
Uber, Postmates Sue California to Block Gig-Worker Law - PretzelFisch
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-31/uber-postmates-sue-california-to-block-landmark-gig-worker-law
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nradov
The real problem here is that benefits such as health insurance and retirement
savings depend on being an _employee_. Those benefits should be decoupled.

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viro
Those benefits and taxes are why they are fighting it tho.

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smallgovt
I think OC is pointing out that these companies are willing to provide
benefits to their workers.

They're primarily fighting this because the employment-related taxes and costs
are expensive.

What Uber/Lyft want is a new class of contractor that allows them to provide
benefits to their workers without paying the taxes.

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PretzelFisch
I don't think Uber/Lyft want to pay for contractor's benefits. It doesn't
provide any advantage to them to foot the cost of that bill. What they seem to
want is a contractor they can treat as an employee in terms of time worked and
tools used.

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lokar
I've read that Germany and Canada have a middle ground between independent
contractor and employee, the dependent contractor.

Does anyone know how well that works out in practice? Are Uber drivers
dependent contractors in these countries?

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Waterluvian
I don't know (re: Canada) but given you can be an Uber driver and do other
driving jobs too (I think?) there's no exclusivity, which I think is what
delineates the contractor types.

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JumpCrisscross
> _there 's no exclusivity_

If there were a middle ground between independent contractors and employees,
where such "dependent contractors" _e.g._ worked exclusively for one client,
I'd bet some drivers would pick teams.

A middle ground for contractors makes sense. It makes more sense than the
_status quo_ , where ersatz employees get no benefits. And it makes more sense
than the Californian law, which effectively outlaws freelancing and part-time
contracting.

Such a middle ground relationship would involve _some_ obligations of
employment ( _e.g._ re-imbursement for expenses, paid sick leave and time off,
basic health benefits) but not all ( _e.g._ no retirement accounts, limited
dismissal recourse, no training), just as it would entail _some_ of the
restrictions of employment ( _e.g._ exclusivity), but not all of them ( _e.g._
no gardening leaves, corporate NDAs, time management, _et cetera_ ).

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rossdavidh
So, I'm looking forward to the onslaught of insightful, balanced, and
deliberative discussion that will accompany this article.

Idea for HN: the balance of downvotes and upvotes on an article is a useful
piece of information in and of itself. It might not be a good idea to show
that on each particular article, but an end-of-year analysis of what words in
an article title often corresponded to lots of downvotes (relative to the
upvotes), would be an interesting way to measure which topics are currently
hot-button issues.

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fatbird
The idea that an "insightful, balanced, and deliberative" discussion should
happen implies that the topic is either unfamiliar and requiring exploration,
or is somehow otherwise of indeterminate status with respect to norms,
morality or consequences.

At this point, if someone isn't at least dubious of Uber and the gig economy's
value, given everything that's been publicly determined about them, I don't
feel like I have a lot of time to waste on a "balanced" discussion.

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rossdavidh
An "insightful, balanced, and deliberative" discussion is able to determine
the truth about a matter more effectively than one imbalanced, that is not
deliberative or insightful. So even if you have an opinion on a topic, it is a
useful way to proceed to discuss it if you are wanting to gain some insight.

If you're not wanting to learn anything from the discussion, why even have it?
It's not as if a flame thread on the internet is going to actually convince
anyone of anything, or really accomplish much of anything.

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fatbird
How many times do we have to have a balanced discussion to determine the truth
before we accept that, with reasonable certainty, we've determined the truth
and can discuss subsequent issues on that basis?

I'm not suggesting a flame thread is more productive. I'm suggesting that a
civility/debating club fetish keeps us rehashing basics and is itself an
impediment to deeper learning.

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justinzollars
Good for Uber. California has its hands on too many things. It has so many
ethics it has destroyed the middle class. I want much less regulation.

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adrr
Our median income in California is the highest in the nation at $70k. Bay is
$100k. California seems to be doing everything right in terms wage growth.

[https://datausa.io/profile/geo/california](https://datausa.io/profile/geo/california)

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justinzollars
Sure. But compare wage growth with the amount you can buy in California. Local
inflation is a killer because we do/will/can not develop things like housing
or infrastructure.

My housing costs have gone from $700 to $3950 in 10 years.

If I wasn't one of the lucky few, I would be priced out. Hence my point we
need much less regulation so that middle class people can afford to live in
California.

We could 10x pay, but with the same stock of housing, the poor will do no
better.

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learc83
>Hence my point we need much less regulation so that middle class people can
afford to live in California

Middle class people can afford to live in plenty of California, just not in
certain places like the bay area. The problems with housing are mostly caused
by local NIMBYism not statewide regulation, which is an issue that doesn't
have a specific political affiliation.

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justinzollars
Regulations do in fact have a political component. San Francisco has laws on
the books mandating "affordable housing". These laws have have made housing
construction much more expensive and have reduced the overall stock of
housing.

An unintended consequence.

A new ballot measure, sponsored by progressives on the board of supervisors
this year, will further limit construction and tie commercial development to
these affordable housing mandates. The result will be less overall development
and increased cost of living. Sponsored by progressives.

What I see locally is progressives fighting development, and this hurts us
all. Yes there is a NIMY component, but with a super majority in the state
legislature - Democrats could easily overrule local laws. But they do not.

Japan is an example of a place with housing decisions made at the state level.

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learc83
> San Francisco has laws on the books mandating "affordable housing".

San Francisco is geographically limited. But San Francisco doesn't want to
build up because of NIMBYism. That's the primary problem. It's not a left vs
right thing.

> Democrats could easily overrule local laws.

The state government moving in and overturning local control is a big
government progressive position. You are criticizing California for not being
progressive _enough_.

