{"id":116870,"date":"2018-08-20T12:00:02","date_gmt":"2018-08-20T11:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=116870"},"modified":"2018-08-19T12:41:32","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T11:41:32","slug":"the-gig-economy-is-the-new-term-for-serfdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/08\/the-gig-economy-is-the-new-term-for-serfdom\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Gig Economy’ Is the New Term for Serfdom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Mr. Fish \/ Truthdig<\/p><\/div>\n

A 65-year-old New York City cab driver from Queens, Nicanor Ochisor, hanged himself in his garage March 16, 2018, saying in a note he left behind that the ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft had made it impossible for him to make a living. It was the fourth suicide by a cab driver in New York in the last four months, including one Feb. 5 in which livery driver Douglas Schifter, 61, killed himself with a shotgun outside City Hall.<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to the huge numbers of cars available with desperate drivers trying to feed their families,\u201d wrote Schifter, \u201cthey squeeze rates to below operating costs and force professionals like me out of business. They count their money and we are driven down into the streets we drive becoming homeless and hungry. I will not be a slave working for chump change. I would rather be dead.\u201d He said he had been working 100 to 120 hours a week for the past 14 years.<\/p>\n

Schifter and Ochisor were two of the millions of victims of the new economy. Corporate capitalism is establishing a neofeudal serfdom in numerous occupations, a condition in which there are no labor laws, no minimum wage, no benefits, no job security and no regulations. Desperate and impoverished workers, forced to endure 16-hour days, are viciously pitted against each other. Uber drivers make about $13.25 an hour. In cities like Detroit this falls to $8.77<\/a>. Travis Kalanick, the former CEO of Uber and one of the founders, has a net worth of $4.8 billion. Logan Green, the CEO of Lyft, has a net worth of $300 million.<\/p>\n

The corporate elites, which have seized control of ruling institutions including the government and destroyed labor unions, are re-establishing the inhumane labor conditions that characterized the 19th and early 20th centuries. When workers at General Motors carried out a 44-day sit-down strike in 1936, many were living in shacks that lacked heating and indoor plumbing; they could be laid off for weeks without compensation, had no medical or retirement benefits and often were fired without explanation. When they turned 40 their employment could be terminated. The average wage was about $900 a year at a time when the government determined that a family of four needed a minimum of $1,600 to live above the poverty line.<\/p>\n

The managers at General Motors relentlessly persecuted union organizers. The company spent $839,000 on detective work in 1934 to spy on union organizers and infiltrate union meetings. GM employed the white terrorist group the Black Legion<\/a>\u2014the police chief of Detroit was suspected of being a member\u2014to threaten and physically assault labor activists and assassinate union leaders including George Marchuk and John Bielak, both shot to death.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The reign of the all-powerful capitalist class has returned with a vengeance. The job conditions of working men and women, thrust backward, will not improve until they regain the militancy and rebuild the popular organizations that seized power from the capitalists. There are some 13,000 licensed cabs in New York City and 40,000 livery or town cars. The drivers should, as farmers did in 2015 with tractors in Paris<\/a>, shut down the center of the city. And drivers in other cities should do the same. This is the only language our corporate masters understand.<\/p>\n

The ruling capitalists will be as vicious as they were in the past. Nothing enrages the rich more than having to part with a fraction of their obscene wealth. Consumed by greed, rendered numb to human suffering by a life of hedonism and extravagance, devoid of empathy, incapable of self-criticism or self-sacrifice, surrounded by sycophants and leeches who cater to their wishes, appetites and demands, able to use their wealth to ignore the law and destroy critics and opponents, they are among the most repugnant of the human species. Don\u2019t be fooled by the elites\u2019 skillful public relations campaigns\u2014we are watching Mark Zuckerberg, whose net worth is $64.1 billion, mount a massive propaganda effort against charges that he and Facebook are focused on exploiting and selling our personal information\u2014or by the fawning news celebrities on corporate media who act as courtiers and apologists for the oligarchs. These people are the enemy.<\/p>\n

