O'Malley: Technology can improve workers' lives in 'gig economy'

[elleng]

The same technology that made companies like ridesharing service Uber successful can be used to protect workers in the "gig economy," Martin O'Malley said on Saturday.

The former Maryland governor and Democratic presidential hopeful told an audience at the Des Moines Farmers Market that things like health benefits and sick leave need to be made more "portable" to ensure employees in this new, nontraditional workforce have the same security companies have traditionally offered.

"If people are part of the shared economy, they should also be part of the shared security that comes with playing by the rules and working hard," he said. "I think we need to update our labor laws and make sure peoples' hard work isn't exploited and that they're not made vulnerable by working multiple part-time jobs." . .

Technology is such that there should be ways for us to create portable benefits that follow the person, so that's what we need to figure out," O'Malley said.

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2015/09/26/omalley-technology-can-improve-workers-lives-gig-economy/72896404/

[Nay]

1. This is RIDICULOUS. There is a very simple way to protect workers in a gig

economy -- a single-payer health system. As for paid sick leave, etc., a Federal law mandating it would do. Why think up complicated ways of making stuff "portable"? The more we complicate things, the worse they work in practice.