
Gig workers are organising in tech-savvy ways - edward
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2020/05/09/could-the-pandemic-give-americas-labour-movement-a-boost
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DevX101
I'm surprised it's taken this long for some tech enabled labor platform to
emerge. Power is gained by coordinating some portion of the value chain into a
single node. Amazon is powerful because they can centralize demand into a
single node (Amazon.com) and then force suppliers to play their game. Saudi
Arabia is powerful because they can centralize the supply of oil into a single
node (AramCo) and then force buyers to pay their price via OPEC.

Labor doesn't have a centralizing node, and is consequently powerless. Even
engineers, relatively well paid as they are, are somewhat powerless. The high
salary commanded here is due to autonomous market forces, not a coordinated
strategy.

Unions used to be strong before the 70s but they've gotten successfully
defanged by political parties.

There's definitely room for building MASSIVE and powerful without the
political corruption of yesteryear's unions.

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mycall
I always said if sysadmins all banned together, they could change the world
overnight. Let your imagination fill in the gaps.

~~~
chrisseaton
> I always said if sysadmins all banned together, they could change the world
> overnight.

What do you think they could all agree on though?

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tenpies
That Lotus and all associated products should be purged from the planet.

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blaser-waffle
Yes.

Also Oracle licensing.

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bubbleRefuge
Hoping someway, somehow, something like medicare for all comes to fruition at
the national scale given that the economy will become even more of a gig
economy than pre-corona. Can't understand how this is not being talked about
much since Bernie dropped out. A good family plan for a gig worker (without
subsidies) is like 1500 a month in major markets.

~~~
whb07
So if the healthcare and insurance markets are screwed up because of
government, the solution then is more government? I always find this logic
lacking. Maybe I could get an eli5 from someone ?

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Eric_WVGG
The parent post said nothing about healthcare and the insurances markets being
screwed up because of government.

The argument for single-payer hinges on the theory that the profit motive is
incompatible with the very idea of insurance (that is, as long as denying
services is more profitable than providing them, an insurance market is an
inefficient way to provide said services).

~~~
bhupy
It's complicated.

1) "Single payer" is not the only way to deliver universal healthcare.
Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Singapore all have thriving multi-payer
systems. In Switzerland and the Netherlands, ALL insurance is private. In
Singapore, while the government covers catastrophic care, 70% of total health
expenditures are private.

2) The biggest problem in the US is that healthcare is just more expensive,
and American insurers end up having to pay more. An example: doctors in
America earn more (PPP adjusted) than in any other country. MRI's in America
cost more (even on the Medicare fee schedule) than almost any other country. A
lot of this is actually caused by a series of well-intentioned policies passed
over the last half century.

3) In the US, for-profit insurance profit margins are a pretty meagre 5%,
which doesn't really make a dent in costs. Also, some of the biggest insurance
providers are non-profits (Blue Cross Blue Shield, Kaiser)

4) Medicare fee schedules aren't that much better, in fact the part of
Medicare that's actually working the best is Medicare Part C (Medicare
Advantage), which relies on private payers.

Source: I work at a claims adjuster

~~~
MiroF
At least in Switzerland, the government pays if you are paying more than 8% of
your income, the government caps deductibles, and the government prohibits
profit seeking for the basic plan. Very different from the US

~~~
bhupy
Sure, I'm not defending the US status quo, just attacking the idea that
"single-payer" is the best/only solution. Not arguing for an anarchist free-
for-all either — some of the most successful private healthcare regimes
(Switzerland, Singapore) are also well regulated.

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paulpauper
gig workers are going to be at a big disadvantage in coming months due to
increased labor competition from laid off worker, depressing gig wages and
increasing competition.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Looked at from the other side: There is safety in numbers and this trend could
help shift power to the worker, especially if they are savvy about organizing.

I've done gig work for a few years now. I am pro gig work and I think it can
be a good deal for the worker even though it currently has a terrible
reputation as being a raw deal for the worker. I'm happy to see that the
pandemic is fostering development of this sort in this area.

