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In a ruling with potentially sweeping consequences for the so-called gig economy, the California Supreme Court on Monday made it much more difficult for companies to classify workers as independent contractors rather than employees.
The decision could eventually require companies like Uber, many of which are based in California, to follow minimum-wage and overtime laws and to pay workers' compensation and unemployment insurance and payroll taxes, potentially upending their business models.
Industry executives have estimated that classifying drivers and other gig workers as employees tends to cost 20 to 30 percent more than classifying them as contractors. It also brings benefits that can offset these costs, though, like the ability to control schedules and the manner of work.
"It's a massive thing — definitely a game-changer that will force everyone to take a fresh look at the whole issue," said Richard Meneghello, a co-chairman of the gig-economy practice group at the management-side law firm Fisher Phillips.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/business/economy/gig-economy-ruling.html
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday May 02 2018, @05:39PM (6 children)
Quite. Employers have been getting away with this 1099 stuff and no health care for decades. They don't want a national health care system because they like to use employer provided health care as another hold over their employees. Then they try to weasel out of paying for the health care, with 1099 being one of the ways.
A long time ago I heard that 1099 pay should be 1.5 times W2 pay to compensate for all the things 1099ers don't receive. I don't think 1.5x is enough.
Employment needs reform. We've got a robot apocalypse coming, and if we had any brains, we'd try to get ahead of the curve on that. The current reactionary moves, like pushing more and more people into this "gig economy", are only making things worse. Bull is so ingrained in the system it's a wonder it hasn't broken yet. Employers have gotten a nasty and all too well-deserved reputation for heartlessness and harshness, thinking of workers as disposable and easily replaceable, like, as the expression goes, cogs in a machine.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:00PM (2 children)
The fact is, they are. Intentionally so, I might add: If unemployment gets too low in any profession, they go to the government and say "Waaa, you need to make the economy suck more and/or make immigration easier so that we can hire people more easily." And (possibly after some campaign donations) they get what they want.
Karl Marx also wrote about this phenomenon: The concept of a "reserve army of labor" was that basically the underclass and underemployed people are there to replace any working class person at any moment, and as technology improves this underclass becomes larger and larger, making life harder and harder on the people lucky enough to have jobs.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:08PM
Oh, and a quick followup: Don't think you're safe from this because your job is white-collar and requires education. What do you think the ever-increasing H-1B phenomenon is all about? And they're going after doctors, scientists, academics, engineers, etc. They would be doing it with lawyers, too, but there's already about 1/3 of law school graduates being unable to work in law.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:15PM
...[the Capitalist Ownership Class will] go to the government and say "[...]make immigration easier"
Our undamped pendulum of a Chief Executive, in his usual ignorant swinging-from-one-extreme-to-another mode recently pulled a move that will apparently put a chill on importing knowledgeable people.
[1] I do wish that that site hadn't hired a nitwit who stripped from their pages all indications of publication dates. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Entropy on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:13PM (2 children)
1.5x is more than enough. You can deduct a TON of things under 10-99 that you can't under W2. You can basically deduct almost everything. Unfortunately Obama screwed up health care costs for everyone(healthy people, sick people) so that made health care about 5x what it was, but eventually that should return to a more normal figure.
I'm sure you can find a field this isn't true in, of course. But it's true for quite a few. If you're in the technology field you can deduct your Internet, all computer related expenses, phone, cell phone. If you ever have to go anywhere business related you can deduct your car, car insurance. Health care is deductable, etc.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:08PM (1 child)
Which only means something if your deductions come in over the standard deduction. Which, for a typical Uber driver, they don't.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:33PM
It's not all about Uber. But for starts their vehicle, cell phone, car insurance start it off pretty well..