
The Gig Economy - ssclafani
http://avc.com/2015/07/the-gig-economy/
======
beat
I strongly agree with Fred Wilson that Hillary Clinton's remarks were spot-on
(or close enough), and that we should welcome this discussion in the political
arena rather than bristling at it. The gig economy offers some very tangible
and valuable benefits to both consumers and "employees", but there are a lot
of unanswered questions regarding what this means for worker rights and
quality of life. If we just handwave it away, we could wind up with decades or
more of bad policy that keeps people poor and victimized, rather than better
off and empowered.

I was very glad that Hillary Clinton took a sophisticated view of the
situation and didn't just bash on a fashionable subject. I hope other
candidates follow her lead and we have an actual interesting discussion.

~~~
stvswn
Those of us who "bristle" think that it's absolute nonsense that free adults
should be prevented from engaging in a mutually beneficial transaction because
the government is concerned with protecting one of them. Treating Uber drivers
or AirBnB property owners as if they are the characters in an Upton Sinclair
novel is a tough sell. Let me rephrase the argument from the left: "we
mandated all of these great things for employees, but it increased the cost of
employment, and workers and employers started voluntarily opting out. This is
a problem because it threatens our original premise, that everyone will be
better off if we regulate employment." Finally, Hillary's hedged,
"sophisticated" view is basically that she wants credit for protecting workers
but none of the blame when the citizens of progressive-leaning cities get Uber
taken away. Even if you're a likely supporter, you shouldn't let her get away
with it until she tells us what sort of proposals she imagines would avoid the
trade-off and magically allow these markets to flourish while also "protecting
workers."

~~~
discodave
"workers and employers started voluntarily opting out"

Erm, many workers drive for Uber because they lost their jobs, don't have
other choices or are between jobs etc.

Many of these people are NOT opting out of full time jobs, they would take a
full time job with benefits if it were offered to them.

Employers opt out of regulation whenever they can (see: the environment). The
claim that employers opting out of regulation undercuts the original premise
is completely false. They are doing so to cut costs which is entirely to the
benefit of their shareholders who are a much smaller slice of society than
workers.

In summary: Workers aren't necessarily entering the gig economy voluntarily
and employers opting out of regulation doesn't threaten the original premise.

------
_delirium
As a bit of an aside, not everyone is convinced that there is an ongoing
transition to a gig economy. Uber is just replacing one kind of freelancer
with another one, so isn't a great example of a net shift. And the
macroeconomic statistics if anything are trending away from self-employment
towards full-time employment:
[https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/255258/We...](https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/255258/We-
Are-Not-a-Nation-of-Freelancers/)

I think the questions the post raises are good ones, though.

~~~
mahyarm
Most taxi drivers in the USA are also 'independent contractors'. Tomato
tomatoe?

~~~
tosseraccount
"Don't have social security cards"

------
ilurk
This will only work if gigs are well paid and allow you to pay for expenses
during the off periods.

In theory this is great and already happens in the IT sector of some
countries.

In practice I suspect that as years go by the salaries will go lower as the
gig-economy becomes standard.

But by then there will be another problem too: robotics.

In the end the solution will have to include a basic salary for everyone.
Those who work get something extra.

~~~
s73v3r
Yeah, that probably won't happen. There is simply too much political
opposition to the idea of basic income in the US.

~~~
zanny
It took almost five thousand years to stop openly owning other human beings
(and people still do it with different names today, but at least we don't
condone it anymore).

Basic income is inevitable in any society that maintains a capitalist market
economy post-scarcity. If the US wants to destroy itself by being backwards
(cough, healthcare, measurement units, date format, DST, national holidays,
PTO, regressive welfare, etc) it cannot hold the rest of the world back
forever.

~~~
Lawtonfogle
>It took almost five thousand years to stop openly owning other human beings
(and people still do it with different names today, but at least we don't
condone it anymore).

In the US it never stopped. It merely became only the right of corporations
and the state via prisons. Maybe it stopped in other countries, but how is
that different than saying it stopped at the first civilization that banned
slavery?

------
rdudekul
Flexibility of choosing the type & the time of work seems like a win, in the
gig (freelance) economy. However commoditization of such jobs could force the
income down for many. This may result in the increase in the number of hours
people work and that could result in health issues. With no health insurance &
other benefits, overall quality of life could decrease for many. However Gig
economy is here to stay.

In these conditions how can workers, government & businesses collaborate to
provide better working conditions for those involved?