~~~
taurath
How do you prevent scabs when work is decentralized?

~~~
DoreenMichele
I have no idea, but I don't think you need perfect control over everything.

 _The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip
through your fingers. -- Princess Leia_

I think we just need to work out what is a reasonable rate and the expectation
that gig work should be a means to make a living wage for people who do it and
not just for some sliver of the people who do it, but for most people who do
it. I'm okay with there being a learning curve and yadda, but it shouldn't be
a situation where only some really tiny fraction of people have any hope of
making it and then they have to live in terror of the rules changing overnight
on them and killing their livelihood.

Part of the value of labor movements is just setting the expectations for both
sides that "You need to pay X amount for this." A lot of stuff we do is
basically culturally determined and labor movements help shape culture and
cultural expectations and so forth.

So I don't think details like that are necessarily important. Sometimes they
are, but sometimes they aren't. And sometimes they can be a real threat but
don't have to be if you have your priorities straight.

I don't care how we get there, I just would like to see gig work become
something with a reputation as legitimate work that should reasonably support
you if you meet some reasonable standard of quality and put in some reasonable
number of hours. I think we need to ditch this idea that gig work is simply
slave labor and is unfixable and needs to be converted to regular employment
because that's the model we are familiar with and know how to package up in a
way that works reasonably well for both sides.

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neonate
[https://archive.md/4weWH](https://archive.md/4weWH)

~~~
yarinr
Thank you. Seems like everything is pay-walled these days...

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formalsystem
I went out to grab a burger last night and there was a huge line of Uber Eats
drivers and they were waiting for what seemed like a long time especially
considering how little they're paid.

Is there any reason why an OSS Uber competitor wouldn't be tractable? Drivers
and passengers can pay a small booking fee which would go towards maintaining
server costs. Client app can be really bare bones and I believe people would
be willing to use it if it's way cheaper. So many scammy people talking about
decentralized computing but this seems like a low hanging fruit which gives
gig workers their autonomy back.

Same question for all gig worker apps.

~~~
clairity
i thought about this recently too. the technological complexities are not
trivial, but they're dwarfed by the operational, marketing, and regulatory
ones. for instance, who handles crimes like assault or theft between the
various parties? who sets up payments and issues refunds?

i'd love to organize/contribute to something like this, but it has some
serious hurdles to think through.

~~~
eblanshey
Would be cool to have an open protocol where anyone can make an app to hook
people up P2P.

> who handles crimes like assault or theft between the various parties?

If it's P2P, then the same as any other P2P transaction. If I pay a random
dude to deliver my lunch, and he assaults me, this is handled by the local
police. It's a risk I'm willing to take if I choose to trust him. A
distributed trust system w/ reviews will help make things safer.

I feel like sometimes we seek 100% safety in a world where that's not
possible, and when it DOES happen we point fingers. With a middleman like Uber
we can point fingers more easily, but ultimately we're responsible for
ourselves.

> who sets up payments and issues refunds?

There are public escrow services such as escrow.com that could be integrated.
And there's always cryptocurrency.

~~~
clairity
i like p2p as the default, but i'm not as confident that the liabilities go
away so easily with that configuration.

totally agree that the world is full of risks and sometimes we just have to
accept them.

escrow in some form would likely be necessary, but the fees of escrow.com are
prohibitive for this use case.

instead of pricing being controlled by the marketplace, it'd be cool if it
were more like a trading platform where riders bid for rides and drivers offer
rides (with considerations for starting point, distance, and trip time).

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unnouinceput
Bottom line either billionaires (in general and Jeff in particular) will be
somehow forced to either come up with a COVID vaccine so people will go back
to "normal" or will have to shell serious money to protect the workers. Either
way I see this as a win-win situation.

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telaelit
I wish my company would organize and unionize

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jadbox
Anyone have an un-paywalled mirror?

It's surprising to read anything semi pro-worker coming from the economist,
which run far more articles against unions and worker rights than giving a
fair analysis.

~~~
asciimike
[http://archive.is/4weWH](http://archive.is/4weWH)

