[HN Gopher] 'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee ...
___________________________________________________________________
'So immoral': gig economy workers forced to pay fee to receive
their wages
Author : zfg
Score : 78 points
Date : 2025-01-11 23:35 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| like_any_other wrote:
| Tangential, but I think we're long overdue to fund employee
| benefits through taxes instead, which employers pay instead of
| being on the hook for e.g. paid medical/maternity/etc. On average
| employers would pay as much as now (unless they're abusing
| loopholes, e.g. gig work), there would be fewer loopholes, and
| small employers would be 'insured' against potentially ruinous
| hires - I know a handyman that won't hire an assistant, because
| of the risk of getting someone that would be on medical leave
| more than work, leaving the handyman on the hook for all his pay.
| This makes growing small (<10 people) businesses very difficult.
| zamadatix wrote:
| I thought businesses that small weren't on the hook for
| providing medical benefits under the ACA or for providing
| medical leave pay under the FMLA?
| like_any_other wrote:
| This was a few years ago in the EU, but I admit I'm not the
| most knowledgeable on employment law.
| zamadatix wrote:
| My bad I read taxes as Texas for some reason. I guess
| that's what just being on a red eye returning through Texas
| does to you!
| herczegzsolt wrote:
| Taxes may be part of a solution, but don't expect them to solve
| this problem alone.
|
| In most EU states you pay taxes to provide medical care to
| employees. If an employee gets sick or otherwise unable to
| work, you are usually required to continue paying those taxes
| even if the employee does zero workhours.
|
| The key part to help small businesses is to mitigate their risk
| of dispropotional cost. Does not matter if it's a tax or any
| other payable.
| glitchc wrote:
| Is that single-payer healthcare?
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| > fund employee benefits through taxes instead
|
| This is already true, at least in part. Not only do employers
| get to fully deduct the cost of almost all employee benefits
| from their taxable income, but in most cases (e.g. health
| insurance) they also do not have to pay their share of employer
| payroll taxes (Soc. Sec and Medicare tax).
| timewizard wrote:
| You should know that the Treasury is mostly funded by
| taxpayers. If we break down total receipts into the Treasury
| 85% come from individual tax returns, 7% come from business tax
| returns, and 7% from excise taxes.
| olliej wrote:
| So it's wage theft then? Gotta love the "disruptive" tech
| industry. Such innovation.
| JSTrading wrote:
| Scumbags as they were once called
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Why are YC's leadership and other VCs so vocal on shoplifting
| crime but never raise their voice against rampant wage theft in
| our industry? The criminality by dollar value is far worse with
| the latter
| coldpie wrote:
| Because they're the ones benefiting from the wage theft, and
| complaining about low-level crime helps elect politicians
| that are more likely to overlook that wage theft.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| That sounds hypocritical and deceptive to frame it as
| supporting being hard on crime in general yet selectively
| applied
| turzmo wrote:
| It's neither hypocritical nor deceptive. It's simply
| selfish.
| nine_zeros wrote:
| So a fraud? Can they be sued in court for fraud?
| surfingdino wrote:
| There's probably a waiver in the contract signed by temp
| workers giving the platform freedom to change terms of
| payments.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| "Gig workers" gets the headline, but this is really just
| highlighting that contractors of all sorts get shafted with
| regards to payment timelines.
|
| "Standard 30+ day delay" is pretty common for contractors of all
| sorts, and is part of the reason contracting rates should be so
| much higher than standard employment. But it's kinda shitty and
| usually due to laziness on the corp's part rather than any
| particular actuarial reason.
| Bloating wrote:
| add, this is typical whether your a single employee contractor
| or a multiple employee contractor with the least leverage in
| the deal. Its a fact of real life, not a ploy against the self-
| employeed
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > We're deeply concerned that companies will try to get around
| the law and continue to exploit vulnerable workers by pretending
| they are self-employed when they should enjoy the full protection
| of the law.
|
| This is really the crux of the issue: why do we pretend that gig
| workers don't deserve the same benefits and protections that
| proper employees do? Even referring to it as a "gig" makes it
| sound more like a hobby than a livelihood.
|
| EDIT: yea sorry I meant to imply "wages and wage guarantees" as
| well but I just shoved it in with "benefits and protections"
| whimsicalism wrote:
| ideally benefits should be provided by the state or out of
| pocket, not by employers - imposing requirements like full
| benefit coverage for gig workers would likely lower employment
| rates
| asdfman123 wrote:
| I can't help but feel the problem is that someone becomes "full
| time" in the US after exactly 40 hours.
|
| I feel like some kind of gradient system would be ideal. Like
| if you work 10 hours a week you get 25% of the cash value of
| benefits. That way, a company wouldn't be incentivized to keep
| them right below the limit.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| This is such a great idea that I'm surprised I've never read
| anyone suggest it in all of my professional life.
