Seattle approves minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers

https://www.cnet.com/news/seattle-approves-minimum-wage-for-uber-and-lyft-drivers/

by clouddrover • 6 years ago

186 247 6 years ago

I wonder if the majority of drivers think this is an improvement or not.

daenz• 6 years ago

Frankly I don't think that actually matters to the city council. If given the choice, they would rather be seen as people who fight for platitudes than people who actually have an overall positive effect but nobody notices.

Pfhreak19• 6 years ago

City council has recently: Outlawed the use of chemical weapons, slashed the police budget, increased funding to community programs by tens of millions of dollars, created a rent relief program for tenants during Covid, increased minimum wage, increased taxes on high earning large corporations, and more.

All of these have a materially positive effect on the people of Seattle.

cletus• 6 years ago

So here's one thing I've never understood about such measures to treat drivers as employees: how do you handle drivers who drive for multiple companies at once?

It's fairly well known that drivers will sign on to multiple apps and choose which rides they take. Like they don't know the destination but still. What if a does 2 rides for Uber and 1 for Lyft in an hour? Who pays the minimum wage here? Both?

It seems like this would be incredibly hard to police and strengthens the argument that drivers aren't employees.

EDIT: to be clear I'm not talking about, say, alternating days for Uber and Lyft. I'm talking about drivers who are signed into both and take the first that comes up. They'll also accept rides on one app while still doing a ride on another. This is really common.

This is not a "multiple part-time job" scenario.

zitterbewegung2• 6 years ago

Having two jobs versus one job and with a minimum wage would just have your hourly rate increase on both jobs to the minimum rate .

Just because you have two jobs doesn’t mean that the law doesn’t apply .

What just happens is the ride share companies have every hour a driver is working and if it falls below the minimum wage then they would have to increase it to the minimum.

Kiro• 6 years ago

They are working both apps at the same time, picking rides from the first that pops up. I don't see how hourly rates would work with that unless they timeslot every hour to one company, which is not how it currently works.

AdrianB13• 6 years ago

Is that for the time effectively worked (trip time) or it includes time between trips? If a driver is sitting idle waiting for a trip who is paying, both companies or nobody?

wgerard6• 6 years ago

I'm also curious about this. I wonder if they'll start requiring drivers to "clock on" and "clock off", and you won't be able to accept rides outside of that dynamic. I know it already kinda works like that, but something more formal since now they're paying you while you're "clocked on".

I also assume this means they'll be more strict about turning down/canceling rides when you're "clocked on", and they'll assume you're available to accept rides when you're "clocked on" and don't currently have a passenger.

Which of course makes them much more analogous to a traditional livery cab.

EDIT: But then also kinda not I guess? Because a livery cab driver can decline a ride before it starts obviously.

I wonder if it'll work more like food service, where Uber covers the "difference" if you make less than the minimum wage (and for better or for worse, much like food service I assume if they have to make up the difference too frequently you'll be booted off the platform).

itsoktocry• 6 years ago

I'm talking about drivers who are signed into both and take the first that comes up

FTA:

"Seattle's law will require drivers be paid at least 56 cents per minute and $1.33 per mile driven while transporting passengers."

Whoever's app they are on for the ride pays that wage.

wgerard6• 6 years ago

I think what's confusing is there's two different wages being thrown around here: Are drivers guaranteed $16.39/hr, in addition to $0.56/minute and $1.33/mile driven while transporting?

The questions I think are mostly about the former, not the latter.

maxerickson• 6 years ago

There's lots of things the ride share companies could do to make it look less like a job, but they don't, because it would reduce their revenue. What's the problem with applying regulation that makes it more likely to be worthwhile for the drivers?

Or is your argument that this will destroy profitability for drivers by denying them the right to chase fares across services?

guerrilla3• 6 years ago

This is not a "multiple part-time job" scenario.

But it literally is, so what's your argument against that? They'd get minimum wage at both their part-time jobs like everyone else, like contracting or temping part-time for two agencies. What warrants anything but the standard interpretation?

TuringNYC2• 6 years ago

Traditionally, when working two part-time jobs, you aren't typically doing both part time jobs simultaneously. Like, you cant be doing counter-duty at Starbucks 10am-1pm while also be pumping gas across town at Exxon 10am-1pm -- instead you'd have to have shifts w/o overlap. Each company is responsible for paying a fair wage for their shift.

