SFC Columnist Asks ‘Why Not Ignore Private Sector Concerns and let Government Take Over Gig Economy?’
‘Why not make the Gig economy a public utility?’
By Katy Grimes, January 31, 2024 2:55 am
Soleil Ho (they/them) of the San Francisco Chronicle asks, Why not make the Gig economy a public utility?
“Labor activists say gig work is unjust; disability advocates say services such as DoorDash, Instacart, Uber and Lyft are essential to independence,” Soleil Ho says in the San Francisco Chronicle Tuesday. So just let the government take it over, right?
Ho’s justification is a conversation with journalist S.E. Smith who incorrectly assumes “unprotected” gig workers need government “protections.” I’m guessing neither has talked to a gig worker lately.
“So why not skip over the private sector concerns and let the government take over the gig economy?”
The “gig economy” became an issue in California when labor unions recognized an untapped resource in independent contractors, many who made very good livings with several “gigs.”
Assembly Bill 5, written by the AFL-CIO, was a union sponsored law that redefined millions of independent contractors as employees. AB 5 was authored by former State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego). Gonzalez, a community organizer and activist, as well as a union official with the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council, AFL-CIO, prior to being elected to the State Assembly, resigned in 2022 from the Assembly to take a leadership position in the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, after delivering millions of reclassified gig workers as potential union members.
AB 5 was one of the most egregious bills in California history, in effect, picking winners and losers, rather than allowing the free market to decide.
Soleil Ho reports in the SFC:
In the Conversationalist, journalist S.E. Smith writes, “The gig economy has been a tremendous boon for the disability community, opening pathways of connection, communication, resources, and employment to people who are more at risk of being socially, economically, and medically isolated.” Amid increasing costs for medical care and a looming care worker shortage, Taskrabbit, DoorDash, Uber and other companies are filling in the gaps.
Neither Ho nor Smith understand that if Taskrabbit, DoorDash, Uber and other companies are “filling in the gaps,” this is called entrepreneurship, as well as addressing supply and demand.
Ho continued:
“How do we acknowledge that rather than having society address issues, we are going to just let the gig economy take care of it?” Smith asked when we spoke on the phone. It’s marginalized workers who tend to do the gig jobs, too — disabled people, caretakers, and Latino and Black people who may not fit in the regular, 9-to-5 working world for a variety of reasons. Smith called unregulated gig work a form of “mutually assured destruction,” of undervaluing social solutions to our problems in favor of more individualistic, profit-driven ones.
Neither Ho nor Smith acknowledge that those “marginalized workers who tend to do the gig jobs” may actually want to do the gig jobs. Ho and Smith would have the government step in and pay these “marginalized workers” a stipend not to work, rather than allow them to work as independent contractors in a flexible schedule, and for pay that meets their needs.
“Haste and efficiency are the only ways to ensure you make a minimum wage. The companies certainly won’t help you, given the millions they invested in bypassing California labor and employee benefit laws via 2020’s Proposition 22. As an unprotected gig worker, your pay could be impacted by traffic, a backed-up kitchen, low customer ratings, declining orders or taking too long to shop.”
(“Soleil Ho is an opinion columnist and cultural critic, focusing on gender, race, food policy and life in San Francisco,” who goes by “they.”)
Ho continues:
So why not skip over the private sector concerns and let the government take over the gig economy? That’s what journalist Nick Romeo suggests in his book, “The Alternative: How to Build a Just Economy,” which examines multiple case studies of companies and communities looking for other ways of handling their money. Drawing from the ideas of British policy expert Wingham Rowan, the book argues that a public platform could match job seekers with short-term work, charge lower transaction fees and provide full employment benefits. It could be privately operated by licensed companies, like the lottery system; but with capped earnings which would ease the pressure to turn a profit. A public option with low user fees would compete with the DoorDashes of the world, which are already vague in terms of how they’re really that different from each other.
Indeed, “why not just skip over private sector concerns…”
And that is the crux of the issue – diminishing the private sector facilitates the march to Marxism, and appears in the pages of Nick Romero’s book, and S.E. Smith’s articles, if they are in fact, suggesting government step in and take over the independent contractor segment of the economy.
Notably, California’s AB 5 was so flawed, there were hundreds of exemptions to the law through additional legislation. Globe contributor Chris Micheli, an attorney, explained all of the legal stuff and background of AB 5, as well as the exemptions, here.
The U.S. Labor Department released new rules earlier in January governing freelance, consulting, and gig work, clearly aiming at destroying the livelihoods of millions of people. As Globe contributor Thomas Buckley recently explained, the motive is simple: “you can’t unionize freelancers, but you can unionize employees. If millions of freelancers are forced to make the switch, union coffers will grow and then, in turn, so will the coffers of the Democratic Party.”
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It’s ironic that Soleil Ho’s Vietnamese immigrant parents fled the communist takeover of Vietnam and now Soleil Ho is advocating that big oppressive government just takeover the gig economy and the private sector? It didn’t help that Ho, who identifies as queer woman of color, was raised in Democrat controlled New York City, graduated from the exclusive Stuyvesant High School in 2005, and was further radicalized while attending Grinnell College graduating in 2009? After graduating from college, Ho worked as a chef at restaurants in New Orleans, Minneapolis, Portland, Oregon, and Puerto Vallarta, where their mother owned a restaurant. Ho became the food critic at the San Francisco Chronicle in 2019, replacing Michael Bauer. Ho left that position in 2023 to become a part of the Chronicle’s opinion desk. No doubt Ho would also like the government to take over the San Francisco Chronicle as well, but it probably already is considering it’s a deep-state propaganda outlet?
If you think like a Marxist, act like a Marxist, and force your opinions on others like a Marxist, you are a Marxist. The CA democratic party has been taken over by Marxists, and are incompatible with a free society. We need to vote ALL MARXISTS OUT OF OFFICE this year. ALL OF THEM. Otherwise………………………….
Can we just WALL OFF San Franfreakshow so they only negatively affect THEMSELVES???
There must be some REALLY good drugs in the water supply up there…. thanks to Sen. Weiner, perhaps???
Un-be-freaking-lievable….
It’s worrisome that U.S. Labor Department bypassed Congress and released new rules earlier in January governing freelance, consulting, and gig work, which is aimed at destroying the livelihoods of millions of people. Globe contributor Thomas Buckley correctly surmised that if millions of freelancers are forced to make the switch to be unionized employees, then union coffers will grow and so will the coffers of the Democratic Party. Union leadership is just as corrupt as Democrat party leadership.
They people who work for “traditional” media outlets wonder why their jobs are evaporating. They are so completely clueless that they don’t even recognize that they are just shouting into an empty void because they come up with stupid ideas like this one and think to themselves “I am very smart”.
I love how people couch ruthless, destructive, hostile takeovers in the obscure domain of public utility. Must be nice.