty god damn bad.

  18. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by postbigbang · · Score: 1

    Enforced? Get a state to do something that isn't bought and paid for by lobbyists and campaign contributions?

    C'mon.

    Organize a union? With Right To Work legislation? Nope. Sever employees that try to organize? Ask the NLRB how many complaints are on file.

    This is about: Need To Eat. This is about not subsidizing businesses. This is about not having businesses pay so low that people have to use subsidies to live-- eat, get housing, medical care, and transportation to just, yes, live.

    Some of them don't have your brains, motivation, whatever it was that made you work two jobs. Lots of parts of society struggle with poverty, opoid addiction, busted families, congenital or other disease. They're not all dope smokers/users living on welfare money.

    But most want to work. Some can't get jobs because they have no address. They have no teeth. They have no skills, or the ones they had have been replaced by automation, or just market shifts.

    Employment is high. So is under-employment. For each Walmart worker, there's a better than even chance that your state is subsidizing that worker because Walmart won't pay enough. You can't keep dividing off what's taxable and needed for basic human subsistence. The math doesn't work. They're not all as gifted or able as you. Those of us who can work, and do make money, subsidize the unemployed/under-employed through taxes and charitable generosity. This is where corporate taxes need to the job-- or a freaking living wage, salient for the cost of living in the area where paid (looking at you, Bay Area).

    --
    ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
  19. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    um. no.
    Become employees then Uber and Lyft will control hours etc.

    The contact deal is good for both parties. Most I talked to were making extra money for personal goals. They liked the flexibility. As usual the lawyers are messing w/ people's lives.

    If you think its better to nor have a job than one that pays a "living wage" which I assure you has a lot of variables to define. Then you are free to not have one. Those who accept the arrangement for their own reasons, leave them alone.

  20. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    this is actually cheaper and better for Uber,
      - first they can forbid you to work for Lyft (anti-competitive clause) even in your off-time (you can still work for McDonalds in off-time i guess)
      - second they can give you minimum wage and not a cent more (now some drivers get less but some much more)
      - third they can employ you for maximum of 30 hours per week so you don't have any benefits like big grocery stores already do, in other words additional benefits costs are significantly reduced
      - fourth they can tell you "you work only in rush-time when there is a lot of work" in other words Friday evening and other similar unpleasant time (for same minimal hourly wage), and we don't care you have to take your daughter to soccer practice
      - fifth they can still easily fire you, just create a lot of small 5 man "companies" that are under contract with Uber to provide service itself (each with 5 drivers), and if they want to fire you with no money they just stop paying this 5 man company and let it go under, while other 4 people in your "company" get offer to switch to another also "5 man company" and continue working for Uber

    the only cost will be that they have to buy/provide cars for you to use and do work, but i think savings on worker itself will make it more profitable in long run
    and almost forgot, they are guaranteed to get workers which practically cant refuse to work, just tell unemployment provider to send them any workers with drivers licence, and if you refuse job you loose unemployment benefits you depend on for food

    sometimes i think i would be great devil :)

  21. Before The Gig Economy by pgn674 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will this change also affect contractors that were independent contractors long before this new gig economy trend? For example, if a family owned rug store offers to tell rug installing contractors about sales done that day (with the approval of the customer), are those contractors now under threat of becoming employees? What if the store offers to arrange the timing of the appointment for installation?

    1. Re:Before The Gig Economy by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Will this change also affect contractors that were independent contractors long before this new gig economy trend?

      Maybe!

      if a family owned rug store ... are those contractors now under threat of becoming employees

      Nope! The reason Uber's drivers are now considered employees is because they are performing the "usual course of business" of Uber. The Rug Store sells rugs. Now, if they sold specialty rugs that had to be installed and where the vast majority of customers would buy the rug if and only if the rugs were installed by the Rug Store or their contractors, such that "buying a rug" was synonymous with "buying an installed rug" then they might have to W2 the installers. If it wasn't expected that the rug purchase and the rug installation were supplied by the same company, then no.

      What if the store offers to arrange the timing of the appointment for installation?

      That's the same "control over contractor's actions/methods" test that existed in both standards. So, while there is clearly some line of control, it should remain the same.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
    2. Re:Before The Gig Economy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If the only jobs they ever get are from the rug store, and all payment is processed by the rug store, then I would argue that indeed, the installers are employed by the rug store.

      I think the real issue is that all of these companies started out with some decent ideas, stuff like "I'm driving from my town into the city 40 miles away, anyone else going that way need a ride?" and "I'm going out of town for a few weeks, why not rent out my place?" to people turning into taxi drivers and buying property only to rent it out by the weekend. And in the process skirting all of the employment and renters/zoning laws.

    3. Re:Before The Gig Economy by djinn6 · · Score: 1

      Now, if they sold specialty rugs that had to be installed and where the vast majority of customers would buy the rug if and only if the rugs were installed by the Rug Store or their contractors, such that "buying a rug" was synonymous with "buying an installed rug" then they might have to W2 the installers.

      What if you replace "rug" with "solar panels"?

      The whole idea of "usual course of business" is silly. It's not a judge who determines what the business is, it's the business itself. Uber can be a taxi company, or it can be a ride-sharing company, or an automated job board with pre-negotiated rates. It can even be all 3 at the same time. The judge has no business playing the role of a CEO, and businesses shouldn't need to go to court to find out what business they're in.

    4. Re:Before The Gig Economy by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      What if you replace "rug" with "solar panels"?

      Then the installers would probably be employees.

      It's not a judge who determines what the business is, it's the business itself

      A business has a lot financially riding on the answer. There's no reason to suspect that they will be honest.

      In fact, Uber keeps claiming not to be a taxi company for various reasons. And had to get overruled.

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  22. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by taustin · · Score: 2, Informative

    When someone working 40 hours a week at the federal minimum wage has a gross income (not take-home) that is less than the rent on the average studio apartment in LA, it's not a living wage.

    On the other hand, California has its own minimum wage, which is quite bit higher (and still nowhere near a living wage), so your whining is fairly stupid anyway.

  23. If I depend on gigs to survive I'd be worried by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Back to the unemployed with you, gigboy. But don't worry the democrats have some handouts for you as long as you vote the right way.

  24. Re:E-verify coming next! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    But that's WHY the democrats voted to ban people from gig employment. Too many African-Americans and other poor white Americans working jobs that should rightfully go to citizens of Merxico. African-Americans and other poor Americans are supposed to go to DNC headquarters and ask for handouts, not steal jobs from Mexicans!

  25. Re:E-verify coming next! by taustin · · Score: 1

    California issues drivers licenses to illegals. Once you have a valid license, it's trivial to get insurance (if you have money). What else does Uber "vet" beyond the ability to get in and out of the car without hurting oneself?

  26. Value of a human being. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah....that seems to be a stickler in this country: many folks base a person's value on their ability to produce, IQ, and wealth (hence why Eric Trump is "worth" more than those school teachers in ....well, everywhere.)

    Zuckerberg gets his ass kissed for pimping out people's data (and he'll never stop) while others get kicked in the ass for caring about the little things in life and the little people.

    We have a segment of society that will literally kill to protect the unborn but when it comes to a living child's well-being, it's dog eat dog.

    What a twisted fucked up society we live in.

    Don't mind me; I have a great inheritance from a father that invested in defense stocks. Every time a POTUS says "bomb", I make enough to buy a low end BMW. And people kiss my ass because I got money from choosing my parents well.

    I'd laugh if it weren't so pathetic.

    1. Re:Value of a human being. by Nethead · · Score: 1

      Thank you for your honesty.

      --
      -- I have a private email server in my basement.
    2. Re:Value of a human being. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      while others get kicked in the ass for caring about the little things in life and the little people.

      I think you are making this up. If I am wrong, please name some people who got beaten up because they "care about the little things in life and the little people".

      We have a segment of society that will literally kill to protect the unborn

      In the USA, about one third of the population believes that ending the life of a fetus in the third trimester is murder. That is about 110,000,000 people. How many of them murdered someone to stop abortion? Can you name one?

      There is a big difference between believing abortion is immoral and murdering people because they commit abortion. The fact that you mix these two actions up shows that you are not serious about understanding people who think outside your narrow, limited point of view.

      but when it comes to a living child's well-being, it's dog eat dog

      The world is dog-eat-dog by default. Some of us do what we can to make it less dog-eat-dog. I have never personally met someone who opposes abortion, and does not care about the well-being of children. Have you, are are you just making up stories of how evil the people you hate must be?

      What a twisted fucked up society we live in.

      You (and people like you) are a significant part of the problem.