Ochisor, a Romanian immigrant, owned a New York City taxi medallion<\/a>. (Medallions were once coveted by cab drivers because having them allowed the drivers to own their own cabs or lease the cabs to other drivers.) Ochisor drove the night shift, lasting 10 to 12 hours. His wife drove the day shift. But after Uber and Lyft flooded the city with cars and underpaid drivers about three years ago, the couple could barely meet expenses. Ochisor\u2019s home was about to go into foreclosure. His medallion, once worth $1.1 million, had plummeted in value to $180,000. The dramatic drop in the value of the medallion, which he had hoped to lease for $3,000 a month or sell to finance his retirement, wiped out his economic security. He faced financial ruin and poverty. And he was not alone.<\/p>\n

The corporate architects of the new economy have no intention of halting the assault. They intend to turn everyone into temp workers trapped in demeaning, low-paying, part-time, service-sector jobs without job security or benefits, a reality they plaster over by inventing hip terms like \u201cthe gig economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

John McDonagh<\/a> began driving a New York City cab 40 years ago. He, like most drivers, worked out of garages owned and operated by businesses. He was paid a percentage of what he earned each night.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could make a living [then],\u201d he told me. \u201cBut everyone shared the burden. The garage shared it. The driver shared it. If you had a good night, the garage made money. If you had a bad night, you split it. That\u2019s not the case anymore. Right now we\u2019re leasing [cabs at the garages].\u201d<\/p>\n

Leasing requires a driver to pay $120 a day for the car and $30 for the gas. The drivers begin a shift $150 in debt. Because of Uber, Lyft and other smartphone ride apps, drivers\u2019 incomes have been cut by half in many cases. Cab drivers can finish their 12-hour shifts owing the garages money. Drivers are facing bankruptcies, foreclosures and evictions. Some are homeless.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe TLC [New York City Transportation and Limousine Commission] wanted to limit yellow cab<\/a> drivers to 12 hours a day,\u201d he said, referring to the distinctive yellow cabs that have medallions and can pick up passengers anywhere in the five boroughs. \u201cThere was a protest. Yellow cab drivers were protesting that they have to work a 16-hour day in order to make a living. It\u2019s cut everything. Everybody\u2019s fighting for that extra fare. You would be at a light with two or three other yellow cabs. You saw someone up the street with luggage you would run the lights to get to them. Because that might be an airport job. You\u2019re risking your own life, risking getting tickets, you\u2019re doing things you would never have done before.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any health care,\u201d he said. \u201cSitting for those 12 to 16 hours a day, you are getting diabetes. There\u2019s no blood circulation. You\u2019re putting on weight. And then there\u2019s that added stress you\u2019re not making any money.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uber and Lyft in 2016 had 370 active lobbyists in 44 states, \u201cdwarfing some of the largest business and technology companies,\u201d according to the National Employment Law Project. \u201cTogether, Uber and Lyft lobbyists outnumbered Amazon, Microsoft, and Walmart combined.\u201d The two companies, like many lobbying firms, also hire former government regulators. The former head of the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, for example, is now on the board of Uber. The companies have used their money and their lobbyists, most of whom are members of the Democratic Party, to free themselves from the regulations and oversight imposed on the taxi industry. The companies using ride-hail apps have flooded New York City with about 100,000 unregulated cars in the past two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe yellow cab has to be a certain vehicle,\u201d said McDonagh. \u201cIt\u2019s a Nissan. [Nissan won the bid<\/a> to supply the city\u2019s cabs.] Every yellow cab has to charge a certain price. When that drop goes down, that\u2019s regulated by the city. They added on all these extra taxes, for the MTA and for the wheelchair [half of all yellow cabs are required to be wheelchair-accessible by 2020], a rush-hour tax<\/a>. Uber comes in. No regulations at all. They could pick whatever type of car they want. Whatever color of car. They could change prices when it\u2019s slow. They can lower the prices. When it\u2019s busy they can do price surging. It can be two or three times. Whereas the yellow cab is just plowing along at the same rate at the same time. Going to Kennedy Airport from Manhattan is $52. No matter what the traffic is like, no matter how many hours it takes you to get there. Uber will jack up its prices two or three times. You might have to pay $100 to get to Kennedy Airport. While the yellow cab industry is almost regulated to death, Uber is coming in with new technology, figuring out different ways how [it is] going to make money. \u2026 It\u2019s finished, with the yellow cabs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Life for Uber and Lyft drivers is as difficult. Uber and Lyft use bonuses to lure drivers into the business. Once the bonuses are gone, these drivers sink to the same economic desperation as those driving yellow cabs.<\/p>\n

