Why do you think you know better than the workers involved who is doing them favors or no favors? Those workers choose to drive for Uber or Lyft because it was better than any other alternative available to them. Seattle is doing harm with this legislation.
This is a dead end line of thinking. It ignores that these people might not be able to choose any alternative. If you are faced with starvation and homelessness, you might 'choose' to take an incredibly poorly paid job because it enables you to barely scratch by.
That's hardly a 'choice', it's the companies realizing they have a worker pool they can exploit that will take pennies on the dollar.
Seattle is saying, "No, if you are providing work in this city, you will abide by minimum wage standards like any other employer."
I agree with your point: Some are choosing to drive for Uber/Lift because they don't have any better alternative. Where I disagree is the solution.
If you raise the price of cigarettes, people buy fewer cigarettes. If you raise the price of gasoline, people buy less gasoline. If you raise the price of labor, people (both companies and individuals) buy less labor. If the price of Uber/Lyft increases, the number of rides will decrease. That means that drivers will be forced to work fewer hours or to find another job. But if (as you say) this is the only alternative they have to homelessness, then they'll become homeless.
So you imagine that Uber and Lyft drivers will spend their extra money on Uber and Lyft rides so the number of rides won't go down and it will be a perpetual motion machine?
This is the same reason companies used Groupon with their terrible economics or people take cash advances on their credit cards: you need the money today even if it is incredibly expensive and sub optimal. Does the GP also think we don't need laws for CC companies because the high levels of consumer debt show people obviously want 20%+ interest rates?
Have you seen the unemployment rate lately? We are in one of the worst recessions in living memory. It's not like those Uber drivers can just quit and go work somewhere else.
Yes, it's terrible, which is why interfering with people and businesses who have come to a voluntary agreement to work together is especially harmful now.
I imagine the same argument was made by coal barons who were forced to stop paying in company scrip.
And the industrialists who were forced to stop employing children in their factories.
And the owners who were forced to grant weekends and 8 hour workdays.
We have a long history of protecting workers from exploitation in this country. The weekend, prohibitions on child labor, OSHA standards, PPE, minimum wages, payment in US dollars, anti-discrimination laws, coverage for accidents on site, leaves for illness, etc. etc. etc.
If you think poor workers should make more money, then the government should give it to them. The last thing we should do is make it harder for them to retain a job, or penalize those that have provided the best job they have on offer. Preventing the low skilled from working stunts their career permanently.
