tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/precarious-employment-56673/articlesPrecarious employment – The Conversation2023-08-29T20:59:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2124182023-08-29T20:59:04Z2023-08-29T20:59:04ZTVO strike highlights the scourge of contract work in public service journalism<iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/tvo-strike-highlights-the-scourge-of-contract-work-in-public-service-journalism" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/tvo-producers-content-creators-hit-the-picket-lines-in-first-strike-at-public-broadcaster/article_fd4fd063-21d4-57db-87d8-b6d95dab4b7c.html">Workers at TVO are on strike for the first time in the public broadcaster’s 53-year history</a>. </p>
<p>Amid the din of traffic outside TVO’s offices in Toronto, unionized journalists, producers and education workers hold picket signs declaring: “Fund TVO Like it Matters.” </p>
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<p>TVO’s contract with the union, a branch of the Canadian Media Guild, expired in October. After months of negotiations, workers are striking to improve wages and to address precarious employment. </p>
<p>The union says that workers <a href="https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/cmg-members-at-tvo-in-legal-strike-position-on-friday-august-18-802546892.html">have received below-inflation wage increases since 2012</a>, including zero increases between 2012-2014. </p>
<p>I spoke to a producer who has worked at TVO’s flagship current affairs show, <em>The Agenda</em>, for 22 years and earns $74,000. </p>
<h2>Wages shrinking</h2>
<p><a href="https://twitter.com/DanielKitts/status/1695548363922366865">In a video posted to social media</a>, digital journalist Daniel Kitts, who has worked at TVO for 25 years, says: “For the past 10 years we have tried to… support this organization by seeing our wages shrink basically every year thanks to inflation. And after 10 years, we just can’t do it again.” </p>
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<p>Another crucial issue in the dispute is <a href="https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/labour-relations/tvo-workers-go-on-strike-as-contract-issues-continue/378985">temporary and precarious employment</a>, when workers are kept on perpetual contracts with no hope of their position becoming permanent. </p>
<p>TVO workers say these contracts prevent them from doing the kind of rigorous, civic journalism and current affairs programming that serves communities in Ontario. </p>
<p>In a news ecosystem where traditional advertising revenue is down, outlets chase clicks at the whims of platforms like Meta and X and disinformation circulates widely, the need for quality, fact-based public affairs programming is particularly urgent.</p>
<h2>The risks of precarious work</h2>
<p>In their <a href="https://pepso.ca/documents/precarity-penalty.pdf">2015 study</a> of precarious employment in southern Ontario, researchers found it has collective, cumulative effects on communities in what they call a precarity penalty. </p>
<p>People in precarious employment earn low incomes, face intermittent and insecure work, lack access to benefits and training and endure stress, social isolation and poor mental health. </p>
<p>Such pressures on individual lives shapes people’s participation in community life, and precarity becomes a burden borne by society at large. </p>
<p>Striking TVO workers are drawing attention to journalism’s precarity penalty: the consequences for robust journalism when the work of producing journalism is made precarious.</p>
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<img alt="A man in jeans, a T-shirt and a ball cap hands a flyer to a passerby." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545339/original/file-20230829-28-ewe8xx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A striking TVO employee hands out flyers on the picket line outside of TVO offices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby</span></span>
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<p>At issue at TVO is funding. <a href="https://tvo.me/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2021-22-TVO-ANNUAL-REPORT-ENG.pdf">TVO is funded</a> via a provincial Crown Corporation and reports to the Ministry of Education. It receives a base operating grant of $38.3 million annually, but funding hasn’t increased as costs and inflation have risen.</p>
<p>Rank-and-file workers are feeling the squeeze as <a href="https://www.newswire.ca/news-releases/tvo-management-gets-double-digit-pay-increases-while-asking-unionized-employees-to-take-another-pay-cut-890131220.html">senior managers receive above-inflation raises</a>. <em>The Agenda</em> host Steve Paikin told CBC Ottawa that when he joined TVO 30 years ago, there were 650 people working at TVO. Now there are about 250. “I’m really nervous about the place being squeezed any further,” he said.</p>
<h2>TVO’s contract workers</h2>
<p><a href="https://tvo.me/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Multi-Year-Plan-2021-2024-AODA-English.pdf">The government wants to see TVO increase “self-generated revenue,</a>” including donations and sponsorships. But precarious employment is baked into this model, TVO union branch president Meredith Martin told me. </p>
<p>As money comes in for specific projects, workers are hired on contract. When the project ends, so do the contracts. No one is made permanent in such an unstable funding environment. </p>
<p>TVO wants the union to give up language that enables workers on contract for two years to become full-time employees, eligible for benefits and other protections. Martin has seen first-hand the problems the contract model brings to the workplace: high staff turnover, low morale and an inability for workers to invest in quality work. </p>
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<img alt="A TVO sign." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/545337/original/file-20230829-23-n8tqly.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">TVO signage is seen at Canada Square in Toronto. Almost 96 per cent of CMG’s members at TVO rejected an offer from the employer.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby</span></span>
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<p>In journalism, precarity is manifold. Insecure work prevents people from establishing themselves in an organization and accessing career supports. Precariously employed journalists can’t contribute meaningfully to teams, speak out against sexism and racism at work or enjoy professional autonomy. </p>
<p>Employment insecurity is linked to industrial precariousness, where technological and economic changes spur management to shrink journalists’ wages and job security. As profits decline and labour forces contract, fewer journalists are in secure positions and increasing numbers of workers are on contract or freelance.</p>
<h2>The impact on diverse communities</h2>
<p><a href="https://caj.ca/programs/diversity-survey/">Two successive annual surveys</a> by the Canadian Association of Journalists show that women, racialized, Indigenous, queer and trans journalists are concentrated in the most precarious positions, making it difficult to meaningfully diversify journalism in Canada. </p>
<p>Journalists, researchers and advocates have long been calling for increased racial and gender diversity in journalism, demanding that newsrooms represent the communities they report on. Precarity is an impediment to such diversity. </p>
<p>Public, non-profit outlets like TVO can and should become model employers, committed to producing journalism in the public interest and providing workers, particularly those from diverse communities, with the sustainable jobs necessary to do so. (The CBC is also <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/05/09/CBC-Temp-Workers/">under fire</a> for maintaining a permanent underclass of temporary workers). </p>
<p>TVO workers are part of a broader movement to protect journalism via unionization. Since 2015, <a href="https://culturalworkersorganize.org/digital-media-organizing-timeline/">more than 150 newsrooms</a> in Canada and the United States have organized unions.</p>
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<p>In my review of their contracts, I find many examples of language that converts contract workers into full-time permanent workers after a set period, usually 12 months. This type of language is becoming the industry standard, negotiated by worker-led bargaining committees to gain some stability in an unstable industry. </p>
<p>Although work in journalism has never been a safe bet, it’s now rife with deepening uncertainty. In this context, TVO workers’ strike for material security to do work in the public interest matters more than ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Cohen has received funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. </span></em></p>Although work in journalism has never been a safe bet, it’s now rife with deepening uncertainty. The TVO strike aimed at job security is a matter of public interest.Nicole Cohen, Associate Professor, Communication, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2104562023-07-30T20:08:40Z2023-07-30T20:08:40ZWe need more than a definition change to fix Australia’s culture of permanent ‘casual’ work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539435/original/file-20230726-21-mojlsq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The surprising thing about the Albanese government’s <a href="https://ministers.dewr.gov.au/burke/standing-casual-workers">announced reforms</a> to
“casual” employment is not that they’re happening. It’s that employer advocates are <a href="https://www.afr.com/work-and-careers/workplace/casuals-to-get-the-whip-hand-under-labor-s-six-month-conversion-test-20230724-p5dqr5">getting so excited</a> about them, despite the small number of people they will affect and the small impact they will have.</p>
