Will there now be opportunities for gig unionists?

Sir, Sarah O’Connor thinks the unions might have a good chance to adapt to the gig economy “Gig economy deals promise a brighter future for trade unions” February 27.

I am not so sure. There is a de facto class war in the real economy between those with jobs wanting better conditions and those just wanting a job. And that is what nourishes the gig economy.

Imposing on the gig economy benefits, is just like raising minimum wages, it just raises the bar for the offer of jobs. An unconditional universal basic income would instead provide a step stool to better reach up to whatever jobs are offered.

Of course those who benefit, politically or financially, from a conditional redistribution, or from negotiating on behalf of workers, do not like that option as it clearly erodes their job opportunities. 

How will unions handle it? I have no idea; perhaps there will be some gig unionists.

PS. In the same vein, perhaps Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a gig politician. We’ll see if she lands a second term. Having helped New York lose Amazon’s 25.000 well paying jobs does not bode well for here there. Perhaps she will get a call from another state.

PS. Amazon is one of those entities automating and robotizing the most. So it is a bit surprising to read that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez opines “We should not be haunted by the specter of being automated out of work. . . . We should be excited by that”

@PerKurowski

Universal Basic Income is to help you get out of bed, not to allow you stay in bed

Sir, Ian Goldin first introduces many valid reasons for why we need a Universal Basic Income. But then he writes: “As shown by the OECD, by reallocating welfare payments from targeted transfers (such as unemployment, disability or housing benefits) to a generalised transfer to everyone, the amount that goes to the most deserving is lower. Billionaires get a little more.” “Five reasons why universal basic income is a red herring” February12.

No way! I come from Venezuela. The poor their, got only a fraction, perhaps less than 15%, of what they should have gotten had only the oil revenues been shared out equally to all. Who got the most? The redistribution profiteers and their friends.

And clearly since it would reduce the value of their franchise, these profiteers are the ones who most set out to attack Universal Basic Income.

Goldin bombs UBI with:

“If UBI was set at a level to provide a modest but decent standard of living it would be unaffordable and lead to ballooning deficits”

“Delinking income and work, while rewarding people for staying at home, is what lies behind social decay.”

“UBI undermines incentives to participate”

But he also writes: “There must be more part-time work, shorter weeks, and rewards for home work, creative industries and social and individual care. Forget about UBI; to reverse rising inequality and social dislocation we need to radically change the way we think about income and work.”

And that is when I understand Goldin might not have understood where many of us want the UBI level to be. We want it set at a level that helps you to get out of bed, to reach up to the gig economy, but absolutely not at a level so high that it does allow you to stay in the bed.

@PerKurowski

Church organists, lapdancers, Uber drivers. What follows? Some Prime Ministry gigs?

Sir, in this day with so much dourness, it really brightens up the day to read such a solid British humored phrase as Sarah O’Connor’s: “Does Britain really want to be a country that defines its chocolate gingerbread men more carefully than its 32m-strong workforce? “Blurred job definitions serve nobody’s interest” June 28

What fun article. Many thanks. As I see it Sarah, or Ms. O’Connor, I am not sure on how to refer to her, could be greatly qualified to console us FT’s readers after the announced retirement of that equally good-humored gem that is Lucy Kellaway.

Now when she writes: “Before Uber drivers were compared with lapdancers, those lapdancers were compared with church organists” might she be implying a strange progression into a sort of underworld? If that’s the case, it would be interesting to hear what she believes could come after Uber drivers. Perhaps some Prime Ministry gigs?

But down to the business of the blurriness of definitions: To me, if you work when you want you work, in such a way you want to work, and nobody but you impose some specific targets that need to be achieved, then you work for yourself. If you work when someone else wants it, according to some imposed unnatural standards, or you must meet some clearly specified work targets, then you are an employee.

By the way, does Uber require any minimum number of drives per month?

PS. But what we most might need, is decent and worthy unemployments

@PerKurowski

The worst we could do, is to treat a structural unemployment as a temporal one.

