Employees vs. Contractors, Apple Without Jony Ive, and Pepsico’s Green Promise

The Latest Verdict on Employees vs. Contractors

With the consistent rise of businesses, both small and large, leveraging the power of contractors and “gig-based” work, it’s becoming more and more critical that there’s a clear distinction between employees versus contractors. While the definition of each provides a clear answer, the question at hand is if businesses should be allowed to choose how to classify their workers and, when they do, what those implications entail for both parties.

According to a ruling earlier in the year for one unnamed company, whose workers clean homes, the Labor Department has decided that companies who use contractors don’t have to “offer the federal minimum wage or overtime, or pay a share of Social Security taxes”. This precedent, although only for the company involved, is having ripple-effect implications throughout the business economy in the United States.

Under the current Trump administration, it seems that gig companies can treat their workers as contractors, which means that they can save an estimated 30 percent in labor costs over the course of a year. And, with an estimated one to five million Americans engaging in the online gig economy each day, that adds up, leaving contractors to determine the pros and cons of the modern “digital lifestyle” for themselves.

Apple Without Jony Ive: What’s Next?

Jony Ive, who has been the major designer behind Apple’s iPhone and with the brand since 1992, is leaving the company later this year in order to start his own company. This announcement is leaving many in the tech world wondering what will happen to Apple and, when Ive leaves, if there will be any noticeable difference in future products.

While it’s exciting for many to think of what a new Apple era could look like, those who appreciate Ive’s genius are more concerned than curious. Thankfully, Ive’s new company isn’t prepared to leave Apple in the dust. In fact, “Ive's new firm will also focus on design and count Apple as among its primary clients”. That means, according to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, that "Apple will continue to benefit from Jony's talents by working directly with him on exclusive projects”.

Ive’s new California-based venture, which will be called LoveFrom, is slated to launch sometime in 2020, focusing on, according to Ive, “designing wearable technology and healthcare-related products, in addition to a variety of unspecified projects”.

At the moment, Apple is not planning on replacing Ive’s role with a successor. Rather than trying to fill an enormous pair of shoes, the company plans to have its two current design leaders (one in charge of industrial design and one in charge of software design) report to Jeff Williams, the COO of the company. Williams, of course, is far from “out of the loop” in Apple design, having a lead role in the development of Apple Watch. After Ive leaves, it’s likely that Williams will find himself spending a lot more time in the studio with the design team, something that is likely to influence what future Apple products will look - and work - like.

Going Green: Pepsico’s New Plastic Promise

As one of the world’s worst plastic polluters, the new announcement from Pepsico, promising to drastically reduce its plastic use, registers as a huge win for the environment. In addition to putting Aquafina water in cans, instead of the infamous plastic bottles, its brand, Lifewtr, will be “packaged in 100 percent recycled PET”, which is an easier-to-recycle version of plastic. Bubly, another brand under the Pepsico umbrella, will also find itself liberated from plastic bottles in 2020.

According to Pepsico, these changes, among other green initiatives, will “eliminate more than 8,000 metric tons of virgin plastic and approximately 11,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions”, getting the company a whole lot closer to its goal of making “100 percent of its packaging recyclable, compostable or biodegradable and use 25 percent recycled plastic content in all its plastic packaging” by the year 2025.

If other companies follow Pepsico and take a stance on plastic pollution, the world could see a huge positive shift in the state of its oceans and the environment. In addition to landfills being overrun with plastic (which will take hundreds of years to finally break down), the oceans are being virtually choked by our current consumer and production habits. According to the Ocean Conservancy, “8 million metric tons of plastics enter our ocean on top of the estimated 150 million metric tons that currently circulate our marine environment” - and that’s every single year.