My Thoughts: Fired

Photo by ANTONI SHKRABA production on Pexels.com The best thing that ever happened to me was getting fired! Though the firing was mutual… long story. For the first time, I was granted an opportunity to live my life in a truthful manner. When I graduated college, I thought that the best road was the path of least resistance. I felt that anything I had to work hard for and build from scratch was a…

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A win for gig workers.

This ruling may have a rippling effect across the country

Mail Bag: Should I Go Pro?

by Johnny Martyr I get a fair number of DM’s asking various questions about shooting film. I do my best to answer thoroughly; as if my response was something that I myself would depend on. If you’ve written me and not received a response, it’s likely just because I’m trying to respond in the most helpful way that I can. I might make a regular thing of featuring some of your questions here on my…

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This is a ONCE IN A LIFETIME EVENT! You will never find an opportunity l...

Doordash I have been clocked on for two hours.

One delivery in all that time is so unacceptable.

FILE A COMPLAINT ON A HAIR BRAIDER WITH THE FDA

FILE A COMPLAINT ON A HAIR BRAIDER WITH THE FDA The scope of FDA’s regulatory authority is very broad. FDA’s responsibilities are closely related to those of several other government agencies. Often frustrating and confusing for consumers is determining the appropriate regulatory agency to contact. The following is a list of traditionally-recognized product categories that fall under FDA’s…

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i think semi presents two very different sides of himself as a civil servant versus as a musician. i think the minute he clocks off he chucks off the uniform and slaps on eyeliner and hair product and pops in the piercings and shimmies into his stupid worn-down leather coat with the faux-fur trim over a faded tank top and ripped jeans and he laces up his boots and slides his guitar over his shoulders all bright-eyed and bright smile and whenever he passes by someone on the street they fall in love with him just a little

The US Department of Labor (DOL) published a final rule to the Federal Register on Wednesday that would increase the difficulty of classifying workers as independent contractors. If the rule survives court challenges unscathed, it will replace a business-friendly Trump-era regulation that did the opposite. It’s scheduled to go into effect on March 11. The new rule, first proposed in 2022, could have profound implications for companies like Uber and DoorDash that rely heavily on gig workers. It would mandate that workers who are “economically dependent” on a company be considered employees. The rule restores a pre-Trump precedent of using six factors to determine workers’ classification. These include their opportunity for profit or loss, the financial stake and nature of resources the worker has invested in the work, the work relationship’s permanence, the employer’s degree of control over the person’s work, how essential the person’s work is to the employer’s business and the worker’s skill and initiative.

an important factor to remember in the writers strike. So many industries want to turn the worker into a gig worker with no protections and no mentoring system. 

Apparently whenever my delayed sleep phase disorder acts up I just draw them sleeping now.

Redraw of one of my first Kazurei drawings!

Across New York City, delivery drivers are a ubiquitous sight: congregating outside big restaurant chains waiting to collect orders, zooming through the city streets with orders in tow. “The most chaotic time for deliveries is easily during lunch time,” says Elijah Williams, who delivers food for both Uber and DoorDash. “I’ve had up to four orders at one time.” 

Mayor Eric Adams recently announced a major change that will deeply impact busy workers like Williams: app-based delivery workers will be paid $17.96 an hour starting July 12th — and nearly $20 an hour by 2025 — marking the nation’s first minimum pay for such workers.

“Our delivery workers have consistently delivered for us — now, we are delivering for them,” he said. “They should not be delivering food to your household, if they can’t put food on the plate in their household.”

The Background

Mayor Adams made the announcement at City Hall, surrounded by delivery workers as well as members of the nonprofit organizations, Workers Justice Project (WJP) and Los Deliveristas Unidos.

Ligia Guallpa, executive director of WJP, expressed her excitement and gratitude.

“This first of its kind minimum pay rate will uplift working and immigrant families,” said [Ligia Guallpa of Workers Justice Project (WJP)] alongside Gustavo Ajche of Los Deliveristas Unidos. “[It will] ensure that workers who keep New Yorkers fed, are able to keep also their families fed too.”

WJP was founded in 2010, and coordinates numerous worker-led programs, including Los Deliveristas Unidos, that aim to improve conditions for low-wage immigrant workers across the five boroughs.