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Honestly I think the whole system runs on "let's pretend
| we're doing stuff for the workers but create loopholes so
| big business doesn't have to actually comply."
| whimsicalism wrote:
| the ideal would be no benefits, just cash - and a negative
| income tax at the lower scales.
|
| catastrophic insurance can be paid by the state.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| What are those benefits that don't scale with salary?
|
| I know the US has that health-care thing, is it just that or
| there are other ones that need a cut time somewhere?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why do we pretend that gig workers don 't deserve the same
| benefits and protections that proper employees do?_
|
| Because some--in some cases, many--of them don't. And in many
| cases, _e.g._ healthcare, it's unclear why we're still bundling
| something into employment that properly should be separate.
|
| Extending employment protection to gig workers is a simple
| solution. But it probably leaves many of them worse off than
| they are now. (Also, most full-time employees are paid up to 14
| days after post.)
| casenmgreen wrote:
| > And in many cases, e.g. healthcare, it's unclear why we're
| still bundling something into employment that properly should
| be separate.
|
| This, one million times over.
|
| I read an account describing how things came to be as they
| are.
|
| Apparently, it all started during WW2.
|
| The Government controlled wages, and so some wages were too
| high and some too low, and for those set too low, it became
| difficult to get staff.
|
| To make employment more remunerative, employers began to add
| benefits on the side - such as health insurance - and these
| were not taxed, either.
|
| The Government eventually noticed this was happening, and
| moved to tax such benefits, and discontent with this was so
| widespread the Government backed off.
|
| So then we end up with health insurance as a non-taxable
| benefit tacked on to employment.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| yeah basically the only reason we have the current system
| is due to tax preferencing and any attempt at reform (like
| Obama's cadillac tax) is opposed by broad interests
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _only reason we have the current system is due to tax
| referencing_
|
| What is tax referencing?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| oops dropped a p
| airstrike wrote:
| Same reason why high paying jobs like consultants, bankers,
| lawyers have a bunch of "perks" associated with those roles
| brightball wrote:
| Pretty much, but what was left off is the union demands for
| healthcare as an employment benefit that truly entrenched
| the practice in the US.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _what was left off is the union demands for healthcare
| as an employment benefit that truly entrenched the
| practice in the US_
|
| Source?
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Pretty much, but what was left off is the union demands
| for healthcare as an employment benefit that truly
| entrenched the practice in the US.
|
| This just doesn't make any sense--single payer would free
| up the union to fight for more. Literally just the sunk
| cost fallacy.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _single payer would free up the union to fight for
| more_
|
| Do unions in single-payer countries typically have
| healthcare goodies?
| stuaxo wrote:
| This story is from the UK where we healthcare is not bundled
| up with being employed, so it's even more of an outlier.
| Yeul wrote:
| In the Netherlands gig economy workers weren't paying into
| the pension or unemployment system.
|
| The wheels move slowly but once they grind nothing can stop
| it. The self employed are being reintegrated into the Borg
| collective.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| What is the difference between a "gig worker" and an
| independent contractor?
|
| Jason Snell, the former editor of Macworld went independent
| after getting laid off from MacWorld. He purposefully put
| together streams of income consisting of podcasting, writing
| articles for different magazines - including MacWorld, writing
| for his own blog and writing technical books.
|
| He said out of those, because of the initial laws passed in
| California, it made it harder for him to be what in essence was
| a gig worker when writing for various websites.
|
| The little time I did spend doing C2C contracting, I also had
| net 30 payment terms.
|
| Yes I realize it's different for the gig workers in the
| article. But the last thing we need is laws that affect all
| "gig workers" whether they make $10/hour or whether they are
| making $150/hour.
|
| On that note, I did pay a third party company $10/hour for a
| short term contract that I had with a former CTO. It would have
| been too much work on both ends to get me approved to work
| directly for the company so I became a subcontractor for an
| established company to make every thing easier even though I
| found the initial contract.
| stuaxo wrote:
| It's in your answer: the difference is low wages vs well
| paid.
|
| Once you get paid the amounts that people are in the "gig
| economy" it becomes exploitative, people don't have enough to
| live or to get out of their situation easily.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I would be okay with laws that distinguish between when a
| worker is expected to make less than $X per hour or per
| job.
