That's pretty typical, honestly. When working regular jobs, I've been paid one way, and not paid for time not working. The term is "waiting to engage", versus "engaged to wait". That is, if they want me to sit around to be available at a moment's notice, they pay me for that time. If I can go off and do other stuff and be vaguely available with whatever delay, then I don't get paid, because I'm not working and I'm not losing any of my own time.
I don't really think Uber should pay for time back directly, but they should definitely increase the cost of longer runs, especially to lower-volume areas where the driver might not have a fare in the other direction. (The driver is also not required to take any particular fare at all, so if they feel they'd lose money on it, they shouldn't take it.)
Honestly, you could make a strong argument that drivers are indeed independent contractors under US labor law. However, if the court has found that they should qualify for more pay and benefits, I'm certainly not going to argue that it should be taken away. In fact I'm going to celebrate it.
I'm not arguing that this is a good deal or met whatever goal. I'm just saying it's an upgrade.
Also, as a former uber driver, there are strategies to make the best use of your time. If this new wage applied to my location I would buy a car and make a killing. That said, I'm in the minority that prefers to run their own business rather than be an employee so if I have to be a wage slave again then no thanks.
Give me the math of how this new wage would help you “make a killing”.
Keep in mind that this wage merely sets a floor for the specific-minutes when you have a fare.
(And brother - driving for uber is not "running your own business"... it's being maximally-exploited by a business... with no liability-protection, no security, and almost zero rights.)
(And brother - driving for uber is not "running your own business"... it's being maximally-exploited by a business... with no liability-protection, no security, and almost zero rights.)
Both can be true! There's a reason I quit that shit years ago.
I’m waiting for the math... Support your claim that you would “make a killing”.
I don’t see how you would...
The most you could possibly make would be $32.50 in an hour... (and that’s ONLY if you had a fare for ALL 60 minutes of an hour... and somehow still made less than $32.50 from those fares).
...And you'd be driving your own car and burning gas for that whole hour...
So show me (with math) how you’d be “making a killing”.
What you're talking about is "waiting to be engaged" versus "engaged to wait."
The drivers are not on set schedules and have no obligation to the company except for the time between accepting a fare and dropping them off. If the drivers were required to return to a staging area and wait for a call the they'd need compensation. But they're not. They can do whatever they want at that point.
When I worked retail I wasn't paid for the time between my shift's end and the next one beginning, but that's what you're arguing for in this case.
I mean, Uber has constructed a model where "waiting for your next fare" and "going home to your partner" look the same in a spreadsheet, and that then becomes the justification for not paying them. It's sleight of hand.
He didn't sit around waiting for a job. He'd go about his business and when his phone pinged he'd decide in the moment if he wanted to do the job.
Sometimes we'd be watching TV and his phone would ping and he'd get up to leave. Sometimes he wasn't interested and he'd let someone else get it.
The issue with Uber, Lyft, etc isn't that they treat their drivers as contractors. People who have they option of when, where, and whether to work and are paid per task aren't employees. The problem is the pay is terrible for what they're doing.
Does an airline baggage-handler only get paid for the “specific minutes” when he is lifting luggage?
What's actually tragic is similar things like this do happen in the air industry
Flight attendants for example are often paid only for hours on the plane. All the time getting to the planes through security screenings doesn't count. All the work they do at the gate before and after doesn't count. It's only hours in the plane.
1- Their threats aren't actually working, and they don't have enough quality mods to replace the ones they've overthrown (as evidenced by subs where the mod teams were nuked remaining frozen)
2- PR move to pretend like they're listening and reduce anger.
Seriously, what is the point of this attempt AFTER they've nuked so many mods and users?
Edit: I feel like this comment is right on the money
wasure_boshi
better yet, they will listen but only in "small groups" of people "they pick" as to curate the the overall mod "response" and then will claim that all mods across all communities will share this same slated opinion.
I agree. This is a) a PR move and b) part of their “divide and conquer” strategy: They’ll keep on schmoozing the mods who go along with Reddit’s bullshit and keep on kicking out mods who aren’t.
Has to be #1, or I think they would have replaced the mods on /r/pics by now. They’ve silently removed mods from other big subs without much, if any justification already, so them not doing it in this case makes me think something is wrong.
The real takeaway here is that Wells Fargo pays for work that isn't quantifiable via review of the work product. What are these people doing that produces nothing that can be reviewed to quantify their performance to such a degree that simple mouse movement is the only metric they can be judged by? If I were stupid enough to be invested in that criminal enterprise I'd be pissed.