With Uber and Lyft, most drivers I've seen are on both apps simultaneously and choosing the best ride that pops up, which makes the standard interpretation obsolete for gig jobs like this which allow for parallelism.

While I support good wages for drivers, it is unclear who pays the good wage -- Uber, Lyft, or both, or half each, or some proportion as you clock-in-clock-out constantly. I'm sure there is a good answer that is fair to the driver, but I haven't heard it yet.

dfxm122• 6 years ago

how do you handle drivers who drive for multiple companies at once?

IF you're classified as an employee, your employer can legally prohibit moonlighting. Enforcing this is not a problem unique to ride sharing apps, so it might be worth looking into how this is handled elsewhere. However, if an employer treats their employees well enough, their workers are less likely to seek outside employment.

noirbot5• 6 years ago

How does that work now for part-time work? I would assume that working at Walmart for 10 hours doesn't include a clause that says I can't work at Target for 10 hours as well.

All of this gets messier because most "normal" jobs in this space don't let you pick your hours. It's clear you can't literally be in two places at once, but you can be "on call" with Uber and Lyft at the same time if you want to, and it's somewhat beneficial to all parties for them to do so.

alkonaut• 6 years ago

You probably can't have it both ways. If you decide that working for someone means being paid a minimum number of hours, paid when on stand by to work and not actually driving etc., then obviously you can only idle for one network at a time and watching two apps for the best ride isn't possible.

SrslyJosh3• 6 years ago

That really doesn't sound like the city's problem. Perhaps with a fairer wage, fewer drivers will feel like they need to work for both companies. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

lwhalen• 6 years ago

I wonder how long before these companies pull out of Seattle, or Washington entirely.

If it's just Seattle, will they just geofence the city and not allow rides to originate or terminate there? What happens if a driver is transiting the city limits, but isn't within for a full hour - does the minimum wage get prorated, or what?

viraptor• 6 years ago

Why would they pull out? Taxis existed before Uber and others. Either a) Uber at scale can't compete with local taxi service which will return pretty quickly, (so Uber would die anyway in a long run) or b) they will be completely fine with a few tweaks around scheduling / number is drivers.

wgerard6• 6 years ago

Taxis existed before Uber and others.

To be fair, taxi service in seattle was quite awful during the pre-uber times. It was usually best to pretend they didn't exist unless you were at a location they congregated frequently (the airport, for example).

Hopefully, the prompt and transparent service that came with Uber is here to stay even if the company itself isn't.

asdfasgasdgasdg2• 6 years ago

And/or raise prices on consumers who are using the drivers who have to be paid more. That seems like a component of any solution to the issue.

criddell3• 6 years ago

When they pulled out of Austin it didn't take long before a bunch of replacements pop up. This isn't a tough problem to solve anymore.

notrealpersonq• 6 years ago

The replacements they had in Austin never filled those shoes unfortunately. During SXSW traffic spiked and all the replacements were crashing and people were getting "stranded" with no rides.

geofft• 6 years ago

I suspect the market will solve this problem. There's a pretty neat growth hack that you can do that doesn't scale (http://paulgraham.com/ds.html) and therefore lets you out-compete the incumbents like Uber and Lyft: pay your drivers minimum wage. Once you're established and profitable you can keep doing it.

Nbox93• 6 years ago

Everyone predicts doom and gloom when Seattle enacts a progressive policy. Seattle’s economy is still doing well. I view this as essentially fixing a loop hole around their existing minimum wage laws.

dantheman2• 6 years ago

These policies don't have an effect in a day - it takes time.

People need to move - if Amazon wanted to move it would take them years just to build a new campus; let a lone try to transfer employees. People are sticky to a location, so the city can extract more and more from them until they eventually decide to leave. It will slow growth as people choose not set up there; it will make the economy less flexible as people have few choices.

These policies will destroy wealth and will hurt those who currently do these jobs. Remember the people doing these jobs are doing them because they're the best option available to them - this include far more than just the wage.

It's going to be harder and harder to find jobs for low skilled workers in Seattle.

bpodgursky2• 6 years ago

It's a bit more complex than this (source: I live in Seattle). Seattle is saved from the impact of a lot of the progressive policies because many of them are shut down by the courts (all the attempts to instate an income tax, for example).

And while the Seattle area is doing well, a lot of the growth and new jobs are now in Bellevue, not Seattle itself, to avoid the various head taxes which are proposed or enacted (which, btw, is another case of Seattle enacting a progressive tax and then immediately dropping it because of business outcry -- so it's not really correct to say that Seattle's economy is doing well "in spite of" the policy).

