California Bill Makes App-Based Companies Treat Workers as Employees

[Jimmy Higgins]

My wife is an independent contractor. She is probably going to lose her job because of this bill. In the interests of helping you all to become better people by learning to put yourselves in other people's shoes, here's hoping all of your respective legislatures likewise pass similarly idiotic laws, legislating all of you out of work too.

oh well if some random jackass on the internet claims to have a wife that supposedly might lose a job about it, then nevermind - what was i thinking? corporate-mandated slave labor is the only rational choice left to us, innit?

It is also worth considering that some "independent contractors" are anything but "independent" and are restricted from working for other companies.

 

[ZiprHead]

Good. The so called gig economy has been eroding worker's rights and making it more difficult for almost everybody but the richest.

IMO if your business model is incapable of incorporating having employees and treating them well with decent working conditions and a livable wage, you simply have no right to be in business.
i'm quite tired of the cultural expectation that the moral responsibility is on the public to guarantee corporate profits, as opposed to being on a company for being a business worth investing in (either directly or as a customer).

My wife is an independent contractor. She is probably going to lose her job because of this bill. In the interests of helping you all to become better people by learning to put yourselves in other people's shoes, here's hoping all of your respective legislatures likewise pass similarly idiotic laws, legislating all of you out of work too.

https://www.latimes.com/california/...yment-law-independent-contractors-gig-economy

Assistant professor Jeffrey Darna directs the USC Program of Nurse Anesthesia. He also contracts out as an anesthesiologist. If Darna were a physician anesthesiologist, he would be exempt from the new law. But he’s a nurse, so he’s not.

What’s the difference?

“We [nurses] cost the system less, but deliver the same level of service,” he says. “We can work with patients who are on Medi-Cal. And we are the only anesthesiologists in nine Northern California rural counties.

“Access to rural healthcare is at risk now because of this law.”​

Nurse anesthetists are an app based business?

From the OP link:

The bill passed in a 29 to 11 vote in the State Senate and will apply to app-based companies, despite their efforts to negotiate an exemption.

 

[Fentoine Lum]

But if they have to pay their workers like actual employees, they'll become even more unprofitable. Won't anyone think of the shareholders?!

Fuck 'em. If the only way you can stay in business is by sharecropping, your business should go down. Or perhaps capitalism is a lie.

 

[Bomb#20]

Nurse anesthetists are an app based business?

Thanks for asking. As a matter of fact they are not.

From the OP link:

The bill passed in a 29 to 11 vote in the State Senate and will apply to app-based companies, despite their efforts to negotiate an exemption.

Are you under the impression that "will apply to app-based companies" means the same thing as "will not apply to non-app-based companies"?

In its zeal to drive Uber out of the state quicker than Uber was already driving itself out of business, the California government has, possibly unintentionally and just not giving a damn, elected to drive out all manner of other businesses along with it.

 

[Fentoine Lum]

Thanks for asking. As a matter of fact they are not.

From the OP link:

Are you under the impression that "will apply to app-based companies" means the same thing as "will not apply to non-app-based companies"?

In its zeal to drive Uber out of the state quicker than Uber was already driving itself out of business, the California government has, possibly unintentionally and just not giving a damn, elected to drive out all manner of other businesses along with it.

Are states not the laboratories of democracy?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

My wife is an independent contractor. She is probably going to lose her job because of this bill. In the interests of helping you all to become better people by learning to put yourselves in other people's shoes, here's hoping all of your respective legislatures likewise pass similarly idiotic laws, legislating all of you out of work too.

How does this bill kill truly independent contractors?

What it does is prevents people from being improperly classified as independent contractors when they should be employees.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

New rules for contractors have unexpected consequences for The City’s strip clubs

As some 30 dancers were handed the first employee paychecks ever issued to them by the Penthouse Club one evening in early November, a wave of panic swept the popular North Beach strip club.

“I opened mine in the locker room, and I was shocked,” said a former Penthouse dancer who asked to be identified as Jane. “All the other girls were also freaking out. Me and my friends decided right then that we were done. That was the final straw.”

Historically classified as independent contractors, the dancers were used to walking out of the club’s doors with cash each night — often hundreds of dollars — after their shifts ended. That changed suddenly when clubs across The City began enforcing a California Supreme Court ruling from April in an unrelated industry that set new standards for determining whether or not workers should be classified as employees.

Democrats are economically illiterate.

Strippers have long been misclassified as independent in order to cut costs for the strip clubs.

It sounds like they're upset they can't cheat on their taxes anymore.

 

[Bomb#20]

My wife is an independent contractor. She is probably going to lose her job because of this bill. In the interests of helping you all to become better people by learning to put yourselves in other people's shoes, here's hoping all of your respective legislatures likewise pass similarly idiotic laws, legislating all of you out of work too.

