#gig-economy workers

[yourownbank]

Freelancers and gig-economy workers often find themselves in unique financial situation that highlight the importance of planning ahead. Among these plans, Life Insurance stands out as a must-have. Without employer sponsored Benefits or steady paychecks, securing the right life insurance policy can make all the difference in protecting yourself and your loved ones.

[politijohn]

A win for gig workers.

This ruling may have a rippling effect across the country

[imaginal-ai]

"Making Ends Meet"

[iww-gnv]

The US Department of Labor (DOL) published a final rule to the Federal Register on Wednesday that would increase the difficulty of classifying workers as independent contractors. If the rule survives court challenges unscathed, it will replace a business-friendly Trump-era regulation that did the opposite. It’s scheduled to go into effect on March 11. The new rule, first proposed in 2022, could have profound implications for companies like Uber and DoorDash that rely heavily on gig workers. It would mandate that workers who are “economically dependent” on a company be considered employees. The rule restores a pre-Trump precedent of using six factors to determine workers’ classification. These include their opportunity for profit or loss, the financial stake and nature of resources the worker has invested in the work, the work relationship’s permanence, the employer’s degree of control over the person’s work, how essential the person’s work is to the employer’s business and the worker’s skill and initiative.

[thoughtportal]

an important factor to remember in the writers strike. So many industries want to turn the worker into a gig worker with no protections and no mentoring system. 

[reasonsforhope]

Across New York City, delivery drivers are a ubiquitous sight: congregating outside big restaurant chains waiting to collect orders, zooming through the city streets with orders in tow. “The most chaotic time for deliveries is easily during lunch time,” says Elijah Williams, who delivers food for both Uber and DoorDash. “I’ve had up to four orders at one time.” 

Mayor Eric Adams recently announced a major change that will deeply impact busy workers like Williams: app-based delivery workers will be paid $17.96 an hour starting July 12th — and nearly $20 an hour by 2025 — marking the nation’s first minimum pay for such workers.

“Our delivery workers have consistently delivered for us — now, we are delivering for them,” he said. “They should not be delivering food to your household, if they can’t put food on the plate in their household.”

The Background

Mayor Adams made the announcement at City Hall, surrounded by delivery workers as well as members of the nonprofit organizations, Workers Justice Project (WJP) and Los Deliveristas Unidos.

Ligia Guallpa, executive director of WJP, expressed her excitement and gratitude.

“This first of its kind minimum pay rate will uplift working and immigrant families,” said [Ligia Guallpa of Workers Justice Project (WJP)] alongside Gustavo Ajche of Los Deliveristas Unidos. “[It will] ensure that workers who keep New Yorkers fed, are able to keep also their families fed too.”

WJP was founded in 2010, and coordinates numerous worker-led programs, including Los Deliveristas Unidos, that aim to improve conditions for low-wage immigrant workers across the five boroughs.

The Details

The current minimum wage in New York is $15 an hour. On average, service workers are paid $7.09 an hour, excluding tips. The new wage is in keeping with a law passed by the City Council in 2021, which requires the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to set a standard minimum rate for delivery workers.

App-based delivery workers are classified as “independent contractors,” which means they’re not entitled to the standard minimum wage that applies to salaried employees’ pay. Instead, delivery workers who work for the big food delivery services, like Uber Eats and Relay, are entitled to just $2.13 an hour before tips — a so-called “tipped sub-minimum wage.”

Research has shown that getting rid of tipped sub-minimum wages benefits not just the workers getting the raise, but the economy as a whole. A 2021 analysis found that states without a tipped sub-minimum wage saw 29 percent growth in their leisure and hospitality sectors, compared to just six percent in states that used the federal tipped sub-minimum wage of $2.13.

...For many of the workers who face hostile roads and unpredictable weather conditions to get New Yorkers their ordered goods, this is a life-changing development.

“This is my full-time job. I get up every day and do this,” says delivery driver Justin Martinez outside the Chick-Fil-A in Washington Heights. 

Martinez, 30, is originally from the Dominican Republic. His commitment to completing deliveries, he explains, is fueled by his love for his family.

“This is my way to contribute. I go out, 9, 10 hours a day, do deliveries, and then I can come home,” he says. Martinez first started driving for Uber in 2019 before transitioning to delivering food for Uber Eats and other apps in 2021. He’s excited for the pay wage increase: “Maybe now, I only [have to] go out for 6 hours.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, June 30, 2023

[allthecanadianpolitics]

British Columbia’s labour minister plans to soon pass new laws guaranteeing basic pay, rights and protections for tens of thousands of gig workers. Harry Bains’s office has launched a call for proposals that could see new requirements placed on companies like Uber, DoorDash and Lyft, whose drivers and delivery workers work without minimum pay, sick leave or other basic benefits. Bains says new legislation may come as soon as this fall, following years of government promises and months of consultations. “The goal here is that these workers, like any other workers, they need basic protection when it comes to minimum wage, when it comes to health and safety, and how they are protected when they are injured at the workplace,” Bains said.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[systemserendipity]

When people say the gig economy is fucked, they may not be able to put it enough into persepctive for those outside of that sphere to understand.

Let me paint you a picture.

My partner and I just dashed for about 2 hours. Drove through snow and high winds. Dealt with grumpy retail employees. Navigated the hell that is city-downtown driving. ALL on Black Friday, the day that's supposed to be highest-paying.

Guess how much we made.

I'll wait.

○ ○ ○

$12.

That's it. $6/hour. McDONALD'S pays more than that. More than double, in-fact (at least in NYS).

Uber, doordash, instacart, all these businesses that tout themselves as helpful to the entrepreneurial spirit-- they're all lying to us.

