讓零工經濟更加公平 An economist's dreams of a fairer gig economy

It has never been easier to find little jobs for little payments. If you are being paid through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to tag people’s photos or being hired to put up shelves via TaskRabbit, who needs a real job? For enthusiasts, these micro-jobs mean sticking two fingers up to the Man and rejecting wage-slavery in favour of freedom. For pessimists, they are precarious ways to earn a living that offer no pension or health insurance. Welcome to the “gig economy”, a phrase that evokes both the romantic ideals and the grinding poverty of life as a journeyman musician.

找到掙小錢的零工從未如此簡單過。如果你通過亞馬遜(Amazon)的土耳其機器人(Mechanical Turk)受僱，爲別人標記相片，或者通過TaskRabbit受僱搭個架子，誰還需要真正的工作？對熱心者來說，這些零工意味着可以向老闆說不，選擇自由，不做工資的奴隸。對悲觀者來說，這些是不穩定的謀生方式，沒有任何養老或者醫療保險。歡迎來到“零工經濟”(gig economy)，這個術語讓人想起零工音樂家的浪漫理想和貧困潦倒。

The app-based gig economy is still small. Perhaps one in 200 American workers rely on it for their main source of income; nobody is really sure. Yet it seems likely to grow, and, as it grows, so will a question: does the way we link social protections to jobs make sense?

基於APP的零工經濟仍然規模很小。或許200名美國工人當中只有1人把零工作爲主要收入來源；沒有人真正確定。然而零工經濟似乎在發展，而且隨着它的發展，問題隨之而來：我們將社會保障和工作聯繫在一起的方式明智嗎？

Details vary but most advanced countries have a list of goodies that must be provided by employers rather than the government or the individual. In the UK a full-time worker is entitled to 28 days of paid leave. In the US the default provider of health insurance is your employer. In many countries, employees cannot be sacked without long notice periods and a decent pension is the preserve of people with a decent job. As for freelancers, they may enjoy flexibility and independence and sometimes even a good living — but as far as social protections go, they are on their own.

雖然細節方面有所不同，但大多數發達國家都有一攬子必須由僱主（而非政府或者個人提供）的福利。在英國，一名全職工人享有28天的帶薪假期。在美國，默認的醫保提供者是你的僱主。在許多國家，要解僱僱員必須先提供很長的通知期，而體面的養老金是有體面工作的人的專享福利。至於自由職業者，他們可能工作靈活且獨立，有時甚至還能有不錯的收入，但就社會保障而言，他們不得不靠自己。

It is easy to understand the politics of this: pensions, healthcare and paid holidays are expensive, and asking employers to pick up the bill obscures their true cost. But the emergence of companies such as Uber is changing the calculus. Are Uber drivers employees or not?

不難理解這種體制的政治邏輯：養老金、醫保和帶薪假期都非常昂貴，要求僱主埋單模糊了它們真正的成本。但優步(Uber)等公司的出現改變了算盤。優步司機是不是僱員？

Uber maintains that they are not. That seems defensible: a driver can switch the app on or off at any time, or work for a competitor such as Lyft on a whim. Few employees who acted in this way would be employed for very long.

優步宣稱他們不是僱員。這似乎合乎情理：優步司機可以在任何時間啓動或切斷APP，或者一時心血來潮就去爲Lyft等競爭對手工作。這麼幹的僱員很少能被長期僱傭。

Then again, does a driver who puts in 60 or 70 hours a week providing Uber-assigned rides according to Uber-determined rules and rates not deserve some sort of security? Some authorities think so: the company has lost a number of rulings in California as judges and arbitrators have found that, in certain cases, Uber drivers are employees.

但話說回來，一週花上60或70個小時按照優步制定的規則和費率完成其分配的接送任務，這樣的司機難道不值得獲得某種保障嗎？一些部門認爲應該獲得保障：優步在加州輸掉了多起官司，因爲法官和仲裁員發現，在某些情況下，優步司機是僱員。

Such judgments are likely to vary from case to case and place to place, and the uncertainty helps nobody bar the lawyers. Alan Krueger, former chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, draws a parallel with the emergence of the workers’ compensation system a century ago. Sensible rules were agreed, he says, once lawsuits over industrial accidents became expensive and unpredictable.