~~~
toomuchtodo
> In these conditions how can workers, government & businesses collaborate to
> provide better working conditions for those involved?

Solid safety net. Universal/single payer healthcare. A living minimum wage.
Social support when you're unable to assemble enough income to survive (its
been proven that its cheaper to _give_ the homeless housing than to pay for
the resulting issues of not providing housing).

~~~
fennecfoxen
> A living minimum wage.

Meh. The idea that "people should be able to earn a living wage" is fine but
does not always imply that it should be illegal to work for less, and
structuring the economy such that this is the case can have ill effects too:
it can eliminate entry-level positions and worsen unemployment, which
seriously damages one's ability to improve his career later. It also impacts
youths and retirees, neither of whom are working as their primary means of
support, and community organizations/nonprofits who might benefit from time to
time from a little more manpower than a pure volunteer solution might be able
to provide.

Economic growth, and the employment opportunities it affords, are a far better
way to improve economic opportunities than legislation is.

~~~
nosuchthing
Yes that's what the robber barons keep repeating, but why not think of
businesses and employee wages in terms of percentage of the profits generated?

Fast food employees earning $15 an hour can still be profitable [
[http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/](http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/28/pf/north_dakota_jobs/)
]

~~~
brianwawok
True, but what happens if $15 is the break even point between having a robot
do the job vs a human? Did we just help the minimum wage works by dumping all
of their jobs and replacing with a fleet of robots and 1 high paid robot
fixer?

I am all for the end goal of let the robots do the work, give everyone goods,
ala Star Trek.. but not sure on the way to get there. Something has to
fundamentally change. Is it the 40 hour workweek? Is it living wage?

~~~
prawn
Maybe a combination? I wonder if the privatisation of utilities might come
back to bite countries (further) in that it removes an angle to solving these
problems.

Perhaps the risk of a living wage (influx of freeloaders for one thing) is
reduced if the provision is more in terms of basic rights like power for
heating, cooling and cooking, water for drinking, washing and cleaning, and
communication (base-level internet/wi-fi). Ideally extend it to basic food
rights.

I would like to see far more done to reduce costs of sourcing/cooking healthy
food as a base-level option for people. Might be achieved through density
(compactus-style growing sleeves), layering (underground growing), robotics,
automated transport (self-driving trucks), etc.

------
prostoalex
Considering Instacart now offers its couriers an option to sign up as
employees, I'd be curious to see how many take them up on that offer.

A part-time employee status (vs contractor) generally comes with loss of
control over one's working hours, 30-hour weekly caps (to avoid the ACA
penalty), and compensation setup that involves some kind of (likely minimum)
wage + bonus instead of straight-up 1099 income.

Most of the gig economy (Uber, TaskRabbit, PostMates) is built around
flexibility of hours, and freedom to not only accept a gig, but to refuse one
(which you lose if you're in an employer-employee relationship and the boss is
simply assigning it to you).

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Doesn't Uber ban you if you don't accept almost all fares?

The problem with this models is that you're not really an independent
contractor - you're simply on-demand casual labour.

The Internet element makes it unnecessary to stand outside the factory gates
every morning, which is certainly a benefit.

But all the obligations remain one way. You have to accept the work, but if
you decide to take time out you can be "fired" from the system without notice,
at will, at random, and with zero come-back against the "employer."

~~~
crazy1van
In my completely unscientific survey of asking my Uber drivers how they like
their job, I've never had a single one complain about their employment
arrangement. Most of them talk about how much they like the flexibility to
work the hours they want. This is across a diverse group of drivers from young
college kids, new immigrants, and semi-retirees. Is my sample set an anomaly
or have others heard similar stories?

If the workers in the "gig economy" really are generally happy and their
employers are happy and their customers are happy, I'm not sure I see a good
reason to toss new regulations into the mix.