    3. Re:Value of a human being. by Daralantan · · Score: 1

      We have a segment of society that will literally kill to protect the unborn

      In the USA, about one third of the population believes that ending the life of a fetus in the third trimester is murder. That is about 110,000,000 people. How many of them murdered someone to stop abortion? Can you name one?

      There is a big difference between believing abortion is immoral and murdering people because they commit abortion. The fact that you mix these two actions up shows that you are not serious about understanding people who think outside your narrow, limited point of view.

      It's due to everyone being so entrenched in their politics and tribalism. No one is willing to not see the other side as evil at all times. Someone bombed an abortion clinic because they disagree with abortion? CLEARLY everyone who opposes abortion in any way supports this action and would do the same thing, just because they agree on one thing.

    4. Re:Value of a human being. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      difference between unborn and the "living" as you say - the unborn can't defend themselves. aren't able to make many choices. Whereas the "living" can do both.

      If a "living child" decides to work a crap job for crap wages, that's on them. Either gain skills and move up/out, or be happy where you're at.

      I am laughing at you - because you ARE pathetic.

  27. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's also an employment model. There are many people out there that look for contract type work for the flexibility that it gives. Be it a second job, a means to make some extra cash on occasion, or because they have other interests that don't allow them to work a fixed schedule. In trying to "protect" workers, the overzealous Union funded on the left are removing options for the average person seeking work. You don't have to take a contract job. You can take something that fits a typical employment. For many, however, having a contract option is the best choice. Trying to regulate and make everything fit a singular mold does not help anyone other than the politicians running feel good campaigns.

  28. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Jodka · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It's better to not have a job than one that doesn't pay a living wage.

    That is your opinion. In the opinion of some who seek a supplementary income, a job with is lesser rate of pay is acceptable.

    A student who lives at home, a retiree with a pension, a housewife with free time while her kids are in the school each want to earn some additional cash in their free time. You demand that they be denied the right to some jobs which they would voluntarily accept.

    This is why conservatives and libertarians regard leftism as inherently fascist; Leftists such as yourself seek the power of government to impose their own preferences on others, under threat violence, fines, and incarceration.

    You should be free to accept or decline a job offer as you see fit. You should not be entrusted with the power to govern, because you will use that power to deny that same freedom to others.

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature.
  29. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by sexconker · · Score: 1

    I am just wondering what business model that employs any significant number of people you think is NOT based on exploiting people desperate for work?

    One where you pay employees well, treat them well beyond pay, offer opportunities for advancement, etc.?

    For example, In-N-Out.

  30. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by swillden · · Score: 2

    for a bad job. It's better to not have a job than one that doesn't pay a living wage.

    My teenage son strongly disagrees and so do the two in college.

    --
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  31. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Minimum wage jobs are not meant to be careers. Anyone that's making minimum wage for more than a few months isn't making any effort to advance themselves. Minimum wage is meant for part time workers, students and starter jobs. Learn a trade, make yourself more valuable to your employer, do more than clock in and clock out.

  32. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

    Well, it isn't. What would be a fair "livable" minimum wage nationwide - something that would cover San Francisco, CA, and McAllen, TX? SF is 3.4 times more expensive than McAllen... Rather than have a Federal minimum wage, it should be a local - or at highest, State - kind of thing.

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  33. Re:E-verify coming next! by stephanruby · · Score: 2

    Next time, please be direct with your allegations.

    What you're implying is completely false. This does nothing to illegals. Illegals can not drive for Uber/Lyft. Period.

    And this does nothing to legal immigrants either, for instance, refugees, that can prove they've been driving in the State with a State's driver's license for more than one year. Those will still be allowed to drive for Uber/Lyft (assuming they can maintain more than ~4.6 stars after they've given more than 50 rides, the exact cut-off point varies by areas, but below 50 rides, they're allowed to have a low star rating unless the complaints are really bad).

  34. Time machine by VeryFluffyBunny · · Score: 1

    It's as if Silicon Valley created a time machine that takes workers back to the (lack of) labour laws in the USA in the mid 19th century. At least that's what I understand from the ideas espoused as "the gig economy."

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    1. Re:Time machine by Cinnamon+Beige · · Score: 1

      It's as if Silicon Valley created a time machine that takes workers back to the (lack of) labour laws in the USA in the mid 19th century. At least that's what I understand from the ideas espoused as "the gig economy."

      Some of it actually is going back to when you could have a decent chance of surviving as an independent worker.

      I'd set one of the basic tests as this: If the standard deal is I can list on their app that "I will frob your widgets for $20" and they deal with getting me paid for a cut of whatever my fee for frobbing widgets is, I'm a contractor. If they pay me $10 an hour for frobbing widgets on demand, I'm an employee even if I get to pick my hours.

  35. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by sjames · · Score: 1

    Is it really that hard to imagine someone who WANTS to work in order to have more, but by virtue of already having their basic needs met is not *DESPERATE* for work?

  36. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In-n-out also puts references to bible versus on their cups. The owner is a vocal Christian. Not sure what that has to do with politics. But hey.

  37. Re:Oh bullshit by sjames · · Score: 1

    So you contend that if employers have to pay a living wage, they'll fire everyone and rage quit their business?

  38. Just insure everybody by WinXP+the+Pooh · · Score: 0

    And all along I thought people who signed employment contracts were contractors. I think the conditions you mentioned are matters of degree and not simple binary options.

    On the other hand I see a fairly painless way for such web-based service platforms to evade the ruling. If they focus merely on connecting the "client" with the "server" but don't take a cut beyond a flat membership fee, they can't be considered employers any more than I become Amazon's employer by using their web hosting service. This could end up jacking price of the service to nobody's benefit except in those statistical situations better solved by some sort of a mandatory insurance scheme, e.g. after an accident or a significant delay. Cases of outright fraud should, of course, naturally involve the authorities.

  39. Economic slavery is still slavery .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... and any job that doesn't pay a fair wage is simply exploitation, usually of the already poor. There's enough capital and work that need to be done. Everyone who wants an honest job with honest pay should be entitled to one so long as they do the work consistently and reasonably well. We never abolished slavery, we just redefined it.

    1. Re: Economic slavery is still slavery .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think you need to read up on what slavery was actually like, if you think a part time job is the same thing.

  40. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by sjames · · Score: 1

    Is it your contention that employers would rather fire everyone and rage quit than raise their prices a bit and pay a living wage? Or do you believe that labor is so cheap that employers are in the habit of hiring more people than they actually need to run their business?

    Because otherwise, if the minimum wage increases, employers will pay it so they can continue to make money. Since their competition will also have to pay it, they won't be disadvantaged. Then, we the taxpayers won't have to subsidize their payroll anymore.

    Consider, if employees were businesses, they would leave the market before they would sell at a loss (that is, work for less than a living).

  41. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by youngone · · Score: 1

    Good slave. Well done.

  42. Mod Parent up by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    when I hire somebody to fix my fence that's a contractor. When I hire somebody to fix fences for my fence repair business that's an employee.

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    1. Re:Mod Parent up by Quirkz · · Score: 1

      when I hire somebody to fix my fence that's a contractor. When I hire somebody to fix fences for my fence repair business that's an employee.

      So, is Uber a transportation company? A people-coordinating company? An app company? I'm not actually sure where they fall between your two examples.

  43. Price is a big part of why they're not contractors by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    Uber sets all prices. e.g. it decides how much the employees get paid. Also, Uber will fire you if you don't show up to work. e.g. Uber often has unprofitable rides. Uber won't tell you what the ride is until you pick the person up and if you try to guess and turn down too many rides (or if you turn rides away after you find out they're not profitable) they'll fire you (e.g. ban you from the app). They control what you earn and when you earn it.

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  44. Don't forget not paying mileage by rsilvergun · · Score: 1

    or having proper commercial drivers insurance. Modern and very safe cars mean We've yet to see a real test of what happens when there's a multi-million dollar accident caused by an Uber driver. But it's only a matter of time.

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  45. Re:Price is a big part of why they're not contract by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ok. How is this different from say designcrowd.com? They set the prices. They can 'fire' you (not allow you to list)... it's *gasp* an "app", web app that is. Tell me what the difference is? Are all the designers who want to submit bids on there "employees"?

  46. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    for a bad job. It's better to not have a job than one that doesn't pay a living wage.

    Whether or not a particular job is better than not having a job is a matter of opinion. To recognise and respect the opinions of others is to be social. To reject and disregard the opinions of others is to be socialist.

  47. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

    One could easily twist all that logic right back atcha, bro.

