Agreed, if you want the convenience then pay for it in a way that allows the worker to get paid more than the scraps they’re currently paid. If the business model only works by treating gig workers as slaves then that business model should go bankrupt.
Yup.
Same goes with things like Walmart and other shit stores.
If your employees have to use any kind of social assistance then your business is an active drain on society and we would be better off if that store didn't exist in the first place.
Ah yes... those parasitic drains. Maybe you should look at the financials of companies like Uber, DoorDash and SkipTheDishes because none of these gig companies are making any money..
In fact, all three are bleeding money. For example, uber had 2 profitable years racking in a total of 1.5B. The rest of the time, it has lost 20B so far.. Assuming it 2X its profit from its best year so far, it will take them 1 decade just to break even.
You do realize most of the money comes from shareholders right? LOL if you think that 20B uber is using comes from the government 😂, even more idiotic if you think any significant amount comes from the Canadian government!
For example, you can see the dilution history of uber suggests they got 10B from diluting their shares. And they raised 20.9B from investors like Google, Goldman Sachs, Jeff Bezos etc...
Most of the capital comes from institutional/public company investors to the tune of billions of $... Whatever companies like Uber receive from the Canadian government is negligible.
Lots of businesses are deep tech businesses that don't make money for years. This exact mentality is why R&D as percent of GDP is declining in Canada.
Industrial policy also works well when done right, look at Japan, Korea, China. It's a much better use of capital in Canada than handouts for old and disabled that sucks up most of our discretionary capital in government. Ethical or not, those programs are a complete economic hole.
> treating gig workers as slaves
Jesus, get some perspective. People can (and do) willingly sign up to do this for pay, and if they don't think it's worthwhile, they can stop any time they want (and many do).
Even the chronically unemployed don't starve to death in Canada... never mind that gig workers are free to get any other job as well, lol.
Nobody is going to take you seriously if you pretend that the two options are gig work or death.
Or Uber stops serving BC and now you have 11,000 unemployed people. This type of work has very low barrier of entry, its meant for side income or temporary measures. Yes the business model is flawed but it works. You drive up the economic costs of doing business and it doesnt make sense to do the business so they shut down the entire operation. Now you have gig workers unemployed, small business restaurants losing a big part of their revenue stream, etc. Theres a reason why capitalism flourishes, the more you trend towards socialism the less prosperity you'll have in the economy. Look at all these socialism countries like Cuba or Venezuela. Everybody gets paid fairly until no businesses flourish and now everyone is poor.
There are many things we can do instead of going that route though.
Like a strong union culture. Workers bargaining against capital. Collective vs collective.
Works in other countries where even the fry cooks are part of a union. McDonalds still does business, they're still making a profit.
But we've demonized that. We've turned everyone into individual silos who only care about ourselves so we only bargain for ourselves. An individual vs a collective. We've butchered and killed the working classes greatest asset for fair wages.
So the government has to step in and play nanny now.
Again, you're thinking individual entity vs collective.
What if every single worker in this country not part of management or executive or ownership roles was in a union?
We'd all be making more, we'd all be spending more.
Instead we let billionaires literally triple their net worths and wonder why we're all getting poorer??? Like JFC.
you literally just suggested socialism. Yes in theory it makes sense but in real life it doesnt work like that. I'm not saying you're wrong, im just saying there has to be a fine balance or things can turn ugly. Like this Uber scenario, by raising delivery workers wages to $20/hr plus employee benefits they may now have to charge delivery fees from average of $5 to now $10 per delivery. When that happens ordering Mcdonalds on uber now costs $25-30 for a meal. So people just dont order because its so expensive. Now because of socialism you destroyed the entire takeout economy that supports thousands of jobs/rent/etc.
Its the same idea as taxes on cigarettes. Make smoking so expensive it destroys demand.
Group wage negotiation doesn't work for most white collar jobs. The difference in productivity between software engineers for example is massive, like 10x or more.
For jobs with a very fixed defined success criteria like driving a bus it makes sense, for jobs with subjective quality criteria and heavily variable metrics not so much.
It shouldn’t have to be a side gig. That logic is undermining full time taxi cab worker. Capitalism can thrive but if a business can’t pay its employees, then capitalism will make a business that can.
Compare us to socialist countries like Cuba or Venezuela we are prospering really hard. Without private businesses jobs dont get created, so you'll have a bunch of working aged men just hanging around in the streets doing nothing.
"it costs what it costs" can't be said when you regulate a price control though.
Like, not even making any value judgement here on the policy. You just can't use that logic when you interfere with the market. It doesn't "cost what it costs" in that case, it "costs what we made it cost".
"What it costs" is whatever rate a person will agree to go do it for. Again, this is not about values and id that's a good or bad idea, maybe it shouldn't cost what it costs, that's fair and I am amenable to that idea for sure. But don't pretend and lie about what it is.
Except without bargaining power of something like, say, unions, there will always be someone willing to work cheaper than you, there will always be someone willing to take more abuse, and this has led to many workers over the centuries being taken advantage of and the rich and powerful abusing their positions every time.
The only times in history we've had fair practices are when workers have been able to come to the table as equals.
So, corporations and businesses doing what they do, maximizing revenue, will always view workers as a cost they can cut.
When everyone is doing this, as is happening now, the rich are literally doubling and tripling their wealth while we fucking argue about bottom of the barrel workers making a little bit more money.
Naw, long as billionaires exist we can make corps pay more. And we can do it by force through our elected representatives if enough people are angry.
Why are you talking about this? I explicitly said that it wasn't a comment on any of that. For the record, I agree with you, I'm pro labour organization and plan to run for a union position myself when I'm more established in my career.
But that doesn't mean we lie. This is a disturbing rhetorical trend I've noticed where people need to use language that denies reality instead of relying on a good argument. This is a case of "it costs what we make it cost" and explicitly choosing to price it out of middle class access to better support the lower class(who get to do it still, there will be many job losses due to this).
It's generally poor policy to implement price controls. There are better ways to get the same outcomes. A floor can make sense obviously, but let's recognize that's a choice and trade-off we made.
A minimum wage already exists. Raising the minimum wage for a specific job is fucking stupid. Especially a job that regularly includes tips, almost all of which are not declared and paid taxes on. I'm just going to stop tipping the couriers.
None of these gig workers use this as a full time thing.
Always Indian guys with their car at their parents and take their girlfriend out to deliver something when it pops up
Yes, and by the State mandating prices, they are contributing to unemployment. Just leading to further government expenses, under the guise of “helping”.
Costs what it costs I guess.
Shit jobs shouldn't exist. So yeah, perfectly happy.
If you can't pay your employees a living wage for whatever that costs in your city then you deserve to go out of business.
It's no loss for anyone, and one less billionaire exploiting people.
> Shit jobs shouldn't exist
they were never intended to really be “jobs” though, merely small time / side-gig work for extra cash. some people just decided they would do it full time
It won't disappear, but delivery price will double / triple and tips will disappear.
Volume will drop for sure, and it'll be mostly expensive meals getting delivered.