<p>That’s not to say the changes aren’t needed. Rather, true reform of the “casual” employment system, of which this is just a first but important step, has a lot further to go to resolve the “casual problem”.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/albanese-government-to-make-it-easier-for-casuals-to-become-permanent-employees-210259">Albanese government to make it easier for casuals to become permanent employees</a>
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<h2>What is the ‘casual problem’?</h2>
<p>This problem is that most “casual” workers aren’t really casual at all — as shown by analysis that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00221856221097474?journalCode=jira">I and colleague Robyn May did</a>, using unpublished data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).</p>
<p>The premise for hiring them is that the work is intermittent, short-term and unpredictable. But, as you can see from the chart, the last time the ABS collected these data, a majority of “casuals” worked regular hours. </p>
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<p>Almost 60% of “casuals” had been in the job for more than a year. About 80% expected to still be there in a year’s time.</p>
<p>Only 6% of “casuals” (1.5% of employees) worked varying hours (or were on standby), had been with their employer for a short time, and expected to be there for a short time. </p>
<p>Even now, some “casuals” have been doing the same “casual” work for over 20 years. </p>
<h2>Permanent ‘casuals’</h2>
<p>All this has led to a class of “permanent casuals” – a nonsense term. They should more accurately be called “permanently insecure”.</p>
<p>The one thing “casuals” have in common is they’re not entitled to sick leave or annual leave, and they are in a precarious employment situation. Their contract of employment only lasts till the end of their work day. </p>
<p>That means they <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-much-casual-work-its-really-about-permanent-insecurity-151687">have much less power</a> than other workers. So little power, in fact, that <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00221856221097474?journalCode=jira">barely half</a> of them even get the casual loading they are meant to be paid in compensation for not receiving other entitlements. </p>
<p>On average, low-paid “casuals” <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bjir.12458?casa_token=4PUAafApPhwAAAAA%3Axm-CkL1KV_mANDC-2s2NeHa6hTUXwa13XJKFNyUHBT4DACbxINn5JtyCewS9Val0-J9iuBdtZtlY-6eu">get less pay</a> than equivalent permanent workers, despite the loading. </p>
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<h2>Changing legal definitions</h2>
<p>Not many “casuals” have been brave enough to challenge this exploitative relationship. But when they did a few years ago, Australia’s courts agreed permanent casual work was nonsensical.</p>
<p>To be a “casual worker”, there had to be no promise of ongoing employment. A court would judge this not just by what was in the formal contract of employment but also by what the employer actually did. If they kept hiring you, week after week, on a predictable roster, you weren’t casual.</p>
<p>In 2018, mine worker Paul Skene challenged his classification as a casual worker, arguing he had done pretty much the same work, with a few changes along the way, for five years. </p>
<p>The Federal Court agreed <a href="https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/full/2018/2018fcafc0131">he wasn’t a casual employee</a> and should be back-paid annual leave. Another mine worker, Robert Rossato, <a href="https://www.judgments.fedcourt.gov.au/judgments/Judgments/fca/full/2020/2020fcafc0084">had a similar victory</a> in 2020.</p>
<p>Employer organisations were “<a href="https://www.australianchamber.com.au/news/achievement-of-casual-employment-certainty-is-welcome-but-the-rest-of-the-ir-omnibus-bill-must-not-be-adandoned/#:%7E:text=not%20be%20adandoned-,Achievement%20of%20casual%20employment%20certainty%20is%20welcome%20but%20the%20rest,Bill%20must%20not%20be%20adandoned&text=Australia's%20leading%20business%20groups%20welcome,needed%20certainty%20regarding%20casual%20employment.">outraged</a>” by the “<a href="https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/federal-court-of-australia-rules-casual-workers-entitled-to-paid-leave/e2ca831d-076c-4c52-a2c5-10fd3cef64d7">billions</a>” in back pay they could be forced to pay for having misclassified ongoing workers as casuals. They lobbied the Morrison government to amend the law, and challenged the rulings in the High Court.</p>
<p>The Morrison government <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10353046211015786#bibr51-10353046211015786">changed the law</a> in early 2021, to give primacy to the written contract, ignore employer behaviour, and protect employers from back-pay claims.</p>
<p>Later that year the High Court overturned the Federal Court decisions, <a href="https://www.corrs.com.au/insights/rossato-high-court-clears-the-air">ruling</a> it was the written employment contract that mattered. If that was worded a certain way, you couldn’t test whether a worker was “casual” by whether the employer treated them that way afterwards.</p>
<p>Labor promised to overturn these interpretations, and that’s what this proposal does.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/employers-will-resist-but-the-changes-for-casual-workers-are-about-accepting-reality-210272">Employers will resist, but the changes for casual workers are about accepting reality</a>
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<h2>What will the legislation change?</h2>
<p>The details of the government’s plan is still not clear, but it is likely it will seek to amend the Fair Work Act to <a href="https://ministers.dewr.gov.au/burke/speech-sydney-institute">revert to something close to the pre-2020 definition of casual work</a>, with a procedural twist.</p>
<p>It will again be possible to judge whether an employee is “casual” based on employer behaviour. And an employee who repeatedly works a similar roster can, after six months, demand “permanency” – meaning rights to sick leave, annual leave, and better protection against arbitrary sacking.</p>
<p>The twist: until they demanded “permanency” they won’t be entitled to any leave. So employers will be protected against claims for back pay.</p>
<p>Theoretically this could affect hundreds of thousands of “casual” workers. In reality, it will likely help far fewer.</p>
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<p>Suppose you’re a “casual” labour hire worker in mining. You can tell what time you’ll start work on the first Friday next June. You go to your employer — the labour hire company — and say: “Make me permanent.” The labour hire company says: “We can’t. You might not have a job tomorrow.”</p>
<p>And indeed, now that you’ve asked, maybe you won’t have a job. So would you really ask?</p>
<p>It will depend critically on the protections offered to workers who ask to convert, and how credible they are to workers. </p>
<p>Most people only expect a few people to make the demand. Workplace relations minister Tony Burke says he believes only a “<a href="https://ministers.dewr.gov.au/burke/doorstop-interview-parliament-house-canberra-2">very small proportion</a>” of “casuals” working regular shifts will do so. </p>
<p>Part of that reluctance will be fear of the consequences, and part of it will be that many casuals rely on their casual loading. About <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-working-conditions/employee-earnings-and-hours-australia/may-2021/63060DO005_202105.xlsx">half of</a> “casuals” are on the award minimum rate, compared with 15% of “permanent” full-time workers. Most <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0022185618814578">cannot afford</a> to “choose” to trade the money for holidays and other entitlements.</p>
<p>If you’re not getting the casual loading, you’ve got nothing to lose — except your job. If the power imbalance means you don’t get the loading, you won’t fancy your chances. </p>
<p>So, it will just work for a small number or workers – though it’s likely to be very important to them.</p>
<h2>More needs to be done</h2>
<p>In short, this is a good step but more needs to be done.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/4f45d37a-ae74-5c30-8313-aa7783191d1a/content">most other wealthy countries</a> all workers – including temporary workers – are entitled to annual leave. That’s not the case in Australia, because of the “casual” ruse. These laws will not change that.</p>
<p>There should be universal leave entitlements. Sure, there needs to be a loading where work is unpredictable, and hence so short-term that leave entitlements would not be practical. </p>
<p>But everyone else should get annual and sick leave, and minimum award wages should be high enough that low-wage workers don’t have to rely on the casual loading to get by. </p>
<p>The challenge should be about how we transition to that situation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210456/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Over the years, David Peetz has received funding for research from the Australian Research Council, various unions and employers, state and national governments of both political flavours in Australia and overseas, the International Labour Organisation and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. He is presently employed by the Carmichael Centre at the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.</span></em></p>In most wealthy nations all workers are entitled to annual leave. But that’s not the case in Australia – and the Albanese government’s reforms still won’t change that.David Peetz, Laurie Carmichael Distinguished Research Fellow at the Centre for Future Work, and Professor Emeritus, Griffith Business School, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2043532023-04-26T05:28:44Z2023-04-26T05:28:44ZColes’ Uber Eats deal brings the gig economy inside the traditional workplace<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522923/original/file-20230426-14-jw8pwz.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C25%2C2149%2C1528&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">KYDPL KYODO / AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This month <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/coles-uber-eats-to-offer-one-hour-grocery-delivery-20230413-p5d0b1">Coles announced a major new partnership with Uber Eats</a> that will further expand the supermarket giant’s links with the gig economy. Under the arrangement, Uber Eats drivers will not only complete home delivery for the supermarket, drivers will also pick and pack orders from supermarket shelves. </p>