    One could say, you are forcing everyone into this kind of job market where no one pays a living wage, not even for full time employment. We are in fact, required, by your thinking, to hold several 'little jobs', juggle their schedules within the confines of our own lives, so your wife can take up part-time babysitting at a wage no one could survive on?

    You see what's happening, your personal freedom claim is affecting everyone around you. When you force the bar to go this low, no one is winning here, we're all getting shorted at the end of the day. Why pay anyone a living wage if no incentive for me to do so? I'll just call you an independent contractor and pay you way under minimum wage with no benefits or pension for long service to your business. I mean, do you think all that stuff came out of people who were happy with how things were going? Read some history bro, workers got sick of your mentality and revolted, employers had to change their ways to get ANY labor after that.

    But they're been eroding away unions for decades now, and brainwashing the likes of you into thinking all these rules are infringing on their personal freedom to fuck people over. Learn some history before you post again.

  48. Re:E-verify coming next! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But that's WHY the democrats voted to ban people from gig employment. Too many African-Americans and other poor white Americans working jobs that should rightfully go to citizens of Merxico. African-Americans and other poor Americans are supposed to go to DNC headquarters and ask for handouts, not steal jobs from Mexicans!

    I really have to doubt this rationale. Certainly, the gig-economy is being attacked in part to increase the number of people dependent on the government and therefor increase votes for the blue party. It's also true that splitting people into easily identifiable groups (along the lines of race and gender) and pitting them against one-another makes them easier to control (a huge benefit to both parties). However, I don't believe such surreptitious racism benefits, even indirectly, any of the people responsible for this attack.

    The red and blue parties are both so thoroughly evil that incorrectly attributing wrongdoing to either of them only creates doubt about their deeds and thereby protects them.

  49. Re:Oh bullshit by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    The money for the new wages has to be created from something.
    Costs are taken out of company growth. A company in CA stops growing to cover new wage costs.
    New prices get put onto the price of a service and products.
    Less profit for them company that offers work. Less jobs on offer.
    Pass the full costs of the new wages to the people buying products and services.
    People stop spending in CA and the company has less to pay their workers. Growth stops and less jobs are created in CA.
    The few skilled people with jobs get to keep their jobs. New jobs that meet new state wages then cost too much to create.

    The smart money then invests well outside CA. Away from new CA job regulations that reduce profits.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  50. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would like to add to that by preemptively countering the claim that not all jobs deserve a living wage.

    "What, even those crazy far-fetched couples on House Hunters with the ridiculously impossibly high budget?"

    If someone else has hired them to do those jobs, yes! If they are their own boss though, well, that is one of the downsides to owning your own business.

  51. Part-time shouldn't exist by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The basic crux of the problem here is part-time employment. It's been abused and misused to an extreme that is just unimaginable.

    What used to be a rare sight, a fluke, a unicorn in the overall job market, the part-time job. The paper-boy route for the aspiring teenager. Or the babysitting gig for the stay-at-home mom.

    Someone took this and ran into hell with in it and dragged us all along for a painful experience that we're currently living through. Part-time was never supposed to be a career choice. It was never supposed to be the only thing you could find. It was a stop-gap, a place for the teenager or young adult. Now it's become THE JOB MARKET. Fulltime employment is hard to come by now.

    Why? Well, because part-time employees are cheaper. You don't have to pay benefits, or retirement plans for part-time employees. It's supposed to be a temporary job after all, not your career. But now, it is. The part-time job has metamorphosed into the mechanism by which the employer is abusing the employee. When they realized the gold-mine of cheap labor they had with the part-time employee, they did any good business person would do. They got rid of the expensive full-time employees and just hired a few more part-timers to fill the gaps.

    Now employers are taking it a step further. Our employees, they're not employees at all. At least on paper. We pay them as contractors and as such, we're not subject to ANY employer/employee rules at all. Even cheaper. Nice. Another win for the top. Yay?

    The race to the bottom is making no winners except for those at the very top. And you jerkoffs who come in here and scream personal rights about part-time or 'gig employment', you can just go take a flying leap. Your kind landed us in this awful situation, and I don't think you have any right to say anything anymore. The part-time job needs to be restored to a temporary thing, not the new normal. An awful lot of people died, spent time in jails, or detention camps, to win the rights we have as employees and I think it's pretty fucking selfish for some of our population to sell that out for their own selfish reasons.

    1. Re:Part-time shouldn't exist by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why? Well, because part-time employees are cheaper. You don't have to pay benefits, or retirement plans for part-time employees. It's supposed to be a temporary job after all, not your career. But now, it is. The part-time job has metamorphosed into the mechanism by which the employer is abusing the employee. When they realized the gold-mine of cheap labor they had with the part-time employee, they did any good business person would do. They got rid of the expensive full-time employees and just hired a few more part-timers to fill the gaps.

      Now employers are taking it a step further. Our employees, they're not employees at all. At least on paper. We pay them as contractors and as such, we're not subject to ANY employer/employee rules at all.

      It seems like this is an issue with a simple fix. If somebody does x number of hours of work for you, then you pay x / y of their benefits, where y is the amount of hours a full time worker works (currently 40, could even drop that number to 32).

      If I worked for 10 hours last week, then you pay 10/40 = 25% of the cost of a health care plan for that week.

      Everybody pays, nobody escapes. None of the current nonsense of part time workers being exploited by abusive employers.

      Alternately, we reform health care, with either single-payer, or a system like the Swiss have, which would take care of most of the issues here.

    2. Re:Part-time shouldn't exist by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      It seems like this is an issue with a simple fix......

      Intriguing idea, but it only addresses one issue in a rats-nest of issues. The issue of pay for part-timers, they are paid less than full time employees in general. There's retirement benefits, insurance benefits, hours of work given to the employee, paid sick and vacation time, etc.

      The issue is, the average John and Jane Doe can't find a job they can survive on. I mean, paying the bills, putting food on the table. No one is offering jobs in low-skilled fields that anyone can actually live decently on. And don't even say 'get some skills,' SOMEONE has to do those low skilled jobs. They don't do themselves. Just band-aid'ing one issue isn't going to fix the overall problem.

      Even with that band-aid, there is still absolutely no incentive for an employer to retain full-time employees. It would put such a company at an economic disadvantage to their competitors using part-timers exclusively. Who's gunna do that? I'm not. Are you? See the problem? If there's no incentive, it's not gunna happen. There's incentive to NOT hire fulltime, and what are we seeing? No fulltime positions.

      And heaven forbid you have a personal emergency, and need time off. You'll just be let go in favor of the guy who will be available, at least until he has his emergency and is let go. There's no job security in a part-time job. And people are forced into existing in this security-less situation where they can lose their job for no reason at all. They are forced into less than optimal employment arrangements, cuz that's all they can get. The problem feeds right back into itself, treat people like shit, tell them you got 53209482 more applicants itching to take your job, so deal with it or take a hike. People do the only thing they can do, deal with it, even if it's really unfair and demeaning. Employers win, cuz they got piles of applications from desperate people willing to take the shitty employment.

      Our society (Americans) has concluded low-skilled jobs are not as 'real' as high-skilled jobs, and we've collectively decided to screw everyone working low-skill jobs like they're second-rate citizens. Someone has to do those jobs and it's pretty fucked up that our society has demeaned them in this way.

  52. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is literally the stupidest thing I've read all day.

    Maybe we should have a social safety net, but maybe also people shouldn't be trying to make a living on Uber. It's the kind of thing MADE TO BE A SECOND JOB. Not every job needs to pay a living wage.

  53. This is terrible by FeelGood314 · · Score: 3, Informative

    I do contract work for many companies and my work is core to what they do. I set my own hours, use almost all my own equipment, work in my own office, subcontract out some QA and repairs, I even bill in 15 minute intervals - I don't see how I'm different from an Uber driver. The existing test of control made perfect sense.

    Question - will I now have to be an employee of the American companies I'm currently doing contract work for? or just companies in California?

    1. Re:This is terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I certainly hope so. You fuckers are part of the problem. Those companies you contract for should have a whatever-you-are on staff full time if it's part of the core business, even if they aren't "useful" 100% of the time. You contractors have flouted the rules for years now and the results are evident in society. Hearing you whine about not being able to cheat the system any longer gives me one raging boner, brah.

      Oh and the way you phrased that last question makes me think you're a dirty foreigner. If you aren't American, why are you contracting for American companies? Yet again, you're dodging the established rules.

