But why are we getting tough with workers but not employers?
Why don’t we say to employers: You want to exploit workers such that the state may need to support them with food stamps and other welfare? Get a real business!
One reason is because people’s situations are too variable. How high the pay has to be so that a person doesn’t need food stamps or other assistance is going to depend on whether that job is supporting a single person or five people. In my city , a family of five with a gross income of up to $70K might be eligible for food stamps. (depending on the precise circumstances). Are we going to pay people differently based on their circumstances , meaning that someone with three children gets paid more than someone with none who does the same job and that McDonald’s must pay someone supporting eight people over $100K/yr?* Or are we going to set some minimum wage that applies to everyone, and allow people to earn money on a schedule that suits them ** without an actual job even though it still leaves some people eligible for assistance?
* And remember that this will have unintended consequences - for example, there will be no such thing as a part-time job.
** There’s not a whole lot of difference between gig work and hiring yourself out for odd jobs.
Sure there’s complexity, but let’s put it this way: what government policy doesn’t involve drawing arbitrary lines? Including setting tax policy and food stamps eligibility.
I don’t think the minimum wage should be set at $0, with the tax payer indirectly subsidizing those businesses, while we figure out the ideal terms.
Employees have the right to withhold their labor. In fact, in the United States, the NLRB gives them immense power compared to employers.
A business offering gig work applies to a certain type of individual. Having the wrong type of individual suddenly complain that they can’t treat it as a real job is a problem of that certain type of individual, and not the company offering contract work.
Don’t want the job at the terms given? Don’t do it. Want to do it anyway on your own terms? Team up with others and form a union. The right to enter into mutual contracts is strong in this country, and, again, the NLRB will side with the employees 99% of the time.
Sure, but this is irrelevant to the point.
Imagine I own a factory manufacturing goods, and I can make more profit by operating this factory in an unsafe way. If I can find people willing to work in my factory, we’re all good, right?
The answer is of course: No, because society has to deal with the consequences of injured or maimed workers.
So we have safety laws. Don’t like it? Go start a business in a country without safety laws.
The same logic applies to a minimum wage (the same principle, I’m not trying to say to the same extent): if your job doesn’t pay enough to put food on the table society is indirectly subsidizing your business.
So we mandate a minimum wage. Don’t like it, go start a business in a country without minimum wage.
If this were really true then we wouldn’t even be having this conversation as so few people would be in exploitative gig contracts. Let alone, as I say, examples like a third of Amazon warehouse staff needing support of programs like SNAP.
I mean, to play devil’s advocate for a moment, the US economy is roaring along right now. So a good argument (though one I have some counters to) is that pittance pay and fire-at-will work out well for an economy in the long run, and…one day…that will trickle down…eventually
But trying to claim that the lowest paid employees / gig workers in America already have it good? Nah
My opinion regarding the OPs question of “should gig workers get minimum wage” I would say it depends on the relationship and power balance of the arrangement .
If the app was simply connecting someone who wants to buy a product or service with someone who can provide that product or service , and the price is an agreement between the seller and buyer of the service and the app is simply taking a service fee for the convenience of connecting the two parties ( which is basically what the phone book is doing with advertising paying the service fee) then no.
On the other extreme if the gig worker has no ability to control the price of the service ( or what they are paid) has no control over the cost to themselves for delivering the service , and has restrictions on when they are or are not available to do work then they are basically employees who should get minimum wage. In the US under the FLSA ( fair labor standards act) there are rules and guidelines about what counts as engaged to wait, on call and if they get paid or not depends a lot on if the person has to wait at a certain place or if they can finish dinner or personal tasks before heading off to answer the call.
I would guess a lot of companies are getting around paying minimum wage by claiming everyone is a contractor and not an employee.
There is obviously a big area between those extremes in the degree of control each party has , I think it would be best if the line was pushed to include more people as employees and get minimum wage.
…that’s the way gig work has been sold.
But the entire point of the gig economy was to disrupt “real jobs.” Its bait-and-switch. A con-game. And its screwed everyone over except for the people doing the disrupting. Most of the gig-economy businesses aren’t even profitable and have no path to profitability.
If the “gig economy” is going to replace “real jobs” then the labour laws need to adapt to reign the robber barons in. There is no other option at this point. We can’t just allow them to get away with this. It’s time to disrupt the disruption industry.
The “gig” economy has been shown to be a mirage, abusing the “tech” moniker to hide the simple fact that all those companies are trying to skirt labor laws and trying to pay less than minimum wage.
The little “app” to replace a dispatcher is hardly revolutionary, the companies themselves are in no way developing any technology.
(They pay lip service to the idea)
The minimal improvement they make to the lives of their customers is not worth the terrible ways they mistreat their employees. Read this (wired article how easy it is/was to skirt Ubers identity check). Those companies do not add value to our society, they are one of the main employers of undocumented immigrants.
