On Wednesday, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill 5, which poses an existential threat to the very gig economy that Democrats tout as the heart and soul of California’s economy. It’s a union-crafted disaster that codifies the state Supreme Court’s Dynamex decision from last year. In that bout of judicial activism, justices imposed an “ABC Test” for companies that want to use contractors or freelancers as their workforce.The article linked above claims this is just more lefty madness, but I disagree vigorously. I think it's high time we regulated the hipster sweatshops of Uber, Lyft ad the rest. Why do we allow the "gig economy" corporate titans to get rich off of lunkheads who aren't so good at math or financial analysis? Isn't that one of the biggest reasons we have labor laws in the first place?
Those companies can only use contractors if the worker a) doesn’t take direction from the company; b) is involved in work that is not related to the company’s core mission; and c) has established some sort of independent operation, such as an LLC. In other words, Uber and Lyft can hire an independent contractor to, say, do some electrical work in their headquarters or repair their vehicles, but not to work as drivers. There’s no way around that test.
I'm sympathetic to the libertarian side of things, but in this case, someone needs to look out for the poor slobs trying to make their rent payments by grinding their cars into the asphalt. I cannot imagine that any of them are making anything remotely approaching minimum wage, once you factor in depreciation and maintenance costs on their vehicles. The reason we have minimum wage laws in the first place is to prevent the ultra-rich from taking advantage of workers desperate for a job.
I feel like we give the smarmy creeps from Uber and Lyft a pass on this because you use an app to summon your rickshaw. It can't be injustice if it's on your iPhone! Yeah, get lost, you exploiters of the poor. Time to pay up.
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| Pull me faster, you worthless peasant! I don't care if you're losing money on this ride. |
3 comments:
"The reason we have minimum wage laws in the first place is to prevent the ultra-rich from taking advantage of workers desperate for a job."
Well, actually, no.
The *reason* we have minimum wage laws in the first place was to compel Northern employers to pay wages at that levels that made it un-economic for them to hire the unskilled Southern Americans (especially the black ones) who were migrating north. That is, the original minimum wage was enacted to use the threat of government-violence to compel the subsidization of unionists at the expense of all other Americans, and especially at the expense of the black ones.
The reason we continue have minimum wage laws is to use the threat of government-violence to compel employers to ... subsidize the remaining unionists at the expense of all other Americans.
"... but in this case, someone needs to look out for the poor slobs trying to make their rent payments by grinding their cars into the asphalt. I cannot imagine that any of them are making anything remotely approaching minimum wage, once you factor in depreciation and maintenance costs on their vehicles."
For the past couple of years, I have worked *exclusively* with people of this class. Here in Ohio, their problem isn't that they don't make enough money at their menial jobs to make ends meet; their problem is that they *choose* to waste so much of their incomes -- booze, cigarattes, drugs, tattoos, $100 a pop tennis shoes, $1000 phones, weaves, painted nails, vacations, and on and on. Their problem isn't that they can't make the rent, it's that they *choose* to spend their income on luxuries before thay have even paid the rent.
"I think it's high time we regulated the hipster sweatshops of Uber, Lyft a[n]d the rest. Why do we allow the "gig economy" corporate titans to get rich off of lunkhead ..."
And that's the same "argument" that the Dems use as their excuse for appropriating the income (and wealth) of "the rich" (i.e. *you*) to give to themselves and their supporters. It's the same "argument" they use as their excuse for appropriating the fruit of your labor to (allegedly) give to people who aren't even living on the same continent as you.
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I have no doubt that the people who control Uber and Lyft are profiting off the drivers in unfair -- by which I mean dishonest -- ways. But this won't be the way to fix that problem.
... you can't fix dishonesty with more dishonesty.
Ilion, thanks for your cogent and well-informed reply! I'll just add that out here on the Left Coast, the story is a bit different. I take Uber once in a while and have a friend who drives for Lyft. The drivers aren't wasteful, they're just financially illiterate or, if they do know they're losing money in the long run, need the job to get them to next week. Meanwhile, the bigshots running the place are richer than Midas. Whoever heard of a taxi company owner making billions? It's exploitation from my point of view.
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