
Hillary Clinton Plans to Campaign Against Uber’s Contractor Economy - isalmon
http://techcrunch.com/2015/07/12/clinton-uber/
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brc
The reason airbnb and uber exist is because the prior business models are
broken with regards to a big enough portion of their potential customers. A
conversation with the average taxi driver will reveal the job is no ticket to
the high life or consistent pay.

The way forward is to get rid of the concept of 'benefits' packages and just
let people work for a gross pay and let themselves choose their own benefits
from that.

Ultimate flexibility is what efficient economies are about. Unions don't like
that future and understandably try and fight it. It's a futile fight in the
end.

The reference to qualifying for a loan based on permanent work is not
relevant. A history of stable earnings is enough to qualify for a loan.
Permanent positions are no guarantee of enough employment to pay down most
loans.

~~~
Arainach
Without the bargaining power of large groups of employees, how will reasonable
costs and levels of service be maintained? It's well established that people
on their own without insurance get charged much higher rates than people with
insurance get charged for the same procedures at the same hospitals.
Presumably the same effects apply to individuals trying to obtain a price for
insurance versus an employer bargaining for a group of employees.

~~~
brc
Seems to work ok in many places around the world and in different products
within the us. You don't need 'group buying' for auto or home insurance, or
car or home purchases.

In fact group buying probably hinders the ability to get the right
product/person match.

Of all the problems to solve, it seems pretty easy. Even if that just means
groupon for benefits.

~~~
rspeer
I'll bite. Where are these "many places around the world" that have your
desired laissez-faire approach to health care? Are you talking about places
like India or what?

Also, I would hate to see a health care system as badly managed as Groupon.

~~~
brc
I live in Australia. I have private health insurance. It's an old policy from
when I was employed with a package. The policy costs no more than when it was
part of that package. That's maybe because the policy is priced based on me
(age mostly) rather than the employer. I'm not 100% sure why there's no real
difference between employer based policies and personal policies.

Anyway point is the problem is solve able.

~~~
rspeer
I'm just getting this from Wikipedia, but: "Health care in Australia is
universal. The federal government pays a large percentage of the cost of
services in public hospitals."

I would happily have Australia's solution in the US. It would go much farther
than Obamacare.

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interesting_att
As someone who loves Uber and who spends thousands of dollars a year on their
app, and as someone who dislikes Hillary, I cannot be happier with Hillary's
stance.

Uber will remain here and their rides will stay cheap. I am, however, very
concerned about their drivers. Many of them are making huge investments
purchasing new cars with the implicit (and sometimes borderline explicit,
depending on the marketing rep you talk to at Uber) that they can have
guaranteed work and a guaranteed wage. If über decides to cut driver wages in
half and pocket the profits, drivers will be out of luck. This can be
catastrophic for poor families, which will be basically be forced into wage
slavery. This will have huge effects on the community as Uber gets bigger.

We can all point to how Taxi unions and their lobbyists are evil (as a colored
man, it's difficult for me to get picked up by one), how awesome Uber is w/
their investments in autonomous cars, and the free markets are great...but we
need real employee protections in this country.

We need real protection for drivers who are making a huge investment. This
doesn't have to hurt consumers either, as über can still remain insanely
profitable while maintaining lower prices.

Edit: Removed the umlauts

~~~
danieltillett
I am not sure if uber has the umlauts.

While I am not great supporter of the taxi industry, I do think that you
should not be too hard on the taxi drivers for not picking you up although I
do understand your personal frustration. I am not sure how many uber drivers
would be happy to pick up random people without knowing they had been pre-
screened.

~~~
interesting_att
Yeah, I stopped caring about how taxi drivers treat me. Ironically, it is
because I can use uber now :)

~~~
danieltillett
As a good passenger you want a way of being able to tell the driver this. Uber
lets you in effect do this, but there is nothing stopping the taxi industry
copying the same process. If they did they would give uber a real run for its
money.

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Natsu
Hillary sat on the board of Wal-Mart from 1986 to 1992 and there aren't many
places that exploit their workers much more than they do. It would have been
nice if she had done some campaigning on behalf of workers back then.

~~~
duncan_bayne
She's not campaigning for workers now, either. She's campaigning on behalf of
lobbyists whose broken business models are being threatened by Uber and their
ilk.

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djmdjm
"sharing economy" sounds so much friendlier than "contractor, no workplace
protections economy"

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ageek123
Labor market flexibility is one of the great strengths of the US economy. It's
one of the reasons why unemployment is back to reasonable levels even after
the Great Recession. The freelancer economy has some downsides but in
aggregate it's a good thing, both for workers and the economy as a whole. The
opposite end of the spectrum is the labor market regulations in a country like
Greece, which has always been a drag on their economy (even before their debt
crisis).

Anyway, this is a great opportunity for the Republicans to paint themselves as
the party of progress and technology, though they need to clean up some of
their backward views (climate change, etc.) before such a claim would be
credible.

The NY Times had a somewhat more balanced article about Hillary campaigning
against Uber: [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/business/rising-
economic-i...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/13/business/rising-economic-
insecurity-tied-to-decades-long-trend-in-employment-practices.html)

~~~
norea-armozel
It would be fine if the price of housing, food, and healthcare weren't so far
out of sync with the wages earned. This is going to lead to a permanent
underclass where people are worse off than even serfs of the medieval period.

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nnq
...so instead of refactoring your law so that contractors have the same social
benefits as "full-time employees" instead, she wants to turn the contractors
into more easily controlled full time wage slaves.