此類判決可能因案例和地方不同而有所差異，這種不確定性對任何人（除了律師以外）都沒有幫助。美國總統巴拉克•奧巴馬(Barack Obama)的經濟顧問委員會(Council of Economic Advisers)前主席艾倫•克魯格(Alan Krueger)將其比作一個世紀前工人賠償制度的出現。他說，在圍繞工傷事故的訴訟代價變得昂貴且不可預測後，各方就同意了明智的規則。

But what should the new rules be? Mr Krueger’s approach is to adapt the status quo by extending some employment benefits to gig economy workers. He and his co-author, Seth Harris, recently proposed a third category of “independent workers”, neither pure freelancers nor pure employees. They receive “all the benefits that employees get”, Mr Krueger told me, “except for the ones that don’t make sense”.

但新的規則應該是什麼樣子？克魯格的方法是將一些就業福利擴大至零工經濟工人來適應現狀。他與其合著者塞思•哈里斯(Seth Harris)最近將這些工人稱爲“獨立工人”，作爲純粹自由職業者和純粹僱員以外的第三種分類。克魯格告訴我，他們獲得“僱員獲得的所有福利，除了那些不合理的福利外”。

For example, if Uber drivers enjoyed the status of independent workers, they could form or join a union, and be protected under anti-discrimination laws. Uber, for its part, might offer pensions, health insurance and other products that its drivers could find attractive without fear this would lead the courts to rule that it was an employer. But independent workers would not receive paid holiday or protection from dismissal.

例如，如果優步司機享有獨立工人的地位，他們就可以建立或加入工會，得到反歧視法律的保護。而從優步來說，它可以提供養老金、醫療保險以及其他可能讓其司機覺得有吸引力的產品，而不用擔心這將導致法庭裁定它是僱主。但獨立工人將不會有帶薪假或者解僱保護。

The Harris-Krueger proposal is based on the idea that the current package of employment rights in the US is attractive, and that America would be a better place if it was available as widely as possible. In the eurozone, where double-digit unemployment seems to be customary, it is hard to see how most protections could be applied to independent workers — and harder still to see why that would be a progressive step.

哈里斯-克魯格提議建立在如下觀點的基礎之上：即美國當前的一攬子就業權利具有吸引力，而且如果儘可能普遍提供這些權利，美國將成爲更美好的國家。在兩位數失業率似乎成爲常態的歐元區，很難設想多數保護如何應用於獨立工人，更難看出這爲什麼是一個進步的舉措。

So here is a far more radical approach: we should end the policy of trying to offload the welfare state to corporations. It is a policy that hides the costs of these benefits, and ensures that they are unevenly distributed. Instead we should take a hard look at that list of goodies: healthcare, pensions, income for people who are not working. Then we should decide what the state should provide and how generously. To my mind, there is a strong argument that the state should provide all of these things, to everyone, at a very basic level. What the state will not provide, individuals must pay for themselves — or seek employers who provide these benefits as an attraction rather than a legal obligation. Call it libertarianism with a safety net.

因此更爲徹底的方法是：我們應該結束這種試圖將福利國家的負擔轉嫁給企業的政策。這種政策隱藏了這些福利的成本，並確立了不平等的分配方式。相反，我們應該認真審視這些福利：醫保、養老金以及失業金。接下來我們應該決定政府應該提供哪些福利以及福利的規模。就我看來，政府按照基本水平向所有人提供所有這些福利有着充分的理由。政府不提供的，個人必須自掏腰包，或者尋找把提供這些福利作爲吸引力（而非法律義務）的僱主。我把它稱爲擁有保障體系的自由意志主義。

No doubt this is just an economists’ pipe dream. Even the far tamer Harris- Krueger ideas seem unlikely to gain political traction any time soon. That is a shame. While traditional jobs suit most of us, the gig economy is perfect for some people and some circumstances. It would be a shame if our welfare state and labour laws failed to catch up.

這無疑只是一個經濟學家的白日夢。即便是溫和得多的哈里斯-克魯格觀點似乎也不太可能很快獲得政治支持。這令人遺憾。儘管傳統工作適合我們中的大多數人，但零工經濟非常適合某些人和某些情況。如果我們的福利國家制度和勞動法未能與時俱進，那將是個恥辱。