| jandrese wrote:
| Contractors get to negotiate how much they are paid.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Gig workers do too. Isn't the idea behind surge pricing is
| that people decide whether it is worth them working or not?
| daveguy wrote:
| It's not the workers that get to decide surge pricing or
| wages. The employer decides that, and they keep the extra
| money for themselves.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Employers don't keep the extra amount. If that were the
| case, the workers would have no motivation to work or to
| get the supply/demand in balance.
|
| I don't get to "choose" how much I make. I just get to
| choose whether the amount of money I'm being offered per
| hour is worth my time.
| daveguy wrote:
| The point is, you're not the one deciding the split. You
| don't think the majority of the revenue goes to you over
| the ride share company, do you?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _not the workers that get to decide surge pricing or
| wages. The employer decides that_
|
| Ridesharing seems like a relatively-efficient market.
| Nobody is singularly setting the rate.
|
| We _could_ switch to a two-sided market where every time
| you book a ride you enter a reserve and maximum price,
| and then drivers enter their reserve and minimum and the
| system matches for a fee. And then we can watch a
| competitor eat our lunch because literally nobody wants
| to do that.
| burningChrome wrote:
| While this is true, you don't control how many hours you're
| allowed to work.
|
| I've worked on several projects were I was promised an FTE
| conversion after performing really well during a project.
| My manager said the company wanted to keep me around and
| convert me to an FTE spot. Within weeks of my project being
| released, they dangled the conversion out in front of me
| while reducing my hours to 20-25 a week. I fell for it for
| a few weeks and then decided they had no intention of
| converting me, it was just to keep me around for various
| other shit work their devs didn't want to do so I moved on
| - another perk of being a contractor/part-time/"gig"
| employee.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| This is another benefit of being a "gig worker". I meet
| plenty of Uber drivers who do it just for extra side
| money and they can do it whenever they want to.
|
| I met one lady who was from another city and came to town
| to spend time with her child and grand children. Her
| daughter was at work during the day and her grandkids
| were in school. She drove Uber during the day, during the
| week when she was bored and wanted a little extra money.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Because the term "gig work" carries a history of being used for
| skilled tradespeople with high trust and high independence
| independently selling their work one gig at a time. The
| professionals maintain high independence by choice and have
| uncommon, balancing leverage when it comes to negotiating with
| clients because of the expertise they bring.
|
| The esteem ad other associations of that usage are now given to
| untrained drivers, personal shoppers, and cashiers because it
| helps technology firms avoid traditional worker protections.
| timewizard wrote:
| Taking on unskilled gig work is the modern equivalent to
| moving into a scrip town.
| duxup wrote:
| Hell the whole gig thing is putting risk / cost of demand
| changes onto the worker.
| wvenable wrote:
| We gave less rights to part-time workers so companies just
| started making as many part-time as possible. If you create a
| loop-hole it will be exploited.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| Pretty much this. The ACA that said you had to offer health
| insurance to employees working over 30h / wk? Well, guess
| what, you're now only working 29.5.
|
| We should have just expanded medicare to cover everyone, but
| no, that'd give too much power to the workers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _should have just expanded medicare to cover everyone_
|
| Maybe the solution is to go piecemeal. We already have
| Medicaid for the poor--raise the limit on that. Expand
| Medicare to children and pregnant women. _Et cetera_.
|
| > _that 'd give too much power to the workers_
|
| Medicare For All isn't popular [1]. There isn't a
| conspiracy, just people being cautious about a complicated
| and important topic.
|
| [1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/468401/majority-say-gov-
| ensure-...
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I think if you put it to the American people as a
| referendum 'Hey, we're going to get rid of private
| insurance and put everyone on Medicare, here's the budget
| estimate from the CBO' I'm quite confident it would pass.
|
| The sheer _earned_ disdain I 've seen expressed for
| health insurance providers recently makes me hope this is
| some sort of 'Abe Moment' for the US where even
| conservatives can acknowledge the majority of Americans
| are sickened by what our healthcare system has become.
| bombcar wrote:
| It'd almost certainly fail, because for many people (who
| haven't researched much) they consider "Medicare" the
| same as "crappy healthcare".
|
| You're much better off boiling the frog by expanding the
| availability of medicare through various means until
| almost everyone _has it as an option_ even if they 're
| not using it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The employer should obviously be paying to use what is
| essentially a SaaS payment platform like ADP, Paylocity, etc.
| johnea wrote:
| I complain about this at the other end of the cash flow cycle all
| the time: having to pay to pay.
|
| When a service, often my local municipality, charges a fee to pay
| a fee.
|
| VISA is arguably the biggest mafia organization in the world...