How does this bill kill truly independent contractors?

What it does is prevents people from being improperly classified as independent contractors when they should be employees.

"when they should be"? Why should they be? Because the legislature made up a new arbitrary rule declaring this arbitrary collection of people instead of that arbitrary collection of people won't be allowed to be independent contractors starting on Jan. 1? Starting then, a garage band that writes a song that needs a base line will be prohibited from inviting a band member's neighbor to come lay down a few tracks with them, and paying him for his time, unless the band jumps through all the ridiculous bureaucratic hurdles the legislature has already piled in the path of becoming an employer. Why? Because the base player "should be" an employee? Because taxi companies hate competition, and want Uber gone, and can't bear to wait for its inevitable bankruptcy, and what "should be" is determined for us all by the demands of lobbyists?

There are millions of workers in the US who prefer to be independent contractors rather than conventional employees. My wife is one of them. She is "properly classified" as an independent contractor, under current California law. Starting Jan. 1, that classification is officially "improper". On what grounds do you figure the legislature choosing not to screw her over would have been "improper"? That her internet job isn't graphic design, so she isn't eligible for the legislature's exemption for graphic designers?

Washington is considering similar legislation. A thousand hairdressers descended on the state capitol to protest the bill. Explain to me why they "should be" employees. Then explain it to them.

 

[Fentoine Lum]

So vote. Isn't that the answer?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

New rules for contractors have unexpected consequences for The City’s strip clubs

As some 30 dancers were handed the first employee paychecks ever issued to them by the Penthouse Club one evening in early November, a wave of panic swept the popular North Beach strip club.

“I opened mine in the locker room, and I was shocked,” said a former Penthouse dancer who asked to be identified as Jane. “All the other girls were also freaking out. Me and my friends decided right then that we were done. That was the final straw.”

Historically classified as independent contractors, the dancers were used to walking out of the club’s doors with cash each night — often hundreds of dollars — after their shifts ended. That changed suddenly when clubs across The City began enforcing a California Supreme Court ruling from April in an unrelated industry that set new standards for determining whether or not workers should be classified as employees.

Democrats are economically illiterate.

I'm not certain how this indicates illiteracy with economics. Wouldn't that be saying the Chinese are paying the American import tariffs?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

"when they should be"? Why should they be? Because the legislature made up a new arbitrary rule declaring this arbitrary collection of people instead of that arbitrary collection of people won't be allowed to be independent contractors starting on Jan. 1? Starting then, a garage band that writes a song that needs a base line will be prohibited from inviting a band member's neighbor to come lay down a few tracks with them, and paying him for his time, unless the band jumps through all the ridiculous bureaucratic hurdles the legislature has already piled in the path of becoming an employer. Why? Because the base player "should be" an employee? Because taxi companies hate competition, and want Uber gone, and can't bear to wait for its inevitable bankruptcy, and what "should be" is determined for us all by the demands of lobbyists?

There's a big difference here--the band hired the neighbor as a one-off to do something other than their business. (Their business is playing music.) Uber hires people to do it's primary job--drive people around.

 

[Bomb#20]

Starting then, a garage band that writes a song that needs a base line will be prohibited from inviting a band member's neighbor to come lay down a few tracks with them, and paying him for his time, unless the band jumps through all the ridiculous bureaucratic hurdles the legislature has already piled in the path of becoming an employer. Why? Because the base player "should be" an employee?

There's a big difference here--the band hired the neighbor as a one-off to do something other than their business. (Their business is playing music.) Uber hires people to do it's primary job--drive people around.

In the first place, huh? They're hiring the neighbor to play base. How is that not playing music, which is their business? (Wait, are you making a snarky quip about base guitar not qualifying as music? )

And in the second place, you appear to be assuming your conclusion as a premise. Why does whether the guy's job is their primary business make a difference? Why does hiring people to do your primary job qualify as a reason they "should be" employees?

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[TSwizzle]

This is another race to the bottom app for Uber;

Employers will enter information on the Uber Works platform about job, skill requirements, location. Uber will provide real-time information on the going rate for that kind of job in that location. The employer can then decide whether to accept that rate and have the position posted. Prospective workers will submit their resumes to the Uber Works platform and search for available work and shifts. Uber is partnering with temp agencies, such as TrueBlue (NYSE: TBI) in Chicago, which will handle payroll, benefits, taxes and W-2s. The workers will be employees of the temp agencies. Uber will receive its cut of the revenue from employers who use Uber Works, a way one Wall Street analyst says could help Uber stem its massive quarterly losses.

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