Some questions here about whether this means drivers will get paid for idle time. This Seattle Times article has clearer wording on this:
> The legislation will set new per-mile and per-minute rates for drivers while they’re transporting passengers, meant to be high enough to also account for expenses and downtime.
> To guarantee the minimum wage, the new rules will use a combination of per-minute and per-mile pay rates, divided by what’s known as a “utilization rate.” That figure is based on the share of drivers’ time spent with passengers in the car, rather than waiting for a ride.
Other specifics include $29.90/hr gross hourly pay while driving (to target $16.39/hr total), $5 per-trip minimum.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/sea...
I don't understand why everyone is reading secondary sources to interpret the law when Seattle City Council provides primary sources near instantaneously¹. You're just playing a game of telephone.
¹ https://seattle.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=46334...
I wonder how long before these companies pull out of Seattle, or Washington entirely.
If it's just Seattle, will they just geofence the city and not allow rides to originate or terminate there? What happens if a driver is transiting the city limits, but isn't within for a full hour - does the minimum wage get prorated, or what?
So here's one thing I've never understood about such measures to treat drivers as employees: how do you handle drivers who drive for multiple companies at once?
It's fairly well known that drivers will sign on to multiple apps and choose which rides they take. Like they don't know the destination but still. What if a does 2 rides for Uber and 1 for Lyft in an hour? Who pays the minimum wage here? Both?
It seems like this would be incredibly hard to police and strengthens the argument that drivers aren't employees.
EDIT: to be clear I'm not talking about, say, alternating days for Uber and Lyft. I'm talking about drivers who are signed into both and take the first that comes up. They'll also accept rides on one app while still doing a ride on another. This is really common.
This is not a "multiple part-time job" scenario.
This isn't the right answer, but we should at least acknowledge that there are potential problems with the gig economy.
I'm not quite sure how to reconcile this with my views on markets. The platform certainly performs a valid function, and markets are generally good at matching up buyers and sellers. Ostensibly everyone participating is doing so voluntarily. However, I don't find it particularly virtuous to have totally automated auctioning of labor pressing down on working class compensation and benefits. Constantly repricing every transaction to carve another 20c away from a guy driving for 12hrs a day.
"Seattle's law will require drivers be paid at least 56 cents per minute and $1.33 per mile driven while transporting passengers."
This is whole thing about whether drivers should be full-time employees is so overthought.
If Uber and Lyft are set on not paying the drivers full time, just cap the hours a driver can have at 20 per week.
That will fix mostly everything.
- It solves Uber/Lyft problems because they won't have to pay for benefits.
- It solves the government's problems because they don't have to worry about full-time workers being taken advantage of.
- It solves civilian problems because it make the roads less congested.
I wonder if the majority of drivers think this is an improvement or not.
If legislation like this were adopted widely it might have a positive incentive of driving ride sharing companies towards less driving time by having passengers do more of the work, e.g., by setting up common drop off and pick up locations (similar to existing functionaity that lowers the price by having you walk a bit)
https://fee.org/articles/the-eugenics-plot-of-the-minimum-wa....
> Whatever the intentions, the effects are still the same. On that the eugenicists were right. The eugenics movement, however evil its motive, understood an economic truth: the minimum wage excludes people from the job market. It takes away from marginal populations their most important power in the job market: the power to work for less. It cartelizes the labor market by allowing higher-wage groups access while excluding lower-wage groups.
How will Seattle respond to robotaxis?
"People will lose their jobs!"
This has been said about every increase in worker benefits ever. Luckily things still work out.
I think it's interesting that there's so much talk about minimum wages for drivers, but restaurant workers have been working for $2-3/hour for decades, including periods of time when they are doing untipped work.
ITT: people needing to read marx
"the real harm here will not be to Uber," Uber said. "It is the drivers who cannot work..."
The city's researchers found that drivers made an average of about $9.73 per hour.
For reference, Seattle minimum wage is $16.39/hr. This appeal to employment is disconcerting, as ride sharing apps are doing their workers no favors by paying them so poorly (including the lack of benefits).
When talking about jobs, especially in the US where so many benefits are tied to employment, a job with pay so low and no benefits should not be considered a good thing.