Dear Paul,

What right have you to categorise people, telling them: "you are an employer", "you are an employee" or "you are a contractor", etc. and that therefore they must do this and not do that?

I cannot find any moral or philosophical justification for the imposed structures that you praise and seem to be proud about - can you?
Just claiming, "It is nice" or "It works", is not good enough.

Why talk of "worker's rights" when every living being is a worker: no-body can survive without at least working on maintaining their body, notwithstanding that many also work to help in so many ways their family, friends and others, even without any formal agreements.

If people deserve to live in dignity and have the basic things that are needed for decent living, then this surely is unconditional and must not depend on whatever agreements they make or don't make between them.

In other words, the fact that you are entitled to live, to eat properly, to have a warm bed, to receive good medical care, etc., should have nothing to do with your happening to sign some contract with another person that includes, possibly among other things, clauses that say that you will perform such-and-such work for them and that they will give you a certain amount of money.

If you (like myself) oppose slavery, then you must not support any form of it, including when people need to sign "employment" contracts just in order to survive.

Once the above is clear, what possibly justifies your forcibly complicating other people's lives and interfering with the contents of agreements/contracts that other people make between them? Whatever they happen to agree about is their private matter - if you commendably think that none of them should starve (unless of course they want to), then instead please deal DIRECTLY with this issue of how to prevent starvation and make sure they nobody does, not just "workers"!

As far as you guys are concerned,

Who was the party pooper who outlawed slavery in our glorious free enterprise society? I have a number of unpaid contracted positions at my place. Alti, I would like you to work as my unpaid door greeter, you can pass on your favorited words of endearment to my gay and aboriginal friends when they arrive. Shonkyminister, can there be any other position for you other than cook, being a connoisseur of the home delivered cheap pizza and sloppy burger as you are. Yuyu, its unpaid no contract work for you in my garden, a place where you can while away the hours passing on your words of wisdom to the fairies who reside there. It goes without saying that Indy will be my mop and bucket man, having spent years in that noble profession. ttbn, you little charmer I'll have a position for you, one that suits your talents, chook feeder. Then of course there is Hassy, what position would suit the skills of Mr Hasbeen? Yep, Hassy, your job will be to do nothing, a position befitting one of such abilities.

Up at at em' boys works a calling!

On a more serious note;

"A food delivery cyclist has died in the Sydney suburb of Redfern after being struck by a truck carrying an excavator. ... He is the fifth delivery worker known to have died in Australia since late September 2020, following the deaths of Bijoy Paul, Dede Fredy, Xiaojun Chen and Chow Khai Shien."

As long as the cheap pizza and bag of soggy burgers and fries keeps arriving on time you guys have no concern that exploited workers should die in the delivery of your 'happy meal'. Unless of course it should result in delivery being inconveniently late, and your pizza and burgers are cold! You're not paying your regular pittance for a cold dinner, now are you.

Pauliar,

No one could ever accuse you of being rational. The moment anyone challenges your BS on wages you go to slavery, for racism you go to Nazis etc.

You also lack the IQ to consider the consequences of implementing Labor's idiotic policies like putting many of the gig workers out of work.

Just what Aus needs coming out of the Covid recession is Labor destroying jobs.

Dear Paul,

May I understand from your cryptic response that you have no objection to slavery, provided that you rather than others, are the slave-master?

It is regrettable that meal-deliverers die on the road.
What is your solution? Would dying with more money in their pockets be more humane?
I have never ordered or received food delivery. If I want any ready food I go out and buy it myself.

where I work, we have had no pay rise since 2018.

EBA was rejected late last year because not enough packpay.

Times do suit employers at moment, at least for lower skilled workers.

A serious, real, problem about work is - who is going to be doing jobs in the future? If it’s millenials, society is in for a big shock. There will be no need to make up nonsense about awful employers, underpayment and slavery as we have been subjected to here.

I recently came across an article written by a Shannon Molloy, in 2017. The article was titled, ‘We’ve raised Generation Hopeless: Millenials who lack basic life and workplace skills. And it’s a big issue’.

These kiddies are “always on line”. They have no small talk, critical thinking and problems-solving skills. They can’t cook, and they can’t budget.

One educator, Michaela Launerts, who has felt the need to write a book called ‘Girlcode’ on the subject, points to a steep decline in interpersonal skills. Therefore, regardless of school results, they are going to struggle to get a job.

With online shopping and apps for everything, they are not used to speaking to people in person. It terrifies them.

In the US, a poll found that 65% of young people don’t feel comfortable dealing face-to-face. 80% preferred to converse digitally. They are less likely to understand how other people feel.

They are no good at dealing with workplace conflict; terrible at time management - but they desire senior work roles immediately they start work; ones they can’t possibly hold down.

Many recruiters are astounded by the conduct of young applicants. They have grown up online where they don’t learn the social conventions that are still expected of them, but they are naively confident of their abilities, wanting middle management jobs immediately.

This communistic whining and blaming other people for imagined and made up situations is the least of our worries on the work front.