<p>Previously, online orders were completed by Coles’ directly employed “personal shoppers” who would hand over the order to a delivery partner. More than 500 Coles stores across the country will start selling goods via the digital platform, with gig workers performing the role of a Coles personal shopper. </p>
<p>The deal differs from an <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/woolworths-offers-rapid-deliveries-for-5-via-new-metro60-app-20220623-p5aw7p.html">existing partnership between Woolworths Metro60 and Uber Eats</a>, forged in June 2022, which also promises rapid delivery, albeit with orders fulfilled by supermarket workers. </p>
<p>The Coles partnership is a significant development that will see Uber Eats drivers working inside the supermarket alongside traditional employees and customers.</p>
<h2>The gig economy enters the supermarket</h2>
<p>The supermarket duopoly have been steadily recruiting gig workers into their home delivery offerings since Coles <a href="https://www.cmo.com.au/article/631121/airtasker-partners-coles-personalised-grocery-service/">set up a partnership with Airtasker</a> in 2017. Demand for rapid deliveries then surged during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. </p>
<p>From one perspective, Coles and Woolworths are simply outsourcing specific tasks (such as picking, packing and delivery) to Uber Eats and other gig-work platforms. From another, the supermarkets are <em>absorbing</em> gig workers into their own activities. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coles-and-woolworths-are-moving-to-robot-warehouses-and-on-demand-labour-as-home-deliveries-soar-166556">Coles and Woolworths are moving to robot warehouses and on-demand labour as home deliveries soar</a>
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<p>Gig workers are not formal employees and do not enjoy the same legal protections as other staff, but they are nonetheless performing work that is core supermarket business. </p>
<p>The so-called “<a href="https://www.scmr.com/article/re_inventing_the_last_mile">last mile</a>” of delivery – the final leg between a hub such as a warehouse or supermarket and the consumer – is widely considered the most difficult and unprofitable part of logistics, particularly for rapid deliveries. While both supermarkets run their own last-mile systems for deliveries booked in advance, the partnerships with Uber Eats let them offer customers rapid home delivery options while offloading the risk associated with the last mile.</p>
<h2>Potentially tens of thousands of jobs at stake</h2>
<p>In 2022, I interviewed supermarket workers about <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-weird-dinging-sound-that-everyone-dreads-what-rapid-deliveries-mean-for-supermarket-workers-185960">the impact of rapid delivery services</a>. Many expressed concerns that the gig economy was “getting closer” with some predicting the role of the personal shopper – a supermarket employee who would gather and pack items for delivery – would eventually be taken up by gig workers. </p>
<p>Coles says the Uber Eats drivers will “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/technology/coles-to-put-500-plus-stores-on-uber-eats-in-major-gig-economy-expansion-20230413-p5d048.html">complement rather than compete</a>” with existing direct-employed supermarket employees. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-weird-dinging-sound-that-everyone-dreads-what-rapid-deliveries-mean-for-supermarket-workers-185960">'A weird dinging sound that everyone dreads': what rapid deliveries mean for supermarket workers</a>
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<p>For now, gig workers and employees will work alongside each other. Over time, however, it is possible other supermarket roles will be displaced into the gig economy. </p>
<p>Coles and Woolworths are Australia’s largest private sector employers. As they bring the gig economy into their workplaces, it has the potential to affect tens of thousands of jobs. </p>
<h2>Grocery is a winner-takes-all industry</h2>
<p>The new partnership was announced just days after grocery delivery startup Milkrun officially folded. </p>
<p>Milkrun was the last standing of four Australian rapid grocery delivery startups launched in the past couple of years. The company failed to turn a profit, was quick to abandon its central proposition of ten-minute delivery, and <a href="https://www.startupdaily.net/topic/business/holy-cow-grocery-delivery-startup-milkrun-is-dead-86-million-later-aged-19-months/">burned through $86 million in venture capital</a> in less than two years. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/milkruns-demise-is-another-nail-in-the-10-minute-grocery-delivery-business-model-203757">MilkRun's demise is another nail in the 10-minute grocery-delivery business model</a>
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<p>With much less fanfare, both Coles and Woolworths have achieved what startups couldn’t. Their advantage has been their enormous scale and market power, enabling them to push suppliers for lower prices and make use of their existing networks of distribution centres, stores, delivery vans – and now partnerships with the gig economy.</p>
<p>In an unfair playing field, the supermarket giants have the best of both worlds: vertical integration with the supply chain <em>and</em> the ability to shift risk away from the business and onto individual gig workers. </p>
<h2>Essential service or frivolous convenience?</h2>
<p>The example of Milkrun and other startups suggests the business of on-demand grocery delivery may not be feasible without an army of precariously employed workers such as Uber Eats drivers. This raises another question: do we really need or want groceries delivered this quickly?</p>
<p>The supermarkets often frame their new deliveries services as benefiting “<a href="https://www.woolworths.com.au/shop/discover/community/news/woolworths-launches-new-initiative-to-increase-grocery-home-deliveries-to-vulnerable-australians">vulnerable Australians</a>”, such as the elderly and people living with disabilities. The implication is that the availability of rapid grocery delivery is a social good, rather than simply a convenience.</p>
<p>However, if the service is truly essential, it seems the people doing the work should be valued and supported with well-paid and secure employment. What’s more, it’s not entirely convincing that rapid grocery delivery in its current form is essential at all. </p>
<p>Many personal shoppers I interviewed said on-demand purchases tended to be frivolous. Referring to the partnership between Woolworths and Uber Eats, one worker recalled: </p>
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<p>People are ordering […] a single banana and a Red Bull. It’s really weird the stuff you get.</p>
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<p>Another added: </p>
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<p>No one used to do it. Now, people buy only five things and they’ll pay that fee to have it delivered soon. It’s more popular for alcohol or cigarettes or something like that.</p>
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<p>One supermarket worker expressed deep scepticism of rapid delivery, stating:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>It didn’t seem like it was about meeting the demands of shoppers, that’s made explicit through the article cap for Uber Eats. […] You can only order 25 [items] so it wasn’t about regular shopping. Really, I think it was just more for the convenience. Instead of going to the shops yourself, you can just wait at home for it, and someone else can pick it for you. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The cost of this convenience will be carried by supermarket workers, who in recent years have already seen their work transformed to adhere to the logic of the gig economy, with on-demand time pressures and ad-hoc scheduling. Now, as the gig economy moves into the physical supermarket space, the distinction between conventional employment and gig work is further blurred.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204353/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Kate Kelly receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. She works with United Workers Union which has members across the supermarket supply chain. </span></em></p>Australia’s largest private-sector employers are steadily integrating gig workers into their operations.Lauren Kate Kelly, PhD Candidate, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1942362022-11-10T22:26:20Z2022-11-10T22:26:20ZOntario education strike fallout: Workers’ anger about economic inequalities and labour precarity could spark wider job action<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494506/original/file-20221109-11077-oeqabb.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=111%2C190%2C2830%2C3116&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">CUPE members and supporters join a demonstration outside the office of Parm Gill, Member of Provincial Parliament for the riding of Milton, Ont., on Nov. 4, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nick Iwanyshyn</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Labour strife in Canada <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-63503334">grabbed international attention</a> after the Ontario government passed a law that made an education workers’ strike <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/11/03/ontario-legislation-imposing-contract-on-education-workers-set-to-pass-today.html">illegal</a> and set fines for striking workers, invoking a clause in Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms that allowed it to bypass constitutional challenges.</p>
