AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File
In this December 16, 2014, file photo a man leaves the headquarters of Uber in San Francisco. Uber, Lyft and other ride-hailing companies may soon be able to pick up passengers at Los Angeles International Airport after debate over whether their drivers are properly screened to weed out criminals.
Welcome to The American Prospect's weekly newsletter highlighting the best reporting and latest developments in the labor movement.
(Compiled by Justin Miller-Edited by Harold Meyerson)
Despite what the daily headlines say, there are a growing number of economists who argue that the panic surrounding the ascendant "gig economy" is way overblown. The number of workers who are self-employed has been relatively stable for the past 20 years, and many who participate in the on-demand economy are doing so in a part-time capacity.
"While Uber and other new companies in the gig economy receive a lot of attention, a look at Uber's own data about its drivers' schedules and pay reveals them to be much less consequential than most people assume," Economic Policy Institute President Larry Mishel writes for The Atlantic. "In fact, dwelling on these companies too much distracts from the central features of work in America that should be prominent in the public discussion: a disappointingly low minimum wage, lax overtime rules, weak collective-bargaining rights, and excessive unemployment, to name a few."
Still, that doesn't mean that the implications of the gig economy-mainly the further deterioration of a direct employer-employee relationship-aren't important. Benefits are elusive, wages unpredictable, and labor protections nonexistent.
But, as Lydia DePillis reports for The Washington Post, a coalition of tech companies, labor advocates, and academics are coming together to try to improve the quality of on-demand work. The group wants a more fluid, flexible social safety net that allows more transient workers to be able to take their benefits with them from job to job. Many tech companies say they want to provide benefits but argue that doing so would force them to change their independent contractor model to an employee-based system. They are pushing for a policy that gives them "safe harbor" from official employment responsibilities so long as they can provide benefits.
The emerging policy idea, DePillis writes, "reflects the coalescence of views on one side of a policy debate that has divided the left: The question of whether companies should be allowed to classify workers as something between regular employees and independent contractors."
A Teamsters Local in Seattle is taking something of a different approach to securing employee rights for "independent contractors" driving for ride-sharing apps like Uber. For the Seattle alt-weekly The Stranger, Sydney Brownstone takes a close look at how two Ethiopian immigrants led an organizing drive among Uber drivers that eventually caught the attention of the Teamsters. Now, the union is pushing the City Council to pass an innovative new law that would require companies like Uber and Lyft to ensure access to benefits and collective bargaining for its drivers. Because independent contractors-like public employees, as well as agricultural and domestic workers-are excluded from the collective bargaining guarantees of the National Labor Relations Act, the Teamsters argue that a city can extend collective bargaining rights to independent contractors (which is what Uber and Lyft insist their drivers are) just as cities and states have to public employees.
That legal strategy comes on the heels of a different legal standard set by the NLRB that requires more responsibility on the part of businesses that subcontract work. The decision, Browning-Ferris, has raised the ire of the business lobby and Republicans alike-both of whom are trying to kill the decision in Congress. Industry lobbyists who are worried about the implications of the new standard on franchise operations are pushing Republicans to add a rider to the upcoming spending bill that would curb the NLRB's ability to enforce its ruling. Meanwhile, South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson is introducing legislation today that would add a sixth partisan member to the board, essentially dooming the board to the gridlock that currently plagues the Federal Elections Commission. (Wilson is the guy who once shouted "You lie!" to President Obama in the middle of a state-of-the-union address.)
The Politics of $15
The minimum wage debate is getting its 15 minutes (or should we say dollars?) of fame. At last week's Republican primary debate, the cornucopia of candidates was finally asked whether they support raising the federal minimum wage. Not surprisingly, the answer was a resounding "No." In fact, both Trump and Carson called for lowering our exorbitant wage levels to get them down to internationally competitive levels. By their theory, a manufacturing worker in Chicago should have her wages adjusted to that of a manufacturing worker in Bangladesh.
At Saturday night's Democratic debate, there was a much more substantive discussion regarding minimum compensation in this country. Both Martin O'Malley and Bernie Sanders called for a federal $15 minimum wage, with Sanders notably fending off the notion that it's too radical a shift: "When we put money into the hands of working people, they are going to go out and buy goods, they are going to go out and buy services and they are going to create jobs in doing that."
Hillary Clinton, however, doubled down in defense of her more modest $12 minimum wage proposal. She argued that minimum wage experts say $15 would put the American economy in uncharted waters, while an increase to $12 would be equivalent to the country's highest minimum wage back in 1986.
Clinton has already earned multiple major union endorsements despite going against the prevailing $15 tide in the labor movement. (The Service Employees International Union-funder and organizer of the Fight for 15-is widely expected to endorse her this week.) Her support of $12 likely won't impact her support among union members, but it remains to be seen if the low-wage workers who'd benefit from the $15 standard will be any kind of political force in 2016, and whether her call for $12 as opposed to $15 will make any difference in their voting. Most of these workers are young and have lower education levels, which historically has correlated with low voter turnout rates. "Actually getting them to the polls … is a tricky thing-especially when you're running a broad issue campaign, rather than one focused on a specific candidate," The Washington Post reports.
More on Endorsements
The striking disconnect between labor unions' endorsements of Hillary Clinton despite their greater policy compatibility on a host of issues with Bernie Sanders is confusing (and frustrating) to a number of labor activists. The Postal Workers' Union, however, did give Sanders his second major union endorsement last week. Here's a primer on the various dynamics at play:
Dave Jamieson breaks down the politics of how the labor movement is navigating the Democratic primary.
Elizabeth Bruenig explains the tension between an ideal platform and political calculations.
Josh Eidelson highlights how that tension manifests itself within the grassroots.
Tidbits
Labor is flexing its political muscle on TPP as it threatens to pull out support for one Democratic Congressman's reelection.
How a broad federal job guarantee could work to erode the economic structures of racial inequity.
A big money group is fighting to roll back consumers' right to arbitration.
At The Prospect…
In light of this year's astounding concentration of corporate wealth through monopolistic mergers, Harold Meyerson says it's time for another era of serious trust busting. Read more…
Meyerson also writes about how a UNITE HERE Local in Vegas calling for an investigation of Deutsche Bank's partial ownership of Station Casinos. Call it Casino Capitalism, Part Deux. Read more…
As Sam Ross-Brown reports, last week thousands of students answered Bernie Sanders's call to march on Washington for student debt reform and a $15 minimum wage on American campuses. Read more…
