by dddavid on 12/14/23, 9:24 AM with 49 comments
by bwb on 12/14/23, 12:17 PM
by byyll on 12/14/23, 7:29 PM
by chucke1992 on 12/14/23, 3:16 PM
by hunglee2 on 12/14/23, 9:48 AM
The positive intent to give citizens greater protections is laudable but gig working is not always a straight forward 'capitalism bad' exploitation as it is often characterised.
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. For others, gig work provides the sort of flexibility not available in many traditional blue collar FTE (i.e they are primary carers, maybe can't commit to rigid schedule). For yet others it is an opportunity to _escape_ the obligations of badly paid, physically challenging FTE - last Uber I took was in Eindhoven, driver was a long time resident in Netherlands. Left Phillips factory line job to Uber - better hours, sees his kid, doesn't break his back.
All types of workers need better protections all round, but legislating to eliminate a category which is self evidently popular with _some_ workers is not the way to do it