<p>After the 55,000 workers went on strike anyway, with multiple labour unions and some of the public <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/with-several-schools-closed-during-cupe-strike-some-parents-are-scrambling-to-find-child-care-while-supporting-striking-education-workers">rallying against the move</a>, the government has since <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ford-lecce-education-contract-negotiations-1.6644075">promised to repeal</a> the legislation, ending the walkout.</p>
<p>But these events may mark what is likely just the beginning of pronounced resistance <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/education-unions-concern-notwithstanding-clause-1.6641575">from education workers over upcoming months</a>.</p>
<h2>Previous unsettled bargaining</h2>
<p>The effects of previous bargaining in 2019 in Ontario left many in the education sector unsettled. </p>
<p>Throughout the pandemic, media coverage has largely focused on student outcomes — with concerns over social isolation, <a href="https://www.camh.ca/en/camh-news-and-stories/majority-of-ontario-students-surveyed-report-feeling-depressed--about-the-future-because-of-covid-19">mental health</a> and students <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/students-falling-behind-pandemic-1.6014355">falling behind academically</a> — and rightly so. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mike-harriss-common-sense-attack-on-ontario-schools-is-back-and-so-are-teachers-strikes-130190">Mike Harris’s 'common sense' attack on Ontario schools is back — and so are teachers' strikes</a>
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<p>However, over the past few years, education workers have themselves faced similar challenges with pandemic fatigue, limited government support <a href="https://theconversation.com/4-steps-to-teacher-recovery-from-compassion-fatigue-and-burnout-during-covid-19-and-beyond-151407">and occupational burnout</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://abacusdata.ca/ford-education-workers-november-2022/">Public opinion</a> appears <a href="https://www.cp24.com/news/poll-finds-6-in-10-ontarians-blame-ford-government-for-education-workers-job-action-1.6141215">to be on the side of educators</a>: Six in 10 Ontarians “blamed the Ford government for the ongoing labour disruption involving tens of thousands of education workers that … forced schools to close for in-person learning,” according to an Abacus Data poll conducted Nov. 4 and 5.</p>
<p>This most recent strife may well represent the feelings of those in the middle <a href="https://www.macleans.ca/longforms/the-working-class-has-had-enough/">or working classes today</a> who are also angry about effects of social austerity. These <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-ontario-can-recover-from-doug-fords-covid-19-governance-disaster-159783">have come into sharp focus through the pandemic</a>, especially in health care and long-term care for seniors.</p>
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<h2>Anger about insecurity and its effects</h2>
<p>Anger relates to <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2004/09/113782">workers’ economic insecurity</a>. According to economist Guy Standing, those who lack employment protections are increasingly frustrated by the lack of opportunity, <a href="https://www.hse.ru/data/2013/01/28/1304836059/Standing.%20The_Precariat__The_New_Dangerous_Class__-Bloomsbury_USA(2011).pdf">employment security, as well as the promise of social mobility</a>. </p>
<p>In my own research with unemployed and underemployed teachers in Ontario, many described their overall feelings towards work and employment experiences negatively. This includes the inability to <a href="https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjeap/article/view/43150">secure employment and expectations about unpaid work</a>, as well as feeling a lack of community, supports and career progression. </p>
<p>Teachers of course are only one group of education workers. There are thousands of early childhood educators, education assistants, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/school-caretakers-custodian-cupe-strike-1.6640986">custodial staff and others</a> who are <a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-employment-in-education-impacts-workers-families-and-students-115766">employed precariously in the field of education.</a></p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/children-across-canada-deserve-a-professional-early-childhood-education-workforce-181124">Children across Canada deserve a professional early childhood education workforce</a>
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<p>This isn’t limited to workers in schools. Precarious forms of employment have increasingly been the norm for labourers <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-rich-helped-create-2016s-angry-populism-57710">across sectors, while the division between the “haves” and the “have nots” widens</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People seen in fog with picket signs." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494507/original/file-20221109-16873-o5zngv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494507/original/file-20221109-16873-o5zngv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494507/original/file-20221109-16873-o5zngv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494507/original/file-20221109-16873-o5zngv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494507/original/file-20221109-16873-o5zngv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494507/original/file-20221109-16873-o5zngv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494507/original/file-20221109-16873-o5zngv.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Education workers seen at a demonstration in Milton, Ont., on Nov. 4, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nick Iwanyshyn</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Falling behind?</h2>
<p>Concerns <a href="https://pepso.ca/documents/pepso-glb-final-lores_2018-06-18_r4-for-website.pdf">about “falling behind” are also front and centre</a> for many workers at this time. </p>
<p>Inflation is a pressing issue for citizens and families. Workers often not only contend with rising prices for goods and services, but in a context of historic under-investment in public services, they also often feel as <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-economist-explains-what-you-need-to-know-about-inflation-188959">though inflation is even more pronounced than the numbers suggest</a>. </p>
<p>For education workers in the province, this has been compounded by public sector wage ceilings largely imposed in 2019. </p>
<p>Ontario’s wage cap bill (Bill 124) remains a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/bill-124-court-challenge-ontario-1.6579655">controversial and perhaps unconstitutional law, and is currently under a court challenge</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, the use of the Charter’s <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-ford-cupe-notwithstanding-canadian-unions/">notwithstanding clause</a> by the Ontario government demonstrated another potential misuse of <a href="https://theconversation.com/ontario-school-strike-governments-use-of-the-notwithstanding-clause-again-is-an-assault-on-labour-relations-193824?">power — again seeking to push workers further backwards</a>. </p>
<h2>Privatization agenda</h2>
<p>Many are also concerned that the Ford government’s pandemic policies have accelerated a pre-pandemic privatization agenda. For example, in the spring of 2021, the province revealed it was considering <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/permanent-online-school-1.5964008">making virtual school an option beyond the pandemic</a>.</p>
<p>Education researcher Paul Bocking notes that <a href="https://tvo.me/tvo-partners-with-ministry-of-education-to-launch-the-ontario-online-course-preview/">Ontario’s introduction of e-learning courses through TVO/TFO</a> serves to make these courses more marketable for international revenue. </p>
<p>Heavy-handed labour negotiations in this context serves to further alienate workers and voters from the political centre. </p>
<p>Indeed, it could also potentially fuel more extreme <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/08969205211063131">forms of populism</a>.</p>
<h2>Pandemic fatigue</h2>
<p>Years of COVID-19 and public health measures, including masking, lockdowns and vaccination campaigns, appear to have <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/2xvbr">left citizens exhausted</a>.</p>
<p>The so-called freedom convoy that descended upon Canada’s Parliament Hill in Ottawa earlier this year demonstrated the outright <a href="https://theconversation.com/freedom-convoy-protesters-anger-is-misdirected-176969">anger of citizens</a>, both those who <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/29/world/americas/canada-trucker-protest.html">oppose vaccine mandates</a> as well as <a href="https://www.blogto.com/city/2022/02/angry-ontario-man-asks-freedom-convoy-truckers-go-speak-doug-ford/">those impacted by the protests</a>.</p>
<h2>Burnout leading to resistance</h2>
<p>Additionally, educator burnout has been a serious issue across Canada. American media have also reported education workers quitting in droves, <a href="https://fortune.com/2022/06/15/teachers-burnout-workers-quitting-great-resignation/">typically citing burnout</a>, low pay and lack of support as the primary drivers of <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2022-america-teachers-great-resignation/?leadSource=uverify%20wall">quitting extremely demanding jobs</a>. </p>
<p>The pandemic experience was, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-educational-assistants-make-it-possible-for-children-to-learn-for-that/">overall, a negative one</a> for education workers. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-largely-female-teaching-force-is-standing-up-for-public-education-130633">A largely female teaching force is standing up for public education</a>