Sir, Gillian Tett writes: “If there is one thing on which almost all economists agree, it is that digital technologies are performing many jobs once done by humans… [and so there’s an] urgent need for a bigger policy debate about how to prepare workers for this new world”, “How robots make humans indispensable”, December 23.

Absolutely, but in this respect, if we face structural and not temporal unemployment then, as I wrote in an Op-Ed in 2012, “We need worthy and decent unemployments”.

For that we must rid ourselves of the negative bias that current unemployment benefits carry. The best alternative in town seems to be a Universal Basic Income, namely the unconditional payout of a fixed amount per month to all citizens, whether unemployed or not. That would help the economy by keeping up consumer demand, and signify a good stepladder for everyone who wants to reach up to a temporary job, a.k.a. a gig job.

How to fund it? There are many alternatives but, in the context of this article, a payroll tax on robots, driverless cars and similar substitutes for humans, seems the way to go, since that would also create a more level playing field when competing for jobs.

Who will be against it? Naturally the redistribution profiteers as that decreases the value of their franchise.

PS. In my homeland I have for decades wanted my nation's net oil revenues to fund such UBI, in this case a variable one, so as to help free us citizens from living under that servitude that 97% of all the nation’s exports going to central government signifies.

PS. In other places UBI and carbon taxes could be a great way to harmonize the incentives for the fight against environmental problems and the fight against inequality.

PS. Ask Trump, what’s worse losing your job opportunity to outsourcing, migrants or robots? If robots, where does he suggest we build the wall and who’s going to pay for it?

@PerKurowski

If Uber drivers are considered workers, are not driverless cars, or robots, workers too, to be taxed accordingly?

Sir, Sarah O’Connor, Jane Croft and Madhumita Murgia report on how “Uber drivers in the UK have won a crucial legal battle with a tribunal ruling they are “workers” entitled to the minimum wage and holiday pay.” “British court rules Uber drivers are ‘workers’ in setback for ‘gig economy’” October 29.

Yes, but if so, why are not those driverless cars that are expected to soon be supplanting all drivers not considered workers too?

Sir, as I have written to you before, if we do not tax what will represent lost work opportunities for humans, something’s going to have to give.

I have nothing against artificial intelligence or robots replacing human workers. That’s great, that will leave us humans much more time to enjoy life. But our non-human replacement workers need to be taxed too; and all those tax revenues re-distributed to all of us humans, by means of Universal Basic Income. That so that we humans will be able to afford enjoying all our additional spare time.

And it is all a case of simple justice. If a company does not employ me because of the payroll taxes I generate for him, should not my robotic substitute be charged with those same taxes?

And a Universal Basic Income would make it so much easier for all us humans to adapt to the gig-economy… we would not have to work 16 hours a day to make a living, perhaps 4 hors would do.

PS. I pray for my grandchildren not having to live surrounded by dumb artificial intelligence and lousy 2nd class robots  

@PerKurowski ©

Let a Universal Basic Income empower and help make something reasonable, or even something really good, out of the gig economy

Sir, Sarah O’Connor writes that “A fierce debate has broken out this year about the dangers and opportunities of a world where more workers are cobbling together an income through independent “gigs” rather than relying on traditional employee jobs.” “At least fifth of European and US workers in ‘gig economy’” October 10.

Come what may, I am sure that both the debate, and the reality of the “gig economy”, would be quite different depending on whether a Universal Basic Income exists or not.

It would be a stepping ladder for all to reach up easier to that economy.

Again when I mention UBI it is always with special emphasis on the “Basic”

Again when I mention UBI it is always paid with real money, no funny inflationary money.

Again when I mention UBI, I know that the redistribution profiteers are going to be very pissed off.

Here some thoughts on how to go about it

@PerKurowski ©

Let robots make us an offer we can’t refuse, for us to allow them to supplant us; perhaps a Universal Basic Income?

Sir, Simon Kuper writes about “How to cope when robots take your job” October 9.

Before I got censored, there too, in 2012, in an Op-Ed in Venezuela titled “We need worthy and decent unemployments” I wrote: “What politician does not speak up for the need to create decent and well paid jobs for young people? But, if that's not possible, and the economy is not able to deliver that on its own ... What on earth are we to do?” 