| 3% of all retain sales worldwide? Why?
|
| With the proliferation of 3rd party "payment processors", and the
| accompanying crimes commited, The Fed has instituted a central
| bank hosted instant payment system:
|
| https://www.frbservices.org/financial-services/fednow/about....
|
| But almost no one uses it. Why is that? Do people really want
| their money locked up in stripe or paypal?
| op00to wrote:
| Send a check. That's free.
| mosburger wrote:
| Almost no one uses FedNow (which would theoretically bring the
| U.S. almost on-par with European Open Banking) because the
| banks really don't have much incentive to integrate with it,
| especially if they're the ones making money by issuing debit
| and credit cards.
| johnea wrote:
| The banks making money off of the shakedown is certainly a
| part of the problem.
|
| But I bank at a local credit union, and I've mentioned FedNow
| to about 5 different branch managers. So far, no one has even
| heard of it 8-/
|
| They just cancelled a relationship with zelle (which I didn't
| like or use), and I've suggested that tehy replace it with
| FedNow, but no one even knows what i'm talking about.
|
| p.s. Love your username mosburger! My favorite Japanese fast
| food chain! Especially for their offering of the
| YasaiBurger...
| adolph wrote:
| The answer is transaction costs. Details at patio11:
|
| https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/
| whimsicalism wrote:
| To receive their wages _within 30 days_. This is basically just
| an inhouse bundled payday loan program. imo they should probably
| be required to pay out at the normal biweekly timescale, but it's
| not nearly as awful as this title makes out
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| For my clients, I handle this simply. Payment due upon receipt
| of invoice. Then, I stop working until paid. Then I resume
| their project (re-queue it in my workflow).
|
| Resorted to this after not ever getting paid too often.
| cr125rider wrote:
| The problem is if you stop working as a gig worker you get
| replaced almost immediately because the barrier to work is
| incredibly low. The company never even feels a change.
| AndrewGaspar wrote:
| This is kind of a weird framing. 30 days is longer period than
| probably acceptable, but most people get regular, lagging
| biweekly paychecks rather than getting their paycheck paid out
| continuously in infinitesimal chunks.
| Symbiote wrote:
| The article is about the UK.
|
| It's normal for people working temporary jobs (such as factory
| or cleaning work) to be paid weekly.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| You missed the point.
|
| They don't want to treat these workers as employees (so they
| can skip paying out benefits) but pay them like employees (at
| the end of the month; in fact even worse than that).
| graypegg wrote:
| > "freelance" retail assistants
|
| How is that a gig at this point? It's a temp agency. Temp
| agencies cannot do this in the UK right? A cursory low-effort
| google returns some laws. [0] I'm sure they have legions of
| lawyers ready to argue their unique and disruptive business model
| has never been seen on the british isles before but I have
| trouble seeing this as anything other than a temp agency.
|
| [0] https://www.gov.uk/employment-agencies-and-businesses
| _fat_santa wrote:
| Just wait, pretty soon we will have "fee fees". A fee charged so
| the company can charge more fees.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Let's face it, we're getting there. TicketMaster, similarly,
| with its convenience fees:
|
| - want to get your ticket 'delivered' via email? Convenience
| Fee!
|
| - want it mailed to you? Convenience Fee!
|
| - want to pick it up at the box office? Convenience Fee!
|
| When you consider all your available delivery options to be
| "convenient", it's just a fee.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| innovation, ftw! /s
| ge96 wrote:
| I got lucky, I wrecked my car (not while doing a gig) but my
| insurance company was like "were you doing a gig job?". Had to
| prove I wasn't. I don't get in many wrecks, had 1 in my life so
| far that was this bad (totaled car).
|
| edit: I'm aware you're supposed to get some kind of special
| business insurance but at the time I was not aware of that.
| Thankfully this insurance company who I had been with for almost
| 10 years honored my claim.
|
| I am glad I'm able to drive on the side. Turn it on and go nice
| to have extra cash. I am aware of the instant pay (fee) but I
| also like that vs. waiting for ACH to clear day(s) later.
| null0pointer wrote:
| > Had to prove I wasn't.
|
| How did you prove it? What is their standard of evidence? My
| intuition says it would be difficult to prove a negative.
| jandrese wrote:
| I would think the burden is on them to prove that you were.
| They were just digging for a reason to deny the claim.
|
| If the police report mentions an second individual in the car
| unrelated to you then they might start digging around for
| your name in Uber or Lyft, but most of the time that is
| probably just a standard question to screw over the unwary.