The Details

The current minimum wage in New York is $15 an hour. On average, service workers are paid $7.09 an hour, excluding tips. The new wage is in keeping with a law passed by the City Council in 2021, which requires the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection to set a standard minimum rate for delivery workers.

App-based delivery workers are classified as “independent contractors,” which means they’re not entitled to the standard minimum wage that applies to salaried employees’ pay. Instead, delivery workers who work for the big food delivery services, like Uber Eats and Relay, are entitled to just $2.13 an hour before tips — a so-called “tipped sub-minimum wage.”

Research has shown that getting rid of tipped sub-minimum wages benefits not just the workers getting the raise, but the economy as a whole. A 2021 analysis found that states without a tipped sub-minimum wage saw 29 percent growth in their leisure and hospitality sectors, compared to just six percent in states that used the federal tipped sub-minimum wage of $2.13.

...For many of the workers who face hostile roads and unpredictable weather conditions to get New Yorkers their ordered goods, this is a life-changing development.

“This is my full-time job. I get up every day and do this,” says delivery driver Justin Martinez outside the Chick-Fil-A in Washington Heights. 

Martinez, 30, is originally from the Dominican Republic. His commitment to completing deliveries, he explains, is fueled by his love for his family.

“This is my way to contribute. I go out, 9, 10 hours a day, do deliveries, and then I can come home,” he says. Martinez first started driving for Uber in 2019 before transitioning to delivering food for Uber Eats and other apps in 2021. He’s excited for the pay wage increase: “Maybe now, I only [have to] go out for 6 hours.”

-via Reasons to Be Cheerful, June 30, 2023

The B.C. government will guarantee new employment rights for ride-hailing and delivery drivers, including a minimum wage and WorkSafeBC coverage, Labour Minister Harry Bains said Wednesday. But the changes fall short of what’s needed, say some labour advocates, and will create a new underclass of employee. Harry Bains announced the province is going to introduce minimum working standards for drivers on apps like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash. The regulations, once finalized, would guarantee workers a slate of rights they don’t currently have. It would also designate them as employees under the province’s Employment Standards Act, giving them the right to join a union. But Bains said the government would also exclude them from protections other workers have under the act, including paid sick leave and vacation time. It also does not include a benefits plan — something the BC NDP promised gig workers in its 2020 election campaign.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

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Does anyone know of good resources for finding full time remote work for disabled ppl… my medical situation (and my physical stamina) seem like they’ve been steadily declining for a while now and I really really love the job I have rn and don’t wanna quit but 🥲 it’s really physically demanding and it’s a big problem that I keep having to call out more and more frequently,,, if I could find data entry or transcription work that I could do at home even on days when I’m bedridden it would be so helpful but it seems like more and more those jobs are being turned into exploitative freelance/gig economy shit w no insurance and shady pay 💀 if anyone knows of any remote job sites that actually vet the employers or like grassroots disability advocacy orgs that practice what they preach re: hiring…

idk how much mxtx was trying to make this specific point with the way that likable shen yuan took over violently unlikeable shen jiu’s body & attendant changes in quality of life for the shen qingqiu brand, but sometimes i think about how survival in many places in this world are explicitly a popularity contest despite there being way more than enough resources and money and healthcare to go around, and how shen jiu lost that contest and shen yuan won it, and i get really unhappy

When people say the gig economy is fucked, they may not be able to put it enough into persepctive for those outside of that sphere to understand.

Let me paint you a picture.

My partner and I just dashed for about 2 hours. Drove through snow and high winds. Dealt with grumpy retail employees. Navigated the hell that is city-downtown driving. ALL on Black Friday, the day that's supposed to be highest-paying.

Guess how much we made.

I'll wait.

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$12.

That's it. $6/hour. McDONALD'S pays more than that. More than double, in-fact (at least in NYS).

Uber, doordash, instacart, all these businesses that tout themselves as helpful to the entrepreneurial spirit-- they're all lying to us.

They're using every old excuse in the book to not properly compensate their workers, then crack down on the organizations that could ACTUALLY help them, like unions.

Don't be fooled by propoganda.

Corporations are NOT our friends. Fight for your rights.