\u201cUber is leasing cars,\u201d McDonagh said. \u201cThey have car dealerships that will sell. They advertise as, \u2018Listen, you can have bad credit. Come down to Uber. We\u2019ll get you the money or loan to buy this car.\u2019 And what they do is they\u2019ll take the money directly out of what you\u2019re making that day to pay for the loan. They can\u2019t lose. And if you go under, they\u2019ll sell the car back to the dealership and then redo it for the next immigrant driver. There\u2019s a whole scam going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a yellow cab driver, you don\u2019t see the world vision,\u201d he said. \u201cBut there\u2019s that famous term \u2018the race to the bottom.\u2019 You\u2019re working more and more hours for less and less wages. This is the new gig economy. Someone will use an Uber to go to an Airbnb<\/a> and get on his phone to order something from Amazon to eat in his house. All those shops are now gone. From cashiers to cab drivers. I feel like I\u2019m a blacksmith or a typesetter at a newspaper business trying to explain to you what the yellow cab industry used to be. We\u2019re becoming obsolete.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGuys are sleeping in the cab,\u201d McDonagh said. \u201cThey\u2019ll go out to Kennedy at 2 or 3 in the morning. They pull into the lot and go to sleep to catch [passengers off] the first flight that\u2019s coming in from California a couple of hours later. You have guys who won\u2019t go home for a couple of days. They\u2019ll just stay out on the street. They roam the street to try to make money. It\u2019s dangerous for the passenger. The amount of accidents will be going up because drivers are drowsy.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDonagh said Uber and Lyft cars must be regulated. All cars should have meters to guarantee an adequate income for drivers. And drivers should have health care and benefits. None of this will happen, he warned, as long as we live under a system of government where our political elites are dependent on campaign contributions from corporations and those who should be regulating the industry look to these corporations for future employment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to limit the amount of cabs, particularly here in New York City,\u201d McDonagh said. \u201cIf we did it in the yellow cab industry for 50 years, why can\u2019t we do it with Uber? They\u2019re adding 100 cars a week through the streets of New York. This is insane. When you call an Uber, the biggest complaint people have now is, \u2018The car is here too quick.\u2019 They\u2019re there within two or three minutes. I can\u2019t even get dressed. \u2026 They\u2019re rolling empty throughout the city, waiting for that hit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHorses in Central Park are regulated,\u201d he pointed out. \u201cThere\u2019s 150 of them. They make a great living there, the guys on the horse and buggies. Say Uber comes in and says, \u2018We want to bring in Uber horses. And we want to add 100,000.\u2019 And let\u2019s see how the market will handle it. We know what\u2019s going to happen. No one will make money. They\u2019re all around Central Park. And now no one can go anywhere because there are now 100,000 horses in Central Park. It would be considered madness to do that. They wouldn\u2019t do it. Yet when it comes to the yellow cab industry, for 50 years all we could have was 13,000 cabs, and then within a year or two we\u2019re going to add 100,000. Let\u2019s see how the market works on that! We know how the market works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [the horses] work less hours [than cab drivers],\u201d he said. \u201cThey don\u2019t work in hot and cold temperatures. If you believe in reincarnation, you should come back as a horse in Central Park. And they all live on the West Side of Manhattan. We live in basements in Brooklyn and Queens. We haven\u2019t upped our status in life, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Chris Hedges spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for <\/em>The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and<\/em> The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. Hedges was part of the team of reporters at <\/em>The New York Times awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2002 for the paper\u2019s coverage of global terrorism. He also received the <\/em>Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism in 2002. The <\/em>Los Angeles Press Club honored Hedges\u2019 original columns in <\/em>Truthdig by naming the author the Online Journalist of the Year in 2009 and again in 2011. The LAPC also granted him the Best Online Column award in 2010 for his <\/em>Truthdig essay \u201cOne Day We\u2019ll All Be Terrorists<\/a>.\u201d Hedges is a senior fellow at <\/em>The Nation Institute in New York City and has taught at Columbia University, New York University and Princeton University. He currently teaches inmates at a correctional facility in New Jersey.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 truthdig.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The corporate capitalist elites, which have seized control of ruling institutions including the government and destroyed labor unions, are re-establishing the inhumane labor conditions that characterized the 19th and early 20th centuries. They want everyone to be temp workers trapped in demeaning, low-paying, part-time, service-sector jobs without job security or benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":81932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-116870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116870\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}