
CEO of Uber: Gig Workers Deserve Better - mitchbob
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/10/opinion/uber-ceo-dara-khosrowshahi-gig-workers-deserve-better.html
======
whack
It seems odd that our public discourse has settled on the following set
themes:

\- Every person deserves a baseline quality of life and benefits

\- The person's employer is tasked with the above responsibility

\- If a corporation pays their workers less than the above baseline, they are
bad. We should shame them, and pass laws to ensure that they pay their workers
better

\- If a corporation decides not to hire someone at all, and operates with a
smaller workforce by tweaking their business model, that is perfectly
acceptable and even laudable

Combine all of the above, and you end up with a world where corporations go
above-and-beyond to reduce their headcount, and entrepreneurs specifically
avoid labor-intensive business models. Firms like DE Shaw are publicly lauded
for making lots of money with a tiny elite workforce, while spinoffs like
Amazon are publicly shamed for actually employing hundreds of thousands of
middle class workers. All this only worsens the situation for those in the
lower-middle-class in the long-term, because now they have fewer work
opportunities, and less demand for their labor.

Clearly every person deserves a baseline quality of life and benefits. But
instead of heaping this responsibility on the subset of corporations that hire
low-skill workers, this responsibility really should lie with _everyone_. Tax
billionaires, tax the upper-middle-class, tax profitable corporations, and use
the money to strengthen the social safety net for low-skill workers. That
would eliminate this entire mess.

~~~
Miner49er
This isn't how I see the discourse. The way I see it is people are starting to
question if executives and shareholders deserve the pay they get. Instead of
the majority of profits going to them, more should go to workers.

The author of this article was paid $42 million last year. Uber's top 7
executives received: "$11.4 million in salary and cash bonus, plus $71 million
worth of equity awards." [0] Maybe instead of paying their CEO and executives
that much, Uber should pay their workers more?

[0] [https://observer.com/2020/05/uber-ceo-pay-shareholder-
backla...](https://observer.com/2020/05/uber-ceo-pay-shareholder-backlash-
coronavirus/)

~~~
sbarre
I think OP's point is that if the US had a better social safety net, this
problem wouldn't be as bad.

So many people in the US - arguably still the world's most prosperous country
- live on the precipice of ruin and failure because their country just doesn't
give a shit about them (hence the ongoing push to make their _employer_ give
more of a shit about them), and it's really heartbreaking.

~~~
Frost1x
>...because their country just doesn't give a shit about them...

To add insult to injury, every party involved that doesn't give a shit about
them, yet benefits from not giving a shit about them, also pretends to give a
shit about them.

The entire "essential worker" hero ad campaign at the start of COVID really
put a bad taste in my mouth.

Few if any of the businesses that ran those ad campaigns actually cared about
their workers or felt they were heroes (if they did, they'd treat them with
basic human decency, which they don't). Instead, they treat them like garbage,
lie to them, and lie to everyone else portraying that they somehow don't treat
their workers like garbage.

Modern corporate propoganda (that's what it is, no matter what you want to
relabel it) is pretty disgusting, especially in the fact that it's successful.
We've really lost our humanity in this system and it's some of the subjective
yet arguably "good" or positive attributes of humanity.

~~~
lotsofpulp
> The entire "essential worker" hero ad campaign at the start of COVID really
> put a bad taste in my mouth.

The US does the same with their military. Drape the flag over everything, trip
over themselves thanking people for service, giving 10% military discounts and
giving home loans with 3% down payments....but should we pay the armed forces
a competitive wage? No. It’s even more cringe when all this service stuff is
then extended to police and firefighters.

As if there are two classes of people in the country, those sacrificing
themselves and willingly accepting less money to “serve” their country, when
it’s really just their only option because all the business left their town or
they messed up in high school.

I don’t ever want to be paid with “thanks” or “hero worship”. I’ll take the
cash.

~~~
ta17711771
Is it still an uncompetitive wage when you:

1\. Don't require housing etc money

2\. Are ranked up to any degree higher than random POG

?

~~~
lotsofpulp
I don’t see any of my well educated, well heeled peers recommending their
children to join the military. Because their children have better options.

~~~
refurb
That may be your bubble.

There are plenty of people going to Ivy League schools who have military
backgrounds.

Going to one of the military schools is highly prestigious. They aren’t easy
to get into in the least.

------
stetrain
There are two points I think that need to be raised here:

1) GDP-Per-Capita has grown steadily and is at an all-time high
[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?location...](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD?locations=US)

2) Real wages per capita have stagnated since the 70s
[https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-
us...](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-
real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/)

So in general, productivity per worker has increased. Amazon can move more
products direct to your home with fewer people than was possible in 1970.
Greater and greater value is being generated in the economy due to these
increasing efficiencies.

Yet the suggestion that businesses should pay their workers who enable this
value proportionately gets responses that we will be squashing economic
potential, dragging these enterprises down, etc.

Instead Walmart, Amazon, etc. use these great efficiencies of scale to compete
on lower prices. Which totally does have economic benefits, but it also pushes
out competition. Local stores can't compete with an international megacorp's
productivity leverage, so we end up with a Walmart in every town and Amazon
boxes on our doorstep. Is that truly an economic plus? It sure is nice in some
ways, but are all those warehouse workers Amazon employs really new jobs? Or
are they replacing a similar or greater number of jobs that were previously
providing those same goods and services in a decentralized manor?

