Gig economy

by El-dudeareno Fri Jul 07, 2017 10:49 am

Is this the tip of the iceberg of the "Gig Economy". But will they change anything, as all of this gig economy works for the employers? confused

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jul/06/uk-workers-poverty-pay-gig-economy-frank-field-report?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=233941&subid=19341285&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/31/gig-econoomy-guarantee-minimum-wage-frank-field

https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2017/jul/06/gig-economy-theres-an-easy-way-to-end-abusive-working-conditions

by Caker Fri Jul 07, 2017 4:06 pm

.....I hope the gov't clamp down on this bogus self employment, as that is what it is.

by Brutus Sat Jul 08, 2017 1:40 am

I do not think is a question of exploitation into worsening working conditions or loosing rights, it is more about loosing purpose.
Simply... we are becoming redundant.
Wealth creation, that it, the ability to produce the material and psychological well-being that allow we as human being to thrive, has been progressively automatised, this in theory, allows the ruling classes to live in a world where their kin and servants are all they need to live a fulfilling life.

The core idea of an Universal Basic Income as a fundamental right is just that, an acknowledgement that work and life have a decoupled future.

It also ushers the idea that society do not need to blood itself in perpetuity to reach a surreal final state of absolute autocracy or impossible equality but a third way where every individual can build its own life and dreams.

What, I believe one should watch out for, is the attempts to resist it.

by Caker Sat Jul 08, 2017 8:11 am

If these corporations wanted to 'provide' employment rights, there is nothing stopping them doing that right now. From what it appears, they want to change the law to enable them to provide employment rights without acknowledging the worker as an actual employee. In so doing, they retain their 'rights' to terminate the 'contract' without needing to provide redundancy pay and without the employee being able to take them to a tribunal for unfair/constructive dismissal should the employer want rid.

This is not about corporations 'providing' rights, it is about them wanting to pick and choose which aspects of employment law they want to apply. Evil or Very Mad

No worker should be fooled by this.

by Brutus Tue Jul 11, 2017 3:51 am

Caker wrote:This is not about corporations 'providing' rights, it is about them wanting to pick and choose which aspects of employment law they want to apply.
No worker should be fooled by this.

Again, perhaps, one should divide the idea of "rights" and "job/work".

A commercial enterprise or private concern has its raison d'être of making a profit.
Doesn't really matter to the ultimate recipient of this gain how its achieved.
This is not so much because there is a lack of morals in the ultimate "owners" but simply because in many circumstances
the profit margins are small and there is much competition.

So inevitably, as the big industry is phased out and the base of the productivity shifts away from humans, marginal roles or temporary ones are all it is left. Roles that require intense exploitation and the acquiescence to be exploited.

If one equates life with "working life", for instance when one expects to be spending his best years in the same production facility, it make sense to make this the bulk of one's effort to improve one's existence.
Works rights, collective bargaining, work clubs, after-work subsided activities, community endeavours, etc. then become a worthy pursuit.
This has happened regularly in recorded history and has lead to some dramatic material advancements.

For instance looking at peasants in the middle ages and other agricultural societies t various times, in their own way, they where not in the main a downtrodden class, but had many sort of rights (even if today we would be unlikely to recognise them as such). Even compared, for example, to today standards, they had much more holidays and individually many avenues of advancement.
As the producers of much of the wealth their rulers profited from, one indeed would expect a sort of mutual interest areas between producers and their masters to develop.
Some of these progressive common entente would be won after bitter struggles, some other given by the more intelligent within an elite but mostly in between.

If this relation is broken, there is however no way either to enforce collective claims or posit incentives to exchange immediate profit for future gain.

The technological shift we are living through signifies that production of the material means, by which a society may prosper, are disconnected from the value of the individual.
Hence the importance of returning to the enlightenment values of humanism.
Putting the individual at the centre of collective morality.

It is not a question of fostering egoism or altruism but a vision where each society member is endowed with commonly accepted rights and moral attributes.
Where anyone can be both an exploiter or an exploited but where everyone recognise a baseline of moral duties to upheld in relation to others.
For instance even now the vast majority in our type of society, has come to understand that a type of partial UBI we call pension, is a legitimate right in old age, a right that do not endow its recipients with any particular set of moral attributes or any specific requirement of merits.

When the link between working and life is rescinded, so are the familiar concepts of "socialist" left or "reactionary right" and substituted by rather one of humanistic centric universality and one of group centric division.

The former would hopefully lead to the concept of human beings as equal partners (and partaking with the rest of nature) in sharing the fundamental unity of our little planet while the latter, that has informed most of our history so far, will inevitably lead to global destruction.

by Absolut Tue Jul 11, 2017 7:08 am

So Frank Fields "report" is simply another version of Oliver with workers saying "Please Sir, can I have some more?" [crumbs from your high table]

While economic textbooks claim that people and corporations are competing for markets and resources, I claim that in reality they are competing for money - using markets and resources to do so. Greed and fear of scarcity are being continuously created and amplified as a direct result of the kind of money we are using. For example, we can produce more than enough food to feed everybody, and there is definitely enough work for everybody in the world, but there is clearly not enough money to pay for it all. In fact, the job of central banks is to create and maintain that currency scarcity. Money is created when banks lend it into existence. When a bank provides you with a $100,000 mortgage, it creates only the principal, which you spend and which then circulates in the economy. The bank expects you to pay back $200,000 over the next 20 years, but it doesn't create the second $100,000 - the interest. Instead, the bank sends you out into the tough world to battle against everybody else to bring back the second $100,000.

- Bernard Lietaer, former Central Banker (Belgium)

by El-dudeareno Tue Jul 11, 2017 2:14 pm

Why did all of the erosion of worker's right happen?

. I remember the 1970's in this country and the power of the trade unions had with the worker rights. However, since the Thatcher years we have gone downhill to some dark Victorian era? Does anyone know why this happened, or was it just the left resting on their laurels? confused

by Caker Tue Jul 11, 2017 4:10 pm

I believe Thatcher clamped down on the unions quite heavily. It was a deliberate policy intent. It coincides with neo-liberalism starting. I am sure historians on this forum can elaborate.

by **Admin** Tue Jul 11, 2017 9:05 pm

we got sold out by the unions

its also got the same between each party that you vote they no longer want people with power to hold the country only ones that did have anything left was the farmers and wagon drivers unions and we know what happened there

too many people in it for themselves and greed rather have silly prices than strike against it, bringing country to hell

on top of it there mortagages are so high they daredent strike as they would lose all of it

by **Admin** Wed Jul 12, 2017 10:05 am

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/work/employment-regulations/news/87426/taylor-review-gig-economy-%E2%80%98not-game-changer%E2%80%99-warn

The TUC said bosses would be “breathing a sigh of relief” after seeing the recommendations, which do not amount to the “game-changer” needed.
Matthew Taylor, a former advisor to Tony Blair, will formally launch his report today after a nine-month review commissioned by Theresa May. wrote:

by El-dudeareno Mon Feb 05, 2018 1:52 pm

You cant even be ill on these gig-economy's. pale

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/05/courier-who-was-fined-for-day-off-to-see-doctor-dies-from-diabetes

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