What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

Business, Economics, and Taxes: Capitalism. Yay? >=(

Status
Not open for further replies.
Kepler said:
Is this a big deal?
Click to expand...

It'll be interesting to see the impact.

The fiance of one of our daughters drives for Lyft occasionally. He has a full time job, but our daughter is an RN, and when she has a strange work schedule, he'll sometimes go out and pick up a few bucks rather than just sit at home alone. There is no chance he'll go to work as an employee of Lyft, primarily because he doesn't want to be told when he'll have to drive.

I think the real job where it'll be interesting to see the impact is in the trucking industry. There are a lot of independent contractors who own their own trucks but drive almost exclusively for one company. If they are all forced to become employees, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
 
Knowing our government, they'll find a way to overcomplicate it. There are clearly instances where 1099 employment is being abused, like people doing rideshare full-time and barely getting by. There are others where it's acceptable, like fixed-length projects where you want a staff aug role only for the duration, like a business analyst or project manager. It's a line to walk.
 
SJHovey said:
I think the real job where it'll be interesting to see the impact is in the trucking industry. There are a lot of “independent contractors” who are forced to own their own trucks but drive almost exclusively for one company. If they are all allowed to become employees, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
Click to expand...
Fixed.

FedEx is notorious for pulling this and have manipulated the laws that not only allow them to do this but to also make it extremely difficult to for the truck drivers to unionize.
 
SJHovey said:
It'll be interesting to see the impact.

The fiance of one of our daughters drives for Lyft occasionally. He has a full time job, but our daughter is an RN, and when she has a strange work schedule, he'll sometimes go out and pick up a few bucks rather than just sit at home alone. There is no chance he'll go to work as an employee of Lyft, primarily because he doesn't want to be told when he'll have to drive.

I think the real job where it'll be interesting to see the impact is in the trucking industry. There are a lot of independent contractors who own their own trucks but drive almost exclusively for one company. If they are all forced to become employees, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
Click to expand...

I think the problem is there is no choice. If a driver for Lyft or Uber wants to be a 1099 they should be allowed to be. But if they want basic employee protections because this is more of a job than a second hustle that should be an accepted norm. As of now no such choice exists.

You mention trucking, and that is exactly how trucking is set up at many companies. (like the one I used to work at) The drivers could choose to be 1099 if they wanted or they could work for us. Pay rates were different and routes were different (long haulers tended to be 1099s while LTL and "local" drivers were employees) but it was up to the driver how they wanted to work with our company. Again that should be how this is run, the driver should have the choice of how they classify themselves.

If Lyft/Uber/Dash/Others would have treated this like the trucking industry tends to they would not be having these issues. My guess is the Department of Labor won't get too out of control on the change but any change will hurt their bottom line for a while.
 
FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Knowing our government, they'll find a way to overcomplicate it. There are clearly instances where 1099 employment is being abused, like people doing rideshare full-time and barely getting by. There are others where it's acceptable, like fixed-length projects where you want a staff aug role only for the duration, like a business analyst or project manager. It's a line to walk.
Click to expand...

To be fair, that's not Our Government per se. It's all the lobbying special interests who bribe their sh-t into the legislation. Take money out of politics and Our Government would respond to the will of people, not wealth.
 
As someone who occasionally drives for Door Dash, it's gotten pathetic. They're offering a $10/hour option, but it means you get shitty orders for $3.25 with no tip. You won't see good orders unless your acceptance rate is over 50%.

​And I'm not likely to go back out for them unless it's absolutely necessary.
 
I have a lot of questions about this as well. I'm not opposed to in in theory by any means.

There was some reference to whether or not the driver earns some percentage of their income from this part time gig. That seems dangerous. Is there any more detail on that? What if I drive for all of the services? How is this even determined?

I give the companies no benefit of the doubt whatsoever, but how is Uber supposed to tell if Driver Bill needs to be a W2 employee or not? How often is this calculated? How often do I (as Uber) need to recalibrate?
 
Handyman said:
I think the problem is there is no choice. If a driver for Lyft or Uber wants to be a 1099 they should be allowed to be. But if they want basic employee protections because this is more of a job than a second hustle that should be an accepted norm. As of now no such choice exists.

You mention trucking, and that is exactly how trucking is set up at many companies. (like the one I used to work at) The drivers could choose to be 1099 if they wanted or they could work for us. Pay rates were different and routes were different (long haulers tended to be 1099s while LTL and "local" drivers were employees) but it was up to the driver how they wanted to work with our company. Again that should be how this is run, the driver should have the choice of how they classify themselves.

If Lyft/Uber/Dash/Others would have treated this like the trucking industry tends to they would not be having these issues. My guess is the Department of Labor won't get too out of control on the change but any change will hurt their bottom line for a while.
Click to expand...

We'll have to see what the regulations say.

If the regulations say that a person can opt to be an independent contractor, like the trucking companies do, then this regulation will be a big nothingburger because Lyft and the others will just have contracts with the drivers in which the drivers "opt" to be independent contractors.

On the other hand, if the regulation wants to have real teeth and says that it doesn't matter what the parties supposedly agreed to, that the Department of Labor will look at whether the other factors have been met (economic dependence, work mostly for that company, etc...), then it's really going to mess with the trucking industry and other businesses where the workers actually have a real choice, and many choose to be independent contractors. The reason is that businesses, like trucking companies, won't be able to take the risk.
 