~~~
saddlerustle
> Greater and greater value is being generated in the economy due to these
> increasing efficiencies.

This is very unclear and it depends on what measurements you look at. Lots of
economists claim we've had historically low productivity growth in the last
two decades - eg Total-Factor Productivity growth has been very low
(~0.5%/year) every year since ~2005.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The little device in everyone’s pocket can do is much that required other
people’s time and labor. Purchasing travel, researching real estate markets,
checking into a hotel, comparing prices, obtaining product information and
reviews, etc.

If I need to find something at Home Depot or Target or Lowes, I don’t need a
person to help me anymore. I go to their website and it tells me exactly where
the item is.

All of these little efficiencies add up to me needing fewer other people to
help me.

~~~
saddlerustle
Improvements in consumer technology is arguably offset by lots of areas of the
economy becoming less efficient every year. Consider infrastructure, health
care and education - those sectors require more labor now to produce the same
or less output than they use to.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Declining real wages for decades are my evidence that supply curves are ahead
of demand curves. I don’t see why education needs more labor, the number of
children will be declining for the foreseeable future. More importantly, the
buyers of that labor (government) are famously stingy and with budgets already
strained with pension and other debt, I doubt they’re going to give up any
extra wage gains.

~~~
maerF0x0
not that we should go back, but it's worth noting that women entering the
workforce probably greatly increased the supply side of the equation.
Concurrently we're needing less and less people whilst also trying to figure
out what to do with all this new supply introduced.

~~~
lotsofpulp
Yes, that was also a huge factor.

------
undecisive
Most people are looking at this cynically, and I agree that it's a stall for
time, he's trying to justify paying people the minimum because otherwise all
the other greedy pigs would undercut him, etc etc.

However, my cynicism goes a level deeper. It is in Uber's best interests for
laws to change and make the scene more complicated, so that all operators in
this space - including Uber - have to pay more to their workers and have more
encumbrances.

Why? Well, Uber is an established operator. They have made their bucketloads
of money off the back of underpaying their workers, got themselves out of
startup status in a way that - if they play their cards right - no other gig
operator will be able to replicate. Less competition, less disruption.

I think there is an argument that says that "gig economy" should be enveloped
in laws that protect the gig worker rights and ensure fair pay and a safety
net, without introducing laws that enforce restrictions on the workers.
Governments should work to simplify the burdens on individuals, without
creating new loopholes for the wealthy. "It's hard" is a valid statement, but
not a reason to reject the concept.

But I would continue to be fully cynical of any solution that has the top gig
economy CEO's seal of approval.

~~~
tomalpha
> They have made their bucketloads of money

I agree with your broader point, but Uber _lost_ some 8.5 billion USD last
year. They're not (yet, at least) making bucketloads of money, despite paying
their workers badly.

~~~
JohnBooty
I am so confused by Uber's financials.

I do not understand what they spend well over 8.5 billion on.

Their software for riders and drivers is quite good and certainly tons of
engineer-hours have been poured into the front and back ends.

Are they paying their drivers more than they're charging riders? Or have all
the billions gone into their moonshot projects like self-driving cars? Both?

Because otherwise, to me it's almost like, how do you _not_ turn a profit on
rides? Once they've got their app and infrastructure going (again, no small
expense) then any rides they arrange should be profit.

Clearly, I am misunderstanding something about their business to an
astronomical degree but I don't think I'm alone.

~~~
wayanon
They're losing money every ride, or so I read somewhere, like $16 each time?

~~~
JohnBooty
I think that's just the $8.5B loss restated as (total loss) / (number of
rides), right?

------
adamsvystun
If you are able to factor out all the despise you have for Uber, I think the
article has a lot of good points.

There is no great option in between full employment and a contractor. There is
a trade-off for both employers and employees in both agreements. Different
people want different degree of benefits. It seems to me that everybody would
win if there was more flexibility here, and this is what the article seem to
be suggesting. Seems reasonable.

~~~
pwinnski
"There is no great option in between full employment and a contractor."

This begs the question of why there should be an option between those two
things.

I'm not sure why there should be, except that employers don't like supporting
employees and aren't allowed to treat contractors the same way.

~~~
SilasX
As mentioned in my sibling reply, I tried to unravel the logic there and made
my best attempt at an answer a while back:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11670698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11670698)

~~~
pwinnski
Name-dropping fallacies doesn't make your position make any more sense. Create
a third option and someone will ask why there's no option between 2 and 3.
Create a fourth option and someone will ask why there's no option between 3
and 4. It's non-central fallacies all the way down, until there are no
categories for anything at all, because each and every single person occupies
their own category, reductio ad absurdum.

So I posit that we have separate categories for very clear and simple
historical reasons: we have "employees" because a set of laws came into being
to push back against employer abuses, and to improve conditions for workers
generally. "Employees" are not "slaves," is the primary distinction there.

But if I own a company and hire another company to provide services, I'm not
hiring an employee, I'm establishing a contract, so a different set of laws
comes into play to attempt to ensure fair dealing. But what if the "company" I
hire to provide services is a single-person company? Is that just a fiction
I'm employing to get around those laws that protect workers? Could be, so the
courts have established a series of ways to determine the difference.

A contractor, for example, usually provides services to more than one company.
I've done this as a software developer. So Uber might claim that because
drivers can work for Uber or Lyft or other ride-sharing services, that makes
their drivers contractors. Drivers claim that doing this results in serious
disadvantages compared to drivers who exclusively stay with one company, so it
doesn't really feel like a choice they can make.

