Above Photo: Terry Laban. Platform Co-Ops Could Cut Out The Silicon Valley Middlemen. plat·form co-op noun An internet-based business controlled by the worker-owners who run it So, like Uber for worker power? That’s the idea! Presently, the so-called sharing economy often evades employee and consumer protection regulations, which is bad news for workers. But the underlying technology has its advantages: By cutting out the Silicon Valley middlemen, platform co-ops are putting a 21st century spin on worker-owned enterprises. The Drivers Cooperative, for example, began offering rides through its Co-op Ride app in New York City in 2021 and redistributes profits back to its driver-owners with an annual dividend. It […]
Gig
13 posts
Chris Hedges discusses the gig economy with Louis Hyman, professor of economic history at Cornell University. After the end of World War II, two generations of workers in the United States were blessed with a period of unprecedented prosperity. Wages for the working class were high. Jobs were stable and came with benefits and health insurance. Unions protected workers from abuse by the business elites. Taxes on the wealthiest individuals and corporations was as high as 91%. The public school system provided a quality education to the poor and the rich. The nation’s infrastructure and technology were cutting edge and unrivaled. […]
On most days, Doug Ford’s Conservative government in Ontario does not respond well to problems, or it actively makes things worse. If an election had been called a year-and-a-half ago, Ford would have lost. However, when COVID hit, Ford nearly brought Ontario to its knees. Nevertheless, he managed to deceive some into thinking he managed well. Today, he is barely visible, having prorogued Queen’s Park during September’s federal election to protect his federal Conservative counterparts instead of stepping up to protect Ontarians and help guide our recovery. Schools are suffering, hospitals and healthcare workers are short-staffed and stressed. Many Ontarians are […]
‘We’re All Fighting The Giant’ Faced With Fragility And Uncertainty, Gig Workers Are Connecting Across Borders To Challenge Platforms’ Power And Policies. This past July, Singh was on a midnight run, biking a chocolate mousse cake 7 kilometers across Mumbai, when he was rammed by a drunk driver on a scooter from behind. He got off with a few scratches and sprains, but his bike was badly smashed up. The cost of fixing it — 14,000 rupees ($189) — is about what he takes home in a month working for Zomato, the Indian food and grocery delivery app. So for the last […]
Gig Workers Hired To Evict People From Their Homes By Dominic Gustavo, WSWS. October 28, 2020 Gig Workers Hired To Evict People From Their Homes2020-10-282020-10-28https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/10/evictworker.jpg200px200px Above photo: Civvl. Company website. Million struggle to pay rent. A startup company by the name of Civvl is seeking to recruit temporary “gig” workers to assist landlords in evicting tenants who have been unable to pay rent in the midst of the economic depression triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. Civvl is owned by OnQall, a developer that provides a platform for a number of other app-based services. However, Civvl is markedly different from the other […]
One is a Grammy Award-winning musician with lots of spare time. Another is a software engineer with nowhere to go during the pandemic. There’s also an editor for a data site and a fund manager who invests in digital assets. What these people have in common is an obscure side gig known as “yield farming,” a type of cryptocurrency trading and investing that didn’t really even exist until 2020. Yield farming is producing fixed-income-like returns that can, at least for brief stretches, provide annualized interest rates equivalent to percentages investors cannot find anywhere else. As documented in First Mover over the […]
Rep. Andy Harris Denounced Stay At Home Orders and ‘Cult of Masks’ Rep. Andy Harris is an anesthesiologist who’s broken with the scientific mainstream during the pandemic — decrying stay-at-home orders and warning of a “cult of masks.” Now, he’s taken an unpaid side gig overseeing a drug company trial. https://t.co/tZHRGvPH0J — POLITICO (@politico) September 19, 2020 Health Editor’s Note: A five-time republican congressman has joined the hunt for coronavirus treatments as he is overseeing NeuroRx drug company trial. His close ties to NeuroRx CEO, Jonathan Javitt, could create issues of bias. Also called into question is his lack of experience […]
