>>Uber Eats and competitors including Stuart, a French app, and Glovo, based in Spain, said they were aware of misconduct. “We’re concerned because these are illegal practices in which people are profiting from the vulnerability of others,” said Nicolas Breuil, global marketing manager for Stuart.
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Uber et al have for years argued that driver/riders are not employees. If they aren't employees then they are contractors. One of the basic definitions of contractors is that they may subcontract. To call subcontracting "illegal" is a stretch. It may be a violation of a clause in the contract, but it isn't a crime. Use of illegal labourers is a crime, but the simple act of having someone other than the original contractor deliver the food isn't.
If Uber wants to deal with a particular person and ensure that only that person handles the actual labor, Uber is free to HIRE that person.
Employing those unable to work is probably a serious crime it certainly is in the UK - Gordon Browns cleaner had used a forged passport and he got fined about £10k
The subcontracting going on here, illegal or not, is reprehensible because it is exploitative. On top of that the rent-seeking itself is morally bankrupt. It's extracting something from others essentially for free. I'm a socialist, but only the worst kind of capitalist or libertarian would think this is ok.
> Uber Eats and competitors including Stuart, a French app, and Glovo, based in Spain, said they were aware of misconduct. “We’re concerned because these are illegal practices in which people are profiting from the vulnerability of others,” said Nicolas Breuil, global marketing manager for Stuart.
They should look inward: basically the entire gig economy is people profiting from the vulnerability of others. If these companies could cut out the middle man and pay people as little as these subcontractors are being paid, they would.
Maybe we should look at why these people are vulnerable in the first place.
I suspect we would be way more likely to succeed in empowering undocumented people by removing barriers, rather than erecting new constraints against them and a way to earn a living.
But then again, few probably care about the long-term future of illegal immigrants. A charity budget is a way easier number to show-off than a small-looking % increase in spending power through economic activity... Who cares if hundreds of thousands of people waste away their productive years in legal limbo, as long as they don't disgrace our country by working for less than the minimum wage we decided on.
It's an extension what already happens in industries such as construction. If you want to remodel your home in Florida, you'd hire a local contractor who then subcontracts people who are almost certainly illegal immigrants from Mexico to do the actual work at a much lower rate than if they hired Americans.
The reality though is that it's not really exploitation because these often illegal workers don't really have any other options. Anyone who has been to Paris will tell how expensive it is. Ideally the arbitrage between the legal contractor and the illegal sub-contractor is as small as possible but until they have better options, to them this is better than nothing.
Using someone else's limitations (e.g. inability to work legally) as leverage for your own gain (e.g. paying them an extremely low wage) might as well be the textbook definition of exploitation.
I found this EconTalk episode [0] quite interesting.
The takeway was the idea that all scalper-like transaction had something in common. Most of the time, the law would forbid it, but the underlying "moral" part was that the transaction in that case is not really volontary. So he coined the term of eu-volontary transaction (ie truly volontary).
One of the rule of such a transaction is "Neither party is coerced into exchange by dire necessity, and neither party has enough bargaining power to impose an abusive price." I believe this is the issue here.
Regarding the use of illegal migrants in sub-contracting work, their numbers in the construction bussiness is orders of magnitude higher than in the gig-courrier industry. They are usually employed by contractor / sub-contractor, making any kind of control complicated; even then most people are taking advantage of this so there's little incentives to change. The use of illegal workers in construction is apparently driven by a race to the bottom in the construction price, all the while prices are going up, especially in and around Paris, the difference being pocketed by land owners/promoters.
Regarding the deliveries services, I've never used them, but they are imposing externalities on everyone with their motor scooters parked in front of busy fast-food places and drivers (not all of them, though) with little regard to the traffic code (though it's in part caused by the incentives to deliver as quickly as possible).
It's the government that is accepting these people into the country while at the same time telling them they can't legally work. They have to survive somehow.
It’s hard to say that they were « accepting » if they arrived clandestinely.
I’d rather claim that a colonizing country has the responsibility of taking care of the people it colonized if it’s going to plunder its resources, but not sure if this is the right venue for that.
France doesn't control its borders. The border of the schengen zone is long and porous (like all borders). I don't want to underestimate the difficulties for refugies getting a start in France. People with no papers can enrol their kids in school and get some health care. To get expelled from the country, in addition to having no papers, you have to be a threat to public order, or be caught working illegally. So people 'employed' by gig workers would be exposing themselves to expulsion.
This is very sad. Regular earnings from Uber eats or similar are already way too low to live in a city like Paris, so as a sub-contractor, I cannot imagine how those people live. We are back to the 19th century and Victor Hugo novels.
Same thing is happening in Mexico, Colombia, Perú and Argentina with YC backed Rappi. The fact that most of their recruits happen to be desperate Venezuelans fleeing their country makes this practice all the more glaring.
"The fact that there is less money from the platforms has pushed poor people to outsource to people even poorer than them,” said Jean-Daniel Zamor, a courier organizer in Paris". It's welfare, not exploitation. But on the dark side, those who exploit are less guilty than the giant gluttony-firms that have no end to their greed.
I’ve wondered what’s going on with Uber in Paris. Almost all drivers are from Francophone Africa, and, until recently, we’re almost all driving fairly nice Peugeot 507s, as if a fleet was operating them.