A contractor usually has control over their own hours. If I hire a cleaning
company to clean my office, I can't really tell them that they have to come at
exactly 2am and work until exactly 3:30am; I give them my business hours and
ask them to work outside of those. They have other offices they clean, so they
choose the hours they allot to each. Uber, again, might claim that drivers can
sign on or off as they will, but there is a very strong effect that has on
ratings and compensation, so drivers have claimed it doesn't really seem like
a choice, but a requirement.

Again, the reason for this distinction, historically, is to protect workers
from mistreatment by employers while still providing the freedom to workers to
have more than one client, control their own hours, etc.

The debate here is over whether gig workers _really_ control their own hours,
_really_ work independently, _really_ have the benefits of being contractors,
or whether that's a legal fiction used by companies to avoid treating their
workers well.

If there's a need for a third category, what would be the point of that? Would
this third category result in workers being treated _better_ than they are now
as contractors? What advantage for employers would there be over treating
workers as contractors? The general argument from the companies to date seems
to be reasonably summarized as "our business model doesn't support treating
our employees as employees," which is not an argument that anyone should
actually care about. If there are good arguments why people who drive full-
time for Uber should not be treated as full-time employees, with all of the
benefits associated with that, Uber has failed to make a good case for this in
court to date.

------
Upvoter33
A lot of issues would be solved with a basic social contract to all citizens:
healthcare plus a small living stipend. Do that and people can Gig away. Too
much is hard to change when healthcare is so attached to full-time/regular
employment, and when it is hard to move between jobs/etc. for fear of loss of
income.

~~~
sunsetMurk
Do you have any links to articles/discussions about this proposed direction?

I'm pretty sure I agree... and would like to further develop my opinion about
~this stuff.

It's so dumb for an individual to go bankrupt from a random health issue
and/or pay a ton of money each month for "insurance" that is basically
useless; and also dumb for an employer to be responsible or in control of
anything having to do with an individual's health care decisions.

------
Nursie
"I can't possibly act on this without being compelled to by law"

Riiiiight.

~~~
kmorgh
As I understand, the board could (probably would) fire him if he added a $655M
expense without having to legally pay that.

I'm not sure what the alternative is here, other than becoming a social
purpose company.

~~~
PedroBatista
How about quitting?

Yeah, we all for those poor people but only if it doesn't cost us much.

~~~
kmorgh
You could argue he should quit because of personal ethical considerations.

But it seems like this is a broader issue regarding exploitation within modern
capitalism. Not just limited to Uber.

In other words: if we allow it, it will happen. If not by Mr. Khosrowshahi,
then someone else.

~~~
PedroBatista
I 100% agree, but in this case it's just another type-A guy making an
observation perhaps so he can feel good with himself but not really doing
anything.

These people like to pretend they are poor empathetic souls but with no power,
which is bullshit. If their ass is on the line or their business has an
existencial threat, all of a sudden they know how to make the right phone
calls and make things happen.

I buy what he's trying to paint, but I don't buy his hypocrisy.

------
cseleborg
This is rather cynical, isn't it? Mr. Khosrowshahi is suggesting that rather
than finding ways of making employment more flexible, let's remain in the gig
economy and re-invent benefits, conveniently forgetting how long it took to
get to the benefits of employment in the first place.

The calculation is ridiculous. According to his example, if someone had been
working almost full time for a year, they would have accumulated enough funds
for a whopping 2 weeks of paid leave OR medical insurance -- but not both! And
they couldn't have done it any other way because they wouldn't be so big
otherwise.

Further, his central argument revolves around the fact that since Uber
recruited drivers as gig workers promising them flexibility, their survey
shows, unsurprisingly, that their drivers want... flexibility. Proof that
nobody needs benefits, for sure.

Mr. Khosrowshahi isn't even trying to sound convincing.

~~~
MrDresden
I'm currently reading Anand Giridharada's 2018 book "Winners Take All: The
Elite Charade of Changing the World" which, while not exactly revealing
anything new , does present a good collection of behaviour from the elite
class wrapped in a good narrative structure.

There is one thing that never changes in their behaviour; Problems are not
solved by acknowledging their underlying root causes (usually erosion of
regulation, civil liberties or other social contracts), but by 'inventin' our
way out of the problem. Usually to the financial gain of the elite in
question.

As someone currently living in a country with strong unions and regulatory
agencies, I have a hard time imagining how the U.S society could have eroded
to this degree over time without the general populace taking notice and
standing their ground against it.

~~~
ivoras
The word "elite" in this context has always bugged me. It's to good of a word
to be wasted for such a label. Elite(s) should be something positive.

------
gregdoesit
Can someone explain what the right approach would be in terms of benefits, for
a typical gig worker use case:

Person with part-time job wants to make some extra money. Registers for
Doordash, Lyft, Uber. When their (part-time) work ends midday, they log onto
Doordash, as it's lunchtime. Deliver a few meals. Now it's the afternoon, food
delivery doesn't pay, so they switch to Lyft. Do two rides, but things slow
down. They log onto Uber and finish the day like this.

I am not saying everyone uses the apps like this, but this is also a use case.
So who should pay and how much in holiday pay, sick leave? Clearly, this
person can't be (and doesn't want to be) a full-time employee of either of the
companies. Yet they work with all three.

The proposal made in this article is not a far fetched one: and it gives a
possible solution for exactly this setup.

