Uber loses appeal - court rules drivers are employees, not contractors
Uber loses appeal - court rules drivers are employees, not contractors
Government reviews law defining 'employees' and 'contractors'.
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This only hurts working poor like me by making it harder for people to have quick temporary earnings. These rules are not about helping people or fairmess it's about messing up options so people are desperate enough to lock themselves into shitty jobs rather than have any self determination.
Why do you think that's all it's about?
Because it’s a consistent pattern. These changes consistently hurt the poor.
Specifically in New Zealand?
In any trade economy. It is the poor who are hurt most by the narrowing of possible economic relationships.
To begin to understand how, consider what the word “hustle” means with regard to operating within versus outside of traditional economic relationship forms.
I don't know about your experience, but when I drove for Uber Eats, I had to quit after a few months because they arbitrarily cut my pay by about 80%. I was wearing my car down and burning my own gas to make less than $6/hr. I was struggling too, so much that I just couldn't afford to do that job anymore.
Uber promised investors the moon and now they can barely afford to pay their stakeholders back, if even that. Their unsustainable business practices, in a sane world, would have done them in years ago.
Was the $6/hr better than $0 because that's the decision a lot of people will have to make. The pay represents the skill set. Basically have a pulse and be able to Walk from your car to a door and back. Some people need it and some can do other things. Forcing Uber to hire people as employees will leave a lot of people in the $0/hr basket that really needed to be in the $6/hr basket instead. What is a completely different conversation is whether people should have to be in this position at all but that's not for uber to solve and they have no obligation to society to solve it.
We have minimum wage for a reason. We can't allow companies to have a race to the bottom.
We have minimum wage because we have decided it’s better to force some people to zero in order that others may have a little more.
Well, also because people refuse to process the logic on that, because acknowledging what I just said would cause them to reconsider their position.
I can't imagine the series of incidents in your life that led you to draw such a wrong conclusion and yet call it logic.
You've really never heard the phrase "race to the bottom"?
I’ve heard the phrase, yes. I don’t base my philosophy on whether clever-sounding phrases exist.
There’s no evidence to suggest that lack of a minimum wage results in everyone earning essentially zero wages, which is all I can imagine that phrase to mean.
There is, however, evidence that minimum wages lead to unemployment. There’s also evidence to suggest unemployment is a horrible state to exist in.
There's no logic in that. Are you saying this gig is literally the only work you could feasibly be doing? If Uber hadn't existed, you'd just be poor and destitute without any alternatives?
I fail to see that being realistic, at all.
There are many people in society that yes this is all they could do. Yes they used to just be poor and leeching off friends and family for support and shelter. Not everyone is educated and well adjusted an Alarming number of people aren't.
85% of people with aspergers are unemployed.
And how many of them are employed by Uber? My guess is it's a very low amount.
For many it's not the only thing but it's an important option when something comes up or things don't go according to plan, when the choice is ends don't meet so you need to borrow money from a predatory lending service to avoid eviction or repossession or starvation then having the option of working evenings and weekends is a life saver.
Likewise people who work like I do where I can earn what I need to most the time, even do well occasionally, but there might be a quiet period out of my control then gig work is again a real life saver.
And yes there are 'alternatives' but once this is killed they get killed too, I've been looking at the job market recently and it's very hard to find work that isn't 'you will work to our schedule which might change on a whim and if you ever so much as ask about a week or two unpaid time off you're out'
They already mostly fucked up gig work here in the uk, my American friends have a far easier time and earn better because we purposely scuppered them so that people can't have any self sufficiency, freedom or determination. If I was in charge there would be a government body that helps people get in on work like this when needed, not policies to make sure people in difficult times or positions can't do anything but devote their entire being to finding a corporation to live for.
The $6/hr was less than what would cover the cost of continuing to drive for Uber Eats.
THANK YOU.
Please see past the wave of downvotes to understand that someone out here appreciates your voice.
Thank you for articulating this truth.
These changes, to make Uber into the same kind of employment poison that is all other jobs, scares the fucking shit out of me.