Signing up for a job as an independent contractor agreed upon by both the contractor and the company...and then after the fact being told that they are actually employees isn't protecting either party involved in the initial agreement. It's using the government to protect OUTSIDE parties by by crippling the business with additional expenses.

But the children in the mines contractually agreed to their positions! Who is the government to interfere with this business partnership?

Are the children adults legally able to enter a contract....?

Before the overreaching government stepped in and got in the way, parents had the freedom to get gainful employment for their idle children.

Some parents even took it upon themselves to increase their productivity by having the kids do piecework at home. For example, 6 year olds were able to roll cigars at home.

What is the premise of your argument here? That bad things happened in the past so there's now no such thing as too much regulation?

Because child labor existed we should now consider independent contractors employees...?

Care to actually provide a somewhat coherent response instead of baselessly denigrating the parents ideology and implying it represents forced child labor.

I find this kind of cheap, tangentially related strawman so intellectually lazy it's actually offensive.

Your argument for why Uber's workers should be able to sign themselves up as independent contractors can be used to show that children should be able to work in mines, fast food workers should be able to work for minimum wage, and generally that employees should be able to sign off on giving up any and all employment rights.

The point is that either you need a new argument, or you actually believe all of those things.

Keep in mind that I have not actually taken sides on the issue at hand; I'm just claiming that your particular argument is a bit flawed.

It's nothing close to that.

My argument is that as a legal adult you should have the ability to make your own decisions. Children in mines do not apply. Kids working for McDonald's at 16 do not apply.

Grown adults should ABSOLUTELY be able to sign off on giving up any and all employment rights if they so choose, as long as they are free from duress when making that decision.

If you can agree to volunteer at a company you should be able to agree to any level of compensation above "volunteer". It is simply, your choice. Nobody is forcing you to do it.

Signing a contract under duress is voidable.

It wasn't my arguement. Care to clarify which argument you're attributing to me?

>The point is that either you need a new argument, or you actually believe all of those things.

No. I can't find one arguement in the thread above that requires 'believing all these things'

-children being able to work in mines(appeal to emotion) is tangentially related we aren't even discussing child labor here.

-fast food workers should absolutely be able to work for minimum wage, I did. Should it be raised? I think so, but again this is a tangentially related appeal to emotion.(seriously what did you mean with this one other than 'feel bad for poor people'? How is minimum wage relevant in this context?)

-Employees should be able to sign off on all employment rights?

Look a relevant point, and generally I agree they shouldn't be able to.

Can you please clarify exactly how this arguement of mine can be used to show the three things you've outlined?

Edit: The funny thing is I don't even disagree with you or the grandparent on the underlying issue here, I just find this constant strawman bullshit so grating.

Apologies for confusing you with brightball; I didn't notice that you jumped in after the back-and-forth.

The entire argument put forth was that the government can't annul a contract agreed upon by both parties (even if it is illegal under current law). Which is how pretty much all labor laws. It is a completely generic argument. Once we admit that there are exceptions (oh, but children can't form a contract!), the generic argument has been thrown away.

I guess you're easily offended.

Society reached consensus a long time ago about what an employee is and isn't. Companies have been nipping at the edges of this for years to push more risks on "independent" contractors, which in reality means pushing business risk to society at large.

...Which I think would be fine - employment liquidity seems good just like monetary liquidity - except that we do a shit job of providing benefits (like health insurance, and maternity/paternity leave) via the government.

Making them employees of Uber isn't an answer. Making a Union isn't an answer (I don't think; again, too much overhead, and the point isn't negotiating power anyway). Government probably isn't an answer (regardless of "should", look at effeciveness). Maybe needs a rethink from first principles?

> employment liquidity seems good just like monetary liquidity

Right, but such liquidity is formed either on the basis that individuals don't have to work to survive, or on the basis that employees are so scare and desirable that mobility becomes a non-issue.

I don't disagree that we could address some of these problems by starting over from first principles, but that kind of change takes lifetimes to implement -- we still have to do something about the current people.

Can't upvote you enough!

The thing about contract law is that a contract that requires one party to break the law isn't binding.

If you build a business around invalid contracts that's on you or crappy legal advice. Not on the person who signed your predatory contract.