~~~
wccrawford
Well to me the obvious answer is that those "benefits" shouldn't be coming
from the employer in the first place, especially medical.

And if you eliminate that and things like 401k, what else are you asking the
employer to provide that you couldn't get for yourself with your money you
earned?

But let's assume that universal medical and retirement are off the table. Why
should the employee pony up for that stuff when you're only committing to a
dozen hours a week with them, instead of 40? In other words, why should the
company commit more than the employee does?

The article seems to be saying that the company should commit proportionally
to the work from the employee. Well, isn't that what a paycheck is already? If
paying them the agreed wages is "letting them fend for themselves", then the
solution is obvious: Pay them properly instead, so that they _can_ help
themselves.

And what about all the people who _already_ work 3 part-time jobs to get by.
How is that any different, and why weren't we previously worried about that,
but we are for "gig workers"?

~~~
redisman
And let's face it, if you're a gig worker you're not doing a 401k match with
your $10/mo left over after expenses.

------
tareqak
The people Dara Khosrowshahi refers to as gig workers that also reside in
California should be called, treated as, and receive the full benefits of
employees [0]. Uber is fighting this law, and him continuing to call them gig
workers only benefits Uber and other companies pretending to be a marketplace
between workers and and customers.

[0]
[https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5)

[1] [https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/30/uber-and-postmates-
sue-c...](https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/30/uber-and-postmates-sue-
california-over-ab5-gig-worker-law/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Assembly_Bill_5_(20...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Assembly_Bill_5_\(2019\))

~~~
rmrfstar
"Gig workers want both flexibility and benefits."

Times have changed. People don't want stable jobs anymore. That's why the
industries where workers have a modicum of power (law, medicine, finance,
tech) are dominated by "flexible" work schedules.

~~~
thorin
If you offer people stable work, with good pay and benefits, pension,
healthcare (in the US), you won't have a shortage of applicants believe me.
This myth being spread that people want flexible work is perpetuated by the
people who benefit.

~~~
cik2e
It’s not a myth. The article says that 2/3 of drivers highly value the
flexibility arrangement. I’ve driven Uber for that exact reason myself. I’ve
also spoken to many drivers and almost every single one has said something
about “being your own boss” as being the key benefit. Sure, there maybe plenty
of people who would love to be Uber employees but they aren’t the majority of
those driving for Uber today. What Uber drivers really want is more money, and
the continued flexibility to earn and spend it when and how they want to.

~~~
rvense
But the alternative for most Uber drivers is not a stable job in the fields
that the post you're replying to mentioned. It's probably coffee shops, fast
food, call center work or similar. If your alternative is that, being your own
boss obviously sounds good. The solution here is not just to fix Uber, but
generally the circumstances and compensation for these kinds of jobs.

~~~
pnutjam
Yes, if you've never worked a scheduled service sector job you don't
understand. 6am to 2pm on day, 8pm to 4pm the next and 3 days of 3p to 10pm in
a row. That makes Uber look good, especially when that schedule is not known
until the day before it starts for many workers.

------
627467
Let start by agreeing that while in some cases gig economy seems to disguise
promotion of precarious jobs in name of "flexibility" it is imo obvious that
employment regulations need to be updated to more contemporary needs.

That said, I can't help but read this op piece as: "please raise a regulatory
moat around us because we are now safely inside the citadel".

This strategy is so common lately (read Facebook, Google, etc) that I wonder
if these incumbents should pay a price (of being broken up) whenever
substantial regulatory changes happen.

~~~
troupe
> "please raise a regulatory moat around us because we are now safely inside
> the citadel".

Exactly. Competition is probably the best way to make sure that drivers get
the most total compensation (regardless of whether it is coming in the form of
salary or benefits). What is being described here would really limit other
companies ability to compete with Uber on the terms that Uber used to compete
with taxi services.

------
nix23
I Am the CEO of Nike, child workers deserve better, it's the Government's
fault.

~~~
s1artibartfast
Despite your sarcasm, I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment. Nike
provides a better job than than the next best alternative (often child
prostitution), and it is the government's job to ensure that the factories are
safe. It is also the government's responsibility, not Nike's, to provide
education to children and the conditions to pursue it instead of working.

~~~
nix23
>Nike provides a better job than than the next best alternative (often child
prostitution)

So Nike is the next best to child prostitution, i get it :)

But you are right, the next big question is, should a company have the right
to do stuff like that. Witch would be illegal in the country where they have
the HQ.

Switzerland has a really interesting discussion about that ATM:

[https://www.bj.admin.ch/bj/de/home/wirtschaft/gesetzgebung/k...](https://www.bj.admin.ch/bj/de/home/wirtschaft/gesetzgebung/konzernverantwortungsinitiative.html)

EDIT: Sorry no English version available to translate use:

[https://www.deepl.com/en/translator](https://www.deepl.com/en/translator)

~~~
s1artibartfast
It certainly is an interesting question.

From what I gathered, the initiative calls for companies to companies to
respect _internationally_ recognized human rights and environmental standards.

I don't think this means that the supply chain must comply with swiss
standards an regulations. For example, paying swiss minimum wage in Vietnam
would be crazy.

I think there is a big disconnect when people judge the working conditions in
other countries by local expectations.

~~~
nix23
No it's really about "internationally recognized human rights and
environmental standards" witch should be the standard anyway, with that law
you can make those corporations responsible for the shit they do in other
country's. ATM that other country have to do it by themselves, an example is
Kongo, but they don't do anything for obvious reasons.

