Sorry to respond to my own message…
In the paragraph that begins “Are they perfect?” I should not have used a
pronoun. I inserted some extra text and should have changed the “they” pronoun
to read the alternative business models.
So that first sentence/question in that paragraph should read:
Are the alternative business models Perfect? No. Do I like everything the
alternative business models are doing? No.
Sorry for the lack of clarity.
Alice
On Jul 18, 2015, at 3:46 PM, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Miriam,
I do hear you, and the only reason we are talking about Uber is exactly what
you say, it’s an example, and it is the example used in the article/comments
that started this whole discussion.
I can level the charge right back at you that you are fixated on this idea of
secure employment with proper benefits and security, ad that is a chimera in
today’s employment landscape, and that all the things you cite are actually
less available in that traditional employment landscape of today than in some
of the alternatives. .
The employee, loyal, responsible, conscientious, walks into his office or his
cubicle Friday morning and is told to clear out, has 20 minutes to box up his
things and is unceremoniously escorted out of the building and told that if
he sets foot on the property ever again, he’ll be arrested. No warning, no
two weeks severance pay, nothing. Is that job security?
Regular hours? You mean the 70 hour work week for which the employee is only
paid for 40 because he is expected to finish up work at home in the evenings
and on the weekends? It is not only expected, it is demanded of the worker,
the employee, that he put in overtime hours, not only not at the pay rate of
time and a half for overtime hours usually paid in the past, but with not
even his hourly wage being paid to him?
The begrudged lousy 2 week paid vacation he gets after 15 years with the
company?
What I am describing here is happening in the traditional workforce, not in
the new business models like Uber and other such enterprises.
Freelancers have always traded what used to pass for security in employment,
the regular paycheck, the regular hours for a different way of life, and now,
with unions emasculated and scorned in much of America, they’ll choose the
uncertainties of the self-employed freelance life style over the shackles of
the corporation’s or the boss’s tyranny even more so.
In traditional employment situations today, although the worker/employee is
technically not owned as were the slaves, de facto, he is a slave. His
activities even outside of work are restricted and controlled by the
employer. Does he drink too much on a Saturday night? Does he smoke? Better
not, these are grounds for reprimand, denial of health coverage, or
termination. Does he support a political candidate or policy that goes
against the corporate interest? Same deal, censure, reprimand, termination.
It seems to me that new business models, for example, but not limited to
Uber, are trying to break away from this.
You speak about how is our society dealing with the distribution of work and
of profit? They are shipping the work anywhere they can to cut costs, leaving
their employees stuck in the decimated ghost towns the company created, then
abandoned, and they are putting more and more of the profits into their own
pockets, their off shore accounts and tax shelters, their mansions and
vacation luxury condos in the rich playgrounds of the world.
Are they perfect? No. Do I like everything they are doing? No. But we little
people have had no luck whatsoever fighting back against the corporate
hijacking of, and the corporate tyranny over every aspect of our lives, so
maybe and I emphasize maybe, bigger challenges to the traditional corporate
tyranny will have some effect. And, maybe not.
Freedom? What the hell is that these days? Surveillance, data collection,
cameras everywhere, homeland security jailing people who google yellow cake,
not for uranium, but for a birthday cake recipe, order fertilizer on line to
feed their rose bushes and email a friend who happens to be spending a
semester in Saudi Arabia studying Arabic language?
For me, feeling some kind of inescapable impotence against all of this and
much more, anyone who fights back, who wants to challenge the status quo will
be given some slack by me, at least initially.
You notice I spoke of the factory worker of 1948 who could send his son to
Oberlin College on a core maker’s salary? That world, the one you speak of at
the end of your message that began its hopeful creation and development of
safeguards and a step toward a humanitarian, more socialistic equality in
1935 has long been buried in a landslide of corporate avarice, unconscionable
actions, and treacherous duplicity and deceit to make the people swallow
their lies.
Maybe the new business models are all lies, too, but isn’t this what everyone
is talking about when they say that even innocent heads will roll in the
revolution, violence and destruction are part of it? Well, I don’t want to
believe that, and I actually don’t. And this is far from a revolution anyway.
I already said that if it turns out that Uber and all the others trying
something new turn out to be the same old crooks lying their way into our
lives, lulling us into believing them, I’ll be the first to admit that I was
wrong to think or even hope otherwise.
