Well, Richard Wolfe and a whole lot of other economists and social activists
are envisioning businesses which are completely owned and operated by the
people who work in them. They're doing this in Spain now. There's a
movement. So everyone is taking equal responsibility for the success of the
venture and you eliminate bosses. The whole organization of capital is
different from what we're accustomed to. That sounds a lot better to me
than what we have now.
Miriam
________________________________
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Alice Dampman
Humel
Sent: Friday, July 17, 2015 6:12 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: uber fined in cal partially for violating ada
But that's also part of the equation. A factory worker in 1948 could afford
to send his son to Oberlin, a private college. The relationship between
wages and prices was less extreme in its lopsidedness. It was still
lopsided, but nothing like it is now.
I agree that the owners of businesses, the creators of ideas, inventions,
the organizers of the facilities of production of goods and services should
not be billionaires while their workers earn next to nothing. But I do not
necessarily object to the guy who takes all the risks, does all the work of
establishing a plant, a factory, a store, a dairy, keeps things in good
running order, looks out for the safety of the working conditions, keeps the
bureaucrats at bay, does all the paperwork, or, yes, hires somebody to do
that, deserves rewards for his labors, too. If all I have to do is show up
and make my 50 widgets a day, then go home and play with the cats, then I
don't think it's unfair that I earn somewhat less than the person who has
all the responsibility on his shoulders.
It's like renting as opposed to owning one's digs. If something in my rented
apartment breaks, I call the landlord or the housing authority, whomever,
and they are responsible for fixing it and paying for it. If I own the house
myself, then I have to get it fixed, find the plumber, make sure he's
reliable, and pay the bill.
I guess it falls under division of labor.
The Soviets and others tried to turn the whole thing on its head by saying
that the noble factory worker deserved a much higher wage than the professor
or the surgeon. I'm not sure either is terribly useful. It's still
disparity, and it still creates class and, more than likely, the class
warfare that accompanies it.
Ownership of the means of production by the workers? It sounds good, but it
also has its problems, as we have seen in history. Different problems,
admittedly, but nonetheless.
For me, anyhow, the problem lies in the overwhelmingly enormous disparity
between the way the worker lives and the boss, the owner, lives
On Jul 17, 2015, at 4:36 PM, Carl Jarvis <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Points well made, Alice.
Most certainly I am not standing up for the cab companies. Back
when
I was a much younger feller, just a Whippersnapper, cab companies
had
fleets of cabs and they had service garages where they maintained
their equipment. But even then the drivers were over worked and
under
paid. Why is it that the place bosses see as the only place to cut
costs is with the employees wages? When we check it out, we find
that
the labor cost is usually only a small percentage of total expenses.
Again, when I was a boy, labor costs were a larger portion of most
production costs. Still, they were not the largest expense by a
long
shot. But over the years production equipment became more
efficient.
Manual labor became a smaller and smaller cost. But the bosses did
not share in the profit gained by the more modern methods. In fact,
today's production worker is paid far less than his counterpart of
50 years ago.
When my sisters and I were growing up, dad earned enough money to
keep
the family solvent. Mother stayed home until we were older. Then
she
went to work long enough to earn the down payment on a home.
The working class neighborhood I grew up in consisted of families
where fathers worked and mothers cared for the children and the
home.
Fishermen, mill workers, factory workers, truck drivers, etc.
Common
laborers. Earning a living for their families. Very little debt in
these neighborhoods, outside of the house payment and maybe a car
payment. Credit was not easily available, in part because it was
not
needed.
But those were the days when working men and women knew the value of
being organized. Strong labor unions forced bosses to hold down
their
greed and share with the folks who were producing their wealth.
Uber,
regardless of whether they are an improvement over Cab Companies, or
not, and regardless as to whether the drivers sing high praises to
the
opportunity of tailoring their hours to their own needs, Uber is
piling up profits that represent the labor of the drivers. But this
is my personal problem with Capitalism. The idea that you have the
right to have other people work for you and give you part of their
labor for simply giving the the opportunity to give you some of
their
labor. This notion that just because I open a plant called, Jarvis
Manufacturing, that I have a right to force you to work for me at
near
poverty wages in order for me to live in luxury, is a hold over from
the Dark Ages. As long as some of us live in mansions with
households
full of servants while the majority of us live hand to mouth, there
will be those among us who will grab all they can, regardless of
where
that leaves others. The system is corrupt. So I can't find a way
to
support Uber or the Cab Companies. If the owners really cared for
their clients or their employees, they would be insuring that either
their rates were lower or their workers lived at the same level as
they.
Carl Jarvis
On 7/17/15, Alice Dampman Humel <alicedh@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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