| ge96 wrote:
| Screenshot of my (gig) app history, I guess arguably that can
| be faked
|
| I do food deliveries primarily since my car isn't accepted as
| a passenger car
| etblg wrote:
| How come your car isn't accepted as a passenger car? 2 door
| coupe or something? Delivery van?
| ge96 wrote:
| Yeah doors/small and uncomfortable. I wish I could drive
| people (makes more) but at the same time I got my car for
| me. It's not a fancy car I wish, once I'm not in
| debt/have more money I want to graduate to cooler cars
| like a Lotus Exige.
|
| As an aside, delivery can be fun as far as exploring a
| city and meeting random people (mostly the food workers)
| but it's a way to get out. I am destroying my car though
| putting like 1000 miles a week on it or more.
|
| I think once I'm out of debt I won't drive/donate plasma
| anymore and just use my spare time for other things
| provided a have a good paying job like I do now.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| [deleted]
| do_not_redeem wrote:
| Out of touch. Imagine trying to tell your landlord or the
| grocery store they'll get their money in 30 days, and by the
| way thanks for the food!
| amazingamazing wrote:
| [deleted]
| do_not_redeem wrote:
| Your friends are not the ones I was calling out of touch.
|
| The company in the OP set up "a new payment system" without
| warning to their workers, and now people are getting paid
| 30 days later than previously agreed upon. If you think
| that the average person won't be impacted by not getting
| paid for a month, then yes, I stand by my statement.
| amazingamazing wrote:
| [deleted]
| hamandcheese wrote:
| > but they aren't being charged to get their money.
|
| They literally are. The deal was altered so that what
| used to be free now charges a fee.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| We're talking gig workers here. Can you not imagine someone
| on such apps might be living under tighter constraints than
| a well paid software engineer paid once a month?
| hamandcheese wrote:
| "Gig workers" have less consistent hours, and are probably
| much poorer than your monthly salaried friend. Picking up
| some extra shifts to pay for unexpected expenses is a sad
| but common reality. Charging them a fee to not wait 30 days
| is definitely exploitative.
| Bloating wrote:
| Are these folks forced into "gig" work?
|
| It used to cost me maybe 25 cents for a cup of coffee. Now, its
| like $25 to get my Starbuck's double-decaffeinated half-caf with
| a twist delivered by Doordash.
|
| Gotta gig, 'cause the Inflation is Real, boomer!
| schappim wrote:
| PayPal does the same thing if you want to "instantly" transfer
| your own money to your bank account.
| cr125rider wrote:
| They make a lot of money "on the float" by holding onto funds
| and investing them until you cash out.
| Funes- wrote:
| Well, in Spain you have to pay a minimum 200EUR fee every month
| just for the government to let you be self-employed, even if you
| make 0EUR (and it gets steeper and steeper the higher your income
| is), on top of every other tax you also need to account for. Talk
| about immoral.
| bell-cot wrote:
| About the Title: The Guardian's title is now "...gig economy
| workers charged fee to get paid quicker". (They note that as a
| correction to their prior version of the article.) So the whole
| story is more-or-less about an extra-bonus-sleazy payday loan
| scheme.
|
| About the Health Insurance angle: The article is about YoungOnes
| - which claims to only operate in the UK and Netherlands. Both of
| which counties have national health systems. (And the article is
| so UK-centric that I see no mention at all of the Netherlands.)
| frenchmajesty wrote:
| Gig work is the dirt underbelly of the economy:
|
| > Enough demand that it can generate revenue, not enough revenue
| that it creates incentives for high-loyalty structure --which is
| what you do when you care about your employees and want to keep
| them working for you.
|
| If Uber loses one driver, there is a thousand that would gladly
| replace them and get paid same day, in cash, pre-tax at a higher
| hourly rate than they can get in the job market (Amazon
| warehouse, Fast Food, etc...), with a lot more control of their
| time.
|
| How do you compete? The companies know and have no incentive to
| hire.
|
| Meanwhile, if legislation is passed to force them to do it,
| they're likely to dramatically cut driver headcount to keep their
| already shitty P&L healthy and will cause 100s of thousands to
| lose their main income source and a 1000x increase in costs for
| consumers. (Bad outcome for all parties involved)
|
| As it stands the economics of that business model are too messed
| up for a good path forward to exist.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Not that it makes ok but these terms are basically no different
| and perhaps in some specific cases better (the cards had a myriad
| of fees for various transaction types) than the sort of scummy
| prepaid visa tied to a debit account crap that temp agencies have
| been loading people's pay onto for more than a decade now.
| 486sx33 wrote:
| This has been happening to truckers for a long time now
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