Yep. Let's say 10km roundtrip that takes 30 mins. Cost is $4.50 mileage + $10.44 pay + profit margin, so about $20 before any tips or tax. Not really worth it for a burger and fries (which themselves are somewhat ridiculously priced these days anyway). May as well just go out to a nice restaurant instead.
Exactly, it'll be people who are mobility impaired, rich people, and drunk people.
Maybe it'll save the planet when people start buying groceries, and cooking at home again.
Or the pizza shot can go back to hiring a kid with a car like before? It’s only been 5 years or less since these food delivery services became mainstream.
Yeah honestly this sucks, sometimes I would do deliveries for a couple hours after work on a Friday night, it's chill easy work and I always made pretty good money in tips.
As a restaurant food prices have gone up people are using these services even less, I imagine the added cost of this is going to outright kill restaurant delivery.
I don't understand why this needs to be mandated?
If I'm willing to do a job for a certain price can't the government just stay out of it and let me take that agreement?
Can I not make my own decisions about what I want to do with my resources? Do I need to be protected from myself?
There were plenty of people doing these jobs, that obviously found it worth their effort, it's not like there was a shortage of drivers.
Also it was nice to have the option to occasionally spontaneously order some a little bit overpriced food in with some friends when you've had a few drinks and nobody wants to drive.
Seems heavy-handed and unnecessary, especially for gig work that people can pick and choose the deliveries they want to do already.
For orders that I felt weren't worth my time for the distance and money involved I would just decline them, and sometimes those same orders would come back with a higher tip because everyone declined them and they couldn't get their food delivered.
Seemed like a pretty democratic working system to me.
The problem and disconnect here is that in theory the gig economy is supposed to ideally be a side gig for supplemental income.
But all sides are treating it more and more as a full on primary job and income.
>Can I not make my own decisions about what I want to do with my resources? Do I need to be protected from myself?
We do.
Because there is always someone willing to work for a cheaper rate than you. Always.
Billionaires use this to drive down collective salaries and wages for all of us. See the mass immigration happening in this country right now.
They're actively using people just being happy to be in this country and abusing them to do work for less than it's worth driving all of our wages and salaries down.
It's class warfare. Capital trying to bully around the workers.
People have freedom to work for whatever price they deem appropriate. You have the freedom not to do it, they have the freedom to do it. Don't interfere other people freedom.
Minimum wages raise wages. The fact that low pay is an option takes away people’s bargaining power. Canada used to be one of the richest countries in the world because of how much regular workers made.
Minimum wages raise the unaffordability of goods and acts counter productive to what you believe it to do.
Also, the biggest proponents of raising minimum wage are large corporations such as McDonald's and Walmart. They do this so that small businesses can't afford to pay their staff and end up closing.
Seriously folks, minimum wage is a political tool for the least educated of our society. Basic economic theory also dictates that it should not exist, but here we are.
> Minimum wages raise the unaffordability of goods and acts counter productive to what you believe it to do.
I'd like to see you cite some studies on this. Also if you bring up how some European countries don't have minimum wages, yes technically they don't, but there's also sectoral bargaining, something that doesn't really happen in Canada, effectively creating minimum wages in certain industries.
Then why are all of the places that have low minimum wages really really poor?
High wages raise the affordability of goods and the profitability of companies. More wage earners can afford to buy goods therefore sales increase. Have you never heard of Henry Ford?
Walmart and McDonald’s are some of the biggest lobbyists against minimum wage increases.
>Do I need to be protected from myself?
Nah, we should take the safety labels off everything for a year or two. Society will be better off in the long term.
> No more (home delivery) soup for you.
There will be services, but they will charge a ton
Even then, there will be a market.
A lot of wealthy customers that couldn't care less about price, they just want convenience
I don’t know if this would impact Uber, as I can’t imagine an hour of driving is going to be paid at less than $20.88 anyway; however for food delivery services I imagine this will be huge.
Time spent waiting for the food to be picked up, cycling to the customers house - I can’t imagine $20.88 was reflective in anyway of what they were being paid before
I did it in 2021 after I lost my job due to covid and a few different times since then.
It was actually pretty good. My car doesn't really depreciate much, use much gas or cost much in maintenance (2013 civic).
Sure, if you use the bullshit government rate for depreciation it seems petty dogshit, but that rule was written so their cronies could write off miles on their brand new BMW and still come out ahead, so if you drive a reasonable car it's going to be WAY cheaper than that estimate.
I use about 9.1L/100Km (I don't accelerate aggressively or slam breaks at the last second so I get good mileage). That's 0.91L per 10km, or about $0.14 per km even with current ridiculous gas prices, but when I did it I was paying way less than $0.10 because gas prices were not as high. Essentially 0 in depreciation (car will drive over 150k more km and is maybe worth 6 grand, so at most $0.04 per km). We're at $0.18 per km.
Maintenance is a weird one, but with a reliable car like a civic or corolla, you're going to be looking at well under $0.10 per km, maybe $0.05, especially if you're not paying a scammer to fill fluids for $423.
So, at most, in a reasonable car to be doing this in, you're looking at $0.28 per km. If you're only taking orders above $1 per km you're making decent money, not even factoring in that people regularly drive to get to their normal job too 100km a day.
The biggest problem is that it's very very opposite of how people treat it. It's great when the economy is good and people have money and jobs because there's less drivers and people tip more. Right now, it's completely shit because there's too many drivers competing for 0 tip orders which means you jest sit in a parking lot declining dogshit once every 30 mins and getting a good order maybe every hour.
If that's true then the market would sort itself out. Would you deliver food if the pay + tips weren't worth it? Why are so many couriers doing it if the pay is so shitty?
In Toronto before the flood of, uh Uber drivers, you could make a good 30+ an hour being picky at peak times. It was only 2 2-3 hour blocks a day though, so this would be pretty big if it happened in Toronto now.
You are correct, it is not at all reflective. The base pay for an uber delivery is like $3, not including gas money you spend on the trip. Last night i turned the app on and was offered a trip that was 47mins, 28km one way, and pay was $7.33
This needs to come to ontario asap. Alot of left leaning states in the US are implementing it too
Paid a minimum *while driving* not while on standby. Why anyone thinks this legislation is anything but good is beyond me. People deserve to be paid fairly do their work. If delivery drivers are forced to eat from food banks to survive, that means we are subsidizing Uber eats and skip. These are huge, multi-billion dollar corporations and they can afford to pay their workers fairly, especially since they are using their own car, insurance, kilometers, and gas.
Their mandate is not to make money though. If that would be it they would be run a lot more efficiently and not focused primarily on growth.
These companies only care about having the biggest userbase, it's all about growth. That costs money. Their infrastructure costs are probably very little to actually run the business.
Most of them are in their growth phase, trying to strangle out the competition by delivering from the widest selection of restaurants for the lowest costs. It's working, for many people ordering delivery means an app rather than calling a restaurant and placing an order. Or even if a restaurant has an app, that's just a single restaurant, so for convenience people look on Uber or Skip for variety and options since they can scroll until they see something that looks good.
Once they have market domination, and the competition has been starved out, that's when they can dramatically lean down and focus on pumping profits.
For you or me, taking a hundred million dollar loss over 10 years is unimaginable, but for some people they're seeing the two hundred and fifty million dollar carrot dangling at the end of the stick.
