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Uncertain Terms

While working on this season of "The Uncertain Hour," we heard a lot of words and phrases that sounded weird to our ears. So each week we're going to explain a bit of jargon.

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Uncertain Terms

Who gets "deactivated"?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Mar 29, 2021
App-based gig workers for Amazon, Uber, Lyft and more. Here's how it works.
An Uber Eats delivery worker riding an electric scooter in New York City in March.
Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images
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Uncertain Terms

What is the "Save America's Pastime Act"?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Mar 17, 2021
It's the carveout that allows minor league baseball to avoid minimum wage laws — and it's one of many.
Minor league baseball is one of several industries with a carveout from minimum wage laws.
Chris Hondros/Getty Images
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Uncertain Terms

What's the "sweating system"?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Mar 10, 2021
They're not called "sweatshops" because they're warm.
Women work at a sweatshop sewing clothes under contract with local clothing manufacturers in Manila on July 12, 2013.
JAY DIRECTO/AFP via Getty Images
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Uncertain Terms

What does it mean to be paid a "piece rate"?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Mar 3, 2021
Legally, anyone who’s paid a piece rate must still make at least minimum wage. And companies are expected to have done the calculation.
Laborers in a garment factory in Asulia, on the outskirts of Dhaka on April 7, 2020.
MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP via Getty Images
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Uncertain Terms

What's a "core competence"?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Feb 24, 2021
One paper from 1990 changed business — and this thing we call employment — as we know it.
Employees work on the Honda Civic production line at the automaker's Dongfeng Honda factory in Wuhan, China in 2017.
STR/AFP via Getty Images
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Uncertain Terms

How does a worker become "misclassified"?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Feb 18, 2021
Independent contractor? Or employee?
A ride-share driver in Los Angeles calls for enforcing California Assembly Bill 5, which requires some companies to reclassify independent contractors as employees.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
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Uncertain Terms

How does a franchise work?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Feb 10, 2021
Here's a basic explanation.
The very first McDonald's
Tim Boyle/Newsmakers
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Uncertain Terms

Who's a servant and who's an artisan?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Feb 5, 2021
There used to be a lot more of them.
Servant? Artisan? Employee?
Fox Photos/Getty Images
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Uncertain Terms

What's a "nonemployee"?

by The Uncertain Hour staff
Jan 29, 2021
Well, not an employee, for starters. But to really understand the word and its implications, we have to look back to 19th-century labor law.
Employee or nonemployee?
John Moore/Getty Images
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