Is there a particular problem with PTO? Personally, I prefer PTO over having separate vacation and sick days.
You are probably like me and rather healthy so its wonderful to get PTO you get extra vacation days without worrying about faking sick. On the other hand it creates situations where you’ve already booked a vacation and then get the flu and are presented with the choice of canceling your vacation because you don’t have enough vacation or going to work with the flu.
I really like 4 weeks of vacation per year to keep my head in the game. If my choice was between going to work sick or blow a vacation I’m taking dayquil and sitting at my desk every time and that sort of defeats the purpose of sick time. So now as an employer I have them in separate buckets plus I don’t have to pay out sick time when you quit or get fired.
I’m the only administrative-only staff. Everyone else has constant patient contact. If anybody willingly covers up an illness, that is a severe risk to patients with immunodeficiencies and grounds for immediate termination.
I can see your point but the nature of our work does not allow me to excuse deception and risks to patients health due to personal finances. If an employee can’t afford to even pay back an interest-free loan, we can try and work out some odd jobs after hours or something. Deception is crossing a bright line, triply so given the circumstances.
~Max
It’s effective if you fire anyone who coughs. I don’t think this is necessarily good policy mind you.
Currently it’s not the sick people who can’t pay their rent. Anyone who makes their living off of events, hospitality, etc. Is already feeling it.
I posted in another thread that the bartender at my restaurant tonight told me they’re working with half staff now. The hotel is empty (which means I was able to actually get a room at an allowable rate), ballrooms closed. The convention center has everything cancelled. The taxi and uber drivers have no business. I chatted with a guy who promotes parties. He has no business.
This is already bad and getting worse
No, because their right-wing ideology does not allow them to acknowledge that the concept of living wage even exists.
It’s somewhat a pointless question; one person’s living wage is another’s poverty wage, as it’s defined by household structure. My employer’s obligation to me is to meet the terms of my employment agreement. That doesn’t change if I choose to have another kid. My obligation to take care of myself and my family changes though.
Living wage, per the MIT calculator, surpasses $40/h for some families where I live. And there’s no theoretical celling for it, just like there isn’t a celling for the official poverty thresholds. So unless you know the specifics of each employee’s household, the answer to that question can* never* be “yes”.
…the world doesn’t revolve around the MIT calculator and it isn’t the only way to calculate the Living Wage. In New Zealand, for example,the living wage for 2019 was set at 21.15. That’s the **benchmark **for Living Wage accredited employers. That isn’t a variable rate that takes into account “household structures”.
Why is that important? Because the argument that **UltraVires **is making is that employees should be taking responsibility for setting aside money for sick pay themselves and if they can’t do it then “its their own damn fault.”
I would suggest that in order for an employee to be able to do this at the very least they would have to be earning the Living Wage. Anything less than the living wage would be almost impossible by definition. The Federally mandated minimum wage in America hasn’t changed in 10 years. Gig economy workers have it even worse: often (worldwide) being paid below the minimum wage.
This, of course, is all by design. The entire premise of the gig economy is that it is part of the “tech industry” and that workers in the industry aren’t really “workers at all.” Its the worlds biggest boondoggle rivalling the dot.com bubble in the 90’s and the entire industry (quite possibly because of this latest crisis) is at risk of a massive collapse.
But to put it simply: it would be a struggle for someone on the Living Wage to be able to put aside two weeks wages to cover them in case they were sick. It would be nearly impossible for most people working in the gig economy to do the same. The numbers don’t lie.
I don’t consider “gig economy workers” to be employees, therefore I’m with UltraVires in saying it would be unfair to hold employers accountable. Contrast with the part-time employees I described before, where it’s totally on me if they aren’t making a minimum wage.
Let’s say I want to hire a cleaning service. I give them square footage, location, etc. They give me a quote. I take the cheapest reasonable quote. It’s not my fault if these contractors are selling themselves short. If they take home less than the minimum wage, guess what? I’m not the employer, and I’m not on the hook.
I do have a moral obligation to pay a minimum, but not every business will agree with me on that. And there’s nothing I can do if it never comes to my attention that a contractor can’t make ends meet.
Sure, you could try and implement a “minimum wage” for gig workers. But good luck designing a law that applies to the people who contract for their services. There are just too many different kinds of jobs to legislate for. What are you going to do, try and write a law based on the assumption that it takes someone one hour to clean five hundred square feet? Different people take different amounts of time to do their jobs. There’s a quality difference, too. What about the cost of supplies? You know, some things are harder to clean than others. You can’t make hard and fast rules with all of these variables.
