[tikkabhuna]

Zero our contracts is used far beyond the "Uber"-style gig work where people can choose when they want to work. Often its used in for any sort of minimum wage job where there is a significant imbalance where employers have the power to offer as little/much work as they want and penalise workers who can't/won't take those shifts.

[nickdothutton]

Unfortunately the UK now has an economy which is 83% services vs around 50% in 1970. Services are much more volatile with less certainty than say manufacturing or primary industry. So employment in services is going to be volatile and hard to predict, certainty has declined for all, employers and workers. A given employer only has the power if he is the only, or one of just a few in town. If not then the worker has the opportunity to seek hours somewhere else from someone else, at least if these jobs/gigs are relatively unskilled, which most are.

What I don't agree with, the underpayment of workers enabled by government "subsidies". A barista in London may be offered £21K per year to work all his shifts (I'm looking at a job ad), yet needs double that to live, so government "subsidises" the employer by providing the other "missing" £20K in universal credit, housing benefit, and so on. It's no wonder employers take advantage of this.

Meanwhile the customer thinks his coffee costs him £3, in fact the true cost is a multiple of that because of the ~£20K "subsidy". Meanwhile you can hear the faint sound of laughter, which is the employer, knowing that the taxpayer is picking up half his true wage bill.

[joe_mamba]

>What I don't agree with, the underpayment of workers enabled by government "subsidies".

Wait a second, Isn't this just corporate welfare and goes against capitalism and supply/demand free market economics? Why should other people's taxes subsidize other people's businesses?

If your business is a net negative to the economy due to it only being able to survive on subsidies, then it has no right to exist.

We're not talking about subsidizing national security industries like semiconductor manufacturing, aerospace, renewables, pharma, we're talking about subsidizing someone's cafe/fast food business so they as a business owner can pocket the profits while paying their staff below market and having the taxpayer pick up the tab for the difference.

Or is this just a cloaked form of UBI to prevent mass unemployment?

[em-bee]

are we? are we not also talking about enabling restaurants to exist in order to make our city livable?

i also don't see the issue with housing support. in vienna more than half of the population lives in subsidized housing. the current rate is that 2/3rds of any new built housing is subsidized.

and it apparently works out. instead of paying higher wages so that no one needs subsidies, everyone pays higher taxes to fund the subsidies. it's redistribution of income. yes, i guess you could consider it a cloaked form of UBI. i believe the key feature is that this model makes the whole economy around housing and income less volatile.

[joe_mamba]

>are we not also talking about enabling restaurants to exist in order to make our city livable?

No! Why are privately owned restaurants part of a city's "livability", as if going out to eat food made by an underpaid slave wage class of migrant workers, is somehow a god given entitlement for the western person, and not something beholden to the same supply and demand market rules of any other business? Why should restaurants get special treatment so that their owners can buy another Porsche while they exploit cheap desperate foreign labor and the taxpayer subsidies? What about plumbers, hairdressers, landscapers, web-dev shops, yoga, why aren't those businesses part of a city's livability and entitled to subsidies?

And if you expect restaurants to be a public service for sake of livability, then they should also be state run and not for the profit of the restaurant owners.

> in vienna more than half of the population lives in subsidized housing.

What about the other half who pays for those getting the subsidies but don't get to live in subsidized housing? What's their opinion? I doubt they're happy they're paying market rate rent to a private landlord just so their neighbors can pay much less subsidized rent and beat them at wealth building.

It's always nice and easy when you're the one getting subsidies to justify how amazing subsidies are. I've never met a person complaining about receiving too many subsidies or asking themselves where the money from the subsidizes is coming from and if that's fair to others.

>it's redistribution of income.

Who would agree to this if they'd get to vote on it. I mean to have their income redistributed to others, not to have others income redistributed to them.

Forced income redistribution like in the case of Austria since you brought it up, just creates a vacuum where the most talented most hardworking people leave for greener pastures abroad to escape it, and you're left with a stagnant economy of average or below average people who don't see any point in hard work and will prefer to optimize for a life on getting the subsidies rather than funding them, so the government ends up with a bigger and bigger debt hole funding all this in exchange for votes.

See the Austrian guy who developed Openclaw then left because of the way Austria treats small business success and entrepreneurship.

Central planned income redistribution always leads to failure in the long run. This only worked in the post-WW2 Europe when there were a lot more people paying into the system than receiving, but not in today's world and economy.

[em-bee]

Why are privately owned restaurants part of a city's "livability", as if going out to eat food made by an underpaid slave wage class of migrant workers, is somehow a god given entitlement for the western person

that's the point, it's not an entitlement, it's paid for by taxes. and it is what makes a city attractive. same goes for shopping streets (as opposed to shopping malls) etc.

they make the city desireable and livable. which in turn attracts business, which brings in tax money.

you have never been to vienna, i guess. it's the most livable city in the world it frequently comes out at the top of the most desirable city for expats.

support for entrepreneurship is indeed a problem, not just in austria, in all of europe, but those are two different issues. there is no reason why it could not be improved while continuing to subsidize housing. on the contrary. subsidized housing means that as an entrepreneur i don't have to pay premium salaries in order to hire people like eg. in san francisco.

steinberger got hired by OpenAI three months after he revealed his project. to argue he left because because of how austria treats entrepreneurs makes no sense. did he say that that is the reason? i'd like to know if that's really true.

Central planned income redistribution always leads to failure in the long run

vienna's housing policy is successful for a century now. and i expect it will continue to be successful.

[joe_mamba]

>that's the point, it's not an entitlement, it's paid for by taxes.

You're whitewashing subsidies. And you refused to answer my question, why should restaurant owners have their businesses subsidized by taxpayer so they can get away with more profits? Why not other businesses too?

>they make the city desireable and livable. which in turn attracts business, which brings in tax money.

Which businesses move to a city because of restaurants and the "vibe"? Why does Amsterdam or Berlin have way more tech, startups and business than vienna if the city is more desirable?

Maybe businesses investments and restaurants are a completely different things.

>vienna's housing policy is successful for a century now. and i expect it will continue to be successful.

Only for those who benefit from it. But what about the rest on the rest?

[relaxing]

Capitalism is not a sincerely held belief. The true belief is “my business, at the expense of yours.”

[toomuchtodo]

Very similar to how religion and their associated belief systems are used to control others. I suppose one could consider capitalism a form of religion and "sacred values" that faces an almost autoimmune response when the belief system is challenged, as it also challenges the human's identity (in some cases).

[robtherobber]

Precisely. There are even strong arguments to support this take; they speak about a "free market" that simply never existed, an "invisible hand" that supposedly beneficial, the ridiculous belief that competition always improves outcomes, the equation of price with value, the (HN favourite) that profit proves virtue / merit, consumer choice = freedom, and so, so many other unfounded or partially true beliefs.

[oytis]

> penalise workers who can't/won't take those shifts.

Wouldn't this problem better solved with a normal contract that obliges the worker to take the shifts the employer is interested in?