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posted by martyb on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:13AM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:08PM (#396385)

    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

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 01 2016, @09:11PM (#396387) Journal
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @02:02AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @02:02AM (#396510)

      What's your proposal, then?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @01:23AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2016, @01:23AM (#396501)

    A lot of what made ancient Greece was slavery. Should we re-institute that?