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<p>It should come as no surprise then, when workers feel emotions <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/support-staff-feeling-anxious-1.6304194">such as burnout, fatigue and disrespect</a>, they may begin to resist the imposition <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2022/11/03/doug-ford-is-turning-public-education-into-a-combat-zone.html">of further unreasonable demands placed upon them and their work</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A person with a sign that says 'we won't work for peanuts.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494510/original/file-20221109-11121-bui6fr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494510/original/file-20221109-11121-bui6fr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494510/original/file-20221109-11121-bui6fr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494510/original/file-20221109-11121-bui6fr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494510/original/file-20221109-11121-bui6fr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494510/original/file-20221109-11121-bui6fr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/494510/original/file-20221109-11121-bui6fr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Education workers strike on the picket line in Kingston, Ont., Nov. 4, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Lars Hagberg</span></span>
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</figure>
<h2>A better future?</h2>
<p>Examining current labour strife in Ontario provides us with a glimpse of what the future might entail. </p>
<p>Issues impacting education workers are <a href="https://policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/no-safe-harbour">the same</a> as those impacting most workers today — including precarious forms of employment that leave workers economically insecure, emotionally frustrated and angry.</p>
<p>Collective action and solidarity — whether through a formalized labour group or not — remains the best way to improve the economic lives of all workers. </p>
<p>Could this look like <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9079265/union-power-organizing-efforts-starbucks-labour-movement/">more unionization drives</a> across various sectors? A recent American study found that being unionized “throughout one’s career is associated with a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00197939221129261">$1.3 million mean increase in lifetime earnings</a>” — more than a post-secondary degree. </p>
<p>As Standing notes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There has been a systematic dismantlement of institutions and mechanisms of social solidarity time-honoured zones of empathy, in which ethics and standards of conduct are passed from one generation to another. Such institutions <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/rob-commentary/a-new-class-canada-neglects-the-precariat-at-its-peril/article24944758">stand against the market, protecting their members</a>.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Education workers appear to be on the front lines of the continued <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199283262.001.0001">struggle against neoliberalism</a> and forms of privatization and <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-inequality-is-growing-in-the-us-and-around-the-world-191642">extreme economic inequalities</a> witnessed across the globe. </p>
<p>Perhaps workers have finally had enough, and will continue to stand their ground until their voices are heard.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194236/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Mindzak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Frustration about unsettled bargaining that predates the pandemic could get channelled into pronounced resistance from educational workers during the coming months.Michael Mindzak, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1750652022-01-31T19:06:41Z2022-01-31T19:06:41ZThings look worse for casual workers than at any time during the pandemic<p>At the national Australia Day ceremony in 2021, Prime Minister Scott Morrison spoke of the contribution by frontline workers during the pandemic. </p>
<p>He <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/australia-day-national-flag-raising-and-citizenship-ceremony">mentioned</a> health workers, the defence forces, the police and farmers, as well as “the truck drivers, the wholesale and the retail workers keeping our supermarket shelves stocked”.</p>
<p>In his <a href="https://www.pm.gov.au/media/remarks-2022-national-citizenship-and-flag-raising-ceremony">2022 Australia Day speech</a> only defence personnel and health workers got a mention – possibly due to the disappearing government support for retail and logistics workers during the Omicron wave.</p>
<p>With Omicron crippling supply chains and businesses being forced to shut due to lack of staff, eligibility rules for the last remaining COVID-related support payment (the <a href="https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/pandemic-leave-disaster-payment">Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment</a>) have been tightened, and the payments available cut. </p>
<p>The definition “<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-09/critical-workers-blast-nsw-new-close-contact-iso-rules/100746816">close contact</a>” has been weakened and tens of thousands of workers have been made <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-13/national-cabinet-workers-covid-isolation-exemption-expanded/100753788">exempt from isolation protocols</a> by now being classified as “essential”.</p>
<p>Many frontline workers – namely those on casual contracts – are facing the toughest circumstances since the the pandemic began.</p>
<p>With no right to guaranteed minimum hours, sick leave or the other entitlements, those employed as casual workers or as subcontractors are likely to lose income – either due to having to take time off to get tested or self-isolate, or because their workplace hasn’t got enough staff to stay open. There is also a much higher proportion of casual workers in the retail sector, <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/labour/earnings-and-work-hours/characteristics-employment-australia/latest-release">than in the Australian workforce as a whole</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.policyforum.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Pandemic-Pressures.pdf">Our research</a> on the effects of the pandemic on income and conditions for workers between March 2020 and September 2021 shows 55% of those working in retail, fast-food and distribution were forced to take time off work for COVID-related reasons – with a significant percentage losing income as a result.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442418/original/file-20220125-23-px3bfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442418/original/file-20220125-23-px3bfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442418/original/file-20220125-23-px3bfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442418/original/file-20220125-23-px3bfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442418/original/file-20220125-23-px3bfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=354&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442418/original/file-20220125-23-px3bfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442418/original/file-20220125-23-px3bfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442418/original/file-20220125-23-px3bfq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=445&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>During this time just 1% of retail workers were diagnosed with COVID-19, and the the financial support available included the lockdown-specific <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp2122/Quick_Guides/COVID-19DisasterPayments">Covid-19 Disaster Payment</a>.</p>
<p>Now, with infection rates running significantly higher – a quarter of Coles warehouse staff, for example, have been reported <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/19/employee-in-coles-supply-chain-says-a-quarter-of-staff-on-leave-due-to-covid">absent due to COVID-19</a> – there’s less support. </p>
<p>Casual retail workers thus face losing hours, being put at greater risk of contracting COVID-19, and dealing with abusive customers over mask, QR code and other requirements. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/content-from-confrontation-how-the-attention-economy-helps-stoke-aggression-towards-retail-workers-173062">Content from confrontation: how the attention economy helps stoke aggression towards retail workers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What our survey showed</h2>
<p>The purpose of <a href="https://www.policyforum.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Pandemic-Pressures.pdf">our survey</a> of nearly 1,160 retail, fast-food and distribution workers was to gauge how the pandemic had affected employment and income.</p>
<p>Polling company Ipsos conducted the survey in September 2021, during the peak of Sydney’s Delta wave (which sparked suburb-based lockdowns in mid-July 2021) and the start of Melbourne’s Delta wave (with the Andrews government declaring a lockdown on August 5, 2021).</p>
<p>The survey was nationally representative. About 61% of respondents were women, 44% were younger than 30, and 19% were from a non-English-speaking background. About 39% were permanent full-time, 21% permanent part-time and 38% casuals (45% of women were casual, compared with 22% of men). </p>
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<p><iframe id="NlM87" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/NlM87/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<hr>
<p>Because it was nationally representative, about 40% respondents were not in an lockdown area (NSW, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory) at the time of the survey. This make the results even more stark compared with now.</p>