The car-mix seems to have changed a lot recently. Dunno why.
I found out about this from the mailing list of community bicycle workshops. I have seen zero coverage in French press. I'm glad the NYT is as shocked as I was.
What a bizarre use of the word "exploit". The government is prohibiting migrants from working, to the point where their only option is "stealing or begging on the street." So of course the NYT places the blame on people who provide an alternative, rather than go after the anti-life state policy.
It's so they can spot people reading more than 5 articles a month, which is their "free quota" before they hit you with the pay wall, if i recall correctly.
Depends on the browser. On Firefox, it tries to access indexedDB. On Safari, it tries to access localStorage. On Chrome, it tries webkitRequestFileSystem.
Search for the function "971y" in their main.js on the page.
Disabling javascript is enough to bypass the paywall on Firefox.
[+] [-] sandworm101|6 years ago|reply
Pot. Kettle. Black.
Uber et al have for years argued that driver/riders are not employees. If they aren't employees then they are contractors. One of the basic definitions of contractors is that they may subcontract. To call subcontracting "illegal" is a stretch. It may be a violation of a clause in the contract, but it isn't a crime. Use of illegal labourers is a crime, but the simple act of having someone other than the original contractor deliver the food isn't.
If Uber wants to deal with a particular person and ensure that only that person handles the actual labor, Uber is free to HIRE that person.
[+] [-] iraldir|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanhandley|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Kurtz79|6 years ago|reply
Yes, and the issue is using illegal labourers, not the subcontracting itself.
[+] [-] C1sc0cat|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eevilspock|6 years ago|reply
Legal does not equate to moral.
The subcontracting going on here, illegal or not, is reprehensible because it is exploitative. On top of that the rent-seeking itself is morally bankrupt. It's extracting something from others essentially for free. I'm a socialist, but only the worst kind of capitalist or libertarian would think this is ok.
[+] [-] jakelazaroff|6 years ago|reply
They should look inward: basically the entire gig economy is people profiting from the vulnerability of others. If these companies could cut out the middle man and pay people as little as these subcontractors are being paid, they would.
[+] [-] leppr|6 years ago|reply
I suspect we would be way more likely to succeed in empowering undocumented people by removing barriers, rather than erecting new constraints against them and a way to earn a living.
But then again, few probably care about the long-term future of illegal immigrants. A charity budget is a way easier number to show-off than a small-looking % increase in spending power through economic activity... Who cares if hundreds of thousands of people waste away their productive years in legal limbo, as long as they don't disgrace our country by working for less than the minimum wage we decided on.
[+] [-] devoply|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] potatofarmer45|6 years ago|reply
The reality though is that it's not really exploitation because these often illegal workers don't really have any other options. Anyone who has been to Paris will tell how expensive it is. Ideally the arbitrage between the legal contractor and the illegal sub-contractor is as small as possible but until they have better options, to them this is better than nothing.
[+] [-] jakelazaroff|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BeniBoy|6 years ago|reply
The takeway was the idea that all scalper-like transaction had something in common. Most of the time, the law would forbid it, but the underlying "moral" part was that the transaction in that case is not really volontary. So he coined the term of eu-volontary transaction (ie truly volontary).
One of the rule of such a transaction is "Neither party is coerced into exchange by dire necessity, and neither party has enough bargaining power to impose an abusive price." I believe this is the issue here.
[0]:https://www.econtalk.org/munger-on-exchange-exploitation-and...
[+] [-] herbstein|6 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, but do you not realize how crazy that sounds? It's the equivalent of saying:
> "I’m not exploiting dehydrated hikers in the desert by selling water at $20/liter. It’s their only option"
Your example is a clear-cut case of exploitation.
[+] [-] baud147258|6 years ago|reply
Regarding the deliveries services, I've never used them, but they are imposing externalities on everyone with their motor scooters parked in front of busy fast-food places and drivers (not all of them, though) with little regard to the traffic code (though it's in part caused by the incentives to deliver as quickly as possible).
[+] [-] bluedino|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] charlchi|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elindbe2|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scoundreller|6 years ago|reply
I’d rather claim that a colonizing country has the responsibility of taking care of the people it colonized if it’s going to plunder its resources, but not sure if this is the right venue for that.
[+] [-] bbsimonbb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] etiennemarcel|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elcomet|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lotsofpulp|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lelima|6 years ago|reply
Nobody wanted to hire him (cash in hand / illegal), and the only way to make anything was delivering food while he's status changed to permanent.
[+] [-] rb808|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ingenieros|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] La-ang|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scoundreller|6 years ago|reply
The car-mix seems to have changed a lot recently. Dunno why.
[+] [-] bbsimonbb|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] abtinf|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hobs|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scoundreller|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] umeshunni|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baud147258|6 years ago|reply
Edit: the site also detect Edge in non-private mode as running in private mode
[+] [-] datenhorst|6 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hadrien01|6 years ago|reply
Search for the function "971y" in their main.js on the page.
Disabling javascript is enough to bypass the paywall on Firefox.
[+] [-] chewz|6 years ago|reply
https://www.ghacks.net/2019/06/14/chrome-76-blocks-sites-fro...
[+] [-] _pmf_|6 years ago|reply
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