I strongly agree with Fred Wilson that Hillary Clinton's remarks were spot-on (or close enough), and that we should welcome this discussion in the political arena rather than bristling at it. The gig economy offers some very tangible and valuable benefits to both consumers and "employees", but there are a lot of unanswered questions regarding what this means for worker rights and quality of life. If we just handwave it away, we could wind up with decades or more of bad policy that keeps people poor and victimized, rather than better off and empowered.<p>I was very glad that Hillary Clinton took a sophisticated view of the situation and didn't just bash on a fashionable subject. I hope other candidates follow her lead and we have an actual interesting discussion.
As a bit of an aside, not everyone is convinced that there is an ongoing transition to a gig economy. Uber is just replacing one kind of freelancer with another one, so isn't a great example of a net shift. And the macroeconomic statistics if anything are trending away from self-employment towards full-time employment: <a href="https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/255258/We-Are-Not-a-Nation-of-Freelancers/" rel="nofollow">https://www.economy.com/dismal/analysis/datapoints/255258/We...</a><p>I think the questions the post raises are good ones, though.
This will only work if gigs are well paid and allow you to pay for expenses during the off periods.<p>In theory this is great and already happens in the IT sector of some countries.<p>In practice I suspect that as years go by the salaries will go lower as the gig-economy becomes standard.<p>But by then there will be another problem too: robotics.<p>In the end the solution will have to include a basic salary for everyone. Those who work get something extra.
Flexibility of choosing the type & the time of work seems like a win, in the gig (freelance) economy. However commoditization of such jobs could force the income down for many. This may result in the increase in the number of hours people work and that could result in health issues. With no health insurance & other benefits, overall quality of life could decrease for many. However Gig economy is here to stay.<p>In these conditions how can workers, government & businesses collaborate to provide better working conditions for those involved?
Considering Instacart now offers its couriers an option to sign up as employees, I'd be curious to see how many take them up on that offer.<p>A part-time employee status (vs contractor) generally comes with loss of control over one's working hours, 30-hour weekly caps (to avoid the ACA penalty), and compensation setup that involves some kind of (likely minimum) wage + bonus instead of straight-up 1099 income.<p>Most of the gig economy (Uber, TaskRabbit, PostMates) is built around flexibility of hours, and freedom to not only accept a gig, but to refuse one (which you lose if you're in an employer-employee relationship and the boss is simply assigning it to you).
One of Fred Wilson's partners, Albert Wenger, also penned a post touching on this today[0]. Both are worth reading.<p>[0] <a href="http://continuations.com/post/124069363855/debating-the-gig-economy-going-past-industrial" rel="nofollow">http://continuations.com/post/124069363855/debating-the-gig-...</a>
The idea that "gigs" mean working when one wants and being off when one doesn't is a fantasy. Bars don't hire bands on weekdays while the kids are in school and they run open-mike on Tuesday nights and karaoke on Wednesdays.
<i>Cavete cooperatorem.</i>
The problem with this is: if you already cringe at the idea of the government regulating a market, then see how much you like a <i>company</i> regulating it.
Benjamen Walker recently released a 3 part podcast called _Instaserfs_ examining the sharing economy. It's worth a listen: <a href="https://toe.prx.org/2015/06/instaserfs-i-of-iii/" rel="nofollow">https://toe.prx.org/2015/06/instaserfs-i-of-iii/</a>
Think about the political clout that the Public School Teachers union carries (with ~2.7m members) (1)<p>The largest international employer stands as WalMart with 2.2 million employees (2).<p>Uber just a few days back announced a plan to hire 1,000,000 WOMEN drivers over the next 5 years (3)<p>Now posturing or not, assuming that somehow Uber pulled that off and they'll be the world's largest employer in less than a decade.<p>It's amazing that politicians seem so slow on the up-take here and the opportunity to address the people that are caught in the machinery of the sharing economy.<p>(1) <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_the_United_States" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_trade_unions_in_the_Un...</a><p>(2) As of 2012 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_employers</a><p>(3) <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/10/technology/uber-women-drivers/" rel="nofollow">http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/10/technology/uber-women-driver...</a>
"We should not be afraid of this discussion. We should embrace it and have it."<p>That's true, but that's not what happens when a politician, and especially one as highly profiled as Hillary Clinton, delivers a speech. Politicians <i>never</i> raise "hard questions" when then don't have the exact answer already worked out.<p>This was not Hilary starting a discussion. This was Hilary pledging allegiance to the unions.
Yesterday, I read a few articles that blatantly accused Hillary of being against Uber... yet if what was quoted was actually said... I can't believe people are making such outrageous claims about her. I just lose some respect for some publications that did this.
Hillary is hedging.<p>paraphrasing: "They're creating exciting new things but we need to regulate".<p>Without many specifics; it's just not saying anything.<p>Do you know what she's saying?
meanwhile in Canada, our politicians will do everything to make sure Uber doesn't hurt the prestigous monopoly of overpriced and shitty taxi industry or anything.
The Gig Economy happened before. In the 1930s, itinerant workers called "hobos" traveled the country looking for work and food. Despite the negative reputation of the word today, hobos were actually considered to be some of the hardest workers. They had to be; they were barely surviving.<p>The difference now is that corporate executives, flush with VC money, are able to monetize the emerging desperation economy (oh, I'm sorry-- I forgot about HN's anti-"negativity" policy-- <i>sharing</i> economy) more effectively than ever before.<p>The transition started with FMC (Former Middle Class) driving for Uber and subletting their apartments for extra cash, but it does seem to be spreading. For the record, I'm not especially against its existence. I would rather see our legislators interested in fighting the meltdown of the middle class itself than being focused on something that is, at worst, one of the symptoms.
There is a major reason for this: Obamacare<p>Small companies are more reluctant to hire for fear of having to pay employee insurance if they have over 50 employees, under the employer mandate.<p>Other factors include the inexorable trend towards more efficiency and productivity. These are forces beyond anyone's control.<p>Then you have huge competition for for even low-level service jobs, leaving many job seekers with no option but to choose 'gig' jobs. But you also have instances of people making more money with gig jobs than they would have in a regular job. Some people also hold gig jobs and regular jobs.
If that were true only the most desperate would choose uber/airbnb/oDesk etc. I believe that's not true, even though low-value work is cheap, the good/popular ones can sell themselves at the price of their choosing. Isn't that plain free market with the flexibility of working whenever you choose, and a more productive/economic allocation of resources?<p>Work history is an issue, but i cannot see why it cannot be easily solved with a law that gives these workers the rights to their work history. Will these companies object to that?