~~~
olefoo
I think you underestimate how powerful the rating system is on the behavior of
the people who serve you on a day to day basis is.

It's quite possible that Uber drivers do not want to give you any reason to
give a negative rating, including being open about their actual feelings about
the economic arrangements that govern their relationship to you.

~~~
baddox
I have a friend I met completely outside of Uber who is a full-time Uber
driver. He says he loves driving, meeting all sorts of people, and choosing
his own hours. It's obviously just one anecdote, but I'm pretty sure he's not
lying.

~~~
s73v3r
I'm sure he likes that part of it, but does he like how Uber does things
specifically?

~~~
baddox
Recently he was annoyed that they were taking longer than he'd like to process
the paperwork for his newly purchased car. Other than that I don't recall any
specifics.

------
taylorwc
One of Fred Wilson's partners, Albert Wenger, also penned a post touching on
this today[0]. Both are worth reading.

[0] [http://continuations.com/post/124069363855/debating-the-
gig-...](http://continuations.com/post/124069363855/debating-the-gig-economy-
going-past-industrial)

~~~
andyidsinga
Albert has a lot of good philosophical discussions in this area. his blog
archives are worth a scan

------
brudgers
The idea that "gigs" mean working when one wants and being off when one
doesn't is a fantasy. Bars don't hire bands on weekdays while the kids are in
school and they run open-mike on Tuesday nights and karaoke on Wednesdays.
_Cavete cooperatorem._

------
amelius
The problem with this is: if you already cringe at the idea of the government
regulating a market, then see how much you like a _company_ regulating it.

~~~
zanny
Seriously, if any of the current crop of gig companies becomes too evil (and
Uber has definitely proven themselves in that camp on a frequent basis) you
are always able to use a competitor, work for one, or found one. Until the
regulations happen that will inevitably prevent you from competing (which is
basically every established industry today which is why the sharing economy is
necessary to survive for so many) there is a critical threshold airbnb / uber
/ etsy cannot cross where their workers will jump ship at the opportunity cost
of losing these companies huge viewships / audiences because the alternative
becomes _better_ , period. Yes, it means that the more popular the platform is
the more the company can screw over its employees and customers because of
mindshare. That happens in every industry, though.

------
adregan
Benjamen Walker recently released a 3 part podcast called _Instaserfs_
examining the sharing economy. It's worth a listen:
[https://toe.prx.org/2015/06/instaserfs-i-of-
iii/](https://toe.prx.org/2015/06/instaserfs-i-of-iii/)

------
tracker1
I would say the biggest indentured worker class is the chicken farmer these
days... mainly subject to the will of Tyson overlords.

------
aresant
Think about the political clout that the Public School Teachers union carries
(with ~2.7m members) (1)

The largest international employer stands as WalMart with 2.2 million
employees (2).

Uber just a few days back announced a plan to hire 1,000,000 WOMEN drivers
over the next 5 years (3)

Now posturing or not, assuming that somehow Uber pulled that off and they'll
be the world's largest employer in less than a decade.

It's amazing that politicians seem so slow on the up-take here and the
opportunity to address the people that are caught in the machinery of the
sharing economy.

(1)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_the_Un...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_the_United_States)

(2) As of 2012
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers)

(3) [http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/10/technology/uber-women-
driver...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/10/technology/uber-women-drivers/)

