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Uber sues California to block gig-worker law going into effect this week:
Ride-hailing service Uber filed a lawsuit Monday against the state of California, alleging a landmark gig-worker law set to go into effect is unconstitutional. The lawsuit seeks to block AB 5, which has the potential to upend gig economy companies such as Uber and Lyft.
The complaint, which also lists Postmates as a plaintiff, argues that the law unfairly targets workers and companies in the on-demand economy, treating them differently than traditional employees and threatening their flexibility.
In September, California became the first state to pass a law aimed at protecting gig worker rights, which forces Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, Postmates and other gig economy companies reclassify their workers as employees. Using independent contractors allows the companies to shift many costs to the workers.
The lawsuit says the law arbitrarily exempts dozens of occupations, including direct salespeople, travel agents, grant writers, commercial fishermen and construction truck drivers, among others.
"There is no rhyme or reason to these nonsensical exemptions, and some are so ill-defined or entirely undefined that it is impossible to discern what they include or exclude," says the complaint (see below), which was filed in a Los Angeles federal court.
Postmates and Uber v State of California on Scribd
(Score: 2) by SpockLogic on Wednesday January 01 2020, @01:13PM (9 children)
Better outcomes at lesser cost for 100% of the population, if only the US would aspire to that. Oh well, it's New Years Day, a man can dream ....
Overreacting is one thing, sticking your head up your ass hoping the problem goes away is another - edIII
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @02:26PM (8 children)
I have had some chemistry lecturers point out an interesting parallel between chemistry and finance : The equations must balance.
Every atom in a reactant that goes into a reaction comes out the other side in a product somewhere. 2H2 + O2 = 2H20
Every cent that is a cost in one place is revenue in another.
The obvious reason why your costs are 2x higher is that your cost is someone else's revenue. All the rhetoric and bullshit and verbiage from the entrenched players is just meant to obscure that fact.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @03:01PM (2 children)
Essentially yes, but sometimes things are more complicated. I can pay you to perform a service for me that I would be very inefficient at. That might free up 10 hours of my time to do something that I'm much better at. The net result is that I've paid you, say, $100 for several hours of work, but I've saved myself 10 hours that might net me $200, resulting in a net increase in $100.
Obviously, that extra money has to come from somewhere and as long as that money is coming from increases in productivity, there's an increase. Where things start to balance out is when people waste the money, or more to the point spend it on things not related to food, shelter, clothing, medical care and other essentials. This is why it's possible for some people to have more money week after week after week whereas others are broke no matter how much money they're making.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @07:36PM (1 child)
You're missing the point.
(i) You have $100. The contractor has $0. (You do the work yourself ) You still have $100 and the contractor has $0
(ii) You have $100. The contractor has $0. (You pay the contractor $100.) You now have $0 and the contractor has $100
(iii) You have $0. Your employer has $200. (You don't work the 10 hours) You still have $0 and your employer still has $200.
(iv) You have $0. Your employer has $200. (You work 10 hours @ $20ph) You now have $200 and your employer has $0.
These are four separate possible transactions. In each of the four cases things must balance. Money is not wealth, it is a marker for transactions. Absent the FED creating it, or trivial cases like someone burning banknotes, it is neither created nor destroyed.
You are conflating the before case of (ii) with the after case of (iv). Increases in productivity do not increase money, it increases when the Fed prints more.
Every time you "save money" you reduce the other party's profit by the exact same amount. This is what double-entry book-keeping is all about. For every debit there is a matching credit.
When someone says "I have a plan to save $100 billion on healthcare" what the healthcare industry hears is "I have a plan to pay the healthcare industry $100 billion less". That is why they fight it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @10:59PM
> This is what double-entry book-keeping is all about. For every debit there is a matching credit.
About 25 years ago my parents invited me to join the tiny engineering company that my father started when he retired. One of their issues was keeping up with the books (finances): invoicing, paying a few engineers that moonlighted as contractors, making sure all taxes and bills were paid, etc.
Naively I decided learn about Accounting--went to the library and took out a couple of text books that looked like "accounting 101". After some study, it hit me: Traditional accounting was developed by the owners/bosses to minimize embezzling and other forms of employee theft. By separating Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable into two departments, and then further splitting functions among different people, cheating the books would be much harder for one person on the accountant staff.
If the company is so small that one person can do all the work, then you'd better trust them! Not an issue in our family, we discussed finances all the time and got along great (my parents are gone now). On the flip side, a few times a year I see a local news item about a book keeper caught with hand in the till. Sometimes it's a small company, other times it's a church or other charity.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 01 2020, @04:03PM (4 children)
No. You costs would still be someone else's revenue, even if they were half instead of twice. The key is willingness to pay. If you don't pay, then you don't have 2x costs. In the US, it's all paid in advance with the costs split between many parties, so there's a lot more willingness to pay.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 01 2020, @05:43PM (3 children)
All you are saying is that if you halve the patient costs then you halve the revenue of the entrenched parties. Businesses are usually opposed to halving their revenue, and are often willing to take unethical or even illegal actions to avoid it. Hence the media blitz against better systems. By definition better systems will drop the revenue of the entrenched parties.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 02 2020, @12:29AM (2 children)
Then I have succeeded in my role as communicator.
And people on the other side of the equation are similarly resistant to doubling their costs, often willing to take unethical or even illegal actions to avoid it. The catch is that the costs are significantly disengaged from the choices. As long as deductibles apply (and there are a number of health care systems beyond private insurance that have deductibles), then there's incentives for the consumers of health care to consume less. When the cap on the deductibles hits (or there's no deductible in the first place), that no longer applies and you end up with the situation where there's no resistance from the consumer to reduce the amount they consume.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 02 2020, @03:05AM (1 child)
Most people don't like using medical services, they do it when they have no choice. Dropping the costs by half will not make twice as many people run out and double their treatments.
In fact dropping the price to zero would probably reduce the total expenditure by reducing expensive emergency room treatments, and because early interventions is usually much cheaper and more effective than waiting until someone is carried to hospital in an ambulance.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday January 02 2020, @04:09AM
Depends on the treatment. Opioids are probably something that would greatly increase in demand with a reduction in cost to the consumer.
It'd reduce the total expenditure to zero. Funny how that works.