Alice
On Jul 18, 2015, at 1:03 PM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
You don't hear me because I'm not talking about Uber and taxicabs. I'm
talking about a whole new way of employing people in all kinds of business
ventures. You are stuck on Uber and taxicabs. You are not understanding that
Uber is just a tiny example of the big picture and the pig picture has
nothing to do with how you get from one place to another. It has to do with
how society deals with the distribution of work and of profits as a whole.
It has to do with whether or not people can have secure employment with
regular hours, possibilities for promotion, the ability to bargain for
better wages, whether they have retirement and medical benefits, job
security, an opportunity and time for family life and education, decent
housing nourishing food.All of this was part of American life when you were
growing up. Do you not understand that these changes, which are represented
as improvements and a new and modern way of doing things or, as you put it,
upsetting the applecart, are not keys to a better future but an illusion
foisted on an unknowing public as all the safeguards built into our society
since 1935 are being demolished?
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice Dampman
Humel
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2015 10:50 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: uber fined in cal partially for violating ada
I hear you. But I can't agree that the business model of Uber and the others
is any worse than the taxi industry's business model and its stranglehold on
everyone, employees and passengers alike. In fact, Isuccumbing to the lesser
of two evils crap once again, which we seem unable to escape, I think Uber
and the rest are a slight improvement, if only for the reason that they are
challenging that stranglehold and presenting a glimmer of a chance that the
whole apple cart might be upset and bring further improvements.
Alice
On Jul 18, 2015, at 10:07 AM, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
I think that when we talk about Uber and all the other supposedly
sharing
arrangements which are actually based on tech start ups that make
their
money from stock holders, we need to separate out the issues. It is
certainly true that traditional taxi companies have also
discriminated
against blind people. It's happened to me when I had a guide dog and
I've
seen it happen to other people. I've also seen my paratransit
company do it,
at least specific drivers do it. It's also true that employees have
cab
companies can have bad deals. But I think that the point of the
spate of
articles about Uber, Lift, that home sharing company and others, is
a
criticism of a new form of economic exploitation of people which
pretends to
be a simple sharing arrangement but is in fact, a way to take
advantage of
labor with no built in safeguards and huge profits for shareholders.
There
are now many articles being written about what being a contract
worker
really means. Both Carl and I have succumbed to this kind of
arrangement in
our own fields in different ways because that is what is now, more
and more,
the prevailing system. But even if you like getting your rides from
Uber or
work for them, it should be possible to step back and look
objectively at
what Uber and its kind of company represents, and to judge that it
is a
symptom of the increasing dispossession of the majority of us, of
economic
rights.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob
Hachey
Sent: Saturday, July 18, 2015 3:21 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: uber fined in cal partially for
violating ada
Hi Alice,
I'm with you all the way here. Agreed on all counts.
Obviously, there are some issues here with Uber, especially in the
state of
California where it seems many of the problems are occurring. I did
recall
one series of bad behavior by Uber here in the Boston area in which
a
paraplegic woman who is also an experienced traveler was refused
service by
two drivers and then referred to as an invalid by a third. But
goodness
knows that the taxi industries slate is far from clean on this
issue.
Bob Hachey
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice
Dampman
Humel
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2015 2:09 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: uber fined in cal partially for
violating ada
I know I'm in the minority here, but I still think there is another
way of
looking at this. I've used Uber quite a bit, and only once did the
bastard
driver see the dog and pull away, leaving me and my 91 year old
mother
standing on the street. I had told my mother what kind and color car
to
expect, and she saw such a car pull up, slow down, then speed off.
I complained to Uber, the driver was reprimanded, suspended, fired,
not sure
exactly what, and I was given a refund for the trip.
Do ou have any idea how many times I've been refused by standard
cabs? Too
numerous to count.
Now, I see all this flap over Uber and the rest as an attempt by the
taxi
industry to eliminate competition. IMO, it is the taxi industry that
is
trying every which way but loose to convince everybody of every
political
and socio-economic persuasion that Uber and the rest are evil, and
only the
taxi industry should prevail. Why do you think there is even any
question as
to whether or not Uber can operate at the airports? Of course, they
already
can drop off passengers who take Uber to the airport, but they are
frozen
out from picking up arrivals by the taxi industry. And again, how
many times
has a taxi driver refused to take me and the dog? Theoretically,
such
drivers are supposed to be pulled out of the queue and sent to the
end of
the line of waiting taxis, but that almost never happens.