    2. Re:This is terrible by ShoulderOfOrion · · Score: 2

      Not the same. Your statement "I do contract work for many companies..." is the *primary* difference between a contractor and employee. A contractor typically has multiple clients, either back-to-back or at the same time. A contractor is running his own business, and doing so requires a steady stream of customers. A contractor who works for one client for an extended period of time is in danger of being classified as an employee. You're different than an Uber driver because an Uber driver works for only one company. If a driver worked with half-a-dozen different 'Internet Taxi' services in parallel while maintaining their own equipment, insurance, etc., then they'd truly be contractors.

    3. Re:This is terrible by havana9 · · Score: 1

      You are a clear case of a self-employed worker. In EU you'll have a VAT registration number.
      In Italy here is the problem of the fake VAT registrations, when one self-employed worker has only one customer, and when tax inspector find it both the worker and the customer are fined for tax evasion. In Italy there are some exception of the rules. Taxi drivers and limousine service drivers have VAT registrations despite normally having only one dispatcher service. Baby sitters, cleaners, and caregivers are considered employees even if the work for different families.

    4. Re:This is terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An uber driver can drive for both Uber and Lyft. Thus, multiple clients.

      "steady stream of customers" is opinion. You can be a contractor for a business and that business is your only customer.

      Anyways, since the driver can work for lyft, and potentially chooses not to, they are still a contractor - even by your definition.

    5. Re:This is terrible by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, you are a self-employed contractor--as another respondent pointed out-- and no one would really classify those different contracts as 'gigs'

    6. Re:This is terrible by Uberbah · · Score: 1

      Anyways, since the driver can work for lyft, and potentially chooses not to, they are still a contractor - even by your definition.

      Uh, no. It means you're an employee of both companies. Same way a shlub can work as an employee for McDonalds and Taco Bell.

  54. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How is this insightful? They are saying Uber has to follow the law as intended along with everyone else. That's basic free market principles that no two businesses or two people have to follow different laws.

  55. Re:Oh bullshit by sjames · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The most likely answer is the same way they deal with an increase in fuel/food/other costs. They pass it on to the customer. You don't think an increase in minimum wage is the first time a business has ever had to deal with a rising cost of business, do you?

    Of course, that can (and often does) lead to a virtuous cycle. The employees have more money, so they can afford to buy things, so businesses have more money. At the same time, less demand for SNAP and other safety net services means we don't have that coming out of our pockets anymore. That also means more people with more to spend.

    As a nice bonus, since low wage payers are forced to stop dipping into our pockets through subsidized payroll, they get our money based on merit, just like the market intended :-)

  56. Why we can't have nice things by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thanks CA, you fucking imbeciles.

  57. Re:Oh bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you contend that if employers have to pay a living wage, they'll fire everyone and rage quit their business?

    No. They will fire the employees who are brining in less money than it costs to pay them. If that makes it impossible to keep running a business, then they will shut it down.

    If minimum wage is $10 per hour, and a particular employee does work that makes $15 per hour, then it is worth $5 per hour to keep them employed. If the minimum wage goes to $20 per hour, then no business will keep employing them.

    If a business owner is losing money every day they are in business, I guarantee you that they will find a way to stop the business and do something else with their time. Would you do the work of running a business if you lost money on it every month for a few years? How could you afford to do that?

    If you have evidence that businesses are willing to do things that make them lose money, please share it.

  58. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course the translation of what you are saying is actually

    Perhaps what you say is *a* translation of what was said, but a pretty bleak and sad one.

    How about another translation?
    If I have rent to pay each month, this boils down to two options:

    a) I can spend 8+ hours a day at a bad job that doesn't pay my rent or any other bills
    or
    b) I can spend that 8+ hours a day looking for a job that would pay my rent.

    You might say 'B' isn't guaranteed, which would obviously be true, but it is also a possibility above 0%.
    Option 'A' is exactly a 0% chance of working, and is guaranteed to fail.

  59. Again, corporate welfare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... workers' compensation and unemployment insurance ...

    Every hour of employment (or unit of production) should be contributing to these, anything less is corporate welfare. There can be an exception such as, sole-traders hiring less than 4 person-hours per week of their employee's/employees' time. Gig-economy employers like Uber and Lyft easily exceed 4 hours total of employee-time per week and should be contributing.

  60. Re:Oh bullshit by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    Re "You don't think an increase in minimum wage is the first time a business has ever had to deal with a rising cost of business, do you?"
    That would be an investment buying new equipment that grows profits, saves on wages.
    New computers, new production line, more capacity, an investment that lower past costs.

    Re "The employees have more money"
    With everyone passing on mores costs in CA to cover the regulated wage costs.
    More money goes to pay for the wage gap into savings or something productive, usefull.
    Food costs, transport all reflect the mandated wage costs that further takes away from any wage rise for any one worker.
    Everything a poor worker needs every month costs more and the new costs passed on are not covered by a wage rise.
    Re "they get our money based on merit"
    The same low skill workers are getting a new wage for doing the same job.
    Thats not going to grow profits or the ability to invest more in the business. Any growth has to cover new wages for the existing staff.

    --
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  61. Re: Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe he was expecting a line of complaints.

  62. phone, car and commercial auto insurance will c by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    phone, car and commercial auto insurance will cost a bit.
    So paying all or part the costs of an smart phone + data plan. Car costs like full mileage (dead time and dead heading moves say return from a long trip to the main area) maybe even airport que waiting time as well.

  63. they force you to rent / buy there tools! by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    they force you to rent / buy there tools! as well. and when you are an employee there are very limited things with that.

  64. this one gig economy place wanted an cut of parts by Joe_Dragon · · Score: 1

    this one gig economy place wanted an cut of parts cost + laber costs and they put the parts cost down as income on your 1099

  65. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Bingo.

    People who devalue their skill, bring it down for everyone. Even for "immigrants", who are often paid the lowest possible wage.

    While this doesn't really change the prevailing issue with independent contractors, it can stop the race to the bottom.

  66. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Maxo-Texas · · Score: 1

    yea.. .company stores and other similar abuses put an end to that.

    Plus, once enough people get poor enough they turn violent and start killing people.

    The real reason for the minimum wage is to keep the masses hopeful enough that they don't turn violent.

    Once it gets bad enough, you get places like Brazil where you or your kids may be kidnapped if you have money. and murdered if you don't have as much as they thought. A place where the police hunt and execute 12 year old homeless kids.

    It's really horrific. I hope you guys that like that sorta thing don't win.

    There's a concept called a "viel of ignorance". It works like this. If you had no idea which role you would have in a society (bottom, top, middle, homeless), how would you design the society?

    Most wealthy conservatives wouldn't want to live in the kind of society they lobby for if they had to end up on bottom.
     

    --
    She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
  67. "business model" by Tom · · Score: 3, Insightful

    potentially upending their business models

    Their "business model", if you want to call it that, was precisely to circumvent those regulations. It's a bit like basing a business on not paying taxes and then crying when the IRS comes knocking.

    Really? Your business doesn't function anymore when you have to run it like a proper business? Maybe there's a problem with your business model in such case?

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    1. Re:"business model" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      can't wait for uber and lyft to just pull out of california.

      i'm sure all the people who were making some money, by their choice, not being able to this way anymore.

      awesome!

    2. Re:"business model" by Tom · · Score: 1

      They pulled out of several European locations already, and the howling and crying of those now left without income is... well... wait... any moment now... there will be an outcry... for sure... no?

      Let them pull out. What's all this bullshit panic over some business "pulling out" of something?

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  68. Re:Oh bullshit by sjames · · Score: 1

    Further mechanization is a red herring. Remember that flap about 'flippy'? Then the reality set in that it was expensive and slow even compared to employees with raises. Eventually, the automation will work and it will be introduced even if we half the minimum wage. Hopefully, by then the old guard that's stuck in the 19th century will have died off and we can talk seriously about how to restructure our economy so it can work even as more and more labor is replaced by machines. That's a GOOD thing.

    Naturally, prices will rise, but the net result still leaves the poorest better off and the rest of us paying less for SNAP.

  69. Re:Oh bullshit by sjames · · Score: 1

    Who said anything about losing money. They'll increase prices just like they do when any other expense rises. So will all of their competition.

    Note that in the few places that have already increased the minimum wages, businesses are expanding.

  70. Then California would just move the bar further by edgedmurasame · · Score: 1

    What would prevent them from adding a (DMCA-like) anticircumvention rule?

    --
    "Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.
  71. translation by ooloorie · · Score: 2

    The choice California gives you is either to be an indentured servant to both corporations and the state, or to become a government-dependent welfare recipient. They control you either way.

    They hate independent contractors and the gig economy because it allows people to get away from their stifling regulations and taxation.

