Exploitation
These gig economy jobs seem to me to be based on the exploitation of somebody.
If management can't exploit the customers they have to exploit the workers.
Dozy ride-share drivers juggling multiple jobs are putting people's lives at risk, according to a statement from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) in the Journal of The Bleeding Obvious Clinical Sleep Medicine. While Uber’s self-driving cars have taken a bit of a bashing, in recent weeks the AASM’s department of …
of course they do, this is the problem with the world today. I'll give you an example, step-daughter works in a kids play centre and is on a zero hour contract and she has been "let off" work early without pay three times in the past month even though the zero hour contract is supposed to be temporary. I think the term for this is late stage capitalism though to be clear I'm no marxist before I get berated by all the capitalist pigs.
The problem is supply and demand. When there are too many workers available, then the price drops. When the price reaches rock bottom, then working conditions suffer instead. The gig economy is a result of deep digging into employment protections and working conditions.
If we had a moderately health labour market, then there would be competition on working conditions and people wouldn't work for the worst employers, and employers at the extreme low end of the labour market would have to either increase working conditions, or go bust as a result of losing all of their staff to the competition.
I have just one question about the crash where the self drive Uber killed that poor woman. If the car had had a human driver, would she still have been hit? From what I saw of the video, probably. If we have to wait for "perfect" self-drive cars, they will never happen.
As for the "gig" economy,it suits a few people, but the majority are working 12-16 hours per day just to make ends meet. If they were employed that would be illegal and prosecutions would ensue.
Being killed by an unattended driver is not exactly a novelty since a long time ago.
The car did have a human driver, who was not looking at the road for just long enough to become a killer. The fact that the system was unattentive as well is why the story got attention.
The problem is "what you saw of the video" was modified by Uber, shifting the gamma way off the mark so the scene looked as dark as possible. This wasn't in the outback on a moonless night, it was in a major city with streetlights. She would have been far easier to see than the doctored video makes it appear.
I've had full time taxi drivers pick me up from an airport and then start microsleeping while driving on the motorway before now. It doesn't matter whether it's a primary or secondary job, you simply shouldn't be driving when tired. We need cars that detect doziness and apps that check reaction times.
...are not quite consistent with the article's message, IMHO. The 803 drowsy-driving fatalities in 2016 actually mean a 3.5% YOY decrease, and that despite a 2.2% YOY increase in vehicle-miles.
If proliferation of ride-sharing causes more drowsy drivers to endanger road users I do not see it reflected in the data.
No, this does not make me a fan of Uber or its ilk.