Aware of how many like-minded people on many other issues see this
one
differently from me, I ask every Uber driver how long they've been
driving
for Uber and how they like it. They all say they love it. Usually
the same
story: they can make their own hours, they can drive at 2 AM if they
like
and sleep all day. They are like all free-lancers and self-employed
and
"independent" contractors or consultants: they get no benefits, they
have to
pay their own contributions to medical insurance, Social Security,
etc. .
So I don't know who is right or if there's a little right on both
sides.
But it certainly is true that Uber and Lyft and the others will
force the
taxi industry to clean up its own house if the taxi industry does
not
succeed in squelching the competition.
Just like cabs, some will be able to accommodate wheel chairs, some
not.
So we'll see where this all ends, and if the critics that see Uber
as an
exploitative big business end up being right, I"ll be the first to
concede
my error. For me, the jury is still out.
Alice
On Jul 17, 2015, at 11:53 AM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
HI Joe,
Thanks for an early chuckle on a warm but windy day here on the
Great
Olympic Peninsula.
Trade Secret, is it? Poor Uber. Surely they must know that their
so
called Trade Secret is the age old, worn out exploitation of hard
working men and women. Contract Labor is the favorite method of our
Out-of-control Corporate Capitalism to suck up some more of our hard
earned money.
What a win/win deal for the boss!
All risk, all expenses, and all responsibility is placed squarely on
the backs of those doing all the labor. I've heard the Uber ads
proclaiming that if you have a car, you can make a thousand dollars
a
week. How many out of work, desperate people will jump at such an
offer? Back when I was young it was the door to door vacuum cleaner
companies and other companies such as encyclopedias and magazines,
sweet talking unemployed, desperate people into the false hope of
earning a living. But as long as Labor Unions continued to be
strong
and support their members, such slimy methods of exploitation were
kept to a minimum. Today's world has been swamped by the "Right to
Work", mentality. Unions have become labeled as Evil. "Pull
yourself
up by your own boot straps. Rags to riches. The Self-made
man/woman". Meanwhile Corporate Barons such as the upstart Uber,
roam
the land like giant predators. Why do we keep buying into the
belief
that we need some bloated corporate head in order to have a job?
Can't the Uber approach work as well if it were owned and operated
by
the drivers and those support workers?
We need to begin working together. Forget the bad name socialism
has
been given by Corporate Capitalism, United Workers means a dignified
living. It's time we kicked the drones out of the bee hive. Or
cleared the Foxes out of our Hen Houses.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/17/15, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Judge Says Uber Should Be Fined and Suspended for Failure to Turn
Over
Rideshare Data
Posted By
Jeremy Lybarger
on Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 9:24 AM
JOONAS TIKKANEN/FLICKR
List of 1 items
. Joonas Tikkanen/Flickr
list end
Yesterday was a tough one for Uber. The California Public Utilities
Commission
ruled
that the rideshare giant should be fined $7.3 million and suspended
from
operating in California for failure to demonstrate compliance with
the
American
with Disabilities Act, as well as failure to release data indicating
how
well the company serves diverse neighborhoods.
According to CPUC judge Karen V. Clopton, Uber has never turned over
information pertaining to its "efforts to date for accommodating
visually
impaired,
persons with service animals, and persons requiring a wheelchair
accessible
vehicle." When CPUC requested data about passengers with
disabilities, "no
actual data was provided" by Uber, according to the ruling.
Nor did the company provide data about which zip codes it serves or
its
driver safety numbers. This isn't surprising given Uber's
general secrecy
about how it operates - a reticence the company claims is a trade
secret.
The CPUC doesn't buy that. "A trade secret claim cannot be used as a
shield
to
deny access to the very regulatory agency that has ordered the
information's
creation and compilation," the ruling reads.
According to the
Los Angeles Times,
the CPUC's ruling won't go into effect for 30 days, and Uber will
have a
chance to appeal. A $7.3 million fine is less than one percent of
the $5.9
billion
in venture capital that Uber has raised.
In related news, officials at LAX will determine today whether
rideshare
companies will be allowed to
operate at the airport.
If approved, L.A. would become the largest city in America to grant
such
permission.
Source:
http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/07/16/judge-says-uber-should-be-fined
-and-suspended-for-failure-to-turn-over-rideshare-data