My point is that if the worker is self-employed, as is the case with gig workers (unless I’m wrong here), there’s no use in trying to protect them with a minimum wage law.
~Max
Of course it’s possible. The New Zealand number is arbitrary and quite frankly wrong if it’s static for all households and locations. That living wage isn’t enough for many people but is more than enough for others. I saved far more than two weeks of expenses while making much less. Have three kids? It’s not enough. And if I need more, it’s my responsibility to earn more.
…you’ve both just completely ignored my point and supported an argument that UltraVires never actually made. It doesn’t matter if you consider gig economy workers “employees” or not. Gig economy workers typically don’t make the living wage. Gig economy workers typically don’t even make the minimum wage. Lets for the sake of debate concede that “the employers shouldn’t be accountable.” How are you expecting gig economy workers to put aside money for sick time when most of them are running a deficit?
Bad analogy. Because it ignores what the gig economy actually is. Gig economy workers can’t negotiate. They don’t give you a quote. They aren’t “selling themselves short” because they can’t really sell themselves. The rates are set by the company. Their revenue is set by the company. They can’t market themselves independently: they operate at the beck and the call of the app. Gig economy workers are virtually indistinguishable from employees. Its just a matter of definition.
My employees are there when I am sick, keeping the place going and making me money
…I said **almost **impossible. Which means that of course its possible in certain circumstances. I’m glad you agree with me.
Of course its arbitrary. And it isn’t “wrong.” You aren’t the authority on how the words are defined.
I’ve used the living wage as a useful benchmark for comparison, that’s all. I’m sure you’ve manged to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” I’m glad you managed to find more than two weeks of expenses while making much less. But this thread isn’t about you.
This. My job employs a handful of contractors. Most, if not all of them, have their own day time jobs, after which they put in a few hours of work for my company. I’m not privy to what they make, and it really isn’t my business, but do these people need two living wages? No, and I doubt most of them would really argue otherwise.
I concurred with UltraVires posts #13 and #17. The argument I used to get there is different, though.
I’m just trying to imagine the scenario where I can’t work something out. The only thing I can think of is, the guy is in such deep shit that I couldn’t help him if I wanted to, like he’s going to have to declare bankruptcy no matter whether I pay him or not, or maybe he’s a lazy asshole. Otherwise if times are tough, unless I’m also running deep red, we could work something out.
Gig worker: “Max, I’m sick with [insert infectious disease].”
Me: “Ah, that sucks. Rest up and let me know as soon as you’re doing better.”
Gig worker: “Actually, I really need to work. I can’t afford to take time off.”
Me: “I’m sorry guy, but you know I can’t let you come in like that. (If it’s okay with bossman) I might be able to work out an interest-free advance of $X, and we can take it out of your next couple jobs with us.”
Gig worker: “I can’t accept Max, with finances how they are I can’t afford to repay the loan.”
Me: “I have some odd jobs, too. When you’re feeling better you can come in and help me sort our record rooms. We could probably knock it out in six or seven hours. The parking lot is also due for ant-killer, and you could power-wash the building.”
Gig worker: “I’m really sorry, but I have like ten other jobs and a ton of existing commitments, I don’t think I’ll be able to set aside enough much time.”
Me: “We can try and break it up over a few days. It doesn’t have to be all at once.”
Gig worker: “No, I don’t think even that would work out. My schedule is really tight.”
Me: “That’s too bad, don’t you have any time off? We could work something out.”
Gig worker: “Unfortunately, not except late late at night, after about 11PM.”
Me: “Yeah, I can’t do that.”
Gig worker: “Would you maybe be able to pay for sick time?”
Me: “No can do. I don’t even offer sick pay for our part-time employees, and… technically you aren’t an employee.”
Gig worker: “Come on, man! It’s not my fault I caught [insert infectious disease]!”
Me: “I’m sorry but I can’t pay you if you aren’t working. I know it sucks-”
Gig worker: “It more than sucks, I can’t afford to miss work. I’m going to lose my house, because you have no sympathy for the sick!”
Me: “Of course we care about the sick, this is a doctor’s office, you know! But we don’t treat [insert infectious disease], and I can’t risk exposing our patients to that.”
Gig worker: “Do you expect me to have $X lying around just in case I get sick?”
