For all their triumphalist talk of ascendant demography and permanent majorities, Democrats have never really come to terms with the slow death of the labor movement. Unions have never been less relevant than they are today in the modern economy. Where they have not been obviated by workplace health and safety rules, they are being […]
New Jersey Orders Uber to Pay $650 Million in Employment Taxes for Drivers…
Uber has been ordered to pay close to $650 million in employment taxes in New Jersey after the state’s department of labor said the ride-sharing company misclassified its drivers as independent contractors, according to a Bloomberg report. Bloomberg Law first reported Thursday that New Jersey has hit Uber and subsidiary Rasier LLC with $523 million […]
Lyft and Other Gig-Economy Giants Cash in with IPOs Before Labor Laws Catch Up with Them…
Gig-economy companies Lyft, Uber, and Postmates are racing to file IPOs this year, a mad dash replete with ever-increasing multibillion-dollar valuations. But is the rush to start trading on the public markets also a sprint to evade compliance with current labor law? Recent financial and lobbyist filings suggest that the gig-economy giants are hoping to […]
1000 Cuts. Gig Economy, Entrepreneur and Gov Licensing…
Can we agree that professional licensing requirements are meant to be exclusionary? Whatever opportunity there was, that door is being closed. Can we also agree that the government doesn’t create anything? Every penny they spend on this or that is a tax. Some taxes fund the civic virtues, schools, hospitals, entitlements, a bunch of good…
The Oligarchs’ ‘Guaranteed Basic Income’ Scam by Chris Hedges…
A number of the reigning oligarchs—among them Mark Zuckerberg (net worth $64.1 billion), Elon Musk (net worth $20.8 billion), Richard Branson (net worth $5.1 billion) and Stewart Butterfield (net worth $1.6 billion)—are calling for a guaranteed basic income. It looks progressive. They couch their proposals in the moral language of caring for the destitute and […]
‘The Gig Economy’ Is the New Term for Serfdom by Chris Hedges…
A 65-year-old New York City cab driver from Queens, Nicanor Ochisor, hanged himself in his garage March 16, saying in a note he left behind that the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft had made it impossible for him to make a living. It was the fourth suicide by a cab driver in New York in […]
The Uber Crash Is Just the Start: How the Gig Economy Threatens the Future of Work …
Uber, the embodiment of the sharing economy, was once again propelled into the spotlight on March 19, 2018, after one of its self-driving cars struck and killed a pedestrian in Arizona. This has resulted in renewed debate over the safety of Uber’s driverless cars, as well as over its illegal and unethical tactics of skirting […]