Allowing shady middlemen to earn millions over the backs of these modern slaves. The only way they are innovating is inventing new ways to lobby against oversight. They are a scourge on society and should be opposed at every turn.
It’s not just minimum wage. The company gets to avoid payroll taxes, worker’s compensation insurance, or offering any benefits no matter how many hours the “idependent contractor” works.
Exactly: the only disruption is an avoidance of worker benefits.
To answer the OP: if “gig” work really was something it would pay on around 50$/h
I don’t support any law that stands in the way of a local band getting paid with a meal and a handful of free tickets to their own gig.
~Max
If the local band negotiated those terms with the bar/restaurant where they’re playing, then so be it. But if the band booked that gig through the Mu-Zik app “we connect bands and their audience (for a fee, take it or leave it)” then that’s a completely different relationship. These apps (Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, DoorDash, etc.) are 3rd party intermediaries, middlemen essentially. They set the terms, not the seller, not the buyer. There’s no negotiation other than yes/no. That’s getting very close to an employer/employee relationship, which would be ok, but then they have to play by the rules for such a relationship, including minimum wage.
That’s nothing at all like an employer employee relationship. This “Mu-Zik” thing sounds like a stand in for a booking agent. Bands don’t work for booking agents, that would be backwards. The agent provides a service to his client (the band) for a fee. The agent (or rather, the agency) is an independent contractor, or a successful band might hire an agent as an employee.
Band members themselves are usually partners or it might be set up as an LLC or other corporation with each member having some share of the profit. Owners are afforded less protections than employees under labor laws.
~Max
Where did the band come from?
Nobody is talking about bands. Nobody is arguing bands should earn minimum wage or any other number.
“Gig” economy refers to Uber drivers and such. “Tech” platform who are “disrupting” their industry by avoiding paying their workers properly through denying that they’ve employees.
I had read the Statistics Canada cite from the OP:
CBC (cited by OP):
According to a March report from Statistics Canada, approximately 3.6 per cent of workers between the ages of 15 and 69 took on gig work as their main job.Across Canada, an average of 871,000 people aged 15 to 69 did gig work as part of their main job in the final three months of 2022, according to Statistics Canada. An additional 1.5 million people completed gig work at some point during the previous 12 months.
Statistics Canada (cited by CBC):
Gig work is a form of employment characterized by short-term jobs or tasks which does not guarantee steady work and where the worker must take specific actions to stay employed. […]
However, the term “gig” first appeared in the world of live jazz performance and is still used to refer to an arrangement where musicians are paid for a single performance, with no guarantee of future employment. […]
[N]ational statistical agencies associated with the Conference of European Statisticians – the statistical body of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) – reached consensus on a general definition in 2022 […] Further, it includes work performed either with, or without, the assistance of a digital platform.
They even have a helpful diagram,
~Max
That being said, the regulation discussed (but not cited) by the CBC article in the OP is specific to delivery workers and ride-hail workers.
Here is the straight dope on that specific law:
Order in Council No. 0340 (2024)
Order in Council No. 0341 (2024)
~Max
I find that my opinion hasn’t changed since 2020:
~Max
The gig economy is like the guys in “On the Waterfront” standing outside the dock waiting to see if they’ll be hired that day.
You don’t get compensated for the time you spend waiting to see if a job is open today. You DO get compensated, and deserve minimum wage, for the time when you’re on the dock working.
I believe the idea that engaged gig workers deserve wage protection is an excellent idea. It is unrealistic to expect workers to calculate the value of each individual task while they are effectively competing for the work, by virtue of who accepts it first. All gigs offered to workers should be expected to provide wages equal to or in excess of minimum wage.
absolutely!
I read the link and you are right.
The “band” came from @jjakucyk’s example in the post directly above the one you replied to. And it’s a natural example to think of: when I think of “gigs,” I think of bands playing gigs.
It’s not clear to me what does and does not count as “gig work” or a “gig economy.”
There have long been people who (either as a primary source of income or to earn some extra money) did useful things for other people—mowed lawns, ran errands, babysat, did handyman jobs—and got paid by the job/gig, at a price set either by them or their customers but mutually agreed upon by both. They’re independent contractors, not employees of anyone else. They might find the people who hire them through word of mouth, or running an ad in the paper, or something like that. They might use an agency that, for a fee, will help connect them with the people who want to hire them. They might advertise on a website or social media platform. Or they might use a dedicated app. What’s not clear to me is where the line is between them working for the app or the company it represents, in an employee-like capacity, and the app working for them and their customers by helping them to find each other and and streamlining and standardizing their transactions. (And in some cases that line may have been deliberately blurred.)