And I followed that up with “The power of a nation, and the productivity of its economy, which so far has depended primarily on the quality of its employees may, in the future, also depend on the quality of its unemployed, as a minimum in the sense of these not interrupting those working.”

And so perhaps not only journalists but all other who end up unemployed because of robots too, should require those employing robots to pay a out a Universal Basic Income, as a quid-pro-quo for us allowing these to supplant us. Or if they have better ideas, let the robots themselves make us an offer we can’t refuse.

Ideally that could allow many to operate on the fringe margins of earnings, allowing them to keep busy with what they most like to do.

For journalists the alternative could be to get really creative so as to obtain some ad income from a story that goes viral. Sadly, in that case, the temptations of sacrificing truth in order to gain virality might prove to hard to resist… as we already see happening more and more, here and there and everywhere.

PS. Look at it this way. If robots send us into early retirement, should not robots pay taxes too? Should not the employers of robots have to pay payroll taxes for these? That could help to fund our Universal Basic Income. And that could also help us humans to compete with the robots for jobs on a more level playing ground. 

PS. A Universal Basic Income is a step-ladder that will allow us to reach up easier to the gig-economy.

PS. If then taxing robots funds our living by means of a Universal Basic Income, could we all become a robots owning gentry,  reading and writing poetry like Jane Austen’s landed gentry?

PS. Where does Donald Trump suggest we build the wall against the robots who threaten American jobs, and who is going to pay for it?

P.S. How many jobs have robots taken from humans only because robots are not subject to minimum wages and payroll taxes?

PS. Soon unemployed PhD’s will not even be able to drive taxis in New York, as driverless cars will be deemed safer.

PS. I have been concerned with growing structural unemployment for a long time, like to the point of suggesting It's time to just scratch each other's backs.

PS. By the way, in all statistics on employment, where can we find information on how many robots gained employment, for instance in the USA during the last quarter of 2016?

PS. When playing the employment game, humans & robots face same par salary, but robots count with extra payroll tax handicap strokes

PS. Grandparents, can you imagine the horrors if your grandchildren come to depend on dumb artificial intelligence and on 3rd class robots?

PS. I anställning spelet, har både mänskor och robotar samma par lön, men robotar har 31,34% extra arbetsgivaravgift slag.

PS. Here some disorderly lose cannon questions about life in the just around the corner Robot/Automation La-La-Land

PS. Dwindling workforces puts the International Labour Organization (ILO) at a crossroad: To unionize unemployed or robots?

PS. At what rate should we tax robots? A very high one in order to make us humans more competitive, or a fairly low one to allow robots to do as much heavy lifting as possible for us in our economy?

@PerKurowski ©

The gig and the no jobs economy need a Universal Basic Income. It also helps to keep redistribution profiteers at bay.

Sir, you discuss Senator Elizabeth Warren’s framework to “rethink the basic bargain for workers” “The gig economy needs a new bargain for workers” May 24.

I think we need to think equally, simultaneously, of those not working, as there is little doubt there could be a severe lack of all type of jobs.

In 2012 in an Op-Ed I wrote that the society also had to prepare itself to handle a growing number of unemployed, not cyclical but structural, that is, those who never ever in their life will have a chance to get an economically productive job, “We need worthy and decent unemployments”.

I argued there: “The power of a nation, and the productivity of its economy, which so far has depended primarily on the quality of its employees may, will in the future, also depend on the quality of its unemployed, as a minimum in the sense of these not interrupting those working.”

And one of the first things that should be put in place for that is a Universal Basic Income floor, one that is completely independent of the having or not having a job. That, which should be the result of a social contract among citizens, and not the result of governments bringing gifts, will help to redistribute in the most cost effective and least socially diminishing way.

And if that income floor exists, then, contrary to what Senator Warren holds, in order to get more jobs and better salaries, I would call on all capitalists to exploit any low salaries, for as much as they can. 

PS. Should not companies also be part of the gig economy, so as not to waste resources trying to hang on? 

@PerKurowski ©