And as other point out... these things take time. Amazon isn't going to pull up and leave overnight. But it will shift jobs out of downtown over the course of 5 years, and Facebook and Google have easy options to do the same (Google has a large Bellevue presence as well).

readams2• 6 years ago

The result isn't really doom. It's just you have shitty taxi services and everyone is sad. Nobody remembers the reason is bad regulation. Uber started in the first place because taxis in San Francisco were and are so bad that they were basically unusable.

rattray2• 6 years ago

Some questions here about whether this means drivers will get paid for idle time. This Seattle Times article has clearer wording on this:

The legislation will set new per-mile and per-minute rates for drivers while they’re transporting passengers, meant to be high enough to also account for expenses and downtime.
To guarantee the minimum wage, the new rules will use a combination of per-minute and per-mile pay rates, divided by what’s known as a “utilization rate.” That figure is based on the share of drivers’ time spent with passengers in the car, rather than waiting for a ride.

Other specifics include $29.90/hr gross hourly pay while driving (to target $16.39/hr total), $5 per-trip minimum.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...

rattray2• 6 years ago

Another quote, voicing a concern I share:

the new formula incentivizes companies to keep that utilization time high when the city calculates its pay rates. That can mean the companies look for ways to have fewer drivers on the road.

Personally, I'm all for legislation around minimum per-minute, per-mile, and per-trip payments. Keeps a level playing field and prevents a race to the bottom in a situation where workers can't collectively bargain.

But this "utilization rate" thing definitely sounds like an overreach that's likely to have unintended/regrettable consequences. It should be up to drivers to determine if they're spending too much time waiting around, and choose to do something else with their time when that's the case (my impression is this is one of the best parts of these programs for drivers currently - it's easy to act on your opportunity cost).

908B64B1974• 6 years ago

What happens with drivers logged-in on multiple apps at the same time? Do they both pay the driver his iddle fee?

Almost every driver I encountered had both apps open and would shut the other one down when accepting a ride.

How does this works for medallions drivers? The poor driver who just paid 150$ for the privilege of renting a medallion car for the day. Is he getting paid when waiting for rides?

wesleyy• 6 years ago

The point is that there is no idle fee. The legislation just states the minimum required wage for time and miles spent with a passenger, as well as a $5/trip minimum.

foota2• 6 years ago

If legislation like this were adopted widely it might have a positive incentive of driving ride sharing companies towards less driving time by having passengers do more of the work, e.g., by setting up common drop off and pick up locations (similar to existing functionaity that lowers the price by having you walk a bit)

noirbot5• 6 years ago

I think this brings up a problem though. By raising the cost of labor, you're more incentivized to try to make sure that labor is used efficiently. This is why, pre-Uber, it was hard to impossible to get taxis in some small towns, suburbs, or less-active parts of the city. If you're paying someone minimum wage whether they're actively driving someone for a fare or not, you can't afford to have someone on the clock out in the middle of nowhere where there's a low chance they will ever get a ride.

One of the benefits of the current system is that being available to start a ride is essentially "free", both for the driver and the passenger. I've had times where I called a Lyft, and had it be someone who literally was living in the same apartment building I was in, and walked down to their car, drove out to the street, and picked me up. Presumably they were just at home, but still active in the app to take rides. This helps to expand coverage for pickups to areas where it wouldn't make sense to have a car just actively circling. Drivers have a reason to be searching for a ride near them, even if there's a low chance of it popping up.

How do you solve this? We see this issue in other industries as well - food deserts are a similar issue. It's expensive to run a full grocery store, so you can only afford to put them in places where they'll see enough traffic to warrant it. But as a general culture, there's value in services that aren't economically viable on their own. Optimally, some of this would be solved with public transit or such, but that can't just be done overnight, or to everywhere it's needed, so what's the in-between?

Nbox93• 6 years ago

Seattle doesn’t have this problem at all. You solve this problem by not enacting these rules where they don’t make sense.

Seattle does have a ton of Uber drivers that work 60+ hours a week and are barely making ends meet.

foota2• 6 years ago

If I've read it correctly the Seattle policy applies only to drivers while they are driving (presumably including on their way to pick someone up), so this shouldn't limit the amount of Ubers waiting for drivers, though it may limit the number of rides that drivers get because it will reduce the amount of rides demanded as a result of the increased price. I do wonder if this could paradoxically decrease the efficiency of the service if there is less coverage from drivers (if drivers drop off the service from getting fewer rides) and thereby increase the distance needed for a driver to pick up a passenger, on average.

dfxm122• 6 years ago

"the real harm here will not be to Uber," Uber said. "It is the drivers who cannot work..."