  72. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by serviscope_minor · · Score: 0

    You should be free to accept or decline a job offer as you see fit.

    You are: it's not illegal for you to take a job at under minimum wage.

    --
    SJW n. One who posts facts.
  73. Gig Economy != Exploitation by Qbertino · · Score: 1

    EOM

    --
    We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
  74. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not sure what that has to do with politics. But hey.

    It has nothing to do with politics. In fact, you are the one who made the discussion partisan, you fucking dullard. But, hey.

  75. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

    'I am set up enough to have a solid job with prospects, and I see no reason why people who are not should have a job, because they cannot earn enough to make it worthwhile in my view'

    There are a couple of issues. The first is the difference in negotiating power. In a high-skill or high-demand occupation, there is a vaguely level playing field between employer and employee. If the employer doesn't treat the employee well, then the employee can leave and continue employment elsewhere (and the departure is likely to financially hurt the employer). In a low-skill occupation, there is a huge imbalance. The employee is replaceable, but probably needs the job to be able to afford to live. There is a large mass of historical evidence that, when employers are allowed to abuse this bargaining power, they will do so. The only ways that have historically worked to prevent this abuse are minimum wage and related regulations and collective bargaining. The latter works only if the majority of the workforce opts into it.

    The second issue is one of indirect subsidy. If a company is not paying enough to live, then that slack has to be picked up elsewhere, typically by welfare payments. We, as taxpayers, are paying that bill. If a large chunk of my income is going to welfare payments, I'd much prefer that it were going to help people less fortunate than my and not to subsidise abusive business models from companies that couldn't compete if they paid a living wage.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  76. Re: Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    Since this is the pedants thread, I think you mean homophones. As in 'I'm not a homophone, some of my best friends sound the same!'

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  77. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't mean to go all ITG, but I would knock your fucking teeth out if you said that shit to my face.

  78. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 0

    Low paid jobs are corporate welfare. They want employees but don't want to pay enough for them to remain alive and healthy and live near where the labour is required, so they rely on the government to make up the shortfall.

    It's pure greed. If they are forced to pay more they won't say "okay, let's just shot down the whole thing", they will simply make a bit less profit or raise prices. They will adjust their business model, or realize that it is not viable without government subsidy.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  79. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

    Mandating a location based living wage would have the additional benefit of encouraging companies to set up in cheaper areas, instead of all clustering in expensive ones.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  80. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by swillden · · Score: 2

    One could say, you are forcing everyone into this kind of job market where no one pays a living wage

    Freedom is force, got it. Is war also peace?

    --
    Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  81. "gig economy" marketing term by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The term gig economy is just a BS marketing term for short term, low pay, hourly wage. Made to sound cool.

    We might be able to argue pros and cons of hourly part time wage vs employee, but calling it a gig economy is just BS

  82. Old News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Didn't Microsoft face this exact problem/result in the 90's, keeping F/T employees as "contractors" to avoid paying their benefits and salary? I thought the ruling was "act like an employee, you're an employee" back then... Do people just forget until the LexisNexis search returns the cases?

  83. To HELL with the courts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck the California Supreme Court. They don't even honor the laws they are required to honor per U.S. Constitution Article 6 Section 2. So why should anybody see the courts as anything than a gangster organization?

  84. sounds like German law from the 90s by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    sounds like news from the 90's to German ears: we already dealt with this problem back then defining the term "Scheinselbstständigkeit" (fake self-employment).
    If you mostly work for one customer, most of your revenue comes from this customer (5/6), if you don't have employees yourself ... then this will be ruled as "fake self-employment", the customer must grant you employee status and pay all necessary expenses for all the time you already worked for them.

  85. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by houghi · · Score: 1

    A student living at home? Well, perhaps if his education was affordable, his parents could give him an allowance.
    And there is a LOT of difference between making a few bucks for a few hours and working full time to just be able to buy ramen to be able not to starve.

    --
    Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  86. Re: Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by gnick · · Score: 1

    That's the way I read it every time this comes up.
    "Signal the complaints to start." (Cue)
    or
    "Line up the complaints." (Queue)
    Both sound fine.

    --
    He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
  87. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    no one forces them to work, thus, they aren't being exploited. they can quit whenever they want.

    if they can't get a job, perhaps they should look at themselves...where they are living, etc, and make some choices to better those things where they CAN get a job.

    why do people like you blame the companies when it's the people themselves making the choice?

  88. Libs are tightwads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm just leave this here for all you liberal tightwads.

    https://www.mrc.org/articles/liberal-kristof-admits-conservatives-more-generous-liberals

  89. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by bobbied · · Score: 1

    I'm all for states rights... We shouldn't have a federal minimum wage if the states can have their own. In fact, a LOT of federal rules and regulations are unnecessary for the same reason. The states should be left to make their own rules about most things anyway.

    (Shush though, you might sound like Trump if you keep this perspective up very long.)

    --
    "File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
  90. Don't be fooled, this hurts us by Falco54 · · Score: 0

    I don't understand why people are cheering this. If I want to drive for Uber, it's my choice. If they screw me and don't pay me what I'm worth, I'll drive for Lyft, or anyone else I choose. If I want full time employment with all the benefits, I can go to a regular taxi company. Handing the government power like this isn't protecting the workers, it's protecting the inefficient, established companies that aren't able to compete with innovation. Uber is a platform that allows a rider to connect with a driver, and handles the payment for them. We should be cheering this kind of innovation. What about Airbnb? Should everyone who makes a room available through them be considered an employee? These platforms that connect buyers and sellers are the future, and we only hurt ourselves by trying to treat them like traditional companies.

  91. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

    We are in 100% agreement - on all points. if a law or regulation doesn't make sense at a Federal level - then it shouldn't exist at a Federal level.

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  92. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by hwstar · · Score: 1

    Good night, Westley. Good work. Sleep well. I'll most likely kill you in the morning.

  93. If only Uber provided an avenue... by cordovaCon83 · · Score: 1

    for people to apply to become employees then Uber could argue that these contractors simply don't want to be considered employees. Now they're faced with the over-bearing hand of the law, which will undoubtedly say that either all Uber's drivers are employees or none of Uber's drivers are employees. That simply isn't the black-and-white truth though, is it? I imagine some people only clock in when they want to, and others clocks in because it's their primary income and they need to.

  94. So basically... by RogueWarrior65 · · Score: 2

    It's the DPRC (Democrat People's Republic of California) bitching that they can no longer control everyone's money and dole it out as they see fit.

  95. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

    Weird - someone who call himself a Christian actually acting like a Christian ought to. Bible verses on the bottom of a cup seem a whole lot less offensive to non-Christians than exploitative business practices *should* seem to Christians.

  96. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

    Minimum wage is meant for part time workers, students and starter jobs.

    Citation needed.

  97. That's actually a really good summary of the issue by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So.. I disagree but I think you really have excellently distilled this issue down to its essense.

    Some people think that something is better than nothing.

    Some people think they have the right to point a gun at my face and say "No, you should get zero instead of getting that tiny amount. And you WILL negotiate for more, or else" [gun cocking noise] "I'll make sure your income remains zero until you do. Now get negotiating. Insist they pay you more. Stare down the barrel of my gun if you need inspiration, because I fucking swear, you get nothing until you do what I want. And now, just to prove I'm serious..." [BLAM!] (Someone loses their job.)

  98. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

    Would it, though? Businesses go where the markets are. Uber might want to move where labor is cheaper, but the vast majority of their customers are - and by extension, their drivers need to be - in expensive urban areas.

    Companies also need to have employees with sufficient skill to do the job. For many (if not most) companies, those people don't exist in sufficient numbers in cheaper places, and their existing employees have no interest in moving.

  99. Re:Oh bullshit by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

    Costs are taken out of company growth.

    Where is the money for stock buybacks taken from?

  100. Makes hiring US consultants unattractive by mileshigh · · Score: 1

    This isn't just about Uber, etc. This pretty much puts a bullet in contract engineering/programming in CA. Creating soft/hardware is part of a tech company's regular business, so this judgement says that anybody who participates in that would automatically be an employee even if it's a brief or specialized gig.

    This just makes 3rd parties richer, namely the gov't and the "consulting companies" that more & more companies are using as intermediaries. "Consulting companies" is in quotes because there are companies in CA that merely act as condoms to provide temp workers without the obligations of hiring real employees. They're not really even like temp agencies since a tech company will typically find the consultant themselves, but then the consultant has to be hired as am employee of the intermediary. There's zero chance that said intermediary will find you another gig.

