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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @03:53PM
So, we boost the pay of all Uber drivers, and redefine them as employees.
Rather than just go broke, Uber fires them, puts its pot of money into self-driving cars.
Uber's owners and executives do just fine because they're actually getting more money for less outlay and grief.
The former drivers are out of a job, but screw them, right?
The reduced number of employees who do things like maintain the robocars represent, in terms of profit/headcount, a nominal increase in the productivity of the worker, so Uber can brag about how awesome their workforce is, despite it really being just a statistical quirk based on the displacement of labour by capital.
Another blow against the working folks, delivered by union ideology! Forward, the revolution!
http://tinyurl.com/OriginalOwner [tinyurl.com] declares victory.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @07:50PM
Unions are not the ultimate solution.
They are simply the best we have come up with under a Capitalist system.
The reason that unions exist is because of the existence of an oppressor class.
If we replace concentrated wealth and power with a system based on worker-owners, egalitarianism, and community, the need for unions goes away.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:08PM
Oh, right, we've heard this before.
So how will you replace concentrations of capital when what enables a lot of the modern world is ...
... wait for it ...
... concentrated capital?
At some point someone has to take a risk on an unproven (i.e. new) idea to achieve an advance in the state of affairs. If it's something big, like, say, a new way of building batteries to improve returns on solar power generation, there'll need to be a big risk taken, with a big fat wad of capital concentrated in this one activity.
Who does this, in your system? Who makes the call? And then how do those who take successful risks reap rewards without being evil oppressor capitalist jackbooted goosestepping monsters?
Let me guess: the central planning committee of the supreme soviet enacts a levy on all beneficiaries (i.e. workers, i.e. people) and puts it towards this project?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:11PM
Drivel.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @02:02AM
What's your proposal, then?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @01:23AM
A lot of what made ancient Greece was slavery. Should we re-institute that?
(Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:08PM
The trouble is, the Turkeys have been brainwashed into voting for Christmas and the Kippers for Breakfast.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @10:19PM
Some of us thought that the 'Net would be the great equalizer and truth would defeat propaganda.
An addiction to commercial TeeVee / hate radio is very difficult for some to break, however.
.
I've mentioned before that, back in 1985, [google.com] the Italians figured out that when Capitalists aren't hiring, it would be a good idea to allow laid-off workers to be working rather than producing nothing for the economy and allowing their skills to deteriorated from disuse.
They use unemployment insurance (already paid for) and allow idled workers (10 or more) to form a workers cooperative using a lump-sum payment of what the insurance fund owes them.
It's been VERY successful in the north of Italy.
.
In 1981, something was proposed in Sweden that was kind-sorta a collectivized notion. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [csmonitor.com]
The scheme didn't actually have worker ownership[1] and it failed to get voter approval.
[1] When YOU own something, YOU get to make the decisions about that something.
.
When I was growing up, USA liked to brag about how it was a place with lots of small businesses where anybody could make it.
The longer I live, the less true I realize that is.
When I saw "Rollerball" in 1975, the idea that 1 corporation would control an entire industry and would effectively own everyone in that metropolis (Houston: The Energy City) seemed a bit much.
No mas.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @02:06AM
So, personal accumulation of capital is actually OK, provided it's done under government supervision?
Are there any other forms of personal accumulation of capital that are all right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @12:38PM
So 2+2=5?