The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour.

For reference, Seattle minimum wage is $16.39/hr. This appeal to employment is disconcerting, as ride sharing apps are doing their workers no favors by paying them so poorly (including the lack of benefits).

When talking about jobs, especially in the US where so many benefits are tied to employment, a job with pay so low and no benefits should not be considered a good thing.

marcusverus• 6 years ago

The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour.

Why cut the quote off in the middle of the sentence?

The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour, while the ride-hailing companies' researcher put the number at $23.25.

muttled• 6 years ago

I assume that the city's researchers looked at take-home divided by time available to drive and the companies probably only counted the time the drivers were actively engaged. It's why they only want to have to pay a wage when a driver is engaged: they can make them clock out in between rides.

AnthonyMouse4• 6 years ago

This appeal to employment is disconcerting, as ride sharing apps are doing their workers no favors by paying them so poorly (including the lack of benefits).

Except that they do, because they provide a level of flexibility not available at most other jobs.

If you're a college student and you have two hours and fifteen minutes between classes, you can drive for two hours and fifteen minutes. If you're a school bus driver who drives kids to school in the morning and drives them back in the afternoon but has nothing to do in the meantime, you can get in your own car and drive passengers at that time and make some extra money. If you have a part time job working three days a week with an inconsistent schedule set by your employer, you can drive another two days a week, even if it's a different two days every week.

There is value in that, or why is anybody doing it rather than working at Walmart or Starbucks where that isn't available?

But if you make the drivers employees then the company has no reason not to schedule their hours inflexibly, because the flexibility was only needed to attract workers at the lower level of compensation.

In practice what you're doing is disallowing employers from offering employees terms of employment that provide the employee with working conditions of greater non-monetary value than ordinary jobs in exchange for less money. There is no reason to think that this is never advantageous for the employee, and the workers who don't find those terms advantageous remain free to work for any other employer.

When talking about jobs, especially in the US where so many benefits are tied to employment, a job with pay so low and no benefits should not be considered a good thing.

Then do something about all the benefits tied to employment. All of that exists only as a direct result of government policy.

carlob• 6 years ago

Then again a few taxi drivers I have talked to in the US admitted starting to drive for ride sharing companies after finishing their maximum allowed shift of 12 hours...

Also I've heard multiple reports that in most of the gig economy markets casual workers are de-prioritized, so that only those who put in at least 40 hours a week stay in the game...

vsareto• 6 years ago

Seattle has the authority to change the conditions of employment - how much less Uber pays in exchange for the flexibility. Uber/Lyft has a right to stop operating there if they don't like it.

Why would Uber/Lyft fight so hard to stay with unfavorable conditions?

Pet_Ant6• 6 years ago

In practice what you're doing is disallowing employers from offering employees terms of employment that provide the employee with working conditions of greater non-monetary value than ordinary jobs in exchange for less money. There is no reason to think that this is never advantageous for the employee, and the workers who don't find those terms advantageous remain free to work for any other employer.

That is true, but it's an ecosystem thing. Sure, it might be of benefit of some... but to others it's the only game in town. When people describe fast food jobs as for students saving for their first car so they don't have to provide a living wage... that doesn't help single parents who are using it as their sole income. It's better to inconvenience the students seeking a car, to help the single parents. Those at the bottom have nothing but the flex jobs available to them.

AlwaysRock• 6 years ago

If you're a college student and you have two hours and fifteen minutes between classes, you can drive for two hours and fifteen minutes.

Can you though? You wait for 10 minutes to get your first ride which takes

ksk2• 6 years ago

There is no reason to think that this is never advantageous for the employee, and the workers who don't find those terms advantageous remain free to work for any other employer.

Your use of "never" is a red-herring. You have to quantify what it means. If 100% of uber drivers prefer higher pay over flexibility, what would be your argument? In other words, your argument completely hinges on a significant chunk of employees feeling like they are not being exploited. Without data, it won't stand on its own.

There is value in that, or why is anybody doing it rather than working at Walmart or Starbucks where that isn't available?