~~~
s1artibartfast
When you say “no", what part are you addressing? This post seems to say the
same as what I said in my last post.

~~~
nix23
Change the "No" to "Yes you are right" :)

------
xiphias2
It's not Ubers fault that the central banks lowered interest rates to so low
levels that assets are a huge ponzi sceme, and people who don't own those
assets have to compete for the crappiest jobs to survive.

I have met Uber drivers in Brazil that told me that their job got easier and
their pay higher since they started working for Uber. And the CEO is wright
that I would prefer renting a car when travelling if Uber would get more
expensive.

~~~
d0100
Yep the Uber reality in Brazil is too different from the US. Working as an
Uber in Brazil nets you more than what's available for even those that have
degrees.

Also, cheap drives has made it so even poor people take an Uber, whereas taxis
are only for the rich. Uber prices go up, poor people stop using Uber. I'll
stop using Uber.

~~~
kopos
Is this without any incentives from Uber?

From what I’ve seen in India, the drivers have to work really hard and do
50-69 hour days to get a decent living.

With Uber taking a 30% cut, and the driver themselves having to cough up the
repairs, etc - it does not amount to a huge jump in income.

~~~
tathougies
> 50-69 hour days to get a decent living.

Wow you've seen a lot to see a 50 hour day.

~~~
kopos
_week_

------
close04
A CEO coming out and saying "we should do better" is simply an admission that
they didn't and still don't. I see it as a personal failure of the CEO, an
institutional failure of the company, and an attempt to give it a positive
"moral" spin in the media.

This isn't about what Uber can or should do, it's what everyone else should do
so Uber can be in a better light without actually changing anything.

------
adaisadais
Uber Driver here:

Drivers (well, I can’t speak for everyone) enjoy the flexibility of driving.
We also hate the prospect of not driving and not being able to pay bills. It’s
truly a catch-22 situation.

However, as someone who admires tech, I find that Uber’s biggest problem is
not in the way it treats her contractual drivers (that’s a symptom of a larger
cultural problem) But in the way Uber handles technology.

The teams that handle the driver and the rider apps are totally separate. Each
of the apps have slightly different nomenclature within the apps and extremely
different interfaces. This makes it difficult from the get go to pick up
passengers and to safely get them where they are going.

If Uber focused more on creating a great user experience and did the right
things to ensure that both riders and drivers were on the same page they would
begin to increase in market share.

“ A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better
than silver or gold. “ -Hebrew Proverb

Uber has failed publicly to protect itself with bizarre scandals and
shortermist business practices. They’ve failed to distinguish themselves from
Lyft.

In 5 years I don’t think Uber will be in the rideshare business.

~~~
justwalt
Was this written by GPT-3?

~~~
adaisadais
“My mind is living on cloud nine and this .9 is never on vacation.” -Kendrick
Lamar.

Nah, my mind is just pretty wild. Sorry if it was kinda hard to read, bro.
GPT-3 is for suckers.

------
KingOfCoders
Exploit exploit exploit, when the wind turns, use your market position you
have gainend and become Paulus.

------
x87678r
As the top comment says, corporations like Uber should be pushing for quality
free healthcare and strong social benefits. It would help everyone and make
gig working much more palatable.

------
yesplorer
Off-topic, but shouldn't HN be looking at their commenting style and
implementing some sort of sub-comment/ replies collapsing style a la reddit?

I collapsed the first parent comment and there's no other to read as the
entire discussion now is based on that parent comment.

I think collapsing comments after a limit of replies or votes is reached will
help with the contribution of new perspective to the discourse instead of
everyone else following the train of thought of a single parent comment.

[https://imgur.com/M4qMWog](https://imgur.com/M4qMWog)

~~~
tethys
There's a second page with more comments (and a tiny "More" link on the
original HN):
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24107497&p=2](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24107497&p=2)

------
walrus01
I want to know how many billable hours from how many public relations
professionals, image consultants and Uber's own marketing department went into
the draft of this before the final copy was published.