    Under this arrangement the "employee" loses many tax deductions and advantages, so you end up with the worst of being an employee and a gig worker

    Officially the intermediary "hires" you for a gig but it's not a real job since they fully intend to lay you off once the gig's up. (Normally it would be much harder for a employer to lay off regular employees without trying to find them another spot in the organization and/or give them separation payments, but a consulting firm's mission is to serve their customer so the can legitimately say that you're redundant when the customer no longer needs you.)

    This doesn't make the ex-contractor richer since they pay the "employee" their consulting rates MINUS all the money they have to give the gov't. This includes contributions for unemployment insurance even though your chances of collecting are zero. And of course the intermediary marks up the total when they bill back their customer. Both the contractor and customer lose. Makes hiring US temp engineers that much less attractive.

  101. Re:Oh bullshit by Green+Mountain+Bot · · Score: 1

    Re "You don't think an increase in minimum wage is the first time a business has ever had to deal with a rising cost of business, do you?" That would be an investment buying new equipment that grows profits, saves on wages. New computers, new production line, more capacity, an investment that lower past costs.

    So, raw materials costs never increase? Utility costs never increase? Real estate taxes never increase? Transportation costs never increase? Interest rates never increase? Insurance costs never increase?

    Re "The employees have more money" With everyone passing on mores costs in CA to cover the regulated wage costs. More money goes to pay for the wage gap into savings or something productive, usefull. Food costs, transport all reflect the mandated wage costs that further takes away from any wage rise for any one worker. Everything a poor worker needs every month costs more and the new costs passed on are not covered by a wage rise.

    I'm going to go ahead and assume that English is not your first language (in which case, kudos to you - truly - for trying to learn what is a bitch of a language), because what you have written here only bears a passing resemblance to it. But doing my best to parse, you're saying that because things get more expensive, there's no point in trying to pay employees enough to keep up? That makes no sense at all. The labor cost of most of these things is a small enough contributor that wage increases do in fact more than offset the increase in price required to cover the wage increase.

  102. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    They brought this on themselves by using investor money to lowball prices while allowing airports and other entities to take a 40% cut of the fares. I know in LA that drivers make almost no money unless they get a 1-2 hour trip from LAX. They lose money if they have to take someone downtown from the air port. I question why people are agreeing to work for that rate. They literally get $2-3 for waiting in line to drive someone downtown from LAX. I tipped my last driver $150 for driving me from Pasadena. Others have to be tipping as well or this just wouldn't work.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  103. Re:Oh bullshit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You don't think the wages could be taken out of the record profits, or perhaps a lower wage for the executive branch of the company. When executive compensation is what... 280 times the average salary of the company, I think I found a place where you can find some money to increase wages. That is, if the executive actually cares about the health of the company and the people who work for them....

  104. Re:Oh bullshit by djinn6 · · Score: 1

    The employees have more money, so they can afford to buy things, so businesses have more money.

    Money is not value. By giving more money to these employees, you increase the price of goods they purchase, which comes out of both their and other people's pockets. The total amount of goods society as a whole can consume did not increase. You simply shifted some consumption from better-paid employees to the minimum wage ones.

    That in itself is not a bad thing. But if that's all you care about, then the same could be accomplished by simply raising the income tax, then giving it to the lowest paid employees. In fact, you could do better by giving it to everyone, including the unemployed. This is UBI.

    With minimum wage however, "the employees have more money" is only true if you can stay employed. Businesses could simply fail, or must layoff some to maintain solvency. Not all businesses are competing under the same minimum wage rules. Their competitors may be out-of-state. So they may not always be able to pass the costs onto the consumers by increasing prices.

    Moreover, a class of work whose value is below minimum wage will simply not be done. Rather than eating out for example, people may elect to cook themselves. Unfortunately, they will be less efficient than someone whose job is to cook, because they're not specialized. So while they spend their evenings cooking instead of preparing for the next day, the would-be cook is twiddling their thumbs. As a whole, society becomes less efficient, and the total amount of goods produced (and thus consumed) is less.

    If you don't think these problems can happen, then consider a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $1000 / hour. Are there any reasons it wouldn't work? If so, why wouldn't those reasons apply to a $25 / hour minimum wage?

  105. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by stdarg · · Score: 1

    One could say, you are forcing everyone into this kind of job market where no one pays a living wage, not even for full time employment.

    There are plenty of job markets where there aren't widespread unions and yet people are paid well, so no.

    Why pay anyone a living wage if no incentive for me to do so?

    Sometimes you need to hire qualified people and you have to pay them enough to work for you, because you are competing with other employers for that person. Shocking, I know.

    You may think this only applies to high end jobs, but to go back to the example of child care... if I'm paying $3000/month for daycare for my 2 kids, and the daycare center saves labor costs by replacing all of its workers with illiterates, criminals, and/or "ad hoc" workers who fill in for an hour or two whenever they want... would I continue sending my kids to that daycare, even if they dropped the price? No, I would find a new daycare. If I wanted to save money, I could already send them to a cheaper daycare. I want nice, qualified teachers and low staff turnover, and I pay for it.

    And in your weird dystopian view of capitalism, if ALL of the daycares near me adopted this low labor cost model out of fear that they couldn't compete otherwise, guess what? I'd hire a nanny and be the employer myself. Or maybe organize a new daycare since I know there's a market of people similar to me who want to pay for quality.

    Leftists tend to view "labor" as a bunch of interchangeable cogs, and that's evidenced by your post. No, people don't all have the same value. No, you can't just substitute in "Worker B at $1/hour" for "Worker A at $12/hour" and get the same result.

  106. Wonder how many trolls are being paid... by whitroth · · Score: 1

    I mean, who's really against a living minimum wage? Or companies having to follow the law on working conditions... other than trolls being paid for "social media" work by megacorps, and suckers, sorry, "libertarians", who think they have leverage with whoever they work for, and only believe that they've got theirs, screw the rest of you?

    1. Re:Wonder how many trolls are being paid... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I mean, who's really against a living minimum wage? Or companies having to follow the law on working conditions... other than trolls being paid for "social media" work by megacorps, and suckers, sorry, "libertarians", who think they have leverage with whoever they work for, and only believe that they've got theirs, screw the rest of you?

      You've conflated two issues here. I'll try to separate them.
      1. Minimum wage is economic nonsense.

      Take a basic economics class to understand why. Also read the book "Minimum Wages" [David Neumark and William L. Wascher] for a discussion of the research.

      Nobody that understands economics - whether on the left or the right - will support minimum wage. It does far more harm than good: and the people hurt the most are the poor. The one positive aspect is that high school students tend to stay in school longer. But over the long term you see many negative effects, such as: many jobs are replaced by automation, prices come up in complex ways (like a regressive tax, it hurts the poor, the rich don't notice it), economic growth is poor (the pie is not as big as it could be, so everybody's share is smaller), and people lose working hours.

      Just consider the last point: if somebody loses working hours, either that person has to work an extra job, or their spouse has to work - or both, in order to make ends meet! That's at least one extra commute, which means more road rage, more accidents (more deaths!), more delays, more stress, more health care issues, and less time with the family (which has all kinds of negative implications in itself, such as poorer educational results and more crime). None of this particularly affects the rich (there is an effect, but it's small - like a regressive tax), but it's a significant for everybody else.

      Also, people that can't a job can't develop their "human capital", and thus end up becoming permanent welfare recipients instead of gradually moving out of poverty. Anybody with no work experience has a very difficult time getting a job.

      You can clearly see the negative effects of minimum wage in the USA today: traffic has gotten terrible, health care is a huge problem, educational standards are falling, many jobs have been automated away or sent overseas, and so forth. Worse, in most families both spouses have to work outside the home to make ends meets - that didn't used to be the case, and it has big implications for child rearing, education, and crime.

      Minimum wage is not the sole cause of these problems, but it's a significant factor. It's important to remember that the economy involves complex logistics chains - and price increases increases in one stage ripple to everything downstream. This means everything becomes more expensive - it's like a regressive tax, which of course primarily affects the poor and the middle class.

      EU countries also have minimum wage - and it has negative effects there as well - but they have better programs to help people on the low end (such as health care and welfare) which partially makes up for the problems (minimum wage still does more harm than good even there).

      The right thing to do for the USA is to fix welfare systems (perhaps with a carefully constructed reverse income tax or UBI, or perhaps a welfare system along EU lines), fix health care, and throw away minimum wage. Reforming the tax system - which at best is slightly progressive (taking into account the combination of federal, state, and local taxes) and arguably is actually regressive (looking at things more carefully) - would do a lot to help fund a better welfare system. Since you would be taxing the rich a lot more, there wouldn't be any basis for claiming that the policies are somehow "subsidizing the rich".