Because those jobs are soul crushing, if you've ever worked at one of those. Just because Uber is offering "better" working conditions doesn't mean the drivers are happy about the pay. Also, if your standard of ethics is "whatever the employee voluntarily accepts" then why have a minimum wage at all?

pjmorris2• 6 years ago

But if you make the drivers employees then the company has no reason not to schedule their hours inflexibly, because the flexibility was only needed to attract workers at the lower level of compensation.

What if there were another purpose to the flexibility, to apply that 'two hours and fifteen minutes' of time the college student had to capturing the market value of shuttling people around campus and nearby, rather than stationing some 40-hour/week employee near campus, hoping to have them utilized all 40 hours?

clairity• 6 years ago

"In practice what you're doing is disallowing employers from offering employees terms of employment that provide the employee with working conditions of greater non-monetary value than ordinary jobs in exchange for less money."

the other side of that problem is that the wages are dictated by one party (with basically no external price signals impinging on them) rather than being free to respond to demand. it has the same anti-competitive issues that any price-fixing scheme has. plus, there are other sociopolitical forces depressing wages in a decidedly tilted labor market. fix those imbalances and then we'd have much more support for a freely self-adjusting labor market for driving.

seattledev• 6 years ago

Seattle minimum wage is $16.39 an hour for companies with more than 500 employees. Otherwise it's essentially $15.75/hour.

edit: either i misread your post or you edited it right as i posted this

baggy_trough5• 6 years ago

Why do you think you know better than the workers involved who is doing them favors or no favors? Those workers choose to drive for Uber or Lyft because it was better than any other alternative available to them. Seattle is doing harm with this legislation.

Pfhreak19• 6 years ago

This is a dead end line of thinking. It ignores that these people might not be able to choose any alternative. If you are faced with starvation and homelessness, you might 'choose' to take an incredibly poorly paid job because it enables you to barely scratch by.

That's hardly a 'choice', it's the companies realizing they have a worker pool they can exploit that will take pennies on the dollar.

Seattle is saying, "No, if you are providing work in this city, you will abide by minimum wage standards like any other employer."

quest883• 6 years ago

It seems like they're paying them just right if drivers are still driving for them.

missedthecue2• 6 years ago

Yeah i'm not understanding why thousands and thousands of people in these cities are doing it for $9.73 when they could get a job at starbucks and instantly make much more.

Red_Leaves_Flyy2• 6 years ago

If the goal was a desperate work force then we succeeded decades ago.

By measuring sufficiency of pay against the population of drivers you're not measuring anything useful. Intellectually indolent comments like this are overtly harmful to the people desperate enough to work for nearly half their cities minimum wage.

Broken_Hippo6• 6 years ago

If you have to pay rent to keep social services from taking your child from you, any money towards that is better than nothing at all.

You have to have realistic choice to be able to deny such things. Desperate and hungry people don't have realistic choices.

s3r3nity2• 6 years ago

Uber is still not making profits. So where is this money coming from?

You can't raise prices and expect the same level of demand from consumers. So once demand goes down, the # of drivers needed will go down.

So you raise prices by restricting supply of drivers. It's not that complicated. Uber is not keeping prices low as part of some scheme to rip off drivers and hoard profits in some bank vault like a cartoon villain - they're what the supply / demand of the market dictate.

If you disagree, I'm happy to look at concrete data to change my mind.

Broken_Hippo6• 6 years ago

Perhaps if you cannot pay your employees minimum wage - regardless of the sort of work they are doing, perhaps you shouldn't be in business. I don't care if Uber is making money or not.

If there is need for more adequate public transportation and taxis, perhaps we should work on that issue. If the system is robust enough, merely having a personal driver (uber/lyft/taxi/limo) should be a luxury and a choice.

This has nothing to do with data, but principle.

And it isn't like Uber has been a good player in all of this: I truly don't agree with their attitude towards laws, and do truly believe they are in business because they exploit people and eschew their responsibility as employers both by offering gig-only employment and refusing to classify drivers as employees: Their business obviously relies on the drivers.

twblalock4• 6 years ago

When talking about jobs, especially in the US where so many benefits are tied to employment, a job with pay so low and no benefits should not be considered a good thing.

The alternative is no job at all, for many drivers.

Broken_Hippo6• 6 years ago

Perhaps a robust safety net is in order so folks don't have to be exploited in order to afford food. Or better laws.

