The "gig economy" companies are classic rentiers: in the guise of operating a "two-sided market" (restaurants on one side, delivery people on the other, say), they're actually just siphoning off everyone else's margin, slowly draining them dry.
pluralistic.net/2020/04/18/pol…
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pluralistic.net/2020/04/18/pol…
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But there's one thing the gig economy can't drain, and that's drivers' bladders.
Restaurateurs, legitimately angry at the third-party delivery apps that are destroying them through dirty tricks and rent-seeking, are denying drivers bathroom access.
vice.com/en_us/article/…
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Restaurateurs, legitimately angry at the third-party delivery apps that are destroying them through dirty tricks and rent-seeking, are denying drivers bathroom access.
vice.com/en_us/article/…
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It's a classic bit of misdirection, a game of "let's you and he fight." The delivery companies maintain the pretense that they're not employers and thus not required to provide bathrooms for their employees.
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The restaurateurs can't strike back at distant corporate execs, nor can they do anything to the apps themselves, so they grab hold of the only tangible element of the system that's destroying them - the drivers, who are also being destroyed by the same system.
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Execs have long made up unreasonable policies and then turned frontline staff out to absorb the anger and frustration of customers, while remaining insulated from any of that anger. Now it's happening to employees who deal with suppliers, too.
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Meanwhile, everybody poops. And pees. Drivers can't make ends meet unless they pull 12-hour shifts. As the City of San Francisco has stubbornly refused to realize for 30 years, the fact that you don't have anywhere for people to poop doesn't mean they stop pooping.
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Which is why the drivers are crouching in alleys, pissing in cups in their cars, etc.
And then handling your dinner.
eof/
And then handling your dinner.
eof/