I _really hope you Americans don 't vote a president with such twisted logic!_
...imagine how this warped way of thinking would be manifested in
international politics

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EGreg
I happen to agree that there needs to be a better understanding.

Personally I believe that ultimately we'll just expand unconditional basic
income via a welfare state one way or the other, and people will choose to
work if they want to. But until that happens...

It would be a good idea to define the difference between a marketplace that
connecta people and one that sets the terms without the two sides having
input.

Once again centralization causes the heavy hand of the central party, whether
a marketplace, buyer or provider.

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onewaystreet
David Plouffe, Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign manager (the guy who
orchestrated Hillary's upset in the Democratic primary) is now the SVP of
Policy and Strategy at Uber. This could get personal.

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reilly3000
This is why we have campaigns. We get to see the cadnidate's logic across a
wide spectrum of topics.

This is practically a deal killer for me and Hillary. I think that W2
employment is a dying model. Piecemeal 1099 work empowers every participant to
have clear and direct economic benefit and takes the power away from
corporations to exploit labor with manipulation about how incapable they are
to function independently. They rob the individual of identity, forcing
membership in the ranks of the company as a sense of self.

Instead I think work will be distributed, scalable, and coordinated with great
software. I think that work will happen based on real-time pricing and
presence. I think that means having skills and a good reputation means you can
always work when you want as much or as little as you want as long as you
actually produce.

I hope that said great software isn't owned and operated by a for-profit
institution, but instead is a community-driven, decentralized tool. I think
this would pave the way for as close as possible 'frictionless' marketplace
where the value of things and people's time are based on the value they bring,
not based on slick sales tactics or lobbied regulations.

I seriously believe that government needs to empower and support independent
work, or face a slow, 'Snow Crash' style extinction when mesh coordination
brings about digital voting, etc.

I get a sense that Hillary will in many ways enforce the status quo and that
simply isn't the kind of leadership that we need as we approach 2020 and all
that comes along with it.

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JohnyLy
Uber is a great service and a great idea. However, they encounter many legal
problems. I am not surprised that Hillary Clinton wants to move this
industry... a bit like the French government does.

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meric
_CharityWatch says even a “minimally efficient” foundation spends 60 percent
of its budget on programs. In the years 2009-2012, the Clinton Foundation
devoted just 15 percent to charitable grants, according to an analysis of IRS
filings by The Federalist. That fell to 10 percent in 2013. Forty-five percent
was spent on salaries, perks and travel for staff._

[http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/31/clinton...](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2015/05/31/clintons_corruption_126800.html)

Hiliary Clinton can be bought and is being bought through donations to her
foundation.

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schimmy_changa
Regardless of what you think of the issue, that read like a Wall Street
Journal Op-Ed. I know Techcrunch skews pro-tech, but at some point reading
articles like that increases your filter bubble and ends up with the reader
worse off. Instead of understanding WHY people feel so strongly enough about
the issue that it's a political issue, a reader just hears essentially a
diatribe of why Hillary Clinton is wrong and Uber is great...

Again, no judgement on whether or not Uber is great or HC is wrong, just a
concern that articles like this enhance the SV echo chamber to our own
detriment.

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xbmcuser

       Uber should have to follow the same laws that other taxi companies have to. I don't agree with the monopoly systems that are in place for taxis in most cities those should be removed. But at the same time many of these laws are so that taxis are available not just in the peak period but other times as well. So laws that force taxi companies to have part of the fleet available at all times should be also be enforced on uber and other such companies as well.

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comrade1
I know my opinion won't be popular on HN, but looking at uber, especially, and
similar companies from the outside (American living in Europe the last 6
years), the u.s. appears to be in a race to the bottom, with people competing
to lower their own wages.

I like uber but I think they f*cked themselves over and deserve every bit of
scrutiny they are getting. There are markets where they don't screw over the
drivers, for example where I live in Zurich uber is the same price as a cab
but it's more convenient because of the app.

If uber was truly beneficial to their drivers in the u.s. They wouldn't be
under this scrutiny. They deserve whatever pain they receive and hopefully
someone more responsible will take over the market.

Good luck fighting the political class. Uber will lose this fight.

~~~
joinjune
Uber will fight the laws for at least a couple of years and by then be half
way through replacing the entire labor force with autonomous cars. This is a
political tactic designed to get Hillary points in the media. She's smart
enough to know it'll have little to no long term impact.

~~~
comrade1
Frankly I'm surprised she picked uber as a target as uber has a very strong,
large, and sophisticated political lobbying organization. Granted, they focus
on local politics more than national, so maybe this is a sign of Hillary being
out of touch with the local level.

I don't think we'll have autonomous cars in 2 years.

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MichaelCrawford
Just the other day someone posted a link about the "sharing economy" job of
pretending to be a girlfriend. The service is promoted as a way to convince
others that you're getting some.

In reality is is used for many things, for example the author's "boyfriend"
wrecked his car and needed someone to talk to.

However the author found that she earned about one dollar per hour. The
crowdsourcing company that she worked for points out that, as its workers are
independent contractors, it is not bound by employment laws.

I hasten to disagree but that's what the company actually says.

I see the sharing economy as the problem not the solution.

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xname
Hillary never needs to use anything like Uber or Airbnb.

Whether sharing/contract economy is good or bad, it is a complicated issue.
Why would we need a president pretending knows everything?

