Mildly off-topic: What do you think about alternative systems (e.g. UBI) which decouple safety nets from employment? I'm still young and naive, but it seems like we could avoid the whole legal morass of contractor vs hourly employee vs salaried employee who must be paid for extra hours worked vs "real" salaried employee, state constitutional amendments requiring 7/8 supermajorities to overturn, having your health records privy to your employer, having to pay 2x (even accounting for employer contributions) for worse health coverage if you're not employed by _somebody_, and all the other garbage in our current system (forgive the USA-centric view).
I have a lot of opinions on this, too much for a comment really!
At root, legal systems in many western countries only really classify workers as employee/contractor vs self employed etc. The law has not caught up with modern working practices for the new type of gig-economy worker we have. I think a third class that lands halfway between employee and contractor needs to be legally recognized in many places - something that has some benefits and risks from both. Making this new class of worker is an extremely politically loaded decision - do they get holidays? do they get benefits? etc etc and that is really where the difficulties in fixing this start. In most western legal systems this would require some really major legislation to fix well too, and would be attacked by all sides along the way. It's just so hard to put right.
Mildly off-topic: What do you think about alternative systems (e.g. UBI) which decouple safety nets from employment? I'm still young and naive, but it seems like we could avoid the whole legal morass of contractor vs hourly employee vs salaried employee who must be paid for extra hours worked vs "real" salaried employee, state constitutional amendments requiring 7/8 supermajorities to overturn, having your health records privy to your employer, having to pay 2x (even accounting for employer contributions) for worse health coverage if you're not employed by _somebody_, and all the other garbage in our current system (forgive the USA-centric view).