<p>From March 2020 to September 2021, 55% of retail, fast food and distribution workers had to take time off for a COVID-19 related reason: </p>
<ul>
<li>1% did so due to having COVID-19. Of these, about a third said they took unpaid leave.</li>
<li>7% did so due to being a close contact of someone with COVID-19. Of these, 51% of permanent workers and 78% of casuals took unpaid leave.</li>
<li>11% took time off because they had COVID-19 symptoms. Of these, 45% of permanent workers and 91% of casuals took unpaid leave.</li>
<li>10% were absent due to working at an exposure location. Of these, 27% of permanent workers and 60% of casuals took unpaid leave.</li>
<li>30% took time off because they had to take a COVID-19 test and isolate while waiting for a result. Of these, 42% of permanent workers and 89% of casuals took unpaid leave.</li>
</ul>
<p>Clearly while very few workers were actually sick with COVID-19, it had a significant affect on livelihoods. This a key point to reflect on now more workers have COVID-19 and an even larger number are (or should be) isolating. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/wheres-the-meat-employers-and-governments-should-have-seen-this-supply-crisis-coming-and-done-something-175144">Where's the meat? Employers and governments should have seen this supply crisis coming, and done something</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Short shift for precarious work</h2>
<p>At the time of our survey the risks of catching COVID-19 were relatively small, even for essential frontline workers.</p>
<p>Omicron has substantially increased that risk – along with the risk of losing work hours. </p>
<p>Registering a positive result is the only way ill, casually employed workers can access extra support when they aren’t able to work. But getting a test – <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-04/covid-testing-queue-test-results-stories-shared-pcr/100737438">and results</a> has been difficult, with workers in NSW and Victoria only been able to officially register positive RAT results since January 10. </p>
<p>The Pandemic Leave Disaster Payment is still available to those who don’t qualify for employer-paid leave. But to qualify you must be directed to isolate and stay at home due to having tested positive or been in close contact with someone with COVID-19. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/government-slashes-covid-payment-when-people-need-it-most-175146">Government slashes COVID payment when people need it most</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>You also <a href="https://www.servicesaustralia.gov.au/pandemic-leave-disaster-payment">only qualify</a> for the full $750 a week (for two weeks) if you lose 20 hours or more of paid work a week. If you lose 8-19 hours, you get $450 a week. If you lose less than eight hours, you get nothing.</p>
<p>This highlights the precarious and unsustainable position of Australians employed on casual contracts, especially those in the retail, fast food and distribution sector. Many unwell or at-risk precarious workers are likely to have gone without income while they struggle to get access to tests or lose paid work for other reasons.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175065/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ariadne Vromen currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council for research into gender equality and the future of work. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meraiah Foley is a Chief Investigator on two grants funded by the Australian Research Council. She has also received research funding from the Australia New Zealand School of Government. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rae Cooper currently receives funding from the Australian Research Council for research into gender equality and the future of work and as an ARC Future Fellow.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Briony Lipton and Serrin Rutledge-Prior do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our research suggests the majority of retail workers – and casual workers even moreso – are being forced to take unpaid leave for COVID-related reasons.Ariadne Vromen, Professor, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National UniversityBriony Lipton, Postdoctoral research associate, University of SydneyMeraiah Foley, Senior lecturer, University of SydneyRae Cooper, Professor of Gender, Work and Employment Relations, ARC Future Fellow, Business School, co-Director Women, Work and Leadership Research Group, University of SydneySerrin Rutledge-Prior, PhD Candidate; Course Convenor; Research Officer, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1721572021-11-29T03:56:51Z2021-11-29T03:56:51ZBurnout by design? Warehouse and shipping workers pay the hidden cost of the holiday season<p>What’s the meaning of Christmas? For many, it’s about feasting, family, and napping while watching the cricket. </p>
<p>But for e-commerce giants like Amazon, Christmas is the most lucrative time of the year. During the 2020 holiday season, Amazon processed more than <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/12/1/21754877/amazon-record-holiday-sales-figures-instore-retailers">A$6.6 billion in sales</a>. </p>
<p>And for the warehouse and shipping workers who actually get these purchases to their destinations, the run-up to Christmas means long hours and more demanding work, often under poor conditions and with little job security. </p>
<p>In our research project on “<a href="https://www.admscentre.org.au/automated-precarity/">automated precarity</a>”, we are trying to learn more about workers’ experiences to understand whether conditions in Australian e-commerce warehouses are comparable to those documented overseas.</p>
<h2>The Christmas rush</h2>
<p>This year, almost <a href="https://auspost.com.au/content/dam/auspost_corp/media/documents/inside-australian-online-shopping-update-october-2">four in five Australian households</a> are expected to buy Christmas presents online. </p>
<p>The frenzy really kicks off with the manufactured “shopping holiday” of Black Friday, which follows the US Thanksgiving holiday but has become a global event. A single day wasn’t enough, so we now also have Cyber Monday, focused explicitly on consumer spending on e-commerce platforms. </p>
<p>E-commerce and Christmas have become so entwined that Dave Clark, a senior executive at Amazon, calls his company’s warehouses “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-sniper-the-man-who-built-amazon-s-delivery-machine-20191218-p53kxz.html">Santa’s workshops</a>”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-friday-for-amazon-workers-the-human-costs-behind-consumer-convenience-169760">Black Friday for Amazon workers: the human costs behind consumer convenience</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>‘Tis the season of hiring and firing</h2>
<p>We want to understand how things like seasonal shopping events and the promise of warehouse automation are shaping conditions for the growing number of logistics workers employed in e-commerce.</p>
<p>In Australia, Amazon has made extensive use of <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/in-amazon-s-hellscape-workers-face-insecurity-and-crushing-targets-20180907-p502ao.html">labour-hire temps engaged through recruitment agencies</a>. Amazon Australia alone will mobilise more than 1,000 <a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/amazon-australia-latest-retailer-to-offer-huge-job-spree-australia-post-coles-woolworths/5de8e9fe-b524-4f07-8618-6ca9c4b85cde">seasonal workers</a> in the lead-up to the Christmas rush. </p>
<p>This temporary workforce often experiences some of the most intense working conditions. Aside from no job security, many workers are reportedly <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-27/amazon-australia-warehouse-working-conditions/10807308?nw=0&r=HtmlFragment">required to work at an accelerated pace for incredibly long hours</a>, with the added expectation they will be available on call for the duration of the shopping season.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-algorithmic-management-makes-work-more-stressful-and-less-satisfying-166030">3 ways 'algorithmic management' makes work more stressful and less satisfying</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Burnout by design?</h2>
<p>Traditional thinking in worker management suggests there are benefits to retaining workers who improve their skills and build loyalty to employers. </p>
<p>But in the United States, Amazon churns through workers at an alarming pace. Its annual employee turnover rate of 150%, nearly twice the industry average, has reportedly even led some executives to worry about “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html">running out of workers</a>”. </p>
<p>The urgency of seasonal shopping means Amazon can push workers to the max, making them work long hours doing physically demanding tasks at breakneck speeds.</p>
<p>Managers do not necessarily need to fire people when the rush ends – instead <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1461444819891613">research</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html">reporting</a> suggests workers leave of their own volition, because their bodies simply cannot handle the strain any longer. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://breachmedia.ca/infiltrating-amazon-what-i-learned-going-undercover-at-the-corporate-giant/">recent article</a>, Canadian researcher and workers’ rights advocate Mostafa Henaway describes his experiences working in an Amazon fulfilment centre: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Amazon does not openly push people out the door. It lets the work do that on its own.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434055/original/file-20211126-17-jfh062.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434055/original/file-20211126-17-jfh062.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434055/original/file-20211126-17-jfh062.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434055/original/file-20211126-17-jfh062.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434055/original/file-20211126-17-jfh062.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1166&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434055/original/file-20211126-17-jfh062.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1465&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434055/original/file-20211126-17-jfh062.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1465&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434055/original/file-20211126-17-jfh062.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1465&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Amazon makes it easy for warehouse staff to quit. In the US, the work-management app