~~~
beat
As an aside for the subject of women drivers... last fall, I had a Muslim
woman as my Uber driver for a ride. She said that she makes a point of picking
up female passengers with less than five-star ratings. She thinks a lot of
male Uber drivers will downrate female passengers in unfair ways, and a lot of
Uber drivers in general won't give rides to passengers who have had bad
ratings.

~~~
amyjess
As a woman who uses Lyft often, I can confirm that I've been treated like shit
by a number of drivers in ways that I can't imagine a man would be treated.
Stuff like how they would park a block away from me and make me walk the whole
way to their cars (invariably, the people who do this are men who come from
countries where women's rights are unheard of).

I'm at the point where I'm seriously upset that Lyft doesn't allow women to
specifically request a female driver. Hell, I'd be willing to pay extra to
guarantee that my driver be a woman.

------
mseebach
"We should not be afraid of this discussion. We should embrace it and have
it."

That's true, but that's not what happens when a politician, and especially one
as highly profiled as Hillary Clinton, delivers a speech. Politicians _never_
raise "hard questions" when then don't have the exact answer already worked
out.

This was not Hilary starting a discussion. This was Hilary pledging allegiance
to the unions.

------
AznHisoka
Yesterday, I read a few articles that blatantly accused Hillary of being
against Uber... yet if what was quoted was actually said... I can't believe
people are making such outrageous claims about her. I just lose some respect
for some publications that did this.

------
tosseraccount
Hillary is hedging.

paraphrasing: "They're creating exciting new things but we need to regulate".

Without many specifics; it's just not saying anything.

Do you know what she's saying?

------
curiousjorge
meanwhile in Canada, our politicians will do everything to make sure Uber
doesn't hurt the prestigous monopoly of overpriced and shitty taxi industry or
anything.

------
michaelochurch
The Gig Economy happened before. In the 1930s, itinerant workers called
"hobos" traveled the country looking for work and food. Despite the negative
reputation of the word today, hobos were actually considered to be some of the
hardest workers. They had to be; they were barely surviving.

The difference now is that corporate executives, flush with VC money, are able
to monetize the emerging desperation economy (oh, I'm sorry-- I forgot about
HN's anti-"negativity" policy-- _sharing_ economy) more effectively than ever
before.

The transition started with FMC (Former Middle Class) driving for Uber and
subletting their apartments for extra cash, but it does seem to be spreading.
For the record, I'm not especially against its existence. I would rather see
our legislators interested in fighting the meltdown of the middle class itself
than being focused on something that is, at worst, one of the symptoms.

------
paulpauper
There is a major reason for this: Obamacare

Small companies are more reluctant to hire for fear of having to pay employee
insurance if they have over 50 employees, under the employer mandate.

Other factors include the inexorable trend towards more efficiency and
productivity. These are forces beyond anyone's control.

Then you have huge competition for for even low-level service jobs, leaving
many job seekers with no option but to choose 'gig' jobs. But you also have
instances of people making more money with gig jobs than they would have in a
regular job. Some people also hold gig jobs and regular jobs.

~~~
emodendroket
The "major reason" is if you can just ignore various labor laws it's cheaper
to operate but for some reason everyone jumps to "well then we should just
make what Uber and co. are already doing legal!" instead of considering
enforcement.

------
return0
If that were true only the most desperate would choose uber/airbnb/oDesk etc.
I believe that's not true, even though low-value work is cheap, the
good/popular ones can sell themselves at the price of their choosing. Isn't
that plain free market with the flexibility of working whenever you choose,
and a more productive/economic allocation of resources?

Work history is an issue, but i cannot see why it cannot be easily solved with
a law that gives these workers the rights to their work history. Will these
companies object to that?

~~~
Retric
You can't set your own rate with uber. There are also penalty's for rejecting
to much work.

~~~
Animats
Which is why Uber drivers are employees. Uber should just accept that. They're
being shut down, country by country and state by state, because of their
resistance to labor law. Just since the beginning of this month, Uber has been
shut down in France and two cities in Florida.

~~~
matthewowen
Uber (and other 1099 companies) don't want to do that, because their
businesses are based on moving risk from the company (employing employees that
they might not need) to their labor force (you can work whenever, but the
amount you get paid is solely dependent on the demand that we may or may not
generate for you).

