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, Informative) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 02 2018, @05:14PM (30 children)
Translation: Pay your employees less than minimum wage, and demand they provide all their own tools for the privilege of working for you. For some reason, that drops your costs quite a bit.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(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..
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @05:41PM (15 children)
By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve. -- Robert Frost
What is wrong with America is that many bosses are effectively working 4, and the employees are effectively working 12., with no chances for advancement without jumping ship to another vessel passing in the night. If they miss their window to jump, they are either stuck there until they're lucky enough to catch another passing ship to jump to, or until they fumble their jump and fall into the ocean of unemployment, hoping that someone will cast them a live preserver and drag them aboard a new ship that is better than their old one.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:01PM (5 children)
The ship will probably be shittier than the old one, plus good luck getting picked up at all. After all, if you were valuable, what are you doing in the ocean?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @06:07PM (4 children)
Let the existential terror of simply existing in the US commence! err, CONTINUE!
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:28PM (3 children)
What country again doesn't have existential terror? It's not like there is a country in the world where one's life can't be snuffed out in a moment.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:31PM
Are you threatening us, again, khallow? Please don't free market us!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:47PM (1 child)
Ah yes, khallow the shit-equivocator.
Well lets see, first off any country with universal healthcare! No worries about getting buried under a mountain of deb due to some medical issue beyond your control.
Any country with decent services to help the unemployed / disabled, along with free education.
Any country in the 20% range for World Bank GINI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality [wikipedia.org]
Every country will have some problems that make life hard for its citizens, but there are better and worse places.
Why do you always chime in on these topics? Just to try and make yourself feel better about living in a shitty country? Yes there are worse places than the US, but you obviously are stuck in a bubble or not paying attention to the every day reality of your fellow citizens. I can not overstate how horrible you are for always defending the worst shit and trying to make it seem like there is nothing better than the US.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:04AM
Or you could get insurance that covers that. And universal health care turns threats for the individual into threats for the society. Government bankruptcy isn't usually an existential threat, but it's not something that goes away quickly either.
Which was a quite valid equivocation, let us note. Treatable health problems aren't the only source of existential threats for a person (the poster I replied to implied otherwise) and thus, it is foolish to assume that the existence of health care would remove all existential threats.
Ok, so what? Income inequality is a scam for dodging that absolute income has improved greatly and poverty gone down greatly.
Equivocation alert!
Because you are ignorant and need help.
And I can't overstate just how weak as your "worst shit" is. Oh dear, I defended the processes that have done the most over history (particularly, over recent history!) to elevation humans out of poverty and improve the human condition. I'm a Genghis Hitler for that!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:26PM (5 children)
You left out an important part of the picture:
Republican-majority Congresses[1] since Reagan have cut and cut again funding for enforcement agencies.
People who clearly aren't in management have been put on salary by USAian corps and required to work what amounts to unpaid overtime.
In the extreme, you get what Japan has. [google.com]
[1] ...with a single 2-year window--which O'Bummer squandered.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:30PM (4 children)
Except, of course, Japan works less hours on average per week than the US does. Sure, the overworked salaryman exists, but they're only a part not the whole. The rest has more comfortable working hours.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:33PM (3 children)
It's true, they do work less than Americans do. And here's why: Workers unionized in the late 1980's and demanded a shorter work week. Just like how US wage-earners won the 40-hour work week slowly from the 1880's to the 1930's.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:42PM (2 children)
Japan has been heavily unionized since the 1950s. The unions just work with the businesses instead of against them.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:02PM (1 child)
Unions necessarily work against the businesses. It's inherent to the relationship. Workers, and by extension their unions, want to maximize wages/salary/benefits and minimize the work required to earn them. Bosses, and by extension the business, want to minimize wages/salary/benefits and maximize the work required to earn them. Those are diametrically opposed positions, by their very nature.
Bosses do a lot of things to try to hide that aspect of the relationship, but it's always there.
Don't believe me? Ask for a raise, right now.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday May 18 2018, @12:18AM
No, that's not true. As I noted, Japanese labor unions are such a counterexample.
Everyone has this conflict of interest. A lot have figured out how to cooperate with others who have different interests.
And the positions aren't diametrically opposed. After all, they have a common interest in the business succeeding.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:21PM (2 children)
There are many such ships in the night. People already figured this out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:52PM (1 child)
dumbass is dumb, news at 11
The problem here is the mindset of most business owners who remove all humanity from the workplace. I cry tears of joy every time I read about some asshat of a boss getting screwed when a near irreplaceable employee finally quits. That same mindset is what is driving demand for H1Bs, which I'm pretty sure you really don't like. Thanks for trying to dilute the discussion as usual you trollish little scab.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:05AM
Not much of a problem. Just don't work there.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:08PM (6 children)
Why do the "employee" contractors go along with that? Because it is an agreement of mutual benefit. They gain as well. After all, they were going to have the tools anyway (such as a car for Uber). US employment is pretty fucked up. The "gig economy" is one way to route around that damage.