------
nottorp
Isn't much of the 'gig economy' trouble because the US has no single payer
health insurance?

~~~
e12e
It doesn't help - but it's not all. There's been some struggle in Norway too
regarding foodora food delivery, partly around compensation for riders using
their own bikes:

[https://www.svenssonstiftelsen.com/post/victory-for-
foodora-...](https://www.svenssonstiftelsen.com/post/victory-for-foodora-
strikers-collective-agreement-in-place)

------
bogomipz
>"It’s time to move beyond this false choice. As a start, all gig economy
companies need to pay for benefits, should be more honest about the reality of
the work and must strengthen the rights and voice of workers.

So why doesn't CEO Dara Khosrowshahi lead by example and start paying benefits
for Uber drivers immediately instead of writing an Op-Ed about it? Why not
actually implement the benefits program and then write an Op Ed about why you
did it?

>"I’m proposing that gig economy companies be required to establish benefits
funds which give workers cash that they can use for the benefits they want,
like health insurance or paid time off. Independent workers in any state that
passes this law could take money out for every hour of work they put in. All
gig companies would be required to participate, so that workers can build up
benefits even if they switch between apps."

Again you're the CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. Why not be a leader and lead by
example? Start the fund for your Uber drivers and use that as your inflection
point and build consensus based on some action you actually took.

>"Had this been the law in all 50 states, Uber would have contributed $655
million to benefits funds last year alone."

This is patently absurd. Rephrased - "had we been forced to do the thing that
I believe is the right thing this would have been the outcome"

------
cgearhart
Gig companies should be required to fund paid time off and healthcare programs
for gig workers...? How are we _so_ desperate to avoid public healthcare and
social safety programs in the US that the CEO of a multi-billion dollar
company thinks _this_ is a reasonable article to write?

This is the definition of an over-engineered solution. Just cut the damn link
between employment and basic benefits like healthcare and this manufactured
“problem” goes away.

------
andrewla
We have finally scaled all the barriers thrown up by local ordinances and
regulations, protecting entrenched industries in a sphere of cronyism and
exclusion, using regulatory capture to block anyone else from joining their
club. Rather than competing on price or quality, they had devolved to just
trying to exclude everyone else from their business model, and they were ripe
for disruption.

What a glorious day!

Ok, now to start pulling up the ladder behind us.

------
on_and_off
>Rides would be more expensive, which would significantly reduce the number of
rides people could take and, in turn, the number of drivers needed to provide
those trips.

At what point exactly can we state the problem as "Uber is not able to build a
sustainable model".

I am all for disrupting taxis and have little love for medallions but if the
alternative needs a salary level you can not live on, maybe it is just not a
good model.

------
Ericson2314
I and friends have long been saying the gig companies should self-interestedly
push for a better universal safety net, so gig works get benefits but the bill
is amortized.

This is just the....dumb version of that same argument.

But maybe this is intentional, because arguing for yet another insurance pool
is "non partisan", while arguing for universal heal care will make it harder
to lobby both parties.

------
PedroBatista
That's an entertaining soundbite when your business is based on literally
extract value from those poor peasants you say deserve better.

~~~
aminozuur
And doctors extract value from sick people. Nonetheless, a doctor might have
good reasons to state that his patients deserver better. Assuming malice is
not an effective counter-argument.

~~~
majewsky
Bad comparison. A doctor does not make people sick (or if they do, they're
criminally liable). Uber intentionally designed the contracts of those gig
workers.

~~~
logicchains
And Uber doesn't make people need transportation services, or make people need
to earn a living by providing transportation services. It's crazy how entitled
Americans have become over the past few decades that helping somebody find
driving work now counts as "exploitation".

~~~
majewsky
I'm not American.

~~~
logicchains
I wasn't referring to you in particular sorry, just the general tone in this
thread. The worst part is people are happy to make assumptions without
actually even asking Uber drivers what they want.

------
mola
Uber invented a failed business model that to ensure its success it had to
employ lobbyists all over the world to subvert local democracies and
manipulate public opinion to remove worker right laws. Using any tatics
necessary and fermenting social unrest.

All this colossal damage, for a VC subsidize enterprise that never proved it
can actually turn a profit.

------
uptown
This is my favorite Uber messaging revision:

[https://twitter.com/neilanalien/status/627873374505562112?la...](https://twitter.com/neilanalien/status/627873374505562112?lang=en)

Maybe some business models aren't economically viable. Maybe Uber is one of
those businesses.

------
benlivengood
An increasing percentage of wealth in the U.S. is created by systems and
automation; individual people are no longer as competitive and this is
reflected in lowered wages. The trend will continue.

People who can create systems and automation still have value but the economic
machinery will optimize us out of the picture eventually. We're literally
training our replacements with ML.

There's no rich CEOs or politicians to blame; we're part of an optimization
process designed and evolved to find and exploit efficiencies and loopholes in
the existing protective framework of government and cultural/social values.

The solution is to work together as humans to correct and augment the
incentives of the current economic system. Economic growth and activity is
only a shadowy proxy of human happiness and satisfaction.

------
ilaksh
I think that this is the tip of the iceberg. Its not just about Uber. Its not
just about the gig economy in general. Its about the entire economy.

There are multiple forces at work. One aspect is the actual long-term debt
cycle which people don't realize puts pressure on everything. The other thing
is the effective de-regulation and loosening of employee protections.

Another part is tech monopolization.

We actually need an entirely new high tech global economic paradigm. We need
to re-invent money and government with advanced distributed protocols. That
will allow us to holistically and locally track and regulate resources with a
universal basic income (or hopefully even a bit more than basic) while we
scale-up deployment of automation.

------
aminozuur
Looking at the comments, Uber is still hated despite the leadership change.
Some people hear "Uber" and immediately assume and project the worst.

I think the article was well written. And I wonder what the comments would
look like if this article was by the CEO of Lyft.

~~~
majewsky
There's no difference. If it were the CEO of Lyft, I'd suspect that he
advocates for it to price Uber out of the market and avoid new competitors.
Same as Uber, just with the name tags flipped around.

------
marenkay
Step 1: sabotage any worker rights established by pushing workers into
freelance/self-employed work.

Step 2: keep the money for labour costs in your pocket and become a unicorn
because people with cash want to bet on the removal of worker rights.

Step 3: profit

Step 4: do some lame PR, still keep the cash. Change nothing. Because others
have to do that. Just not you. All you needed was the money.

Companies following that model should not have a high valuation because they
exist on borrowed time. Extorting money from a system does not make your
business profitable at all, it just prolongs death.

Also... is it just me or does Uber seem highly ineffective in operations
considering the amount of engineers needed for running the business?

~~~
coldcode
Uber is not a successful for-profit business in the long run as they make no
profits; given free money to be able to subsidize what costs there are (and
operating on the backs of people who make little themselves) can exist for a
long time before failing. In the meantime richly paid executives and well paid
employees can milk it for a long time.

~~~
mnky9800n
And it's not like they become poor or suffer any real consequences when their
company fails after never having produced profit ever.

