Case in point - in almost all cases, drivers never work FOR a company such as Uber.
So what's the difference between "with" and "for"? If you work for someone, then you are an employee of the company, and the company is obligated to follow laws regarding employees - minimum wage, health benefits, and the like.
But that magical word "with" makes all the difference:
Uber considers drivers to be independent contractors. Two recent class-action suits challenging this have since been settled, and Uber won both.
But hey, that doesn't affect some of the older tech companies, does it? Google certainly has a whole bunch of employees.
Well...
Google has been increasingly hiring TVCs rather than full-time employees for all types of roles, resulting in a majority TVC workforce. We do essential work, from marketing, to running engineering teams, to feeding you and the rest of the Google staff — all without fair benefits or recognition.
In the quote above, "TVC" stands for "temporary, vendor, and contract" - the second class of people who work for/with Google. Examples:
Google routinely denies TVCs access to information that is relevant to our jobs and our lives. When the tragic shooting occurred at YouTube in April of this year, the company sent real-time security updates to full-time employees only, leaving TVCs defenseless in the line of fire. TVCs were then excluded from a town hall discussion the following day. And when 20,000 full-time and TVC Google employees walked out to demand equal treatment for all workers, TVCs were again excluded from the company-wide discussion held a week later....
Even when we’re doing the same work as full-time employees, these jobs routinely fail to provide living wages and often offer minimal benefits. This affects not only us, but also our families and communities.
So earlier today, the "Google Walkout for Real Change" posted a piece on Medium entitled "Invisible no longer: Google’s shadow workforce speaks up." Their point is that Google workers are Google workers, regardless of employment status, and they should get equal pay and equal access to information.
This is not unique to Google, or to Silicon Valley, or to tech in general. A lot of companies are using contract workers rather than employees. And it's not always a bad deal for the contract workers, either:
For just as there are many who are used by the system, there are just as many who are using it to their advantage. There are a growing number of workers who remain independent because they choose to. For the most in-demand skills, such as data scientists, there can even be bidding wars. Contract workers in these in-demand areas can take their pick of projects, command high rates and then take time off or move on to another project.
"There are six-month CFOs or two-year CEOs who do what they need to do. Then the person goes on and starts new projects," said Chris Dwyer, vice president of research at Ardent Partners, a research and consulting firm.
Ten years ago contractors were often used to fill in for employees on leave. Now it's more likely that companies are hiring temporary workers in very sought-after fields, such as certain "hot" computer-programming languages or data scientists to develop artificial intelligence or machine-learning programs because they have no other choice. "That means for companies to gain access to them, they have to use contractors," said Brian Hoffmeyer, senior vice president at Beeline, a tech company that helps companies manage their contingent workforce.
But knowing that some contractors are doing well is of little comfort to those who are not - especially when they are excluded from the processes at the company "with" which they work.