      2. In most cases, we want companies to comply with laws on workplace conditions - but in many cases it's the laws themselves that are the problem.

      In such cases, it's not necessarily the employers that don't want the law, it could easily be the wo

  107. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by stdarg · · Score: 1

    Just because people who work for corporations benefit from something doesn't make it "corporate welfare." It has to be specific to that particular corporation, otherwise it's just "welfare."

    Is public transportation corporate welfare? "They want employees to be able to get to work, but don't want to pay for a private bus service, so they rely on government to make up the shortfall."

    Minimum wage? "They want people to be able to buy their stuff, but they don't want to pay the entire country, so they get the government to force other companies to pay people more, ergo corporate welfare."

  108. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There are complexities you're overlooking.

    One is the cost of automation.
    Bring the cost of wages above the cost of automation and the jobs go away.

    Another is not all employees are hourly.
    Salaried employees don't get overtime pay and you can assign the duties of fired hourly employees to salaried employees to reduce cost. An example of this would be firing all your janitors and having your office workers clean up after themselves. Another example would be in infrastructure like IT. You can pay three people to have 24/7 coverage or you can pay one person and have them be "on call" 24/7.

    The otehr issue is that if you're correct and the raise prices that just means cost of living goes up and the minimum wage stops being a living wage again.

  109. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps an attitude adjustment would get you further in life.

  110. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    Working for Uber is enough to get subsidies (welfare).

    Any job they take is going to suck...Uber sucks less since they can bug off whenever they want. In a restaurant/retail you are tied down for many hours a day (opportunity time wasted) and cannot leave the premises.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  111. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by sjames · · Score: 1

    Your analysis only makes sense if everyone was currently being paid minimum wage or a salaried equivalent.

    The employer who tries to make the office staff clean the toilets will end up with nothing but bottom of the barrel office staff and quite likely, filthy bathrooms that make it impossible to make a good impression on visiting clients. In the current economic climate, if they could do without janitors they would do so even if they only had to pay them $3/hr.

    Likewise, if they could get by with one guy on call 24/7, they would have done it already. Especially an employer chintzy enough that IT staff would be affected by a rise in MINIMUM WAGE. (Or more likely, they already went down in flames. The kind of IT 'support' you could get for minimum wage is worse than nothing).

    Salaried positions very rarely work out to minimum wage

    Because only part of the population works for minimum wage and so would make more money with an increase, the rise in prices would be less than the rise in income for a minimum wage worker.

  112. Lick your corporatist boots black or with sugar? by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    "Whaaa I want to earn less money while being more expendable" whined no actual worker, anywhere. Unless they have a hole in their heads or are trolling.

  113. Re:Price is a big part of why they're not contract by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    How is this different from say designcrowd.com?

    Why should we care about a red herring?

  114. Re:Oh bullshit by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    If someone is making $10 an hour they need to be bringing in at least $30 an hour.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  115. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Not every job needs to pay a living wage.

    Yeah, they do. Or GTFO. If a job is worth doing, its worth doing it for more than poverty wages.

  116. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    My teenage son strongly disagrees and so do the two in college.

    Your son really doesn't want to make $15 an hour working some part time job? Riiiiiiiiiight.

  117. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    Freedom is force, got it.

    When your "freedom" means poverty for the masses just so some robber baron can buy his 4th Porche to leave at his third vacation home over the summer - yeah, it is.

  118. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    That is your opinion. In the opinion of some who seek a supplementary income, a job with is lesser rate of pay is acceptable.

    So if you suddenly had to take a second job at Taco Johns to make some cash on the side, you'd be totally happy with them paying $7.25 an hour rather than $15? Why yes, I would be interested in buying some oceanfront property in Kansas from you. The other part of this is if businesses were forced to pay a living wage, you would need a second (or third or forth) job in the first place for said extra cash.

    This is why conservatives and libertarians regard leftism as inherently fascist;

    Then you're inherently stupid, as leftism is the polar opposite of fascism.

  119. Re:Oh bullshit by sjames · · Score: 1

    You typed a lot, but it's the same tired excuses adding up to little. Obviously since only a portion of consumers are making only minimum wage, the rise in price wouldn't negate the rise in income at the bottom.

    Personally, I would support a reasonable UBI, I've advocated for that myself. But realistically, that's going to be a much longer argument. Raising minimum wage is a reasonable interim measure.

    As for economic efficiency, if a business cannot remain solvent without the rest of us subsidizing their payroll, it SHOULD fail. Just as it should if it can't stay open unless we send them a government check to maintain their griddle and fryer or pay the power bill.

    BTW, if McDs was ACTUALLY more efficient than me preparing my own burgers at home, it would be cheaper than burgers cooked at home. That is simply not the case.

  120. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I see. I MUST be one of those dirty minimum wage workers you castigated in your post, since I disagree with you.

    I will most certainly knock your fucking teeth out with my gold rings, you mealy-mouthed condescending turd.

  121. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    One is the cost of automation.
    Bring the cost of wages above the cost of automation and the jobs go away.

    That's just fearmongering blackmail to browbeat workers into accepting slave wages for the benefit of their corporate overlords. There is no robot army able to step in and replace all the jobs at McDonalds, Wal-Mart etc etc if those companies were forced to pay $15 an hour.

  122. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by swillden · · Score: 1

    Freedom is force, got it.

    When your "freedom" means poverty for the masses just so some robber baron can buy his 4th Porche to leave at his third vacation home over the summer - yeah, it is.

    That's the mother of all false dichotomies.

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  123. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by swillden · · Score: 1

    My teenage son strongly disagrees and so do the two in college.

    Your son really doesn't want to make $15 an hour working some part time job? Riiiiiiiiiight.

    My son is smart enough to realize that a $15 minimum wage would simply make him completely unemployable.

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  124. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    no one forces them to work

    Of course people are forced to work. Otherwise they don't have a roof over their heads or food in their bellies. You wanna go full communist and provide food, housing, and medical care to everyone under the sun regardless of employment, then we can have a conversation about how people aren't forced to find work.

  125. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Quirkz · · Score: 1

    Companies have a history of taking advantage of people. Remember 12 hour work days, 6-day weeks, and deadly working conditions? There's often someone desperate enough, and society has an extended history of needing to dictate to companies at what point they're mistreating or abusing their workers, rather than entering into an equitable business relationship.

    Now, you could argue that it those adjustments from the past were necessary to fix criminal abuses, and that the point we have today is just right and needs no further adjustment. (Though I suspect many, many people said the same thing about 12-hour days, child labor, and people losing a fingers to machinery.)

    Of course there's also a pretty big spread between "abusive" and "guaranteed living wage" and I'm not necessarily arguing for the latter. But I don't think you can point to the fact that there's someone desperate enough to take the job as proof, by itself, that the job isn't inherently unfair at some level.

  126. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Companies pay, at maximum, what a job is worth to them.

    They won't turn down a good deal, same as you.

    The trick is to get that full 'what a job is worth to them', it's always more than they think, initially.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  127. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

    Dipshit will have rKnockTeeth.exe done anyday.

    --
    John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  128. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    It is actually not so difficult to have fun at work and be payed for fun.
    Dance or Yoga teacher, martial arts teacher, heck even a trainer in software processes/languages etc.
    Engineer/Developer(software), Scrum Master, or even PO, if the product idea does not suck
    Pilot
    Artist
    Captain on a boat/ship ... or even smootje
    Cook ... depending ofc what you cook or where
    Medical doctor

    Even a mere sys admin might be fun, you read stuff while there is no incident ... e.g. /.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  129. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Companies pay, at maximum, what a job is worth to them.
    Or they pay the minimum required by law or trade unions, and on top of that if they want to keep the employee.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  130. Re:Oh bullshit by djinn6 · · Score: 1

    You typed a lot, but it's the same tired excuses adding up to little. Obviously since only a portion of consumers are making only minimum wage, the rise in price wouldn't negate the rise in income at the bottom.

    Did you actually read my post? It's good for those minimum wage folks who can keep their job. The rest of us, especially poor ones, are still paying for it.

    Raising minimum wage is a reasonable interim measure [in place of UBI].

    It's really not. It hurts the unemployed and marginally employed because they're the ones who'll see bigger grocery bills. UBI only hurts people at the top.

    As for economic efficiency, if a business cannot remain solvent without the rest of us subsidizing their payroll, it SHOULD fail.