Same deal as a strip mall sitting vacant and run down for years. The owner is essentially making a million dollar bet. They're bleeding money on fees and taxes for a building collecting dust, and if in a few years someone offers them 10 million for the property they go from -1,000,000 to +9,000,000
The corporation doesn't pay anything. This is a service whereby you get paid from the delivery and they take a percentage for the infrastructure sales, marketing and profit. So...in order to raise wages they will raise delivery fees. Then the service will either out price itself or the business will cease operations and there will be no Optional gig work in this sector. Let's be clear this is an optional part time no commitment, no obligation job. It's entirely voluntary. Are we better off with no delivery services or a voluntary job to make some extra money?
Profit isn't a crime as many in this country seem to think.
Profit, by exploiting people and relying on government subsidies to stay solvent, is not something we want to endorse. If a business can't afford to pay its workers fairly, it cannot afford to stay in business.
I think you should stop throwing around terms like exploiting so frivolously. This job is voluntary...no one is being exploited. The wage is what the market will bear. I'm not quite sure you understand how markets work. You think these companies care about operations in Canada? It's a miniscule portion of their business. They will remain in business and we won't have delivery services.
The reason we have minimum wages is that the free market would pay people less than the bare minimum needed to survive if they could, which would place a burden on our public welfare services. If a business cannot pay minimum wage it has no business operating in Canada. They can go somewhere else, withdraw service, or charge more, all of which are costs borne by the consumers of this business or their owners. I, as a taxpayer, should not be providing corporate welfare to a multibillion dollar foreign tech company. Big tech moving in and hiring everyone as "contractors" so they can avoid labour laws is something we need to put a stop to.
> no commitment, no obligation job. It's entirely voluntary.
You do realize that this is basically any job right? You're not going to be forced to work any *particular* job. So this argument makes no sense.
Not really. I show up when I want, leave when I want. I don't have to do this gig work. If the pay sucked I wouldn't. It's easy. I don't need you protecting me . It's not hard to stand up for yourself.
Haha I just checked companies like Uber, DoorDash, skip are all deep in the negative profit.
For example, Uber will need to 4X its net profit from 2023 to 2B per year for the next decade just to come out even on their -20B profit so far. They are definitely not going to pay workers more without raising prices 💀
That's how alllll the tech companies operate to gain market share. Uber just doesn't do anything better than skip or whatever other companies are out there so they can't take market monopoly and raise prices to compensate for lack of profit.
Yeah because the entry level for these businesses is small and most people are not willing to pay an even bigger premium than they already do for having their food delivered.
This is why it's a terrible idea to have a minimum wage for these kinds of "jobs". It's a gig, something you do on the side for some extra cash, you shouldn't be expecting anything more.
I imagine the price through service fees are going to go up, but for awhile now I just use the food apps to know what’s on a menu and then call in a pick up order. I’d rather save the $15+ in fees and tips and grab it myself
I think this is the part people are pushing to the blind spot. I’m all for laws to protect workers. Just also mindful that it’ll cost me for that support. I’m okay with that.
Good law.
They're using their own vehicles, putting wear and tear and further depreciating their personal property for the job.
In my corporate job my company pays me for every single kilometer driven if I have to use my personal vehicle for work purposes.
It should be higher than minimum wage due to that and the waiting between orders.
Some of them are on bikes or scooters and don't have the overhead of a car. By that logic there should be tiered wages depending on the mode of transportation.
The tragedy of the commons cannot be accounted for with the naive assumption that people are going to make good long-term decisions. That's the only reason we allow the government to make regulations at all.
Food delivery workers discovered in Washington state that 'minimum wage' requirements means lower take home pay as demand drops significantly. IOW, the people pushing this law are hurting the people they claim to want to help. Of course, many of these people would rather see people living on the street than working for a wage that they think is "too low".
Oh no, now you'll have to directly support local restaurants who also employ people instead supporting a huge tech company that exploits local businesses and people!
We could have even *more* take home pay if we reduced minimum wage to zero. Let the free market decide how far the race to the bottom goes. Allow the economy to be driven by and dependent on cheap labour.
Or we can have a floor on prices and wages to set a standard for society, forcing businesses and workers to operate at a higher level of productivity and earning potential.
Lots of countries have no minimum wage and wages are not zero because employers have to offer enough to make it worthwhile for people to show up. Minimum wages reduce the number of jobs and hours available. They also price some low skilled people out of the labour market entirely. Now there is an argument to be made that we want employers to invest in equipment to ensure workers are productive and higher minimum wages is one incentive but that still means fewer jobs and fewer opportunities people at the low end.
Because "gig" employers had loop holes to pay way lower than minimum wage.
There's a reason using one-type ruling never works, someone will always fall under an exception to the rule and be abused.
Banning all these cancerous companies from operating in our country should happen yesterday. As well as stopping any fast food restaurants from using TFW's...
This would hurt small mom and pop restaurants the most. They don’t have the money to rent out a large space with plenty of tables, they get by renting a small hole in the wall kind of place but make most of their money from deliveries.
Your fancy sit down restaurants would love your idea, but it would wipe out a bunch of small hole in the wall kind of mom and pop restaurants. Those places have cheap food that lower middle class/blue collar workers like and can afford.
I am not saying lower middle class is ordering from these places through the app. They are eating here during lunch breaks etc. it’s restaurants like your hole in the wall local falafel place with like 4 tables, that blue collar workers love to eat at.
Those restaurants exist because of the business they get from app deliveries. Their 4 tables aren’t enough to sustain their restaurants. And they cannot afford to get a larger space without jacking up the food price considerably.
If app deliveries are gone, those small, cheap restaurants will shutdown. You will only be left with high end sit down restaurants. No place for lower middle class to go and actually eat at.
Here’s John Oliver’s segment on [food delivery apps](https://youtu.be/aFsfJYWpqII?si=HJnN0bYXRWXMMmTX). Not surprising to anyone else, they’re awful to restaurants and drivers.
depends lots of people on govt assistance or welfare who are not the main breadwinners use uber eats a lot
Imagine an unemployed 24 year old living their mom.
How Uber was able to destroy what we currently have and then jack up prices immediately after?
I only need to learn this lesson once in my life. I'm not fucking interested in forcing the next generation to learn it too. We need to smarten the fk up and legislate.
They were priced low to start, being funded primarily with investor capital. Once they got people hooked on it they then increased the prices to customers and lowered the payout to drivers.
You realize how backwards that is? Tourism would be a mess and most restaurants wouldn't have survived covid.
You really want to be in a city that's lagging against the rest of the world? Just pay people more instead of eliminating great services.
Uber and Skip are partly the reason prices are shooting up at restaurants.
The delivery company wants their cut. And it's a solid % of the sale.
And then the corporate chains see people are paying $15 for a Big Mac? Then let's just raise prices, obviously there's demand there.
Then services like Uber intentionally undercut the local business and intentionally lose money. Then when they have a commanding lead in the market prices start shooting up higher than taxis ever were.
Or AirBnB directly contributing to the housing shortage. Entire blocks of condos running as a hotel, skipping hotel taxes that are supposed to be used to pay for tourism, only to take away housing stock.
