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Gig economy companies and organized labor are at war over the future of work and the definition of “employee.” The companies’ strategy has split the labor movement by enticing some unions into a partnership-based company unionism instead of independent workers’ organizing.
The numbers don't show any growth in a gig economy. But that doesn't mean workers aren't poorly paid and insecure.
After unionizing gig economy workers, Ontario’s courier union Foodsters United found themselves without an employer when Foodora filed for bankruptcy. Now they’re exploring how worker cooperatives could use the efficiency of platform structures to bypass corporate exploitation.
Stories about a new age of precarity are overblown. Workers have had to deal with economic insecurity since the dawn of capitalism.
A new report confirms that insecure and precarious work is widespread across the economy. To respond meaningfully to the needs of workers, the labor movement must grapple with the harmful impacts of precarity.
DoorDash took a page from traditional restaurant managers: it stole workers’ tips. But even as it reversed course under public pressure, the delivery platform highlighted the exploitation at the core of capitalist employment.
British Columbia is touting a bill that will protect gig workers from the worst depredations of the sector. However, in a familiar trend of industries outsmarting employment standards in the country, the bill is poised to fall short of its lofty promises.
A newly created House district in Michigan is pitting the solidly pro-labor Democrat Representative Andy Levin against Representative Haley Stevens, a Democrat with a history of doing gig companies’ bidding and trying to smash worker protections.
Ken Loach's newest film, Sorry We Missed You, is a devastating indictment of our economy and its infinite capacity to generate misery for average people.
Barack Obama abandoned his commitments to unions, and many top staffers went to work for the gig economy. In his Netflix series Working, the former president bears witness to workers’ suffering as if it were immutable — and something he had nothing to do with.
After a $200 million propaganda blitz, California voters passed the Uber- and Lyft-backed Proposition 22 on Tuesday, permanently excluding online “platform” workers from labor protections. Unsurprisingly, the companies are now talking about extending such legislation nationally.
Companies like Uber had a massive victory in November, when their $200 million propaganda blitz convinced voters in California to pass Proposition 22, excluding platform workers from labor protections. Their plan to entrench contractor status for workers nationwide is clear, but stopping them is still an option — and a necessity.
A new bill in California would end the legal loophole that allows Uber and Lyft to pay drivers incredibly low wages and avoid paying benefits. It’s no surprise that the companies are mobilizing against the law: their business model is based on abusing their drivers.
“It's like Uber, but for nurses.” Does that scare you? It should. Private hospitals are increasingly teaming up with Silicon Valley to make American health care even more exploitative.
In Italy, striking food couriers showed "gig economy" capitalists they're serious about their rights as workers.
Uber and Lyft drivers have called a one-day strike on the day of Uber's initial public offering. But their strike is about more than fighting the exploitation of the “sharing economy” — it’s about a right to the city.
In response to the war on Gaza, the 100,000-strong International Alliance of App-Based Transport Workers has called a boycott of Chevron-owned gas stations. It shows how precarious workers can use solidarity action to hit firms who profit from apartheid.
Uber and Lyft said that California's Proposition 22 would help their drivers. We now have proof they were lying.
Work in the twenty-first century sucks. But it’s not because of a new “gig economy” — it’s because work under capitalism always sucks.
Misclassifying workers as independent contractors hurts workers and enriches bosses, and is central to the business strategy of companies like Uber and Lyft. California state legislators passed AB 5 this week to stop this exploitative model. It’s a victory that must be defended from Uber and Lyft’s fightback.