A to Z includes a handy ‘Submit Voluntary Resignation’ button.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.reddit.com/r/FASCAmazon/comments/c0aiq4/resignation_option_on_a_to_z/">Screenshot via Reddit / suspici0uspackage</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These conclusions are supported by reporting on working conditions at Amazon in different countries where the company operates, such as <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/amazon-workers-working-hours-weeks-conditions-targets-online-shopping-delivery-a8079111.html">the UK</a> and <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745342177/the-warehouse/">Italy</a>.</p>
<p>Regardless of intent, burning through workers at a rapid rate is a consequence of how the work and conditions are designed.</p>
<p>Amazon workers in the US <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/FASCAmazon/comments/c0aiq4/resignation_option_on_a_to_z/">report</a> the app they use to manage their schedules even has a handy “submit voluntary resignation” button to make the process convenient and automated.</p>
<p>Internal documents <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-tracks-unregretted-attrition-rate-people-not-sad-to-lose-2021-4">reportedly</a> show Amazon executives “closely track” and set goals for a metric called the “unregretted attrition rate”, which is the percentage of workers the company is happy to see leave every year. This applies to Amazon employees, rather than temporary labour, but could suggest churning through workers is an intentional management strategy. </p>
<p>As well as synchronising labour needs to seasonal demands, rapid turnover of workers makes organisation and unionisation less likely. In the context of an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/technology/amazon-unions-virginia.html">ongoing fight by Amazon workers to unionise</a>, shorter-term workers are less likely to have the opportunity to become union members and push for better conditions. </p>
<p>We asked Amazon Australia whether “burnout by design” is a deliberate strategy. Director of Operations Craig Fuller said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These claims are baseless. We’re proud to offer a safe, enjoyable and supportive work environment for our fulfilment centre team members all year round. As with all retailers, the holiday season is our busiest time of year, and we work hard to ensure that everyone working in our buildings is supported and has a positive experience at work.</p>
<p>This year we have onboarded around 1,000 additional seasonal workers around Australia to support our existing workforce over the festive season. While they are hired to work over the holidays, these seasonal opportunities can also present a path to employment and a longer-term career at Amazon and we have many examples of seasonal workers who have chosen to stay on and build their career with Amazon Australia.</p>
<p>We continue to place tremendous value and focus on the wellbeing and safety of our team.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Will automation fix it?</h2>
<p>Online retailers are making big investments in automation.</p>
<p>Amazon is aiming to finish a new A$500 million warehouse in Western Sydney by Christmas. <a href="https://www.afr.com/companies/retail/amazon-s-vast-robotic-warehouse-nearly-ready-20211116-p599dn">It will be the biggest in Australia</a>, equipped with swarms of robots ferrying items around 200,000 square metres of floor space. </p>
<p>Increasing automation and reports of <a href="https://www.afr.com/technology/automation-set-to-gut-1-5m-jobs-from-australian-economy-20210221-p574fi">looming massive job losses</a> can make workers feel threatened by the risk of being made obsolete by technology.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/coles-and-woolworths-are-moving-to-robot-warehouses-and-on-demand-labour-as-home-deliveries-soar-166556">Coles and Woolworths are moving to robot warehouses and on-demand labour as home deliveries soar</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But this highly robotic workplace will still have plenty of human workers. There are plenty of things even the most advanced warehouse robots still aren’t good at, or that humans can do more cheaply.</p>
<p>Workplace automation is arguably less about replacing workers and more about pushing them to keep up with the pace of machines and algorithms. More speed takes its toll: Amazon warehouses in the US reportedly have <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57332390">an injury rate 80% higher than the industry standard</a>. </p>
<h2>The holidays are here to stay</h2>
<p>We can expect corporations to further expand shopping holidays, following in the footsteps of Amazon’s mid-year revenue-boosting “Prime Day” in June. The exhausting and precarious conditions of seasonal work are likely to spread to the rest of the year. </p>
<p>We fear convenient online shopping comes at the expense of burnout, exhaustion, and precarious jobs. This situation may become permanent without improved labour rights and tighter corporate regulations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172157/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher O'Neill receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jake Goldenfein is an Associate Investigator at the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jathan Sadowski receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lauren Kate Kelly receives funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra. She works with United Workers Union.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thao Phan is a full-time Research Fellow in the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which includes various industry partners such as Google, Volvo and Telstra. </span></em></p>Black Friday, Christmas, and other ‘shopping events’ take a toll on the temporary workers hired to get purchases to consumers.Christopher O'Neill, Research fellow, Monash UniversityJake Goldenfein, Senior Lecturer, The University of MelbourneJathan Sadowski, Research Fellow, Emerging Technologies Research Lab and CoE for Automated Decision-Making and Society, Monash UniversityLauren Kate Kelly, PhD Candidate, RMIT UniversityThao Phan, Research Fellow, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1669172021-08-31T19:46:06Z2021-08-31T19:46:06ZLet’s not forget about precarious work in this federal election — and beyond<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418554/original/file-20210831-21-1gvd302.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3600%2C2398&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A Toronto actor and cabaret performer, a precarious employee, poses for a photo in April 2021 at the Elgin theatre.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The pandemic is the backdrop to the ongoing federal election, and its attendant lockdowns have shone light on health and economic issues. Not the least of these is <a href="http://doi.org/10.3138/cpp.2020-049">how job insecurity and low pay are inextricably linked to a wide spectrum of jobs</a> and small businesses. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/cerb-was-luxurious-compared-to-provincial-social-assistance-158501">Unprecedented income support from the federal government</a> temporarily cushioned the unanticipated losses of earnings for these unprotected workers. But the crisis has exposed just how vulnerable a significant portion of the work force can be to sudden shifts in economic circumstances. </p>
<p>Is precarious work an emerging problem that needs to be addressed beyond the pandemic?</p>
<h2>The growth of precarious work</h2>
<p>Precarious work has already crept into popular discourse and media. American writers ranging from <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/still-nickel-and-dimed-a-decade-later">Barbara Ehrenreich</a> to <a href="https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-steady-diet-of-low-expectations-a-conversation-with-jessica-bruder-author-of-nomadland/">Jessica Bruder</a> have written about the world of low-paying and insecure work in the 21st century. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418556/original/file-20210831-15-1fylpks.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Frances McDormand in a scene from the film Nomadland." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418556/original/file-20210831-15-1fylpks.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418556/original/file-20210831-15-1fylpks.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418556/original/file-20210831-15-1fylpks.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418556/original/file-20210831-15-1fylpks.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418556/original/file-20210831-15-1fylpks.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418556/original/file-20210831-15-1fylpks.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418556/original/file-20210831-15-1fylpks.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frances McDormand in a scene from the film ‘Nomadland.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Searchlight Pictures</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Bruder, in particular, documented a modern society of travelling workers living from vans and RVs, moving from job to job without employment security or adequate social supports. Her book, <em>Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century</em>, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/26/nomadland-wins-best-picture-oscar-chloe-zhao">became an award-winning movie in 2020</a>. The movie’s central characters are forced by financial challenges to eschew traditional housing and stability for a world of unstable, low-paid work that offers no real future.</p>