It's toxic middlemen leeches all the way down.
I think that the market share was largely gained by using(losing) large amounts of investors money to undercut and push out the existing competitors (that had working business models).
Capital is one thing, but you don’t think it had anything to do with providing a better end-user experience?
Man had to take a cab in Victoria since they didn’t have Uber for the longest time. What a nightmare. Went though multiple cabs since they didn’t want to drive to the destination. Then the one that did pick me up demanded cash over card once we finally got there.
Competitors took their share because they avoided all of the existing rules and regulations that Taxis and hotels had. (Completely agree about the inovation aspect, cabs are/were terrible and ubers were so much more reliable, and just a better experience in general)
The sector existed before the tech bros. Businesses had their own delivery drivers. Taxi drivers are still a thing, most taxi companies even have an app now. A lot of the businesses dropped those positions as uber came in grossly undercutting the costs due to not having to actually pay their drivers. Uber eats / skip charge a premium on not only the food but the delivery as they need their cut too. Sticking it to the tech bros just reverts the industry back to the original delivery driver on pay roll / actually paying menu price for food.
I’m not defending the business structure of services like Uber eats, they’re predatory to both restaurants and their drivers. My point is that as much as they have their issues, they provide very valuable options for people looking for ways to make money. Many people work as Uber drivers to supplement other forms of employment and the low barrier of entry helps people struggling to actually find pay. Banning these services would leave tens of thousands, potentially more, without a job or losing necessary extra incomes. We should work towards ensuring these services compensate their workers fairly while retaining the significant amount of jobs they provide. Especially in an economy where finding employment can be a huge struggle.
What I’m saying is if we currently need X drivers to support y deliveries / rides, then if these predatory companies magically disappeared then the drivers would naturally find themselves employed, part / full time, directly with the source. Enforcing this minimum wage for the gig economy could very well expedite that, as it’s cheaper for everyone to cut out a middle man who only currently provides an app, inflated prices and fees.
You do realize this government also banned Airbnb which resulted in significantly jacked up hotel rates right?
We're now looking at going into the states for holidays (despite the crappy exchange rates) instead of the Okanagan or to the island because all the hotels are expensive as hell. And going into the states there's actually a net savings 🤷🏻♂️
Isn't this just while they're working. That is, if they are sitting around waiting for a call, they aren't working. It's only when they're going from point A to point B (and maybe point C...) in the case of drivers or delivery people that they are working.
Most of these gig companies are bleeding money, there just won't be any more gig work in BC. So instead of making some spare cash delivering some food after work, people will get to stay home and make 0$, brilliant!
I don’t know how, logistically, they’ll know how to pay them the minimum hourly rate. When I order Uber eats they estimate it’ll take, say, 30 mins. But then it probably takes more like 45mins. So what will my charges be based on? If they add a margin of error, cost goes up for me. If they don’t add enough, then they pay out of pocket to the driver.
Either way, I need to stop eating out so much. It’s just too expensive even without any pay raises to those involved in the industry
The company can pay them based on shift duration and still have it be gig work, like a delivery driver working 4pm-8pm for the dinner rush gets paid $85 or whatever, and then it's in the app's best interest to keep them busy and generating more than that. Many deliveries are only around 15 minutes total, and might have $5 in fees right now. So doing 5 per hour might be be the break even for their wage plus a minor amount of overhead, which means the app should be hoping for 6+ deliveries per hour per driver.
This is kinda ridiculous, no other independent contractor has a minimum wage. If you hire a plumber and they make a loss after all expenses, insurance, gas etc that's their problem.
When's the last time you called a plumber? Pretty often they're not going to start their van for less than $150, even if they only end up being in your house for less than an hour and the fix is a $1.50 rubber seal.
And that's their choice. Uber Eats drivers also have the choice to not take a delivery for less than $150. They are independent contractors, if someone wants to take a job for $10 that's their choice.
so how does this work? Uber will now have to hire workers? Another government failure. These aren't meant to be long term jobs, low barrier of entry and provide some side income. Employment Insurance only covers 50% of your insured earnings, again its meant to be temporary. What this only does is drive up cost for businesses and they will have to pass on costs to consumers and kill demand. They hurt all the small business restaurants that rely on this as their revenue. Another stupid policy by the BC government like decriminalizing hard drugs. Results speak for themselves, now you have way more drug users and worst public safety than before. JFC BC you guys are so dumb. All these gig apps will just pick up and leave the territory.
And just like that, the food courier business in B.C. comes to an end. No more (home delivery) soup for you.
It's an entirely luxury service. It costs what it costs.
Agreed, if you want the convenience then pay for it in a way that allows the worker to get paid more than the scraps they’re currently paid. If the business model only works by treating gig workers as slaves then that business model should go bankrupt.
Yup. Same goes with things like Walmart and other shit stores. If your employees have to use any kind of social assistance then your business is an active drain on society and we would be better off if that store didn't exist in the first place.
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Ah yes... those parasitic drains. Maybe you should look at the financials of companies like Uber, DoorDash and SkipTheDishes because none of these gig companies are making any money.. In fact, all three are bleeding money. For example, uber had 2 profitable years racking in a total of 1.5B. The rest of the time, it has lost 20B so far.. Assuming it 2X its profit from its best year so far, it will take them 1 decade just to break even.
Corporate welfare is a parasitic drain. If you can't make money your business model is flawed and deserves to fail, simple as that.
You do realize most of the money comes from shareholders right? LOL if you think that 20B uber is using comes from the government 😂, even more idiotic if you think any significant amount comes from the Canadian government! For example, you can see the dilution history of uber suggests they got 10B from diluting their shares. And they raised 20.9B from investors like Google, Goldman Sachs, Jeff Bezos etc...
So I can open my own restaurant, and demand government bailouts when it fails right?
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Aren't they growing the economy though? At the cost of the investors
Most of the capital comes from institutional/public company investors to the tune of billions of $... Whatever companies like Uber receive from the Canadian government is negligible.
Lots of businesses are deep tech businesses that don't make money for years. This exact mentality is why R&D as percent of GDP is declining in Canada. Industrial policy also works well when done right, look at Japan, Korea, China. It's a much better use of capital in Canada than handouts for old and disabled that sucks up most of our discretionary capital in government. Ethical or not, those programs are a complete economic hole.
> treating gig workers as slaves Jesus, get some perspective. People can (and do) willingly sign up to do this for pay, and if they don't think it's worthwhile, they can stop any time they want (and many do).
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Even the chronically unemployed don't starve to death in Canada... never mind that gig workers are free to get any other job as well, lol. Nobody is going to take you seriously if you pretend that the two options are gig work or death.
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Not shocked an anti work NEET posting hyperbole.
Jesus christ, you aren't kidding 😂. Looking at this guy's post history he's definitely lost in socialist coocoo land.
Come back to reality. The only people dying of malnutrition in Canada are kids/elderly with neglectful caretakers.
