Except we really didn't. People are not in general paid for their time going to and from being on the clock which, in many cases, is significant.

People in general don't have to clock out every time they put down the pencil or stop typing.

Except they are. They are standing next to their company branded bike, in uniform waiting for an order. They are not on their way to work from home or vise-versa. For all intents and purposes they are on the clock, except the computer says no.

Service industry jobs often make you clock out and have rules against leaving the premises when off the clock. This is seen as normal and workers always comply.

I'm not sure this is 'seen as normal' (by whom?) but I very much doubt it is legal under minimum wage legislation.

Besides which, this is not the equivalent of making a bartender clock out during his break. It's the equivalent of making him clock out while he stands at the bar waiting for the next customer.

> and have rules against leaving the premises when off the clock

It might be illegal across the USA, but I do know at least that in Oregon, this is illegal. I know someone that got several hours of backpay for unpaid lunch breaks because someone reported the business for not allowing them to leave during unpaid lunch breaks.

Requiring people to stay on premises during lunch wasn't illegal, but if the requirement was there, they have to be paid during the lunch break. If you are clocking out, then you MUST be allowed to leave.

The problem is that the law isn't proactively enforced and reporting puts you at risk of retaliation, something few people in that situation can afford.

When I was younger one manager was notorious for clocking us out while we were still cleaning at the end of the night. It went on because reporting it risked having your shifts cut or being quietly let go.

It's the same in the rental market. Where I am, viewing and application fees have been illegal for years but estate agents will still try to charge them. If you bring it up or refuse to pay they'll just find someone else who will.

> "rules against leaving the premises when off the clock."

If you are not paid for that time, they have no right to require anything.

Wtf is this attitude to employees as if they are property.

The attitude is that over $50 billion a year is stolen as wage theft and nobody does anything about it so businesses feel emboldened to be worse, as well as a general culture of "only doers matter"

No idea why this is downvoted. Just my experience working in the service industry for ten years.

In my experience, this is business. I'm working on a product right now that would not pass the scrutiny of AGs or the CFPB. We will release and run for years making tons of money until the regulators catch up and realize what we are doing. Then we will ask forgiveness and compromise a bit. This is how self-policing works in banking and other regulated industries.

Companies like Uber skate along until new legislation is created that regulates them. Good luck with that.

You can always leak and get an SEC whistleblower kick back. You know you're doing something wrong. You have the power to do something about that.

It's not illegal, it just wouldn't bode well to ask permission because a lot of the authorities would say no.

Wow.

When they are caught, hopefully, they don't pull Volkswagen, and throw engineers under the bus.

How would it work though?

If I sign onto the app to say that I'm available for delivery, does that count as "working hours", and the company is required to make sure that I make minimum wage, regardless of how many orders are paid out?

What if I sign onto the app, but then don't accept any of the deliveries I get offered? Then they'd be required to make sure I get minimum wage, without ever doing any actual work.

I do think there's a problem as things stand, but I don't think the solution is a simple one.

>What if I sign onto the app, but then don't accept any of the deliveries I get offered? Then they'd be required to make sure I get minimum wage, without ever doing any actual work.

That's like asking what if you don't do any work at a regular job.

If you're not doing any work, they can fire you. Once you've been fired, they don't need to pay you anything whether you're waiting around or not. But until you've been fired, they should be paying you.

>But you're not required, as I understand it, to take any of the jobs offered by the various gig work services.

There's no contradiction between not being required to take any particular job, and "if you refuse to take 40 jobs in a row, go away".

(If the jobs are so bad that most of the workforce will refuse 40 in a row, so the company can't fire them because they'd have no workers, that's the company's fault for having such a poor selection that the workers wait long times. In which case yes, pay them.)

> There's no contradiction between not being required to take any particular job, and "if you refuse to take 40 jobs in a row, go away".

Ok, so you take _some_ of the jobs, just enough to appear to be working reasonably. And then someone needs to figure out what "some" is. Plus half the point of a gig job is you decide when/what you are willing to work.

As noted, I don't believe there is NO solution... I just don't think it's as simple as "well, just require each person gets paid minimum wage". Because there's a lot of things to consider.

>And then someone needs to figure out what "some" is.

Just let the company decide it.

It doesn't cause a problem because if the company sets an unreasonably high standard for how many jobs you need to take to not be fired, they'll run out of workers.

> How would it work though?

Like it works for any other work: you get a roster of when you're expected to work and get paid for that time, and perform tasks during this time. This problem has been solved decades if not centuries ago, e.g. factory shifts or supermarket employees.

I don't know, if you get hired at a factory and show up but refuse to do any actual work how does that go? Termination for refusing to work is a thing

But you're not required, as I understand it, to take any of the jobs offered by the various gig work services. Factory work isn't gig work.

> I am very disillusioned by our industry, it seems half the revenue was generating by techno-cheating laws.

Well, most 'disruption' is actually tech exploiting a regulatory loophole.

Or more cynically, an SV company backed by foreign blood money muscling their way into an established market while ignoring regulations and just trying to stamp out the established market through basically price manipulation before the courts can catch up.

> Well, most 'disruption' is actually tech exploiting a regulatory loophole

So much for innovation, eh?

But if the restaurant still controls the chef's work during that time, that isn't gig work. If the "employer" is required to pay by time not work, then it is now the employer's time, not the workers flexible time:

- ability to assign tasks, not leaving the worker the option to say I don't want that task

- ability to control how many workers can log in at a time, forcing Uber to pay a 1000 drivers who all logged in from 2:00 AM to 5:00AM when there aren't enough rides to be taken, isn't right