Uber is a German word that means above the rest. It is also the apt name of a popular mobile app transportation network company. For those of us trying to survive in the growing on-demand economy promoted by Uber, images of goose-stepping armies of gig economy fascists readily spring to mind. And my futurist crystal ball tells me that it’s in our best interest to stay out from under their technocratic jackboots.
Uber has attracted a lot of attention recently, both positive and negative, for proudly trying to redefine full-time employees as contractors.
Their business model isn’t new; Corporate America has been embracing transient labor in order to avoid paying employee benefits and related corporate taxes for some years now.
Unlike Uber, they don’t brag about it, though. After all, displacing full-time employees for contractors, many of them overseas or foreign nationals here on visas, still doesn’t play well in Peoria; just ask Disney.
No, Uber is proudly spinning its business model as one that entrepreneurial thought leaders are embracing in order to survive and thrive in our brave new world. What’s not to love? Their drivers are business partners, not employees.
Many millennials cheer Uber’s entrepreneurial passion, especially those who earn their bitcoins by sucking on a tech company’s teat. They feel we need to be free agents in order to innovate, or we deserve to disintegrate. How else can you become a mini-Zuckerberg and invent an app that Google, or even Zuckerberg himself, will buy from you for billions?
I admire their spunk, but as someone who’s navigated through a few boom and bust economies, this business model looks a lot like a sweat shop in silicon clothing.
We can’t be too surprised by the rise of the on-demand economy and companies like Uber (or Uberettes, as I like to call Uber-like startups). After all, we have become increasingly impatient consumers; millennials and boomers alike want instant results and gratification: we want a cab NOW; we want our Web-purchased goods NOW; we want everything NOW.
The more affluent among us don’t even mind Uber’s other ingenious invention, “surge pricing.” It’s not enough that Uber doesn’t want to pay for its drivers’ FICA, Medicare, workers’ comp and health insurance; no, they also favor a pricing plan designed to bleed as much money out of their customers as possible, even during terrorist attacks.
Surge pricing sticker shock isn’t for the faint of heart or wallet. Last Halloween, a Denver man was changed $539 for an 18-mile ride that typically costs around $40. Uber even spiked rates in Sydney, Australia when a local café was under siege last Christmas. Ho-ho-no! Stories like these pop up in the news every day.
Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, defends his business model by saying that if he’s forced to provide employee benefits or charge reasonable cab fares, his company won’t survive.
What if all CEOs felt as Kalanick and collectively decided to make all U.S. workers 1099 contractors? A cab driver is one thing, but would you feel safe leaving your child at a day care center staffed by contractors who could come and go as they please without a background check?
And what role, if any, has our over-reliance on a transient labor force played in the recent rash of cyber security breaches? Is it unreasonable to think that an underpaid, often offshore, contractor would sell your personal info to supplement his or her income?
Wouldn’t an employee who has a vested financial interest in keeping their job be more reliable in handling your customer’s sensitive information? I guess it’s easier to publicly blame North Korea or China for all such breaches; gotta keep those admin costs down and the shareholders happy, you know?
And then there are the other lifestyle perks that come with being part of the non-gig economy: credit. How many Uber drivers can qualify for a mortgage, a car loan, or even a credit card?
Banks aren’t adjusting their requirements to accommodate the on-demand economy. They still want evidence of secure employment and if you don’t have a steady (hopefully, fat) paycheck deposited biweekly into your account, you won’t find a lot of love or credit at Wells Fargo or Citibank, even if you’ve been driving for Uber for years.
If we allow Uber and its ilk to shift the labor force Overton Window and acclimate us to being part of an on-demand workforce, we’re building a seamless bridge to an even more dire reality: robots and AI (artificial intelligence).
Uber’s Kalanick admitted last year that he can’t wait to dump his “business partner” drivers as soon as driverless cars are more reliable.
He’s not alone. Notice how companies worldwide are gradually introducing robots into the workforce? Lowe’s publicly tested a multilingual sales assistant robot last year and a five-star hotel staffed entirely by robots just opened in Japan. All hail the coming technocracy!
The popular narrative is that AI is cool and robots are needed for jobs companies can’t fill with people (ironically enough, the latter narrative is similar to the one U.S.-based companies use to explain why they need to hire foreign nationals). That’s where this is heading folks: 1099 workers today, replaced by robots tomorrow.
The only hope we have of saving our earning power is through the power of the purse. Support companies that support their employees and don’t patronize any humanity-hating businesses that replace full-time employees with cheap labor or R2D2. In doing so, you may just save your future employment prospects.