But of course, let's help people by destroying their ability to improve their lives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:56PM (3 children)
Were you beaten with the clueless bat from birth?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:07AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @02:18PM (1 child)
I'll point you to the comment directly below, maybe if you spent more time reading history uoud have a clue what I'm talking about. You are the ignorant one arguing from simplistic base assumptions here.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:36PM
Umm, there is no comment directly below.
And what are you talking about?
I'm interested in the correctness of these arguments not their complexity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @06:03AM (1 child)
Labor has always had the problem that they can't rationally refuse a demonstrably bad deal when the alternative is outright starvation.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @03:37PM
The alternative is not outright starvation, that's a false dilemma. And since the obvious alternative is "get a different job", I think we're back to me.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:08PM (16 children)
Much like the incredibly screwed on CARB(California..) gas cans perhaps it's time that things are not based in California and/or not do business in California.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:25PM (15 children)
It's tough to sell innovative superficial crap in Tennessee, and it's generally much harder to become a billionaire selling stuff in Mississippi.
Turns out that addressing the CA market is pretty attractive. Too bad it comes with rules, right ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:31PM
Awww just let them hate on California, the bastion of all evil and misery in their lives /s
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:35PM (9 children)
By and large, we're the pace-setter for the nation and the world.
It came as a shock to me when Cali wasn't the 1st state to legalize possessing weed.
...now, if we could just get that public school textbook thing going our way (instead of Texas' way).
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:10PM (8 children)
Their time has passed precisely because they're attacking change like the "gig economy" rather than setting trends. We'll see more such shocks in the future.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:16AM (7 children)
...like the "gig economy"
Here's hoping your company outsources your job and all you can find is a part-time poverty-wage job so that you can get first-hand experience with just how awesome the gig economy is.
rather than setting trends.
Check out our renewable energy sector.
It's pretty amazing.
While other places are still stuck on stupid, having to repeatedly dig for consumables to fuel their energy needs, new energy sources in Cali are typically zero-waste/zero-pollution.
I'd say "Just watch our smoke"--but we have less of that with each passing day.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @12:46AM (5 children)
And here's hoping you pull your head out of your ass some decade.
What other places? Even Texas uses wind and such where it makes economic sense. And no such thing as a "zero-waste" energy source.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:07AM (4 children)
Do specify:
Solar -
Wind -
Geothermal -
Tidal -
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:46AM (3 children)
All of those are subject to thermodynamic constraints. Current practical limits are 80% waste for solar (50+% waste for solar thermal), 50+% waste for wind, 90% waste for geothermal, and 20% waste for tidal power (all found by googling X power efficiency). I'm willing to grant that these are typically much less polluting than fossil fuel sources, but energy production no matter the form dumps a lot of heat. One can reuse much of this heat for building heating and similar low grade heating needs, but otherwise it's unusable. That is the waste which I speak of.
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:48AM (2 children)
Don't forget the materials and energy involved in harnessing those power sources too.
They don't magically provide pollution free megajoules without significant infrastructure.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @08:10PM (1 child)
The amount of concrete and steel needed to contain the explosion of a traditional generation plant is immense.
The usefulness of that stuff at the end of the plant's life, as far as I can see, would be just as landfill.
(You'll have to bury it mighty deep if it's from a nuke plant.)
In contrast, aluminum smelting is done electrically; the aluminum frames of new solar panels can be produced via existing (clean energy) solar panels.
Additionally, I've heard that solar stuff is completely recyclable back into more solar stuff.
.
I saw a thing the other week where a German Tesla SIG had extrapolated the useful life of their cars' batteries and figured they would have 90 percent capacity remaining at 185,000 miles. [google.com]
The degrading curve flattened again at 500,000 miles, with 80 percent capacity remaining.
I read that as saying that the battery will outlast the car.
...and batteries continue to improve in price and performance.
...while last-century fuels continue to become more expensive.
Solar panels also continue to become cheaper and better.
Here's the big thing:
The number of workers in the renewable field is already larger than those in the last-century energy fields.
...and the renewables number continues to expand.
(I just heard about 2 coal companies that merged because the coal market is shrinking toward zero.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 04 2018, @10:34AM
In the end it all comes down to EROEI - Energy Return On Energy Invested.
Traditional fossil fuels are over 100. Sometimes over 100,000.
It is not that long ago that 'renewables' passed 1. They are now up to between 5 and 50 depending on which renewable where.
