Indeed! A workforce they are straight up using & will be kicked to the curb once they get their fleets of self driving cars on the road.

No one is being exploited. People choose to work through these platforms because it's the best option available to them. You don't raise employment standards by making low standards illegal. Low paying jobs work for some people because their circumstances don't give them the opportunity to get anything better.

>>It's the best option available to them because Uber's driven out the competition. Like, people choose to work at Walmart because it's the only employer in a fifty mile radius - for example. They can't work for a local store or start their own anymore because everyone's going to Walmart.

We're not talking about a small town here. These are large cities with diverse economies that contain thousands of employers. Uber drivers can do other jobs besides driving.

There is absolutely no evidence at all that Uber has a employer monopoly in the areas it operates, and that this is why people choose to drive for it.

Anecdotally I've heard that a lot of Uber drivers are very happy about being able to drive for Uber. And by anecdotally I don't mean a survey funded by Uber. I mean from internet comments where somebody claims to know someone who drives for Uber and really likes it. Take that for what it's worth.

>>Yes, in fact, we do. A whole lot of practices have ended predominantly due to legal changes

The vast majority of practices ended because the market value of labour increased as a result of growth in per capita productivity.

Any mandatory standard that gets ahead of the prevailing market value of low-skilled labour just creates unemployment, meaning it doesn't raise the standard of employment for the less skilled.

There's no free lunch in economics.

>>Allowing these jobs to undercut competitors that pay properly propagates low paid situations where society end up having to subsidize the behavior of the companies in question because they don't pay livable wages.

It's exactly the opposite. A mandatory minimum wage, like any price floor, leads to unutilized supply, which in the case of labour means greater unemployment. So you're increasing welfare costs by instituting a minimum wage.

The market value of labour doesn't increase because low-paying jobs were made illegal. That's not how supply and demand work.

> You don't raise employment standards by making low standards illegal.

Yes, in fact, we do. A whole lot of practices have ended predominantly due to legal changes.

A major historical example from the US being the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire [1] where 146 workers died in part because the owners locked the factory doors to prevent unauthorized breaks.

The outcome was both an increase in unionization and legal changes.

Employment standards are the way they are today not in general because companies have decided to act nice, but because they've been forced, through law and union action, over a very long time, to adhere to minimum levels.

> Low paying jobs work for some people because their circumstances don't give them the opportunity to get anything better.

Allowing these jobs to undercut competitors that pay properly propagates low paid situations where society end up having to subsidize the behavior of the companies in question because they don't pay livable wages. I for one would much rather have a proper welfare system than a system that rewards companies like that.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangle_Shirtwaist_Factory_fi...

> You don't raise employment standards by making low standards illegal.

Actually you do, in almost every case from the length of the working week to health and safety to the right to paid time off.

It's the best option available to them because Uber's driven out the competition. Like, people choose to work at Walmart because it's the only employer in a fifty mile radius - for example. They can't work for a local store or start their own anymore because everyone's going to Walmart.

Yeah, I've heard that argument from an employer who didn't offer any paid time off(even though the law requires 25 paid days off a year) and defended the decision by saying that no one is forced to work at his company and if people sign the contract they know what they agree to.

FWIW, it's exactly what I've heard when talking to Uber drivers in London. One guy used to work as a minicab driver; he prefers Uber because he can choose his hours, doesn't get cut out of lucrative jobs to the benefit of the company owner's nephew, and feels safer at night due to the rating system.

None of which is prevented by making Uber comply with the law.

The issue is that they're not treating them as contractors when it benefits Uber, but are treating them as contractors when it benefits Uber.

They need to pick on or the other. If one of those options does not work with the features Uber wants to provide, then they have to make a choice.

There will clearly be fewer driving opportunities if a minimum wage is instituted. There's an economic cost to be paid for price floors. They invariably increase the amount of supply left unutilized. If they didn't you could increase aggregate-demand/GDP simply by raising the minimum wage.

There is a substantial cost to society in subsidizing low paying companies by making it possible for people to survive well enough on these low salaries that they are willing to take these jobs too, in harming companies that innovate in other ways in favor of companies that exploit the opportunity to offer low pay.

We're incentivising companies to squeeze salaries instead of innovating. To me that is the exact opposite of what we should do. If anything, minimum wage should be pushed higher and higher at above inflation, as an incentive to invest in labor saving measures.

There's no reason why we should encourage wasting human capacity by making it easy to exploit people for low wages.

(Yes, this would mean dealing with unemployment by e.g. reducing working time and/or basic income variations or similar)

This is too important a topic to treat with such glibness. If I'm wrong please prove me wrong, with some economic theory or data.

You make assessments with no basis and you want others to answer to you with economic theory and data?

EDIT: Parent comments have been heavily edited.

I at least provide reasoning for my position. It's basic economic theory that wages are set by supply and demand. Demand only increases in the aggregate from increase in productivity. Creating a mandatory price floor simply leads to less than all of the supply being consumed (which means higher unemployment). That's what price floors do. What they don't do is raise aggregate demand (meaning they don't increase total wages paid out).

>>This has nothing to do with price floors.

The quintessential labour standard is a minimum wage, which is a price floor. This has everything to do with price floors. In fact all labour standards can be assigned a monetary value and the combined value can be considered a price-including-benefits floor.

>>you're assuming that workers have a choice regarding where to work. That is simply wrong.

I don't understand. Why do you believe they don't have a choice?

>>So wrong that I understood your comment was a joke.

I'm certain you were trying to mock me.

This has nothing to do with price floors. In your first message, you're assuming that workers have a choice regarding where to work. That is simply wrong. So wrong that I understood your comment was a joke.

Cool prax. Now Google for monopsony power.