~~~
papito
Capitalism without risk is da shizzle, yo.

------
alex_young
Uber wants you to believe that the cost of paying drivers as employees is that
you won’t be able to get a car in most places.

This can’t be true.

Uber replaced a poorly run system that actually covered most places and
employed it’s labor force.

If Uber and other car services were forced to recognize their workforce as
employees, there would be market incentives to support doing so.

Uber mentions the subsidized cost of their health plan. This is very
creatively failing to mention that the American taxpayers pay this difference.
Your ride may seem cheap, but you pay for it in your tax bill.

Maybe Uber thinks PR pieces like this one will convince us not to regulate
them. I hope we’re not that slow.

------
stevehawk
Is there any reason to believe the CEO really believes this or is this just
the next step in their business model: start raising the barriers to entry by
making it more expensive for the competition?

------
unexaminedlife
The real problem IMO is that government in the US isn't able to keep up with
how quickly the world is evolving.

The solutions thus far are obviously not optimal. The solutions being proposed
also probably have issues yet to be discovered.

What really needs to happen is a fire needs to be lit under legislators' butts
TBH. I think the end result is going to be a problem either way if we end up
with something that (regardless of outcomes) won't be changed again for
another decade.

------
lalos
What PR company is recommending this recipe? So much symmetry, but yes basic
PR management: always control the conversation first.

"Google’s Sundar Pichai: Privacy Should Not Be a Luxury Good" [1]

"I Am the C.E.O. of Uber. Gig Workers Deserve Better."

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/google-sundar-
pic...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/07/opinion/google-sundar-pichai-
privacy.html)

------
3327
I am CEO of UBER, i have been azzramming gig workers for years, now i hacked
the system, don’t pay payroll tax or provide healthcare, and now i cannot
afford it either because shareholders do not want to pay for it, so i need to
create noise and find a bailout, and i think tax payers should do it since
clearly we as a company are not willing/able.

Cherio suckers

------
dreamcompiler
> Gig workers want both flexibility and benefits — we support laws that could
> make that possible.

Whenever a company says "we support regulation" there's always an unstated
suffix phrase: "that makes it easy for us to do what we want to do and hard
for our competitors to do what we want to do."

------
Animats
This is the same old Uber, desperately twisting and turning to get out of the
responsibilities of an employer. Like a minimum wage. Uber is operating
illegally in California, refusing to treat employees as employees after the
legislature passed a law clearly making them employees.

~~~
jkarneges
Uber actually attempted to comply with AB5, by allowing California drivers to
set their prices and giving them more freedom about which rides to accept.

Critics may argue Uber is still non-compliant even with the changes, but
that's probably for a court to decide.

~~~
Animats
From AB5:

 _...shall be considered an employee unless the hiring entity demonstrates
that all of the following conditions are satisfied:_

 _(1) The person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity
in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for
the performance of the work and in fact._

 _(2) The person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring
entity’s business._

 _(3) The person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade,
occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work
performed._

Uber tries to argue that they're not in the business of selling rides, they're
just a matching service. That's to escape (2). Neither customers nor drivers
nor courts believe this.

~~~
jkarneges
That's fair, but the point is Uber tried to meet all of these. The ball is in
the state's court now to test and enforce.

My feeling is (2) is overreach and has caused unnecessary collateral damage to
many non-rideshare businesses. As a non-rideshare business owner myself, I
hope (2) gets struck from the law as a result of the rideshare legal battles.

------
DeonPenny
I hope everyone sees what he's doing. If he wanted to give people a better
life he could as a individual without legislation. What he's doing is putting
regulation around the industry that only uber can afford to adhere to, so that
no one can afford to compete with them.

------
deenadayalan
[https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/10/21362460/uber-lyft-
driver...](https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/10/21362460/uber-lyft-drivers-
employees-california-court-ruling)

------
tehjoker
I am the CEO of Uber. I am attempting to get ahead of a unionization movement
by substituting their potential demands with ones my corporation can at least
control somewhat. My hand was forced to get to this position and it can be
forced further.

------
revel
In general it shouldn't be the case that working part time disqualifies
someone from earning unemployment or disability checks. It's pointlessly
punitive and reduces health, happiness and productivity for the entire labor
force.

------
weebwoobfly
Now that we’ve grown to dominate the space by fragrantly ignoring and
intentionally breaking laws, we support creating new laws that will prevent
others who lack our scale and resources from entering our monopoly.

~~~
macspoofing
Of course. This is gate-keeping with a sprinkle of regulatory capture.

My favorite quote:

>Many of our critics, ..., believe that Uber and our gig economy peers have
failed drivers by treating them as contractors, and that we will do anything
to avoid the cost of employee benefits like health insurance. Given our
company’s history, I can understand why they think that.

Pray tell, what is this company history you're talking about? Come on, be
specific. And did those policies get you the market-share you have now?

------
keenmaster
It is the government's job to legislate and provide universal healthcare/an
adequate safety net. If you expect Uber to provide healthcare to its workers,
many of whom _don 't_ want to be employees because that would reduce the
flexibility of their work arrangement, then Uber will "hire" fewer people,
raise prices, and increase average time-to-service. How is that a good thing?