Millions of gig workers have come to depend on a government lifeline that’s set to expire at the end of the year. Above, a man wearing a face mask walks past a sign saying “now hiring” on May 14 in Arlington, Va. Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images Millions of gig workers have come to depend on a government lifeline that’s set to expire at the end of the year. Above, a man wearing a face mask walks past a sign saying “now hiring” on May 14 in Arlington, Va. Olivier Douliery/AFP via […]
Courts Worldwide Ruling That Gig Economy Is A Road To Serfdom By Marshall Auerback, Economy for All. August 27, 2020 Courts Worldwide Ruling That Gig Economy Is A Road To Serfdom2020-08-272020-08-26https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/08/1024px-foodora_messenger.jpg200px200px Companies have consistently sought to deny their workers traditional benefits via labour law loopholes that the courts are rapidly closing. The tech industry buzzword “gig” has distracted society from important questions about the gig economy that are surprisingly traditional: whether a business has employees or contractors, and how it can avoid payroll taxes and legal liability. Countless Silicon Valley business models have been built under the guise of gigs, Uber and Lyft two […]
A prominent nuclear engineering professor in California with influence over millions of dollars in federal research funds is also a prominent player in Dveri, a far right-wing party in Serbia that publicly supports a convicted war criminal, among other extremist stances. Jasmina Vujic has been on the faculty at the University of California Berkeley since 1992. She formerly served as chair of UC Berkeley’s nuclear engineering department, and is the founding director of the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium, a key hub for nuclear security research and training, where she directs 50 affiliated faculty members and hundreds of researchers from eight […]
New Tech Labor Movement Unites Office And Gig Workers By Tyler Sonnemaker and Allana Akhtar, Business Insider. July 23, 2020 New Tech Labor Movement Unites Office And Gig Workers2020-07-232020-07-23https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/07/employee-activism-at-major-tech-companies-like-amazon-and-google-has-been-on-the-rise-especially-since-the-pandemic.-e1595538254838.jpg200px200px Above photo: Employee activism at major tech companies like Amazon and Google has been on the rise, especially since the pandemic. Tech workers across pay scales, job types, geographies, and companies have joined together in unprecedented shows of solidarity. Google was one of the first. Last September, 80 Google contractors working for HCL Technologies voted overwhelmingly to unionize. Engineers at the company advocated for a union a month later, and were later fired. On New […]
Reclaiming Work: Can Cooperatives Overthrow The Gig Economy? By Shyam Krishna, Red Pepper. June 24, 2020 Reclaiming Work: Can Cooperatives Overthrow The Gig Economy?2020-06-242020-06-24https://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2017/12/popres-shorter.pngPopularResistance.Orghttps://popularresistance-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2020/06/reclaiming-work-documentary.-photo-courtesy-of-black-brown-film-e1593025019250.png200px200px Above photo: From Reclaiming Work documentary. Photo courtesy of Black & Brown Film. Review of Reclaiming Work, a new documentary by black and brown film that looks at how cycle courier cooperatives are using technology against gig economy giants. The pandemic has brought into focus the stark conditions and precarity faced by workers in the gig-economy. When the dust settles, can these workers who were at the frontlines of this crisis build a fairer future? The workers featured in Reclaiming Work believe so. […]
Jessica Mulroney, the Canadian stylist, Good Morning America correspondent, and close friend of Meghan Markle, has been fired from her Canadian TV gig after black influencer Sasha Exeter dubbed her an “Amy Cooper.” Equating Mulroney to the white woman who called the cops on a birdwatcher in Central Park last month, Exeter took to Instagram to tell a story of alleged online bullying at the hands of Mulroney. “Today, I’m opening up about something that has been haunting me for the last week,” Exeter wrote to her 74,000 followers. “I have felt like a complete fraud fighting for racial equality and […]