The rides of wrath: Is Uber undercutting employment standards?

Bram Lebo from Haliburton, Ont., called to share his perspective on Uber and what he callsthe "gig economy." According to Lebo, the current model of piecemeal labour is doing a disservice to Canadian employees and harkens back to depression-era economics. Lebo spoke with Checkup guest host Susan McReynolds.

Cross Country Checkup3:40May 15, 2016 - Caller Bram Lebo

Bram Lebo weighs in on piecemeal work and the gig economy as it relates to the Uber and Taxi debate.

On The Grapes of Wrath as it relates to Uber:

Uber is The Grapes of Wrath of economics. If you remember the book by John Steinbeck, it describes how in the '30s, starving farmers from Oklahoma drove to California to find work. At the time the work was picking fruit. The farmers who owned the farms would offer people 20 cents a bushel, and when they had enough men willing to work for 20cents, then they said ten cents a bushel. They could always find people who would do it for ten cents, and then they found those who would do it for five cents a bushel. This is exactly what Uber is going to do. If there are people who are willing to work for less, they're going to become the Uber drivers. You'll find people who are willing to subjugate themselves to every rule and restriction that Uber puts forward. This is about the degradation of work and the degradation of the employment relationship.

On the potential for undercutting wages across sectors:

It's not a supply versus demand question; it's more a question of how we define work. Students of history and economics will remember that we outlawed piecework a long time ago because it doesn't offer job security. It turns people into machines. It's disrespectful of employees. You can imagine this Uber scenario extending to other sectors including law or medicine. It could even extend to radio personalities where the CBC puts a call out and says we're tired of paying people lots of money to be radio hosts. Would anybody in Canada like be a radio host for a $1,000 a month? It's only $12,000 a year, but I'll bet there would be thousands of applications, and many more who are willing to do it for free. What would that do to you and your colleagues' job security and careers? What would it do to our tax base, and what would it do to all of us working Canadians? We take pride in our work and try to build some security for our lives. It takes that all away.

On piecework and employment standards:

Our society has made decisions about how we want to run things.

Earning money isn't everything to us. For example, we make rules that you can't open a retail store on your front lawn because that's not good for the neighbourhood. And we can make rules like this: we don't want people to drive part time because we don't want to have a society with people doing piecework.

If we're living in a society where you or I have to drive part time for a Californian venture capitalist company, or rent out a spare bedroom, just to make ends meet that is terrible. If we can't have jobs that allow people to support themselves with one normal job, that sounds like a terrible failure of our economy,

Lebo's comments have been edited and condensed. This online segment was prepared by Champagne Choquer.