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A comment on Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated as employees. Parent comment

Re:Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated... by gruez on Thursday December 14, 2023 @09:20AM (#38641579)
>If you cannot provide food deliveries whilst paying your employees fairly, then you should not be in business.

This doesn't address the parent poster's point:

>For many, it is the only type of job / income they can secure (i.e recent immigrant) and otherwise would be locked out of the legal economy altogether and will transition into the _illegal_ economy for want of options.

Changes like these aren't a free lunch. If they're too onerous companies reduce their workforce, which would leave their workers worse off. Presumably the reason why they were working there in the first place was that it was their best option.

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Re:Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated... by cung on Thursday December 14, 2023 @04:47PM (#38647752)
If slavery was legal and about to be made illegal, would you argue the same point?
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Re:Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated... by gruez on Thursday December 14, 2023 @08:07PM (#38649800)
Except slavery is non-consensual whereas working in a shitty job isn't.
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Re:Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated... by CamperBob2 on Friday December 15, 2023 @01:18PM (#38656901)
Slavery is still a thing. Some authorities warn that there are more slaves today than at any time in history (e.g., https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/25/modern-slavery-... ).

This isn't slavery. But good job dismissing the reality of slavery by comparing it to a voluntary paid job.

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Re:Europe inches closer to insisting gig workers are treated... by janrito on Friday December 15, 2023 @06:09AM (#38652990)
I don't think you can make the argument — in good faith — that the current requirements are too onerous.

Facilitating the exploitation of vulnerable people in order to provide cheap services for customers with much more price flexibility and increase the profit margin of VCs is a political decision. One that I will not support, and I'm glad our collective government is acting against it. It does not go far enough.

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