The article doesn't say the fired employees were doing this all the time. They could have used them for an hour here and there while they were out running an errand. Very difficult to spot that on any work review.
If they had measurable productivity that was acceptable then who cares if they needed to step away for a while? Wells Fargo is sending a message that they care more about warm seats than actual results.
Oh yeah I agree 100%, this whole thing is ridiculous and shows wells Fargo don't trust their employees and have to resort to this kind of bullshit.
I'm just saying it's possible that these employees were fired merely for using this mouse moving software, not because they weren't getting much work done.
The 1% really believe AI is their golden ticket to get rid of all of us. They’re going after professions with strong unions first and publicly, so that they can try to poison us all against collective bargaining, which is our only chance against them.
This is great, but what I’m really struck by is the Fox News homepage’s top story is about the autopsy of Obama’s chef? I didn’t realize how out of touch I am with right wing media. I assume there is some conspiracy that Obama had his chef killed for “reasons”? Or maybe this is some vaccine conspiracy? Can you imagine what your brain would be like if this was your main source of news?
I just checked as I’m writing this out of curiosity. Top story on CNN is Prigozhin being killed. Top story on Fox News is “Hunter Biden went on foreign trips.” No wonder so many people’s brains are rotten.
I was just going to say this. Holding on to the illusion of power as a major moderator is about to turn into a shitshow. Even Reddit themselves have been caught using chat bots to sway public opinion.
Reddit has decided to make every bad decision (favoring profits) possible, all at once.
Peck was a part of the EPA and had legitimate reasons to investigate them.
Venkman was a dick and didn’t cooperate with Peck’s investigation, so Peck got pissed and went nuclear on their ass cause he thought they were charlatans.
The guy who actually flipped the switch even told Peck he’s never seen anything like that and didn’t want to do it.
I really wonder about bot synergy. How many haiku’s will one not write that another will correct the spelling on and a third find that all words are in alphabetical order?
Because part of the time they aren't being paid at all for their work and a good chunk of that money goes into the vehicle and fuel itself. After accounting for all the unpaid labor hours and expenses, it probably still comes out sub-minimum-wage.
We have it but the trains are catching on fire and derailing and they shut the orange line down for a month to try to fix it. Meanwhile one of our main tunnels is also collapsing so that’s shut down too. My home is one mile from downtown and it’s also directly on a bike path that goes into the city, which is also closed because it’s also collapsing into the mystic river. It currently takes me 40 minutes to get downtown no matter what transit I take including walking.
My wife recently reconnected with a friend from college (20+ years ago) who is legally blind & living in MA. And I recently worked with a MA resident that is legally handicapped. Both of them have, through some state service, access to some number of free Uber rides each month. I know in the Boston area there is/was a state run car service for the handicapped, but using Uber apparently provides much more coverage & flexibility.
As long as the Uber drivers are being paid appropriately for this service I see it as a great service for the handicapped. I’d hate to see them lose it…
This tells me that Wells Fargo has middle management layers so useless, they can’t even understand if their employees are doing their jobs so they resort to monitoring.
They literally just want their employees to look busy because their corporate culture isn’t able to comprehend managers having close relationships with their direct reports and their work.
Companies should be looking at an employee’s output to determine if they’re worth keeping employed. If you can’t measure that, what the fuck are you doing? How do you justify having any employees when you don’t know what they contribute to the bottom line?
I mean, videogames already have contracts specifically designed for that. Contracts like these always have limitations to time, amount of products released, restrictions on surrounding themes, etc, and, of close, closure terms. They have shit ton of detail in them, and are studied by studios very carefuly. These actors have their own agents and lawyers that really know how to do their job. Ain’t nobody letting them use their face for “eternity”.
That was true in the beginning, yes. But now that this topic is not any more a special thing for some game or movie but developing into the modus operandi, media companies start to crack down on those rules and try to alter the deals with as much force as possible to gain an advantage. The strike of the SAG right now is only the beginning of reactions to these new developments of maximizing profits by taking advantage of uneven bargaining power.
I would say it has more to do with the size of a pool of candidates. If an Amazon warehouse employee is not happy Amazon can fire them and get another one. If an investment banker is not happy the company will accommodate them.
As a software engineer though, while I'm not paid as an investment banker I still feel like I'm paid well, I think my job would be better if it was unionized.
Unions help workers in all positions, but their effect is more noticeable when the worker has comparatively little bargaining power. When workers already have a large amount of bargaining power, such as in most white-collar jobs, unions don't provide as many benefits than if workers have very little bargaining power and are easily replaced, such as in most jobs involving physical labour rather than mental labour.
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