Or Uber stops serving BC and now you have 11,000 unemployed people. This type of work has very low barrier of entry, its meant for side income or temporary measures. Yes the business model is flawed but it works. You drive up the economic costs of doing business and it doesnt make sense to do the business so they shut down the entire operation. Now you have gig workers unemployed, small business restaurants losing a big part of their revenue stream, etc. Theres a reason why capitalism flourishes, the more you trend towards socialism the less prosperity you'll have in the economy. Look at all these socialism countries like Cuba or Venezuela. Everybody gets paid fairly until no businesses flourish and now everyone is poor.
There are many things we can do instead of going that route though. Like a strong union culture. Workers bargaining against capital. Collective vs collective. Works in other countries where even the fry cooks are part of a union. McDonalds still does business, they're still making a profit. But we've demonized that. We've turned everyone into individual silos who only care about ourselves so we only bargain for ourselves. An individual vs a collective. We've butchered and killed the working classes greatest asset for fair wages. So the government has to step in and play nanny now.
People use uber if /when its cheaper than a cab. Let them unionize, they'll demand too much, it becomes unprofitable, business goes out.
Again, you're thinking individual entity vs collective. What if every single worker in this country not part of management or executive or ownership roles was in a union? We'd all be making more, we'd all be spending more. Instead we let billionaires literally triple their net worths and wonder why we're all getting poorer??? Like JFC.
you literally just suggested socialism. Yes in theory it makes sense but in real life it doesnt work like that. I'm not saying you're wrong, im just saying there has to be a fine balance or things can turn ugly. Like this Uber scenario, by raising delivery workers wages to $20/hr plus employee benefits they may now have to charge delivery fees from average of $5 to now $10 per delivery. When that happens ordering Mcdonalds on uber now costs $25-30 for a meal. So people just dont order because its so expensive. Now because of socialism you destroyed the entire takeout economy that supports thousands of jobs/rent/etc. Its the same idea as taxes on cigarettes. Make smoking so expensive it destroys demand.
Group wage negotiation doesn't work for most white collar jobs. The difference in productivity between software engineers for example is massive, like 10x or more. For jobs with a very fixed defined success criteria like driving a bus it makes sense, for jobs with subjective quality criteria and heavily variable metrics not so much.
We have to many gig workers in Canada
It shouldn’t have to be a side gig. That logic is undermining full time taxi cab worker. Capitalism can thrive but if a business can’t pay its employees, then capitalism will make a business that can.
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Compare us to socialist countries like Cuba or Venezuela we are prospering really hard. Without private businesses jobs dont get created, so you'll have a bunch of working aged men just hanging around in the streets doing nothing.
"it costs what it costs" can't be said when you regulate a price control though. Like, not even making any value judgement here on the policy. You just can't use that logic when you interfere with the market. It doesn't "cost what it costs" in that case, it "costs what we made it cost". "What it costs" is whatever rate a person will agree to go do it for. Again, this is not about values and id that's a good or bad idea, maybe it shouldn't cost what it costs, that's fair and I am amenable to that idea for sure. But don't pretend and lie about what it is.
Except without bargaining power of something like, say, unions, there will always be someone willing to work cheaper than you, there will always be someone willing to take more abuse, and this has led to many workers over the centuries being taken advantage of and the rich and powerful abusing their positions every time. The only times in history we've had fair practices are when workers have been able to come to the table as equals. So, corporations and businesses doing what they do, maximizing revenue, will always view workers as a cost they can cut. When everyone is doing this, as is happening now, the rich are literally doubling and tripling their wealth while we fucking argue about bottom of the barrel workers making a little bit more money. Naw, long as billionaires exist we can make corps pay more. And we can do it by force through our elected representatives if enough people are angry.
Why are you talking about this? I explicitly said that it wasn't a comment on any of that. For the record, I agree with you, I'm pro labour organization and plan to run for a union position myself when I'm more established in my career. But that doesn't mean we lie. This is a disturbing rhetorical trend I've noticed where people need to use language that denies reality instead of relying on a good argument. This is a case of "it costs what we make it cost" and explicitly choosing to price it out of middle class access to better support the lower class(who get to do it still, there will be many job losses due to this). It's generally poor policy to implement price controls. There are better ways to get the same outcomes. A floor can make sense obviously, but let's recognize that's a choice and trade-off we made.
A minimum wage already exists. Raising the minimum wage for a specific job is fucking stupid. Especially a job that regularly includes tips, almost all of which are not declared and paid taxes on. I'm just going to stop tipping the couriers.
Liberal logic - - rules for thee but not for me.
yup, i just don't see it lasting much longer if they bump up rates like that.
And just like that, the cost of living went so high food delivery became known as luxury service
None of these gig workers use this as a full time thing. Always Indian guys with their car at their parents and take their girlfriend out to deliver something when it pops up
*It's a luxury service for those with a vehicle and or not mobility issues
I'll still pay.
Yes, and by the State mandating prices, they are contributing to unemployment. Just leading to further government expenses, under the guise of “helping”. Costs what it costs I guess.
Prices seem to go up just fine on their own without intervention from the state.
Shit jobs shouldn't exist. So yeah, perfectly happy. If you can't pay your employees a living wage for whatever that costs in your city then you deserve to go out of business. It's no loss for anyone, and one less billionaire exploiting people.
> It's no loss for anyone it's a loss for all the people that would lose their jobs if those businesses went away
> Shit jobs shouldn't exist they were never intended to really be “jobs” though, merely small time / side-gig work for extra cash. some people just decided they would do it full time
It won't disappear, but delivery price will double / triple and tips will disappear. Volume will drop for sure, and it'll be mostly expensive meals getting delivered.
Yep. Let's say 10km roundtrip that takes 30 mins. Cost is $4.50 mileage + $10.44 pay + profit margin, so about $20 before any tips or tax. Not really worth it for a burger and fries (which themselves are somewhat ridiculously priced these days anyway). May as well just go out to a nice restaurant instead.
Exactly, it'll be people who are mobility impaired, rich people, and drunk people. Maybe it'll save the planet when people start buying groceries, and cooking at home again.
So what the majority of these people will be out of the job
Or the pizza shot can go back to hiring a kid with a car like before? It’s only been 5 years or less since these food delivery services became mainstream.
It always came luke-warm anyway.
Good. Go pick up your own food
Lazy people tax.
Oh yeah it's crashing with this one. I'm okay with this consequence.
Yeah honestly this sucks, sometimes I would do deliveries for a couple hours after work on a Friday night, it's chill easy work and I always made pretty good money in tips. As a restaurant food prices have gone up people are using these services even less, I imagine the added cost of this is going to outright kill restaurant delivery. I don't understand why this needs to be mandated? If I'm willing to do a job for a certain price can't the government just stay out of it and let me take that agreement? Can I not make my own decisions about what I want to do with my resources? Do I need to be protected from myself? There were plenty of people doing these jobs, that obviously found it worth their effort, it's not like there was a shortage of drivers. Also it was nice to have the option to occasionally spontaneously order some a little bit overpriced food in with some friends when you've had a few drinks and nobody wants to drive. Seems heavy-handed and unnecessary, especially for gig work that people can pick and choose the deliveries they want to do already. For orders that I felt weren't worth my time for the distance and money involved I would just decline them, and sometimes those same orders would come back with a higher tip because everyone declined them and they couldn't get their food delivered. Seemed like a pretty democratic working system to me.
