New Work Rules Could Impact the "Gig" Economy

[bjl584]

Biden administration issues rule that could curb 'gig' work, contracting (cnbc.com)

[ua_guy]

Good. Employees should be treated like employees, and contractors like contractors. Contract labor has been a honey pot for certain types of businesses to skirt established employment law and other obligations, and we all know and see it.

I went to a religious university, believe it or not. Felt like half of my business degree was spent discussing ethics and following a moral principle (religious or not) when it comes to the very gray areas of conducting business in the absence of legislation. I could not, will not, ever do things to others such as some of these companies do. I would not sleep at night.

[riverwed070707]

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around them being employees if they are economically dependent on the company. Who decides? Does this mean if I'm a college student who shops instacart in order to pay my bills while maintaining a flexible schedule to do my studies I'm now an employee even though I set my own hours and decide what jobs to take but my retired uncle who does the same to stay busy is not because he's not dependent on the work to pay his bills? I understand the underlying objective of worker protections but it comes off as discriminatory - once they are employees and the company has to pay taxes and benefits for them, what stops the company from assigning schedules and routes? Defeats the purpose and success model of a lot of gig based work.

[ua_guy]

The rule is even less stringent than California state law. Not sure about Instacart, but Uber/Lyft commented in the article that it is unlikely to change their existing classifications. This really does sound like it is designed to reclassify workers as employees where employers are taking gross advantage of workers under an IC employment model. There is no proposal to eliminate or totally reclassify gig work in this rule.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I think that a lot of "contractors" are basically employees but without any benefits.