At what point does "I will perform this task for compensation in the amount of $X" become illegal?

First a nitpick, a contract doesn't 'become illegal', it is and always was not binding.

Just some easy examples that aren't 'not meeting the requirements for being a independent contractor'.

* When any part of completing 'this task' requires you to break the law in order to perform it.

* When 'this task' classifies you as an employee of the payer and the compensation is under the minimum wage.

* When 'this task' is indentured servitude or slavery.

* When 'this task' requires bodily harm or injury. (e.g. You can't sell your kidney)

* When 'this task' requires a license which you don't have.

* When either party is not of sound mind or not capable of consenting to a contract (e.g. if you're drugged, drunk, too young, or mentally unfit).

Of all those you mentioned, this is the only one that applies:

* When 'this task' classifies you as an employee of the payer and the compensation is under the minimum wage.

That part right there is the problem and is why the entire issue is ridiculous. Every contract programmer should be an employee of the company that they are contracting for. Staffing firms should virtually be out of business. The only thing that minimum wage laws do for society is widen the divide between "Volunteer" and "Paid" because everything in the middle is deemed illegal for reasons that provide no discernible benefit to society while decreasing available jobs and encouraging companies to simply go to countries where they don't have to deal with:

"Well, I can afford to pay you $10 / hour for this job and I realize that you want to take this job for $10 / hour because would be very beneficial to you right now but unfortunately the state says that's not enough so I'm going to have to hire somebody in China for $10 / hour instead. Hopefully the welfare or unemployment office can help you out. As you are aware, the state knows what's best for two people to decide is agreeable."

It has always been illegal if an employer tells you you're an independent contractor but without meeting the requirements of an independent contractor relationship.

Last time someone ignored that, it cost them $240 million. I'm interested to see how much it costs Uber.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-fedex-settlement-idUSKCN0Z...

So what's the difference between that and using a personal LLC. It's legal nitpicking about a persons choice.

> It's legal nitpicking about a persons choice.

That's actually what the law is: interpretation of statute, or what you call "nitpicking".

So to be clear, allowing 1,000,000 individuals with personal LLC's to sign up as Uber contractors via their LLC's is totally cool.

Having 1,000,000 individual sign up DIRECTLY as Uber contractors...totally illegal.

No. Again, its not the corporate structure that dictates classification, its the relationship.

https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employe...

When it's illegal. There's no underlying abstraction. The law is ad hoc.

/n

This should be a place of constrictive conversation. Your post is not. Perhaps you want to give it another shot?

My apologies. Here's another shot.

Taxis and public transportation systems SUCK. At least within the Los Angeles area.

It's obscene to pay regular taxi fares. You can take the bus but good luck getting anywhere within a reasonable time and with the risk of some stupid random event that slows the process down. Not to mention the cognitive taxation of being around strangers of varying quality. It's not something you think about until you're in the bus and you're standing up and the guy behind you smells and the bus is stuck in godamn traffic and you have 30 more godamn stops to go...

Uber and Lyft and the other ride-sharing apps are positively godamn humanitarian in comparison to having to use the other options.

I have strong feelings because discussions that focus on the needs and wants of bus drivers and taxi drivers ignores the heavy taxation laid onto the customer for the crime of not having a car (at least in LA). I would rather a hundred thousand more rides accomplishing the personal goals of a hundred thousand people than a thousand pensions for a thousand bus drivers.

As a fellow Angeleno, this mirrors my experience. Public transit is getting better, but it's still not there, and the taxis pretty much suck in all the ways it's possible to suck. Worse vehicles, worse drivers, worse prices, more hassle.

(I think the next hurdle for LA Public Transit is express busses / trains, that DON'T stop everywhere.)

Those are real problems, but they seem to be orthogonal to the issue of whether or not Uber drivers should receive employee protection.

Except if ride sharing services are hobbled, a great public good is hit in the knees in favor of ideological adherence.

I don't think the same standard of employee protection applies to something like being a driver. I don't think you could apply the heavy hand of regulation without fucking over more people than you think. The moment you get the modern state on in, you get professional rentiers sniffing out any holes they can put roots in.

This isn't children being abused by clothing factories. These are an entirely new class of people and provider who are enabled by the fact that the regulatory appartus doesn't choke them before they even make their first step.

???