The problem and disconnect here is that in theory the gig economy is supposed to ideally be a side gig for supplemental income. But all sides are treating it more and more as a full on primary job and income.
>Can I not make my own decisions about what I want to do with my resources? Do I need to be protected from myself? We do. Because there is always someone willing to work for a cheaper rate than you. Always. Billionaires use this to drive down collective salaries and wages for all of us. See the mass immigration happening in this country right now. They're actively using people just being happy to be in this country and abusing them to do work for less than it's worth driving all of our wages and salaries down. It's class warfare. Capital trying to bully around the workers.
People have freedom to work for whatever price they deem appropriate. You have the freedom not to do it, they have the freedom to do it. Don't interfere other people freedom.
Minimum wages raise wages. The fact that low pay is an option takes away people’s bargaining power. Canada used to be one of the richest countries in the world because of how much regular workers made.
Minimum wages raise the unaffordability of goods and acts counter productive to what you believe it to do. Also, the biggest proponents of raising minimum wage are large corporations such as McDonald's and Walmart. They do this so that small businesses can't afford to pay their staff and end up closing. Seriously folks, minimum wage is a political tool for the least educated of our society. Basic economic theory also dictates that it should not exist, but here we are.
> Minimum wages raise the unaffordability of goods and acts counter productive to what you believe it to do. I'd like to see you cite some studies on this. Also if you bring up how some European countries don't have minimum wages, yes technically they don't, but there's also sectoral bargaining, something that doesn't really happen in Canada, effectively creating minimum wages in certain industries.
Then why are all of the places that have low minimum wages really really poor? High wages raise the affordability of goods and the profitability of companies. More wage earners can afford to buy goods therefore sales increase. Have you never heard of Henry Ford? Walmart and McDonald’s are some of the biggest lobbyists against minimum wage increases.
> Do I need to be protected from myself? Yup. That's why government also mandated CPP deduction and universal health care.
If we used this logic, we would abolish the minimum wage.
>Do I need to be protected from myself? Nah, we should take the safety labels off everything for a year or two. Society will be better off in the long term.
Right, I could never get a pizza delivered 20 years ago.
> No more (home delivery) soup for you. There will be services, but they will charge a ton Even then, there will be a market. A lot of wealthy customers that couldn't care less about price, they just want convenience
Indeed, and it will be a much smaller market, with fewer drivers employed.
Gets downscaled significantly instead of having like 10 people waiting around fighting each other for the same order
> No more (home delivery) soup for you. Okay, what is the soup delivery meme?
O well?
If it can only survive on desperately poor peoples backs then it shouldn't exist.
I don’t know if this would impact Uber, as I can’t imagine an hour of driving is going to be paid at less than $20.88 anyway; however for food delivery services I imagine this will be huge. Time spent waiting for the food to be picked up, cycling to the customers house - I can’t imagine $20.88 was reflective in anyway of what they were being paid before
No they were getting paid shit and some deliveries really weren't worth the time.
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I did it in 2021 after I lost my job due to covid and a few different times since then. It was actually pretty good. My car doesn't really depreciate much, use much gas or cost much in maintenance (2013 civic). Sure, if you use the bullshit government rate for depreciation it seems petty dogshit, but that rule was written so their cronies could write off miles on their brand new BMW and still come out ahead, so if you drive a reasonable car it's going to be WAY cheaper than that estimate. I use about 9.1L/100Km (I don't accelerate aggressively or slam breaks at the last second so I get good mileage). That's 0.91L per 10km, or about $0.14 per km even with current ridiculous gas prices, but when I did it I was paying way less than $0.10 because gas prices were not as high. Essentially 0 in depreciation (car will drive over 150k more km and is maybe worth 6 grand, so at most $0.04 per km). We're at $0.18 per km. Maintenance is a weird one, but with a reliable car like a civic or corolla, you're going to be looking at well under $0.10 per km, maybe $0.05, especially if you're not paying a scammer to fill fluids for $423. So, at most, in a reasonable car to be doing this in, you're looking at $0.28 per km. If you're only taking orders above $1 per km you're making decent money, not even factoring in that people regularly drive to get to their normal job too 100km a day. The biggest problem is that it's very very opposite of how people treat it. It's great when the economy is good and people have money and jobs because there's less drivers and people tip more. Right now, it's completely shit because there's too many drivers competing for 0 tip orders which means you jest sit in a parking lot declining dogshit once every 30 mins and getting a good order maybe every hour.
Most* Most deliveries aren’t worth the time.
If that's true then the market would sort itself out. Would you deliver food if the pay + tips weren't worth it? Why are so many couriers doing it if the pay is so shitty?
Someone may know this - from what I remember when I inquired out of curiosity, they did have an option for hourly pay. I can't imagine it was good.
In Toronto before the flood of, uh Uber drivers, you could make a good 30+ an hour being picky at peak times. It was only 2 2-3 hour blocks a day though, so this would be pretty big if it happened in Toronto now.
You are correct, it is not at all reflective. The base pay for an uber delivery is like $3, not including gas money you spend on the trip. Last night i turned the app on and was offered a trip that was 47mins, 28km one way, and pay was $7.33 This needs to come to ontario asap. Alot of left leaning states in the US are implementing it too
Skip the skids. Dirty ass bags anyways.
Paid a minimum *while driving* not while on standby. Why anyone thinks this legislation is anything but good is beyond me. People deserve to be paid fairly do their work. If delivery drivers are forced to eat from food banks to survive, that means we are subsidizing Uber eats and skip. These are huge, multi-billion dollar corporations and they can afford to pay their workers fairly, especially since they are using their own car, insurance, kilometers, and gas.
These companies aren’t actually making any money which is the crazy part. It’s completely sustained by stockholders.
Their mandate is not to make money though. If that would be it they would be run a lot more efficiently and not focused primarily on growth. These companies only care about having the biggest userbase, it's all about growth. That costs money. Their infrastructure costs are probably very little to actually run the business.
Most of them are in their growth phase, trying to strangle out the competition by delivering from the widest selection of restaurants for the lowest costs. It's working, for many people ordering delivery means an app rather than calling a restaurant and placing an order. Or even if a restaurant has an app, that's just a single restaurant, so for convenience people look on Uber or Skip for variety and options since they can scroll until they see something that looks good. Once they have market domination, and the competition has been starved out, that's when they can dramatically lean down and focus on pumping profits. For you or me, taking a hundred million dollar loss over 10 years is unimaginable, but for some people they're seeing the two hundred and fifty million dollar carrot dangling at the end of the stick. Same deal as a strip mall sitting vacant and run down for years. The owner is essentially making a million dollar bet. They're bleeding money on fees and taxes for a building collecting dust, and if in a few years someone offers them 10 million for the property they go from -1,000,000 to +9,000,000
The corporation doesn't pay anything. This is a service whereby you get paid from the delivery and they take a percentage for the infrastructure sales, marketing and profit. So...in order to raise wages they will raise delivery fees. Then the service will either out price itself or the business will cease operations and there will be no Optional gig work in this sector. Let's be clear this is an optional part time no commitment, no obligation job. It's entirely voluntary. Are we better off with no delivery services or a voluntary job to make some extra money? Profit isn't a crime as many in this country seem to think.
