Major digital labor platforms, also known as gig companies, operating in the United States misclassify gig workers as independent contractors, denying them labor rights.
The gig economy is nothing new in itself, it was already present, the only thing these companies did is to make them “modern”. Here were not uncommon that people got some gig works to have the money for holidays (teenagers) or to round up salary from time to time.
It is not a problem per se.
The problem is that the gig economy is the only way to have a salary for some people, for various reasons.
That let the companies to pay way less because they have a big pool to choose from and have not any obligations (or advantages) to have a stable set of employees and to resort to gig workers only in peak times.
And that is true expecially in place like the US where the llabor laws are ridiculous.
The big problem with modernization of gig work by these companies is that they’re screwing of the gig workers by inserting themselves in the middle and fucking over everybody else involved.
For example: Town car services existed for years before Uber came to the scene. Before Uber you’d have to call a town car service that may be a single person operation, or a small group of people getting together and hiring a calling service.
The idea of the modern, centralized, gig services is not a terrible idea in itself. But running that as a capitalist business is terrible. This is one of those things that should be required to be a government service or a non-profit.
Of course. How else would you get all those venture capitalists to invest in them?
The gig economy is nothing new in itself, it was already present, the only thing these companies did is to make them “modern”. Here were not uncommon that people got some gig works to have the money for holidays (teenagers) or to round up salary from time to time.
It is not a problem per se.
The problem is that the gig economy is the only way to have a salary for some people, for various reasons.
That let the companies to pay way less because they have a big pool to choose from and have not any obligations (or advantages) to have a stable set of employees and to resort to gig workers only in peak times.
And that is true expecially in place like the US where the llabor laws are ridiculous.
The big problem with modernization of gig work by these companies is that they’re screwing of the gig workers by inserting themselves in the middle and fucking over everybody else involved.
For example: Town car services existed for years before Uber came to the scene. Before Uber you’d have to call a town car service that may be a single person operation, or a small group of people getting together and hiring a calling service.
The idea of the modern, centralized, gig services is not a terrible idea in itself. But running that as a capitalist business is terrible. This is one of those things that should be required to be a government service or a non-profit.