The importance of this is related to the fact that 1/EROEI of your economy is devoted to energy production. (Where economy is measured by energy consumption)
Eg fossil fuels, Better than I/100 is small, almost negligible, and drove most of the economic growth of the 20th century. Yes, they are running out and we need to adapt, but If your renewables have an EROEI of 5, then 20% of your economy is diverted to simply providing energy to the rest. That is a huge hit.
(Score: 1, Troll) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:18AM
And another thing. While some people work that way, these "gigs" are also very useful second jobs. Because one can pick up and drop gig work at a whim, they're great for fitting around a primary job.
It's a shame that California is bent on protecting established oligopolies than in innovating a better approach to various sorts of work. But that's what the state has become.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:35PM (2 children)
Markets come with rules, but rules don't have to come with markets. I think the next twenty years will show a failing of California that should be instructive for everyone outside the state. The ones still inside the state will probably be more obsessed with finding the Emmanuel Goldsteins in their midst.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:00PM (1 child)
At the other end of the spectrum, Kansas already failed hard.
Whether politicians calm down on extreme behavior, and forget about compromise being a dirty word, remains to be seen.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:14PM
Less painfully of course, since Kansas is a much smaller state. I'm not ruling out that other states will also crash and burn in an educational way.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday May 02 2018, @09:51PM
Mississippi is a shithole for the most part. There are tons of other places that have opportunity. Texas maybe?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:11PM (3 children)
In before TMB starts bitching that everyone is just whining and the job market is fiiiine.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @07:29PM (2 children)
He'll just hop on a thread above you and pretend he got there first. Probably update the timestamp in the DB too just to fuck with you since he's such a worthless troll.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 02 2018, @08:38PM (1 child)
He doesn't seem the type to do that. He and people like him have...not honor, exactly, but like most people with no actual morals they have some fairly exacting standards, and one of his seems to be "cause all my trouble directly." If you ask why he'd probably phrase it something closer to "I don't need to abuse admin powers to trigger them as needs triggerin' snowflake," but when you get right down to it, that's all it is. He's kind of like an evil version of Pratchett's idea of what a witch is, something like a photo-negative Nanny Ogg.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 02 2018, @11:01PM
Yeah I know, but I like to give him shit since that is 90% of what he does to everyone else. I was 100% trolling, but of course that is one time where he doesn't accuse me of it. I guess he only accuses legitimate observations of trolling so that he can mentally detach from having to seriously consider the words.
(Score: 3, Informative) by crafoo on Wednesday May 02 2018, @10:20PM (1 child)
Good. It was pure gaming the system from the employer's side.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:03AM
...then there are instances where the owners and the workers are the SAME people.
[Foghorn Leghorn voice]: That's called Socialism, son.
Paul Buchheit (one of my favorite Leftie writers) mentions taxi co-ops Green Taxi in Denver and another called Swift. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [commondreams.org]
(... though he doesn't have a very good handle on the definition of "Capitalism".)
Another guy, again from August 2016, mentions Swift as well as Union Cab in Madison, Wisconsin. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [inthesetimes.com]
He also mentions a Yellow Cab attempt at a co-op, which failed.
This gal, in April 2015, mentioned Green Taxi again and Transunion Car Service in Newark. [yesmagazine.org]
I've also heard about the Alliance Taxi Co-op in Philadelphia. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @01:34AM (2 children)
If you want to get a better understanding of where socialism lay in the spectrum of American politics, almost exactly one hundred years ago, you can do no better than to read Jack London's one and only effort at prognostication - "The Iron Heel".
I stumbled upon it when I searched Gutenberg.org for "science fiction", seeking the SF shelf, and saw this book amongst the returns.
The test of a classic, is time, and Jack London's books meet this test admirably.
His mathematical expose of what to do with the country's trade surplus is excellent, and for that reason, alone, I would propose that every child in the United States be required to read at least a few chapters of the book, if only so that a few hours of in-class discussion might occur, making for better-educated voters in the years to come.
Mr London also predicted World War I; and, may I say, his description of the Sierra Mills, at the turn of the last century, is not too different from contemporary descriptions of Amazon's shipping department ... or my own experience, as a technical support professional, on call, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, without compensation - for decades.
(Thank you very much, United States Congress. May you rot in hell, with the rest of the lawyers.)
ObURL: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1164/1164-h/1164-h.htm [gutenberg.org]
~childo
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday May 03 2018, @04:22AM
Then why did you do it? I only do jobs like that, if I'm getting paid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 03 2018, @10:53AM
Thanks for calling that to my attention, I hadn't seen it before.
For those who would like a different format, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1164 [gutenberg.org]