Me: “No, I expect you to die, Mr. Bond. Seriously, your personal finances are none of my business.
Look, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I tried. Call me back when you’re feeling better, before you say something that can’t be taken back.”
[click]
Oh, so you’re only talking about those on-demand apps, not classifieds or eg: Angie’s List. Good that you pointed this out to me, because I had always considered the latter to be part of the “gig economy”.
Look, even with the apps like Uber, nobody is forcing you to take the sucky routes. If you can’t make it doing that sort of work, all I can say is that maybe you shouldn’t be doing that sort of work. If the gig worker isn’t able to negotiate, if it’s some sort of “here’s the job, take it or leave it” sort of thing, that means there’s a middleman between the person paying and the person providing the service. I’m willing to regulate the middleman - you have to have an estimated number of hours and material costs (route time + gasoline + etc), and you are on the hook for paying at least the minimum wage plus cost. Or, if someone spends more than X hours doing jobs through you, that makes them an employee and you have to provide health insurance.
~Max
Minor edit to my previous post: two Canadian provinces have paid sick leave. Ontario used to have it, for a year or two, but there was an election, and the new government dropped the idea. (They used to give one paid sick day per year, and three sick days total.)
…holy gigantic strawman.
Do you feel better after having written that screed? Because it doesn’t address anything that I said.
One would expect that I wouldn’t have to have pointed this out to you.
People are doing that sort of work because they aren’t able to get other sorts of work. The barriers to entry into the gig economy are substantially lower than getting a job.
Except that isn’t how it works. What you are “willing to do” and the reality are two different things. Uber isn’t on the hook for paying at least the minimum wage plus costs. Some areas are only just now forcing the Ubers of this world to treat their workers as employees. But this is rare, and they are fighting this tooth and nail.
Perhaps you should pick up the phone and explain this to the “tech” companies that control the gig economy. Because this is exactly the opposite of what they are doing.
In most places I’ve been actual, hail-them-on-the-street ( and sometimes call them on the phone) taxis don’t set their own rates - the rates are set by a government entity. And they are the same whether it’s one driver driving the single cab that he owns ( clearly self-employed), another driver leasing that cab for the opposite shift ( self-employed in my view), people leasing cabs from a company that owns 100 ( but doesn’t have any relationship with the cab driver other than collecting the lease fee and the lease may be per shift rather than longer term so self-employed ) or people who are actually employed by cab companies and are assigned to work specific days and shifts.
Who sets the fee is not the only factor that determines whether a person is an employee or not - there are other factors involved. One of them is that employers typically set the time and place of work , and another is that employers typically prohibit working for a competitor and virtually always prohibit working for any other company during the same hours. But people frequently drive for Uber/Lyft/Doordash/Grubhub etc at the same time.( I read that something like 70% drive for both Uber and Lyft - there’s even an app to make it easier to handle requests from Uber Lyft and Postmates at the same time). I find it difficult to say you’re Lyft employee from 6pm- midnight Tuesday when you are also accepting Uber rides for the same time period.
…this doesn’t change anything I said. Gig economy workers can’t negotiate, they can’t give you a quote, they can’t effectively market themselves. My business uses independent contractors. But that doesn’t automatically make me part of the gig economy. The term gig economy was coined in 2009 because of the growth of “tech companies” like Uber and Lyft. It was never intended as a catch all for every example of independent contractors.
What determines whether a person is an employee or not is entirely down to how they are defined by law. California has passed laws that make gig economy workers employees. Uber, Lyft, etc are refusing to comply with those laws.
I do, thank you.
I have a reputation for defining words differently than Kiwis. (Oh God, I hope that isn’t offensive)
So? That’s why I pay taxes for unemployment services, to help people get jobs. Why would you throw that out for peanuts at Uber? And if there aren’t enough jobs in an area, that means it’s time to move. And if there are jobs, but you can’t live on them with a minimal lifestyle (eg: due to medical expenses or kids, etc.) then we have a problem that could be fixed with eg: minimum wage or social services, or even charity. But what if those jobs would disappear due to the costs of such services? It is possible that there are simply too many people, in which case there is no solution, and life just sucks. But I don’t think we’re anywhere near that point.
I don’t approach Great Debate threads as, “let’s all sit together and complain about how things are today”. My post about job info regulations and an hours-based threshold for employer-employee relationships is a proposal, for debate.
~Max