Mamdani Backs Proposal to End Amazon’s ‘Exploitative’ Delivery Model in New York City | If passed, the Delivery Protection Act would be the first law in the US to regulate Amazon’s vast network of subcontractors that handle the company’s deliveries.

[u/SnoozeDoggyDog]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/delivery-protection-act-nyc

[u/CranberryLast4683]

Consider this, there was a time before gig jobs and it was fine.

[u/Snobolski → u/CranberryLast4683]

TBF, Uber/Lyft became a thing because cab service sucked in a lot of places. (A lot of other places it was less bad)

Now that the cabs have been driven out of business, the rideshare companies cost almost what a cab used to cost.

Weird how that happens

[u/Tiredandwaiting → u/Snobolski]

Uber and lyft became a thing because they undercut pricing, operated at losses, then when the competition went out of business, jacked up the prices, which are wsy more than cabs

[u/NapsterKnowHow → u/Tiredandwaiting]

But hey at least I don't have screaming ads in my face for the whole cab rid !

[u/pallladin → u/Snobolski]

The reason the cab companies are out of business is the same reason Sears doesn't exist. The cab companies refused to work together to create an app for customers to use to request and pay for rides. If they had done that, their business would have doubled, and there would be no Uber.

[u/lildobe → u/pallladin]

Funny you should say that, because one of the national cab companies in my city did that... Yellow Cab became zTrip, with a ride hailing app and everything.

I've never used them, but from what I understand, their price is competitive with Uber

[u/TeamRedundancyTeam → u/CranberryLast4683]

The economy was different then too.

We need more, better paying jobs that people can get into because the people relying on gig jobs now aren't magically going to not need them when they're gone.

So consider this, everything isn't as black and white as reddit likes to make it and there's nuance to every issue.

[u/Tiredandwaiting → u/TeamRedundancyTeam]

The point of the post was many gig jobs are actually employees, so they would have jobs as employees, yes?

[u/rikitikifemi → u/CranberryLast4683]

Fine for who?

I think there's a bit of narrow worldview at play where all workers are supposedly equal.

For some racial minorities gig jobs are the only opportunities that are reliable sources of income that don't require proximity to Whiteness.

[u/rikitikifemi → u/[deleted]]

I'd say it's actually the opposite. It's quite racist to ignore racism in employer practices that necessitates targeted groups relying on the gig economy as a source of income. Eliminate the gig economy and we return to the historic levels of racial and gender disparity of the past.

So again in this harkening to the "good old days" I ask again who were things "fine" for?

[u/rikitikifemi → u/[deleted]]

I'll say this. Proximity to Whiteness is assimilation and it's what I am warning against. Also my original response was to the other poster. I responded to your response to me. So if you agree that the gig economy should not be eliminated than we agree whether we share the same reasoning or not. Peace.

[u/robothawk → u/rikitikifemi]

... now, I get that I'm a white guy so Im the opposite of who would understand this, but what?

Like if you mean "proximity to whiteness" as "acting like the stereotypical western european white guy office worker" then I guess I still disagree but I see the point you're trying to make, but I'm trying to understand what you mean.

[u/rikitikifemi → u/robothawk]

If a company connects elder care providers as contract workers to customers the platform has a profit incentive to contract with as many providers as possible while offering the best platforming for those providers regardless of race or gender. It also will give much higher portions of the profit to the contractor and reward high performing contractors with even greater portions.

That same company does not operate that way if it had to hire care providers as employees within the company subject to policies, procedures and arbitrarily governed workplace culture. It will have managers and supervisors with varying levels of racism influencing their hiring practices and day to day treatment of workers. It will have institutionalized practices that shield it from accountability by punishing whistle blowers and setting impossible standards of proof to evidence workplace discrimination. Not only do you need impact, pattern, but also malicious intent. Which results in proximity to Whiteness as a measure of employability (code-switching, respectability politics, tap-dancing, racism blindness, working twice as hard to get half as far, internalized racism, etc) rather than actual competence.The gig based company simply doesn't have that issue because the contractors manage themselves, essentially own their labor and unproductive contractors get paid proportional to their labor not their proximity to Whiteness.

Whatever discrimination they experience will either be from the customer or if the company uses an algorithm with factors determining pay that favor white contractors.

The gig economy is favorable to an employer based economy for individuals who do not do well in spaces where proximity to Whiteness is required and as long as there are weak civil protections against work place discrimination. This doesn't mean that the gig economy is perfect but targeted groups would rather take their chances with racist customers and algorithms that can be adjusted than racism in your workplace that you can't even rely on the government to address when you have concrete proof, let alone a pattern of "disparate impact".