SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the putting-the-con-in-the-gig-economy dept.
Labor Notes reports:
It's called the Independent Drivers Guild--but the new organization for New York City's estimated 35,000 Uber drivers is "independent" in name only. Co-founded by Uber and the Machinists union, it's not a union, it has no collective bargaining rights, and it receives financial support from Uber. Just how much support, we don't know, since Uber and the Machinists won't release their agreement--not even to drivers.
If the shroud of secrecy isn't enough to raise your eyebrows, consider who's heaping praise on this cozy new partnership. The Mackinac Center--a Koch-backed anti-union mouthpiece that pushed for "right to work" in Michigan--calls it a "model that could bring unionization into the 21st century".
What will it do? The Guild gives drivers a process to appeal their terminations (which Uber calls "deactivations"). Ten union-selected drivers will attend monthly meetings of a "works council."
[...] Bhairavi Desai has a more critical view. She heads the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, a worker center that represents 19,000 drivers in the city, including several thousand who drive for Uber. The Guild is an "immoral, illegal, unconscionable company union", Desai said.
[...] This dodge allows Uber to weasel out of Social Security and Medicare taxes and to cheat drivers of legal guarantees to minimum wage, overtime protections, health insurance, workers' compensation, and the right to organize and bargain collectively.
The truth is, Uber's astronomical valuation of $68 billion shouldn't be chalked up to its innovative app so much as to its success at skirting regulations and employment laws. If its drivers were reclassified as employees, Fortune estimated, the combined costs to Uber would top $4 billion a year.
An army of lobbyists and lawyers makes it all possible. Uber employs one-third more of these influence-peddlers than even Walmart does.
[...] Before all this, the Taxi Workers and the Machinists were planning a joint campaign to organize Uber drivers in New York. "What we didn't know was that, behind the scenes, they were engaging with Uber to sell everyone out", Desai said.
[...] The Guild will never transform Uber's business model. At best, such secret agreements and partnerships with management are doomed strategies. At worst, a defanged union becomes a partner in exploitation.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Spamalope on Thursday September 01 2016, @11:41AM
Is this the brilliant new business model for union shop states?
In this case, form 'Ride share drivers union' that happens to be wholly owned by Uber. Make membership mandatory. Run all HR type things like grievances and pay through the union.
It's already a union shop so a 'real' union can't come in.
And the best part: Charge the drivers to be managed through union dues. Fund the lobbyists working against them via the union too. Brilliant!
Hmm, how do I get a business method patent on that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @12:34PM
You need to add "with the internet" to a few sentences and then I believe the forms are over here: https://www.uspto.gov/patent/forms/forms-patent-applications-filed-or-after-september-16-2012 [uspto.gov]
(Score: 1, Troll) by GungnirSniper on Thursday September 01 2016, @04:38PM
What do you think the Democratic Party's union system has been doing for the last sixty years or more? They funnel money to candidates who keep undercutting the wage floor by bringing in new immigrants every year. This keeps the unions relevant because the market would otherwise lower wages, and the funding for leftist candidates would dry up.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @06:54PM
Just as the old saw goes "You get the government that you deserve", union members get the union leadership that they vote for.
If your union sucks, DON'T sit on your ass and bitch. CHANGE IT.
Volkswagen’s UAW Vote [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [counterpunch.org]
.
leftist candidates
You appear to be using a term that you don't understand.
...or can you actually name 2 such anti-Capitalist candidates.
Shoot, I'd be amazed if you could name even 1.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Friday September 02 2016, @02:02AM
and the funding for leftist candidates would dry up...
There is no left in the US. They are all being paid by various corporations and industry groups.
Don't pretend either the Republicans or the Democrats are anything other that tools for the oligarchs to use for their own ends.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:28PM
Make [union] membership mandatory
The trend at the state level (driven largely by ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a lobbying group for its membership of Reactionary businesses) is toward "right to work" laws, which are the opposite.
N.B. They like to leave the last part off of that: Right to work for less.
Those enable "free riders" AKA leeches who get all the benefits of the unions' negotiations but don't pay any union dues.
RtW is a Reactionary union-busting method.
Once the union is busted, and there is no collective bargaining, the corporations pick off the workers one by one in the race to the bottom for The Working Class.
It's already a union shop so a 'real' union can't come in
Not at all true.
A union can be replaced by another (better) union.
The workers can vote for exactly that.
You sure have picked up some silly ideas about unions.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by DeVilla on Friday September 09 2016, @03:39AM
Sorry. Prior art exists. An automotive rubber plant in Ohio was running that way at least since the start of the 90s. I'm not sure if they owned the union, but there was no mistaking who the union boss was representing.