TrackerFF• 6 years ago

People adapt, consumers too. If Uber or Lyft were to vanish from the face of the earth tomorrow due to regulations, some other business would probably pick up where they left, serving the demand - because after all, there is demand for ride-hailing services.

Question is, how much are consumers willing to pay?

shirakawasuna2• 6 years ago

The replies to this comment forget that the demand is there regardless and that if margins are so thin, the cost can be passed on to those who take ubers/lyfts - disproportionately those who make more money.

sokoloff5• 6 years ago

If you doubled the price of Uber/Lyft rides, I suspect the demand is cut by more than 50%.

I find Uber (and Lyft) more convenient than taxis, but also compelling because they're not as absurdly expensive as taxis.

tom-_-2• 6 years ago

This is where government policy meets business reality. The reality is, ridesharing is a low margin business. Have you seen Uber's earnings reports? It's questionable whether the business model can ever be sustainable.

So with higher wages, you're just accelerating Uber's drive into insolvency. Their only option is to cut workers and increase ride prices.

But you can only do the latter so much before you lose users to the point where Uber just becomes a private taxi service for the wealthy in which case you might as well not use a rideshare model and just hire professional chauffeurs.

5423542342354• 6 years ago

If a business model requires the exploitation of its workers to remain profitable, is that a business worth having? If forcing businesses to pay their laborers a wage sufficient to have a bare minimum standard of living before paying shareholders for their speculative investment, is that a bad thing?

user5994461• 6 years ago

"Seattle's law will require drivers be paid at least 56 cents per minute and $1.33 per mile driven while transporting passengers."

advisedwang• 6 years ago

For comparison Seattle's regular taxi rates are:

Fare = $2.60 + $2.70 per mile + ($0.50 per minute while speed<11mph)

[1] https://www.seattle.gov/your-rights-as-a-customer/file-a-com... [2] https://library.municode.com/wa/seattle/codes/municipal_code...

jiscariot2• 6 years ago

The "regular" taxi cab medallion cost averaged $35k in 2017 down from $200k in 2013[1] otherwise you will likely be leasing it and a car from a taxi company. If I recall, the daily buy-in is generally $90-150. So these costs should be included in the calculation.

[1]http://leg.wa.gov/JTC/Documents/RFPs/RFP_TAXI_FINAL.pdf

moralsupply• 6 years ago

https://fee.org/articles/the-eugenics-plot-of-the-minimum-wa....

Whatever the intentions, the effects are still the same. On that the eugenicists were right. The eugenics movement, however evil its motive, understood an economic truth: the minimum wage excludes people from the job market. It takes away from marginal populations their most important power in the job market: the power to work for less. It cartelizes the labor market by allowing higher-wage groups access while excluding lower-wage groups.

jahaja6• 6 years ago

For this to be true - that higher labour costs keeps people out of jobs - one must ignore the last ~70 years of Northern-European labour market.

AdrianB13• 6 years ago

Yes, take Sweden for example: no minimum wage. Let's take Norway... no minimum wage. They both do just fine.

carapace• 6 years ago

the power to work for less

“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread.”

― Anatole France

SrslyJosh3• 6 years ago

chef's kiss

jahaja6• 6 years ago

"People will lose their jobs!"

This has been said about every increase in worker benefits ever. Luckily things still work out.

ggreer4• 6 years ago

US labor force participation rate is at all time lows: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...

chickenpotpie• 6 years ago

That has nothing to do with worker benefits and is completely caused by the pandemic.

maxharris6• 6 years ago

How will Seattle respond to robotaxis?

Pfhreak19• 6 years ago

Hopefully Seattle will have strong public housing, basic income, and other safety nets to support a basic quality of life for every resident. Then we won't have to worry about this for every new tech advancement that pushes workers out.

maxharris6• 6 years ago

How will Seattle pay for it?

bryanmgreen• 6 years ago

This is whole thing about whether drivers should be full-time employees is so overthought.

If Uber and Lyft are set on not paying the drivers full time, just cap the hours a driver can have at 20 per week.

That will fix mostly everything.

- It solves Uber/Lyft problems because they won't have to pay for benefits.

- It solves the government's problems because they don't have to worry about full-time workers being taken advantage of.

- It solves civilian problems because it make the roads less congested.

asdff4• 6 years ago

Uber/Lyft doesn't like this, because they might get into a situation where there is a surge of demand and everyone hit their 20 hours already, and the only way to counter that would be to employ more people that would be wasted outside the surge. It makes sense, but these companies see drivers as resources to throw at demand and not people with livelihoods.

johngalt• 6 years ago

This isn't the right answer, but we should at least acknowledge that there are potential problems with the gig economy.