    That's fine, but you should prepare to import all the goods you actually need, and hope that you have an equally compelling export in some other industry to make up for it. Otherwise the entire country ends up poor.

    If McDs was ACTUALLY more efficient than me preparing my own burgers at home, it would be cheaper than burgers cooked at home. That is simply not the case.

    But it is. How long does it take you to buy the ingredients, clean and prepare them, then cook the burger? Is your time worthless?

  131. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by datavirtue · · Score: 1

    Plus the spawn of the gig-economy is way too entrepreneurial for the comfort level of our government communist overlords. The last thing they need are people tasting freedom.

    --
    I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
  132. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by taustin · · Score: 1

    Some people are born to live in a cage like a subhuman animal.

  133. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by taustin · · Score: 1

    Terry Pratchett had a phrase for people like you: All mouth and no pants.

    On the internet, everybody is a badass who will kick you in the teeth and take your candy.

  134. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by david_thornley · · Score: 1

    No, HornWumpus is correct in general. Companies won't pay an employee more than that employee is worth to the company (not outside management, anyway). They'll pay the minimum they can get away with, but not more than what the employee is worth.

    --
    "When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
  135. Re:Oh bullshit by sjames · · Score: 1

    But it is. How long does it take you to buy the ingredients, clean and prepare them, then cook the burger? Is your time worthless?

    Of course my time isn't worthless. My time and gas to drive to McDs, wait in line, pay, and drive home also isn't worthless. As it happens, the nearest McDs is in the same parking lot as the nearest grocery store. But I only need groceries once a week. By comparison, it only takes me 7 minutes to cook burgers. I can be done by the time I would be paying for the McDs. So, if I factor in time, home cooking looks even better. If I factor in quality of the result, McDs isn't even in the running.

    As for the rest, The unemployed and marginally employed will still have SNAP (and I would advise making it easier to get and make it cover costs better).

    I would prefer UBI, but it'll take years of conservatives wailing and rending garments before we can push that through.

  136. Re: Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    Since this is the pedants thread

    pedant's

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  137. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Uber might want to move where labor is cheaper, but the vast majority of their customers are - and by extension, their drivers need to be - in expensive urban areas.
    Why would anyone who can afford to live in an expensive urban area hire an Uber driver instead of taking a Taxi?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  138. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    The federal minimum wage would be the base line (but considering what problems americans have with grasping what base load is ...) and the states could up it.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  139. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Of course it makes sense on the federal level.
    You seem not to grasp how a federation works.

    The feds only need to pass a law demanding that the states deploy a state law sufficient to some metrics.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  140. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    That's the mother of all false dichotomies.
    No it is not. If you want to speak newspeak: poverty is antifreedom.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  141. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    You got it so wrong again ...
    No, I would find a new daycare.

    No you would not. As you would not know that the high qualified super day cares were replaced by low wage criminals.

    I'd hire a nanny and be the employer myself.
    With your example of "paying $3000" that was a no brainer. You should have thought about that at the first place instead of making silly arguments.

    Leftists tend to view ...
    Ah that stupid american thing again to put people into "lefties", the "rights" and the "liberals" ... how retarded. Can one not have an opinion about one matter and another opinion about another matter with out being insulted as a lefty, righty or liberal or alt something?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  142. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Wow are we super negative again?

    Obviously your sons don't need a living wage and pay for a family, as you pay for your family, which includes your sons.

    So your argument would need to be: would you be good with a "not living job" that can not pay for your sons on college?

    Are you really just an asshole or are you super dumb or just one guy who likes to make polemic posts in a news for nerds site?

    Message us again when one of your sons makes so much money that he can pay for his three sons (doing underpaid part times jobs) and let them go to high school and college. (And don't forget, he has to pay for his wife and a somewhat comfortable home, too)

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  143. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    My son is smart enough to realize that a $15 minimum wage would simply make him completely unemployable.
    And who would take his job then? An illegal Mexican immigrant?

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  144. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by LynnwoodRooster · · Score: 1

    So a Federal minimum wage DOESN'T make sense, because you say they should force the States to determine the minimum wage. Thus it's not a Federal wage.

    --
    Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
  145. Uber fart-sniffer by Uberbah · · Score: 1

    this is actually cheaper and better for Uber

    Then that's what Uber would already be doing.

    sometimes i think i would be great devil :)

    Keep your day job.

  146. Re:Oh bullshit by djinn6 · · Score: 1

    By comparison, it only takes me 7 minutes to cook burgers. I can be done by the time I would be paying for the McDs. So, if I factor in time, home cooking looks even better. If I factor in quality of the result, McDs isn't even in the running.

    Sounds like you're a much better cook than me. How come you're only making them for yourself? Make 10 burgers instead and sell the extras to your neighbors.

  147. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You created this problem by creating welfare. There should be neither welfare nor a minimum wage. The solution to inadequate pay in an environment where you have no skills is to move. People without skills can make decent money- but they do need to move to places where the cost of living to wage ratio for low skill jobs is higher. I'm not a low wage worker- but I moved from a place where the cost of living was higher and the people living there were wealthy. You had to be. Where I moved to there is more "poverty" (unskilled workers at a lower pay rate)- but everybody does reasonably well despite it because employers are scared out of the state, unemployment is low, and rates of pay largely exceed minimum wage by a factor of two. If the state was taxing us all to death (they still tax too much) and providing more welfare the poor wouldn't be doing so well because we'd end up with a higher rate of unemployment. Historically if people didn't want to starve they would migrate to where the pay was better and the cost of living lower. There is no good reason why people shouldn't continue to do just that. It's lazy and/or stupid people who think like you who need to be educated on economics so we're not all having our wealth stolen from us at a high cost for the sake of a meanial benefit (welfare) to the poor.Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.

  148. Re: Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    Shouldn't that be pedants'? There are at least three of us, I believe...

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  149. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1

    There should be neither welfare nor a minimum wage.

    Okay, so when a company offers a job for just above starvation wages, what do you expect to happen? The history of the industrial revolution tells us that desperate people will accept it, because the other alternative is to starve to death. You think that's good for the long-term health of the country?

    The solution to inadequate pay in an environment where you have no skills is to move.

    Move where? Look up the term 'race to the bottom'. And, again, look at the history of the industrial revolution. Oh, and also explain how you expect people with no welfare, no jobs, and few skills to be able to afford to move.

    I'm not a low wage worker- but I moved from a place where the cost of living was higher and the people living there were wealthy.

    And, no doubt, you were able to do this because you had a decent amount of savings accumulated to cover your relocation costs and you had a very high chance of employment where you moved.

    It's lazy and/or stupid people who think like you who need to be educated on economics

    The irony of ending a post that demonstrates a complete lack of awareness of either history or economics with that is not lost on me. I honestly can't tell if you're a parody or not.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  150. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    There are two ways: either the feds force the states to set a minimum wage, or they set a baseline and the states can increase it.
    Both would work.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  151. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    Which parts of my emphasized words: law and trade unions, did you not get?
    If the law says this position is payed with $2500 a month, no company can pay less.
    And if the trade unions have a contract with companies that say $2650 is the minimum, the company has to pay that.
    If an employee thinks he deserves $3000, but the company says: actually you are only worth $1500, but because of the fucking trade union we already pay you $2650, so go and fuck your self ... that is something different.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  152. Re: Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    I'll cross 'em, you knock 'em in.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  153. Re:Oh bullshit by sjames · · Score: 1

    Several reasons. First, I have a regular residential kitchen. To sell food to others, I would need a commercial kitchen so it could pass an inspecton. Then I would need such an inspection. Then proper business and food service licenses. I would need to sell a hell of a lot more burgers to cover all of that.

    I already have a day job.

  154. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by stdarg · · Score: 1

    No you would not. As you would not know that the high qualified super day cares were replaced by low wage criminals.

    Are you completely ignorant about childcare? Do you really think that parents choose a daycare and then never meet the staff? I get pictures and videos of my kids each day. I meet the teachers daily. In what world would I not realize that the great teachers I met on day one were replaced by shitty teachers on day 200? Please get some experience with the real world before commenting on obvious things like this.

    With your example of "paying $3000" that was a no brainer. You should have thought about that at the first place instead of making silly arguments.

    Yes, it's a no-brainer, that's why I said it could never realistically happen. It's not just a no-brainer for you and me, but for everybody. All the mid to high end daycares would go out of business.

    how retarded. Can one not have an opinion about one matter and another opinion about another matter with out being insulted

    no apparently not lol, moron

  155. Re:Good. You shouldn't have the right to work... by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 1

    You would not know what a teacher that gets replaced is earning, nor if s/he is a criminal.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.