U.S. Labor Secretary throws support behind classifying gig workers as employees
This is just such a weird fight. As someone who freelanced for long stretches of time, I think there are a lot of positives about freelance &#x2F; gig work, and I also think that the majority of people who take these jobs understand the position they’re in and are happy with it. They chose to freelance and drive for Uber for reasons.<p>The legit concern is whether Uber or any other freelance company misleads its gig workers on their earnings, and to me the best solution to that is not to force reclassify them as employees or prohibit gig work, but to regulate transparency in compensation. For example, require freelance employers to include expense tracking and calculate workers earnings after expenses. That by itself would fix most of the problems for the percentage of gig workers who don’t realize they’re extracting depreciation from their car more so than getting paid by Uber.<p>The other issues of healthcare, etc., the US needs to solve at a societal level, not an employer level. I think humans have a right to health care. But I don’t think people have a right to a <i>particular</i> job, nor an entitlement for that employer to provide a <i>particular</i> mix of benefits.<p>This idea that we need to provide our social contract &#x2F; safety net exclusively via employers is so strange to me, compared to simply owning that if we want these to be rights of our citizens then the government should be providing them as tax-paid services.