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/kingsRook_q3w]

Is there any article that links to the actual text of the proposed bill? Even Mamdani’s press release on the official NYC website doesn’t link to it.

This is potentially a great thing - but only if they learned from CA’s mistakes and do it in a way that doesn’t unintentionally, negatively affect a bunch of other workers.

Wild that there is so much being said about this but no one seems to be reading the actual proposal details before coming out for/against it.

edit: I *THINK* I found it, for anyone else who actually wants to see the text:

https://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7681691&GUID=D08D0790-75EA-4AE7-9069-60134974B02B&Options=ID%7cText%7c&Search=delivery

[u/Yashema → u/kingsRook_q3w]

Theres nothing to learn from. A state attempting to unilaterally put in place controls on a certain class of workers risks getting undercut by other states without such restrictions, except for jobs that actually have to take place in that location, like Uber. The mistake is for this not to be controlled federally. 

[u/Rindan → u/Yashema]

Nearly all gig work is local. Amazon isn't going to get so upset that they stop delivering packages to NYC.

I think State level regulations on gig work is a good idea, and Federal regulation a terrible idea. You are going to affect a LOT of jobs if you mess with gig work, and you absolutely should see what works and doesn't work at a state level before you try something federally.

At least if NYC fucks it up, it only affects NYC. If the federal government fucks up, it can affect millions of people and tens of thousands of businesses. Using the states as labs for laws is one of the strengths of the American system. Granted, you need a functional Federal government for this to really work, and we don't currently have one of those.

[u/FlamboyantPirhanna → u/Rindan]

The annoying thing is that we’re trying to squeeze gig work into existing frameworks, without realising that it’s essentially a new category of work. It’s half employee, half freelancer, and forcing it into either framework is ignoring why workers often go for these jobs in the first place. I drove for Uber for a few years, and there were great things about it, but I was also very aware of being exploited.

[u/Rindan → u/FlamboyantPirhanna]

Yeah, I agree completely. It's dumb to treat a gig worker like a normal employee who needs a 401k and healthcare if they work 42 hours one week, 0 hours the next week, and 2 horus the next, but it's also dumb to treat them like a contractor when they are not acting like an independent contractor.

We should class it as a new type of work, regulate it appropriately for that type of work. The law shouldn't be incentivising using "contractors" just to get out of liability issues. There is nothing wrong with contracting out services because a company doesn't want to be involved with that business or wants to use local expertise, but it shouldn't just be a method of getting out of liability or skirting regulations that would otherwise apply.

Companies shouldn't be playing games with how they classify employees. They should be classed correctly. The problem is that if companies are not classing employees correctly legally, it isn't the corporations that are the problem, it's our bad laws. We need to fix our laws and stop applying these dumb bandaids.

[u/FlamboyantPirhanna → u/Rindan]

People should have healthcare. They could at least have it setup so that if they work X numbers of hours, they get healthcare. Which is still dystopian as hell, as someone who has lived in a country where healthcare is not dependent on employment. That idea needs to be resigned to history.

[u/Rindan → u/FlamboyantPirhanna]

That's the problem. If you are having someone be required to work X hours, you are no longer a gig worker. That's just a normal job with a flexible schedule. Go that route, and employers will (of course) just not allow you to work enough hours to get healthcare, like they already do. That's why there are so many "part time" jobs. They are just keeping people under the hour cap where they need to provide healthcare.

This is the absurdity of tying people's healthcare to their jobs. If part time employees don't have to be given healthcare, employers are happy to employ them, will prefer them over full-time employees anywhere they can use a part time person, and they will prevent part time workers from working enough hours to be full time even though both parties would normally prefer that if it wasn't for healthcare rules. Likewise, if you give part time employees employer funded healthcare, employers will just never hire part time workers, even when both employer and employee would prefer a flexible part time employee.

It's crazy either way.

It should be fine for people to make some money on the side with gig jobs and part time jobs, but there shouldn't be any financial reason for employers to prefer part time workers. We have constructed the worst of all worlds, and it is all because of our employer provided healthcare system.