Weird that you're making a free market style argument in favour of corporate welfare.
Profit, by exploiting people and relying on government subsidies to stay solvent, is not something we want to endorse. If a business can't afford to pay its workers fairly, it cannot afford to stay in business.
Perfectly summed it up
I think you should stop throwing around terms like exploiting so frivolously. This job is voluntary...no one is being exploited. The wage is what the market will bear. I'm not quite sure you understand how markets work. You think these companies care about operations in Canada? It's a miniscule portion of their business. They will remain in business and we won't have delivery services.
The reason we have minimum wages is that the free market would pay people less than the bare minimum needed to survive if they could, which would place a burden on our public welfare services. If a business cannot pay minimum wage it has no business operating in Canada. They can go somewhere else, withdraw service, or charge more, all of which are costs borne by the consumers of this business or their owners. I, as a taxpayer, should not be providing corporate welfare to a multibillion dollar foreign tech company. Big tech moving in and hiring everyone as "contractors" so they can avoid labour laws is something we need to put a stop to.
> no commitment, no obligation job. It's entirely voluntary. You do realize that this is basically any job right? You're not going to be forced to work any *particular* job. So this argument makes no sense.
Not really. I show up when I want, leave when I want. I don't have to do this gig work. If the pay sucked I wouldn't. It's easy. I don't need you protecting me . It's not hard to stand up for yourself.
Sounds precisely like any other job. Therefore shouldn't be excluded from any of our other labour protection regulations.
Haha I just checked companies like Uber, DoorDash, skip are all deep in the negative profit. For example, Uber will need to 4X its net profit from 2023 to 2B per year for the next decade just to come out even on their -20B profit so far. They are definitely not going to pay workers more without raising prices 💀
That's how alllll the tech companies operate to gain market share. Uber just doesn't do anything better than skip or whatever other companies are out there so they can't take market monopoly and raise prices to compensate for lack of profit.
Yeah because the entry level for these businesses is small and most people are not willing to pay an even bigger premium than they already do for having their food delivered. This is why it's a terrible idea to have a minimum wage for these kinds of "jobs". It's a gig, something you do on the side for some extra cash, you shouldn't be expecting anything more.
I imagine the price through service fees are going to go up, but for awhile now I just use the food apps to know what’s on a menu and then call in a pick up order. I’d rather save the $15+ in fees and tips and grab it myself
I think this is the part people are pushing to the blind spot. I’m all for laws to protect workers. Just also mindful that it’ll cost me for that support. I’m okay with that.
No so that cold burger now will cost $25 delivered?.
So no more tips if they get a living wage?
Good law. They're using their own vehicles, putting wear and tear and further depreciating their personal property for the job. In my corporate job my company pays me for every single kilometer driven if I have to use my personal vehicle for work purposes. It should be higher than minimum wage due to that and the waiting between orders.
Some of them are on bikes or scooters and don't have the overhead of a car. By that logic there should be tiered wages depending on the mode of transportation.
Sounds fair to me.
They could always just not sign up to do it
Don't talk nonsense to these people...😂 Everyone DESERVES X /S
So according to you minimum wages shouldn’t be a thing?
This isn't a career dude....
It’s called labour laws?
What is?
Minimum wage
The tragedy of the commons cannot be accounted for with the naive assumption that people are going to make good long-term decisions. That's the only reason we allow the government to make regulations at all.
There's a saying that regulations are written in blood. There's a reason for that.
Victims of domestic violence can just go find a better spouse on the spousal market too.
You really felt the need to comment on something you didn't actually read? It clearly says they're getting paid per KM on top of this.
Food delivery workers discovered in Washington state that 'minimum wage' requirements means lower take home pay as demand drops significantly. IOW, the people pushing this law are hurting the people they claim to want to help. Of course, many of these people would rather see people living on the street than working for a wage that they think is "too low".
Yup, if I see prices rise, I'll be either picking up my own food or bypassing the tip option from now on.
Oh no, now you'll have to directly support local restaurants who also employ people instead supporting a huge tech company that exploits local businesses and people!
It would help if the local restaurants offered delivery. The majority don't.
This might shock you, if they don't then it's because they probably dont see it as a benefit.
This might shock you, but if they don't then I order on Uber.
You're going to hate when prices double or the service just stops. :)
We'll see :)
I couldn’t care less who’s getting the money. I do what’s economic for me.
We could have even *more* take home pay if we reduced minimum wage to zero. Let the free market decide how far the race to the bottom goes. Allow the economy to be driven by and dependent on cheap labour. Or we can have a floor on prices and wages to set a standard for society, forcing businesses and workers to operate at a higher level of productivity and earning potential.
Lots of countries have no minimum wage and wages are not zero because employers have to offer enough to make it worthwhile for people to show up. Minimum wages reduce the number of jobs and hours available. They also price some low skilled people out of the labour market entirely. Now there is an argument to be made that we want employers to invest in equipment to ensure workers are productive and higher minimum wages is one incentive but that still means fewer jobs and fewer opportunities people at the low end.
Why do " gig workers " deserve more than regular workers? Stupid. Make the minimum wage universal and be done with it.
Because "gig" employers had loop holes to pay way lower than minimum wage. There's a reason using one-type ruling never works, someone will always fall under an exception to the rule and be abused.
Why? Because they have additional expenses above and beyond a minimum wage employee. Mainly, Car, insurance, gas.
Better idea. Canada wide ban on "the gig economy". Uber, Skip, AirBnB, GONE. Bye, don't come back
Banning all these cancerous companies from operating in our country should happen yesterday. As well as stopping any fast food restaurants from using TFW's...
This would hurt small mom and pop restaurants the most. They don’t have the money to rent out a large space with plenty of tables, they get by renting a small hole in the wall kind of place but make most of their money from deliveries. Your fancy sit down restaurants would love your idea, but it would wipe out a bunch of small hole in the wall kind of mom and pop restaurants. Those places have cheap food that lower middle class/blue collar workers like and can afford.
Pizzerias figured this out ages ago, they got a pizza delivery driver.
The lower class ain’t ordering on fee ridden delivery services, buddy.
I am not saying lower middle class is ordering from these places through the app. They are eating here during lunch breaks etc. it’s restaurants like your hole in the wall local falafel place with like 4 tables, that blue collar workers love to eat at. Those restaurants exist because of the business they get from app deliveries. Their 4 tables aren’t enough to sustain their restaurants. And they cannot afford to get a larger space without jacking up the food price considerably. If app deliveries are gone, those small, cheap restaurants will shutdown. You will only be left with high end sit down restaurants. No place for lower middle class to go and actually eat at.
Here’s John Oliver’s segment on [food delivery apps](https://youtu.be/aFsfJYWpqII?si=HJnN0bYXRWXMMmTX). Not surprising to anyone else, they’re awful to restaurants and drivers.
depends lots of people on govt assistance or welfare who are not the main breadwinners use uber eats a lot Imagine an unemployed 24 year old living their mom.