Winners from classifying gig workers as employees:

\- Full-time taxi drivers who happen to get a job from Uber

\- Well-intentioned people who believe that society improves when there is an
appearance of fairer labor treatment

Losers from classifying gig workers as employees:

\- Full-time taxi drivers who don't get a job from Uber because labor laws
force Uber to shrink

\- Part-time taxi drivers who cannot work for Uber as full-time employees

\- Part-time taxi drivers who can increase their hours but don't get a job
from Uber because labor laws force the company to shrink

\- Part-time taxi drivers who increase their hours and get a job but despise
the new, inflexible work arrangement - and their kids, if they have kids

\- Millions of Uber customers who get worse service for a higher price

\- Prospective Uber customers who cannot afford the new service and make
poorer transportation decisions (slower, less safe)

\- Foregone business and consumer opportunities due to people not being where
they want to be when they want to be there

\- Gig businesses that never get started, gig economy innovation that never
happens, and society at large

If the government provides a better safety net, then people will benefit from
it no matter the job and no matter the particularities of their work
arrangement (self-employed, part-time, full-time, single employer, multiple
employers, unemployed...). I chose to study the California Dynamex gig worker
case for a business law class and there's really no way around the terrible
tradeoffs.

------
tomcat27
Would Uber be willing to pay a premium initial deposit to the collective fund
on the name of all their gig workers they had since the beginning.

That would assuage people skeptical about marketplace dynamics for new
startups.

------
darkerside
Be the change you want to see in the world, Uber. You don't need laws to tell
you to do the right thing. You are free to treat your employees (including
contractors) as people and not resources to be mined. So do it.

Or, get off your moral high horse from which you claim that everybody should
be obligated to treat people fairly, and until they won't, you won't either.
This is morally bankrupt leadership.

Oh, and before someone says they are beholden to their shareholders. I realize
that, and it doesn't mean companies need to strip mine the land in the name of
profit. Doing the right thing is sustainable, and over a long enough time
horizon, the most beneficial action on behalf of shareholders.

------
sfard
I worked for Dara before. Believe it or not, he is a sincere and honest
person. Yes, he cares about the bottom line (as any CEO would) but he believes
what he's saying here.

~~~
speedgoose
Well, I guess Hitler also believed what he was saying.

------
zehnfischer
The Oxford's fair work foundation(1) is aiming to create better conditions for
gig workers.

1: [https://fair.work](https://fair.work)

------
spcebar
Or, "We are losing billions of dollars, please have more good will for us and
also make it more difficult for other companies to enter our space plz."

------
cheaprentalyeti
I just searched the thread for the words 'fox' and 'henhouse' but nothing came
up. Did I misunderstand the search interface?

------
alpineidyll3
This is being written because they are worried they are losing their legal
fight against forced arbitration. Because they are!

------
bryanrasmussen
I have to say I appreciate the honesty in the title, although I'm surprised
that he was willing to admit it.

~~~
nix23
Tactics, it's like saying i'am the CEO of McDonald and being vegan, but i
understand every meat lover out there, now both sides love you :-)

~~~
bryanrasmussen
I was reading it more like "I am the CEO of McDonalds. Workers at McDonalds
deserve (a) better (CEO than I am)"

~~~
nix23
True, in that case, BUT he says they are Gig-Workers and not Workers at Uber.

~~~
bryanrasmussen
The beauty of English is that it is flexible enough to mean that gig workers
deserve better in general OR gig workers deserve a better CEO than him, given
how the title is structured.

------
neonate
[https://archive.is/zlOzx](https://archive.is/zlOzx)

------
grumple
Ah the classic, “now that we have market share, increase cost of entry for
everybody else”.

------
CptCrunch
Are trade unions still as frowned upon as I remember them to be in the US?

------
rbg246
This is fear of being regulated, I think the gig economy is low hanging fruit
to regulate and tear apart to pretend they (whoever is in charge) are changing
society, he is trying to frame Uber as part of the 'solution' rather than the
problem.

~~~
frockington1
He probably wants regulation. Once you're the dominant player, have Congress
build you a moat. It worked great for financial and health industries

~~~
rbg246
True but not too much, he is trying to control the narrative on regulation

------
lsiebert
The idea that employees can't have flexibility is BS though.

------
afrojack123
What is the administration cost difference between an employee and contractor?
Also, what causes the difference?

------
Pr0ducer
I am the CEO of Uber, and I can gas-light you from the opinion section of the
New York Times, because money talks. No other person is better positioned to
do something about the plight of gig workers more than me, but I'm going to
tell you a story about how we could all fix this together to distract you from
reality. I'll throw in some blame to build up a strawman we can all tear down
together, while gig workers still get the shaft and I still get my fat payday.

~~~
threepio
Yes!

Even his opening premise is flagrantly false: the problem is not that Uber has
"failed drivers by treating them as contractors". The problem is that Uber has
arrogated to itself all the benefits of an employee-style relationship without
incurring any of the burdens.

They can't have it both ways. But their business depends on it. Switching to
food delivery does not give them a way out of the pain machine. Which is why
they have to spend so much money working the refs.

------
danilocesar
TL;DR:

"Hey guys, I'm the CEO of Uber! We have problems, our drivers are miserable.
But u know what, lets fix everyone's problem first and then we fix ours, ok?"

------
supergirl
can't read due to paywall? what's the angle? uber is almost ruined by the
pandemic. so he is looking to score some tax money?

------
fastball
Does anyone else think its silly that a "PSA"-type op-ed thing is behind a
paywall?