I'm not quite sure how to reconcile this with my views on markets. The platform certainly performs a valid function, and markets are generally good at matching up buyers and sellers. Ostensibly everyone participating is doing so voluntarily. However, I don't find it particularly virtuous to have totally automated auctioning of labor pressing down on working class compensation and benefits. Constantly repricing every transaction to carve another 20c away from a guy driving for 12hrs a day.

newguy1234• 6 years ago

Let the individual decide what to do. It does not matter how YOU FEEL about it, what matters is what the worker wants to do. If the person doesn't want to work for the low rates then they're free to leave and do something else. Most people working for gig apps are doing it for side money anyways. It isn't a full time job for them and gig apps were never intended to be a full time job.

If you want to help the workers then you can create jobs in the community and increase the demand for labor in general.

redisman2• 6 years ago

Someone who's so against FEELING you sure present lots of opinions as facts.

paulcole• 6 years ago

Ostensibly everyone participating is doing so voluntarily

I disagree that it’s voluntary.

Nobody is driving for Uber because it’s their passion.

For the majority, they’re doing it to make enough money to allow them to barely get by. They myth of college kid earning a couple extra bucks for beer money is a great bit of storytelling by Uber and other gig economy companies.

Is there a literal gun to their heads? No. Is there a figurative gun where they’re looking down the barrel of not paying for meals, healthcare, and other necessities? For many, yes.

ausbah• 6 years ago

I think a large part of the problem is these middleman platforms treat both riders and drivers as consumers, they control both sides of the equation.

renewiltord4• 6 years ago

I don't understand why everyone is reading secondary sources to interpret the law when Seattle City Council provides primary sources near instantaneously¹. You're just playing a game of telephone.

¹ https://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=46334...

chillacy2• 6 years ago

While I don't like Nth degree media (you know, the types of articles that link to other articles which link to other articles which link to the primary source), I'm also not a lawyer and find it tedious to read legalese. One of the jobs of journalists is to take information, make it explainable, and put it in context.

renewiltord4• 6 years ago

Fair enough. Skip to 14.33.050.A and read just that. It's written like a code specification. All the variables have values either defined there or trivially lookup-able.

I'll copy it for you with constant params filled in:

max(($0.32×minutes_with_passenger)/0.492 + ($0.83×miles_with_passenger)/0.622),$5)

I calculated this for my last Uber ride (which was $18.47) and it was $24.84 instead so with a 25% margin that makes it $33.12. I think I would skip that ride and have done something else. For my last Lyft ride it cost $34.85 - $5.29 for Lyft Pink. I was prepared to do the $34.85. The calculated amount is $34.56 which with the 25% margin is $46.08. I know that ride so I would have brought my bike with me and taken BART that time. This is going to make going to the club a bit more expensive for me now if they do the same in SF. I'll probably suck it up on nights out but I'll probably drive for everything else.

Important note: Unlike the big argument everyone is having in the comments, you can't actually get paid for idle time right now. The way it works is that idle time gets loaded into calculations of those two factors which are currently 0.492 and 0.622.

So if you want to game those figures you need to create more idle time but you'll only be able to take advantage of it next year (when they're updated).

grumple• 6 years ago

I think it's interesting that there's so much talk about minimum wages for drivers, but restaurant workers have been working for $2-3/hour for decades, including periods of time when they are doing untipped work.

renewiltord4• 6 years ago

The places with these conversations do not have that. Both California and Washington have the same minimum wage for tipped and untipped workers. So in Washington you are guaranteed $13.50 / hr and then tips go on top. In California you are guaranteed $12 / hr and then tips go on top.

In Seattle, where this law was passed, the minimum wage is over $16 / hr and then tips go on top.

Alabama does do that bit with the $2/hr minimum wage if tips make up the balance but there isn't a significant effort in places like that to backstop wages for drivers.

Essentially, there is no inconsistency.

redisman2• 6 years ago

So in Washington you are guaranteed $13.50 / hr and then tips go on top. In California you are guaranteed $12 / hr and then tips go on top.

Wait forreal? I gotta stop tipping.

Acrobatic_Road• 6 years ago

False. In some states, employers may deduct tips from wages, but in every state the employee must make at least the federal/state minimum.

Seattle approves minimum wage for Uber and Lyft drivers

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