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posted by martyb on Friday August 21 2020, @11:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the death-by-litigation dept.

Last-minute California ruling means Uber and Lyft won't shut down today:

A California judge has granted Uber and Lyft an emergency reprieve from an order requiring them to treat their drivers as employees. The companies were facing a Thursday deadline to comply with the order. Earlier today, Lyft announced that it would be forced to shut down in the state at midnight tonight.

[...] Uber had warned that it was likely to do the same if the courts didn't delay enforcement of the law.

[...] The judge's emergency stay means that Lyft and Uber will be able to keep operating under their current model while they continue litigating whether the new law applies to them.

Previously:
California Judge Rules Uber and Lyft to Immediately Classify Drivers as Employees


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 22 2020, @01:20AM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 22 2020, @01:20AM (#1040212) Journal

    The fact that you can't see anything between virtual slavery and having a huge underclass

    How is that even remotely relevant to the real world, much less this discussion? Virtual slavery is one of those throwaway terms that doesn't mean anything. Mommy makes me go on a camping trip? I'm virtually enslaved.

    Having a huge underclass? Well, that means something. So I guess I can see the difference. Well, there went your fact.

    If we had a sufficient tax rate to prevent wealth from accumulating at the top, you magically find most of jobs suddenly paying reasonable wages.

    You can't have a "sufficient tax rate" for a couple of reasons. First, wealthy people aren't stupid. Second, one of the ways they aren't stupid (and incidentally may have obtained that wealth in the first place) is by tapping those tax revenue streams.

    We're going to have mass unemployment whether or not companies are allowed to exploit workers

    Except of course, "exploit" here merely means "employ". So being allowed to exploit, merely means being allowed to employ which would make a dent in any genuine mass unemployment situation.

    The difference is whether or not we're going to tolerate the exploitation that you do enthusiastically support.

    I think we'll find that countries which tolerate exploitation will do vastly better than the ones that don't. But that's just my opinion right? I'm sure, for example, that China's intolerance of exploitation is why they're doing better than India, even though they started way behind, 50 years ago.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @12:37PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 22 2020, @12:37PM (#1040334)

    Virtual slavery is used to describe situations like this where people aren't literally slaves, but effectively have no other option than to continue working under oppressive conditions due to a lack of any viable alternative. This is the main reason that people continue to work at places paying the minimum wage with no benefits and no time off. If better jobs were as easy to get and plentiful as people like you suggest, people wouldn't be working those jobs. But, there really aren't, especially right now, and as a result, it's work those jobs that don't even pay enough to properly afford rent or starve. It's not at all wishy washy or vague, at an absolute bare minimum it describes all minimum wage jobs as only 3 counties in the entire country have rent low enough that a minimum wage worker can afford to place to live on minimum wage. Around here we even have people working full time at minimum wage that are homeless.

    Secondly, you're completely full of it if you think we can't have a sufficient tax rate to prevent that from happening. We used to have tax rates approaching 100% at the top marginal rate, for a while it was up around 93%, and guess what, very few people moved out of the country as a result of that. It's something that the rich say to avoid being taxed fairly, but in practice when taxes go up, they don't actually follow through on it. And even if they do, so what? They're the assholes that are destroying the country, the more of them that flee the country the better. Let them destroy somebody elses country.

    Employing people for less than minimum wage is exploitation pure and simple. Jobs should not pay less than the cost of providing the service that's exploitation. The fact that you don't get that speaks volumes about how poorly educated you are. Having a job that doesn't pay the bills is hardly a good thing, it only happens because boot lickers like you continue to gaslight people into thinking that it's OK to have an underclass of people who are working for less than it costs to provide the service and it's what's going to lead to the upcoming revolution as people realize that they cannot win.

    China isn't doing better than India, I used to live there and they'd be doing far better if they would be less tolerant of exploitation, it's a massive resource sync. It's a strategic move to try and avoid the situation where a small number of workers are being paid disproportionately to the rest and driving manufacturing out of the country. I don't personally think it's a good strategy, it would be better to not do it and use the money that the workers are getting to buy local goods, but nobody in China buys Chinese goods if they can afford foreign ones,

    BTW, you're opinion and $5 will get you a cup of coffee. Reality, fortunately, does not share your ignorance.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 22 2020, @08:35PM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 22 2020, @08:35PM (#1040517) Journal

      Virtual slavery is used to describe situations like this where people aren't literally slaves, but effectively have no other option than to continue working under oppressive conditions due to a lack of any viable alternative.

      Seems to me a bad idea to get rid of those non-oppressive jobs then. I'll note that the gig jobs which you are so disparaging of, have considerable flexibility. You work only when you like. There's no obligation to punch in at particular times or show up for 40 hours. It's not virtual slavery and actually the opposite. And if you're paying for a car already, or need a second job to work around something else (first job, education, whatever), then the ride hailing sector has something extra to offer you.

      This is the main reason that people continue to work at places paying the minimum wage with no benefits and no time off. If better jobs were as easy to get and plentiful as people like you suggest, people wouldn't be working those jobs. But, there really aren't, especially right now, and as a result, it's work those jobs that don't even pay enough to properly afford rent or starve. It's not at all wishy washy or vague, at an absolute bare minimum it describes all minimum wage jobs as only 3 counties in the entire country have rent low enough that a minimum wage worker can afford to place to live on minimum wage. Around here we even have people working full time at minimum wage that are homeless.

      This can all be explained by supply and demand. Back in 1970, the US was in a pretty good position labor-wise. But that all changed due to labor competition from Europe and the Far East (particularly Japan). From that point on to today, the global economy added something like 3 billion new workers. US (and developed world labor in general) abor naturally declined in power as a result. Virtually all labor policy since has just made the problem worse. The US would be in really bad shape now, if it weren't for the vast high tech industry, which by itself greatly increased demand for US workers (both directly and second-hand via goods and services purchased by the high tech workers).

      So my take here is screw living wage. It's a moving target and as a metric doesn't help people who can't earn that level of wage. Instead, do what it takes to encourage employment. That includes culling the crap that penalizes employers for employing US (and everywhere else in the world) workers.

      Let's do what works.

      China isn't doing better than India

      Sure. They're considerably wealthier and have more stuff.