They're using every old excuse in the book to not properly compensate their workers, then crack down on the organizations that could ACTUALLY help them, like unions.

Don't be fooled by propoganda.

Corporations are NOT our friends. Fight for your rights.

[feckcops]

Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company’s Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups

“Updates on labor organizing activities at warehouses include the exact date, time, location, the source who reported the action, the number of participants at an event (and in some cases a turnout rate of those expected to participate in a labor action), and a description of what happened, such as a ‘strike’ or ‘the distribution of leaflets.’ Other documents reveal that Amazon intelligence analysts keep close tabs on how many warehouse workers attend union meetings; specific worker dissatisfactions with warehouse conditions, such as excessive workloads; and cases of warehouse-worker theft ...

“The new intelligence reports obtained by Motherboard reveal in detail how Amazon uses social media to track environmental activism and social movements in Europe—including Greenpeace and Fridays For Future, environmental activist Greta Thunberg's global climate strike movement—and perceives such groups as a threat to its operations. In 2019, Amazon monitored the Yellow Vests movement, also known as the gilet jaunes, a grassroots uprising for economic justice that spread across France—and solidarity movements in Vienna and protests against state repression in Iran ...

“‘It’s not enough for Amazon to abuse its dominant market power and face antitrust charges by the EU; now they are exporting 19th century American union-busting tactics to Europe,’ Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI Global Union, a global federation of trade unions that represents more than 20 million workers, told Motherboard. ��This is a company that is ignoring the law, spying on workers, and using every page of the U.S. union-busting playbook to silence workers' voices’ ...

“‘Amazon's systemic use of military surveillance methods against unionists and activists is deeply alarming,’ said Aubry, who is also a senior member of France's France Insoumise, France's main radical left party. ‘Amazon and Jeff Bezos act as if they were above the law because they have accumulated unprecedented levels of wealth and power. This has to stop.’”

[exvaltiora]

its very eyerolling to me when a lot of "leftists" fully believe that theyre entitled to other peoples labour and they personally should have an on-call grocery servant who deserves public humiliation for fucking up mcdonalds order #3846790 of the hour. like. idk. but disabled people and exploited workers are not opposing classes they are often the same class and its very absurd to me when people shift the responsibility of a system that forces disabled people into the position where theyre almost forced to rely on exploited labour to survive onto said workers producing said exploited labour. doordashers or deliveroo people or ubereats drivers are not officially registered as employees but instead "independent contracters" which essentially exists to bar them form unionizing and creates the situation that we always land in where the needs of oppressed groups under capitalism are pit against each other. idk if this rambling makes any sense but basically for the love of GOD get some perspective

[emptyanddark]

weekly reading list

(some of these are not very recent, but i have a lot of other things to read. this is a short list of interesting or things i found relevant to understand current events)

America Doesn’t Wage War. Government Institutions Do - very USA-centric but provides insights re: the prolific paramilitary organizations aided by US government, and the de-democratization that's been happening in the US.

Trapped by Empire - Guam is one of the colonies still under US-empire rule. the island is put in difficult position with no easy solution on all fronts - security, environmentally, economically etc.

“A Closed, Burnt Huwara”: How Israeli Settlers Launched A Pogrom - the harrowing happenings in last month's pogrom by Israelis against a Palestinian village.

The PA’s Revenue Structure and Israel’s Containment Strategy - how Israel restricts the PA's economic independence, worsening conditions to Palestinians who are entirely at the (non)mercy of their occupiers.

You Are Not a Parrot - the prolific linguist Emily M. Bender dispels the mystical brainrot around "AI" and Large Language Models (ChatGPT etc). Interesting and insightful. she is also one of the writers of the important article, "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots"

World Development under Monopoly Capitalism - reviews the question 'did globalization actually make things better'?, today's global capitalism and monopoly capitalism

The Rot Economy & Mass tech worker layoffs and the soft landing - both discuss the similar topics, about the bizarre realities of the tech sector, as put in the latter by Doctorow: "The equation is simple: the more companies invest in maintenance, research, development, moderation, anti-fraud, customer service and all the other essential functions of the business, the less money there is to remit to people who do nothing and own everything."

Silicon Valley elites are afraid. History says they should be - people around the world were exposed by the media to the recent stupidity of US tech executives & investors, resulting in collapsing their bank. here's a rational take about it, with history about the more militant opposition against Silicon Valley.

The New Irrationalism - explores contemporary irrationalist trends, the history of irrationalism and its philosophy. i found it thought-provoking.

[politijohn]

Source

Let’s go

[21st-century-minutiae]

Doordash is a service where individuals order groceries or other goods through a third party to be delivered by other users. There are a number or services that work on this business model.

This is an example of the gig economy. Legally speaking, the delivery people are also users, not employees, and doordash acts as a service to match customers and delivery people. This allows companies like doordash to avoid a very large amount of employee protections. Nominally, as has been argued in court, the benefit to the gig worker is that, not being an employee, they have the ability to set their own hours and turn down jobs. Practically speaking, the power disparity is such that the minimal benefits are vastly outweighed by the loss in protections. Many gig workers rely on gig work to pay bills and afford the cost of living, making it effectively a second or third job. But the pay, to be competitive to the users and accounting for the third party's profit margins above and beyond the first party product provider (i.e. the grocery store), means that the delivery people are paid very little.

When accounting for the cost of driving between gas and maintenance costs, it is very easy for gig workers to actually lose money over the course of participating.

[idknessstuff]

I’m not really sure how tumbler works, but I’m hoping people will see this and look at it.

I already feel as though we are failing our children, just trying so hard to support them in a world that thinks they mean nothing because they are autistic.

If you see this and even just share it, thank you so much.