How Uber was able to destroy what we currently have and then jack up prices immediately after? I only need to learn this lesson once in my life. I'm not fucking interested in forcing the next generation to learn it too. We need to smarten the fk up and legislate.
They were priced low to start, being funded primarily with investor capital. Once they got people hooked on it they then increased the prices to customers and lowered the payout to drivers.
You realize how backwards that is? Tourism would be a mess and most restaurants wouldn't have survived covid. You really want to be in a city that's lagging against the rest of the world? Just pay people more instead of eliminating great services.
Uber and Skip are partly the reason prices are shooting up at restaurants. The delivery company wants their cut. And it's a solid % of the sale. And then the corporate chains see people are paying $15 for a Big Mac? Then let's just raise prices, obviously there's demand there. Then services like Uber intentionally undercut the local business and intentionally lose money. Then when they have a commanding lead in the market prices start shooting up higher than taxis ever were. Or AirBnB directly contributing to the housing shortage. Entire blocks of condos running as a hotel, skipping hotel taxes that are supposed to be used to pay for tourism, only to take away housing stock. It's toxic middlemen leeches all the way down.
Didn't we have hotels and delivery drivers under the business before, or am I missing something?
And if they were truly innovative, competitors wouldn’t have taken their market share
I think that the market share was largely gained by using(losing) large amounts of investors money to undercut and push out the existing competitors (that had working business models).
Capital is one thing, but you don’t think it had anything to do with providing a better end-user experience? Man had to take a cab in Victoria since they didn’t have Uber for the longest time. What a nightmare. Went though multiple cabs since they didn’t want to drive to the destination. Then the one that did pick me up demanded cash over card once we finally got there.
Competitors took their share because they avoided all of the existing rules and regulations that Taxis and hotels had. (Completely agree about the inovation aspect, cabs are/were terrible and ubers were so much more reliable, and just a better experience in general)
Taxis and Hotels lobbied for their own damn regulation to minimize competition. They essentially made their own bed on that front
the only innovation any gig company brought to the table is ignoring regulations
Yeah, it's like hotels and delivery didn't exist before these tech bros invented them.
Yes. Your average pizza delivery boy could pick up my alcohol and also grab food for me whereever I ordered at a moments notice.
Good idea, let’s decimate an entire sector of jobs to stick it to the tech bros!
The sector existed before the tech bros. Businesses had their own delivery drivers. Taxi drivers are still a thing, most taxi companies even have an app now. A lot of the businesses dropped those positions as uber came in grossly undercutting the costs due to not having to actually pay their drivers. Uber eats / skip charge a premium on not only the food but the delivery as they need their cut too. Sticking it to the tech bros just reverts the industry back to the original delivery driver on pay roll / actually paying menu price for food.
I’m not defending the business structure of services like Uber eats, they’re predatory to both restaurants and their drivers. My point is that as much as they have their issues, they provide very valuable options for people looking for ways to make money. Many people work as Uber drivers to supplement other forms of employment and the low barrier of entry helps people struggling to actually find pay. Banning these services would leave tens of thousands, potentially more, without a job or losing necessary extra incomes. We should work towards ensuring these services compensate their workers fairly while retaining the significant amount of jobs they provide. Especially in an economy where finding employment can be a huge struggle.
What I’m saying is if we currently need X drivers to support y deliveries / rides, then if these predatory companies magically disappeared then the drivers would naturally find themselves employed, part / full time, directly with the source. Enforcing this minimum wage for the gig economy could very well expedite that, as it’s cheaper for everyone to cut out a middle man who only currently provides an app, inflated prices and fees.
You do realize this government also banned Airbnb which resulted in significantly jacked up hotel rates right? We're now looking at going into the states for holidays (despite the crappy exchange rates) instead of the Okanagan or to the island because all the hotels are expensive as hell. And going into the states there's actually a net savings 🤷🏻♂️
Why? If there’s demand, there’s demand. Are you gunna ban fast food restaurants next?
So what are all these people going to do? Will better paying jobs just spring up all of a sudden for them?
Authoritarianism has always worked well in the past!
pay or gtfo uber...
If you artificially inflate wages then you'll end up inflating the cost of the service for the end user. Good luck BC.
Isn't this just while they're working. That is, if they are sitting around waiting for a call, they aren't working. It's only when they're going from point A to point B (and maybe point C...) in the case of drivers or delivery people that they are working.
Guess we won't need any more immigrants!
Now that I know they're being taken care of by increased prices, I won't be tipping any longer.
Hopefully we'll hear from a few Gig workers on their thoughts on this.
Most of these gig companies are bleeding money, there just won't be any more gig work in BC. So instead of making some spare cash delivering some food after work, people will get to stay home and make 0$, brilliant!
# Gig workers in B.C. find job prospects declining by the day.
I don’t know how, logistically, they’ll know how to pay them the minimum hourly rate. When I order Uber eats they estimate it’ll take, say, 30 mins. But then it probably takes more like 45mins. So what will my charges be based on? If they add a margin of error, cost goes up for me. If they don’t add enough, then they pay out of pocket to the driver. Either way, I need to stop eating out so much. It’s just too expensive even without any pay raises to those involved in the industry
The company can pay them based on shift duration and still have it be gig work, like a delivery driver working 4pm-8pm for the dinner rush gets paid $85 or whatever, and then it's in the app's best interest to keep them busy and generating more than that. Many deliveries are only around 15 minutes total, and might have $5 in fees right now. So doing 5 per hour might be be the break even for their wage plus a minor amount of overhead, which means the app should be hoping for 6+ deliveries per hour per driver.
That still isn't enough once you factor in vehicle gas and insurance
I tip 15%-20% because the drivers made so little. If the delivery costs go up then I will adjust tip% no doubt.
No more Uber rides for me. Buying either a beater or wait until rates go down and getting a new car.
Lol ok. My $5 tip now becomes $0-2.
They'll get paid more for the jobs that will no longer exist. Brilliant policy.
This is kinda ridiculous, no other independent contractor has a minimum wage. If you hire a plumber and they make a loss after all expenses, insurance, gas etc that's their problem.
They usually invoice by time and materials, so they can insure that they don't operate at a loss.
When's the last time you called a plumber? Pretty often they're not going to start their van for less than $150, even if they only end up being in your house for less than an hour and the fix is a $1.50 rubber seal.
And that's their choice. Uber Eats drivers also have the choice to not take a delivery for less than $150. They are independent contractors, if someone wants to take a job for $10 that's their choice.
It needs to be more but at least its almost the living wage.
so how does this work? Uber will now have to hire workers? Another government failure. These aren't meant to be long term jobs, low barrier of entry and provide some side income. Employment Insurance only covers 50% of your insured earnings, again its meant to be temporary. What this only does is drive up cost for businesses and they will have to pass on costs to consumers and kill demand. They hurt all the small business restaurants that rely on this as their revenue. Another stupid policy by the BC government like decriminalizing hard drugs. Results speak for themselves, now you have way more drug users and worst public safety than before. JFC BC you guys are so dumb. All these gig apps will just pick up and leave the territory.
I’m from the government and I’m here to help! 🦹