MissThundercat said:
As someone who occasionally drives for Door Dash, it's gotten pathetic. They're offering a $10/hour option, but it means you get ****ty orders for $3.25 with no tip. You won't see good orders unless your acceptance rate is over 50%.

​And I'm not likely to go back out for them unless it's absolutely necessary.
Click to expand...

Being an employee would likely forfeit your ability to refuse that $3.25 order.

Just saying...
 
MissThundercat said:
As someone who occasionally drives for Door Dash, it's gotten pathetic. They're offering a $10/hour option, but it means you get ****ty orders for $3.25 with no tip. You won't see good orders unless your acceptance rate is over 50%.

​And I'm not likely to go back out for them unless it's absolutely necessary.
Click to expand...

Do they pay you mileage on top of the $10 an hour?

I kind of doubt there are many people who would be better off as employees than independent contractors. Isn’t the whole point having the flexibility?
 
SJHovey said:
We'll have to see what the regulations say.

If the regulations say that a person can opt to be an independent contractor, like the trucking companies do, then this regulation will be a big nothingburger because Lyft and the others will just have contracts with the drivers in which the drivers "opt" to be independent contractors.

On the other hand, if the regulation wants to have real teeth and says that it doesn't matter what the parties supposedly agreed to, that the Department of Labor will look at whether the other factors have been met (economic dependence, work mostly for that company, etc...), then it's really going to mess with the trucking industry and other businesses where the workers actually have a real choice, and many choose to be independent contractors. The reason is that businesses, like trucking companies, won't be able to take the risk.
Click to expand...

Sorry, i'm confused here. The trucking companies won't be able to take what risk? Hire drivers as employees? Isn't it kind of necessary to have truck drivers in the trucking industry? Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying here?
 
dxmnkd316 said:
Sorry, i'm confused here. The trucking companies won't be able to take what risk? Hire drivers as employees? Isn't it kind of necessary to have truck drivers in the trucking industry? Or am I misunderstanding what you're saying here?
Click to expand...

What I'm saying is this.

If the regulation lets the system stay where the trucker and the trucking company can agree whether the trucker will be an employee or an independent contractor, then basically the new regulation changes nothing.

I personally think that such a system would be the best system, and I think Handy agrees with that, although I'll let him speak for himself. If the trucker wants the flexibility that comes with being an independent contractor, then I think that should be an option available.

However, if the regulation says that it doesn't matter what the trucking company and trucker may "agree" to, the DOL is going to look at the circumstances and determine whether the trucker is an employee or independent contractor, and going to use things like economic dependence, frequency of times the trucker drives for the company, and things like that, then trucking companies are just going to decide that all truckers are going to have to be employees. They won't be able to risk classifying someone as an independent contractor (even if the trucker wants to be so classified) because the consequences are too great if the DOL decides otherwise. That will be bad, because I think there are truckers out there who own their own trucks and want to remain independent contractors.
 
SJHovey said:
We'll have to see what the regulations say.

If the regulations say that a person can opt to be an independent contractor, like the trucking companies do, then this regulation will be a big nothingburger because Lyft and the others will just have contracts with the drivers in which the drivers "opt" to be independent contractors.

On the other hand, if the regulation wants to have real teeth and says that it doesn't matter what the parties supposedly agreed to, that the Department of Labor will look at whether the other factors have been met (economic dependence, work mostly for that company, etc...), then it's really going to mess with the trucking industry and other businesses where the workers actually have a real choice, and many choose to be independent contractors. The reason is that businesses, like trucking companies, won't be able to take the risk.
Click to expand...

Which is why they wont do that. That is too big a step for the people who are in charge. They are big on walking before they run. Not to mention the outrage by the truckers would likely lead to a slow down.

It will be interesting to watch...but none of these companies have earned the benefit of the doubt. To be fair though originally these types of jobs were not supposed to be mainline forms of employment, they were side hustles like bartending is for me. But that doesn't mean the workers dont deserve basic protections.
 
SJHovey said:
What I'm saying is this.

If the regulation lets the system stay where the trucker and the trucking company can agree whether the trucker will be an employee or an independent contractor, then basically the new regulation changes nothing.

I personally think that such a system would be the best system, and I think Handy agrees with that, although I'll let him speak for himself. If the trucker wants the flexibility that comes with being an independent contractor, then I think that should be an option available.

However, if the regulation says that it doesn't matter what the trucking company and trucker may "agree" to, the DOL is going to look at the circumstances and determine whether the trucker is an employee or independent contractor, and going to use things like economic dependence, frequency of times the trucker drives for the company, and things like that, then trucking companies are just going to decide that all truckers are going to have to be employees. They won't be able to risk classifying someone as an independent contractor (even if the trucker wants to be so classified) because the consequences are too great if the DOL decides otherwise. That will be bad, because I think there are truckers out there who own their own trucks and want to remain independent contractors.
Click to expand...

Yes I agree with what you are saying. I believe in choice. DOL should not force drivers to be full employees if they dont want to be. If someone wants to be a 1099 and farm themselves out to multiple companies (like truck drivers tend to) they should be allowed to. If someone wants to be exclusive and would be willing to sacrifice a bit of freedom for a steady job they should have that choice as well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top