<p>The dramatic slowdown in economic growth in western Europe during the last quarter of the 20th century <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020859018000329">focused attention on precarious work</a> that would later spread to North America. </p>
<p>Precarious work can be defined as “<a href="https://arnekalleberg.web.unc.edu/precarious-work/">uncertain, unstable and insecure and in which employees bear the risks of work (as opposed to businesses or the government) and receive limited social benefits and statutory protections</a>.” <a href="https://economix.org/a55ets/publications/ECONOMIXanalysis-precarious-employment-Europe.pdf">Research for the European Commission</a> found that precarious employment has grown in concert with the growth in social protection measures and labour market regulations in major European countries experiencing high unemployment, like Italy and Spain. </p>
<p>Researchers found rapid employment growth among temporary workers, workers on fixed-term or temporary contracts and workers in apprenticeships and other training programs through the 1980s and early 1990s. This type of work had risen to the level of 25-30 per cent of employment in France, Germany and Italy, and 60 per cent of employment in Spain, by the end of the 20th century. </p>
<p>This European research provided reasonably strong evidence that precarious work was becoming an important component of the labour market, with implications for poverty reduction and welfare policy.</p>
<h2>Labour market segmentation</h2>
<p>While concerns about precarious work were muted by lower unemployment and more robust growth in North America, some attempted to link the concept to the older <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w1314">idea of labour market segmentation</a>. That included the notion that without public employment programs and affirmative action hiring, peripheral workers — women, Black people and other racialized employees — would be relegated to the secondary sectors, job impermanence and bouts of poverty.</p>
<p>That included the notion that peripheral workers — women, Black people and other racialized employees — would be relegated to the secondary sectors, job impermanence and bouts of poverty without public employment programs and affirmative action hiring.</p>
<p>Precarious work was also linked to findings of <a href="https://economics.mit.edu/files/16724">job polarization and declining employment in the middle of the U.S. skills spectrum</a> and <a href="https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/in-it-together-why-less-inequality-benefits-all_9789264235120-en">rising inequality among economies in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, known as the OECD</a>.</p>
<p>The research documented that new sources of precarious employment had arisen via franchising, global supply chains, temporary work agencies and remote work. The consequences of these developments were familiar, however: low pay, limited benefits, job insecurity and the concentration of such work among groups like recent immigrants and minorities. </p>
<p>Employment of independent contractors, on-call workers, temporary help agency workers and workers provided by contract firms <a href="https://read.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/in-it-together-why-less-inequality-benefits-all_9789264235120-en">rose to 17.2 per cent of all employment in the United States in 2015 from 10 per cent in 1995, and comprised all of the job growth between 2005 and 2015</a>.</p>
<p>It’s hardly surprising, then, that <a href="https://inequality.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/media/_media/pdf/pathways/fall_2012/Pathways_Fall_2012%20_Kalleberg.pdf">American workers are placing more and more emphasis on job security</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A delivery worker riding a bike." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418558/original/file-20210831-23-conjul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418558/original/file-20210831-23-conjul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418558/original/file-20210831-23-conjul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418558/original/file-20210831-23-conjul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418558/original/file-20210831-23-conjul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418558/original/file-20210831-23-conjul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418558/original/file-20210831-23-conjul.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this March 2020 photo, a delivery worker rides his bicycle along a path on the West Side Highway in New York.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/John Minchillo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What about Canada?</h2>
<p>Poverty, income inequality and job polarization appear to have followed a somewhat different path in Canada, due to some extent to <a href="https://on-irpp.org/2ndNUbW">strong after-tax income gains for the bottom quintile of the income distribution</a> during the first decade of the 21st century. This was associated with <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3077044">redistributive tax measures</a> for low-income Canadians.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, there’s evidence of comparable growth in precarious work in Canada. <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/HUMA/Reports/RP10553151/humarp19/humarp19-e.pdf">The House of Commons standing committee on human resources</a> found that non-traditional work — including involuntary part-time work, unincorporated self-employment and temporary work — is typically excluded from social programs and regulations like Employment Insurance, sick leave, supplementary health benefits, severance, employer pensions and labour standards. This leaves Canadian precarious workers vulnerable to accidents, illness and job loss. </p>
<p>This non-traditional employment now makes <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/type/data?text=141-00027">up a quarter of all jobs in Canada</a>, similar to figures for Europe and the U.S. </p>
<p>Another study of generally low-wage, self-employed freelancers and micro-entrepreneurs with short-term work arrangements found that precarious work <a href="https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Measuring-the-gig-economy-in-Canada-using-data-Jeon/26bc867dd82042074b2ead7845997b7eb781db0b">had grown to more than seven per cent of the Canadian labour force by 2019</a>. </p>
<p>An analysis of an <a href="https://labourstudies.mcmaster.ca/documents/southern-ontarios-basic-income-experience.pdf">online survey of participants in the cancelled Ontario Basic Income Project</a> found that precarious workers typically moved on to self-employment or non-employment, rather than permanent full-time jobs.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Laptops at a work space." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418732/original/file-20210831-27-18z2kle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/418732/original/file-20210831-27-18z2kle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418732/original/file-20210831-27-18z2kle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418732/original/file-20210831-27-18z2kle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418732/original/file-20210831-27-18z2kle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418732/original/file-20210831-27-18z2kle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/418732/original/file-20210831-27-18z2kle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gig workers don’t often move onto full-time jobs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Marvin Meyer/Unsplash)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/HUMA/Reports/RP10553151/humarp19/humarp19-e.pdf">House committee considered four policy levers</a> to address precarious employment: income support programs, federal labour standards, the federal government as a model employer and skills training. </p>
<p>Of these, only income support programs and skills training would be available to all Canadians since federal labour standards are limited to only six per cent of the work force in federally regulated industries. The federal government is a large but not sufficiently dominant employer to exert major influence on human resources decisions of the countless and diverse private and public organizations across the nation. </p>
<p>The recent <a href="https://bcbasicincomepanel.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Final_Report_BC_Basic_Income_Panel.pdf">Basic Income Expert Panel</a> in British Columbia outlines some options within provincial jurisdiction to address precarious work, emphasizing amendments to the Employment Standards Act and Labour Relations Code that would improve wages, working conditions and job protection.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/job-guarantees-basic-income-can-save-us-from-covid-19-depression-133997">Job guarantees, basic income can save us from COVID-19 depression</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>While current federal income support programs, such as Employment Insurance, could be revised to ease eligibility conditions and improve benefits and training opportunities for low-wage workers, the House standing committee acknowledged that the very nature of precarious employment meant workers would likely still fall through the cracks. </p>
<p>The committee therefore <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/Content/Committee/421/HUMA/Reports/RP10553151/humarp19/humarp19-e.pdf">endorsed the study of alternative forms of income support, such as a guaranteed annual income</a>, that are not tied to employment.</p>
<p>As the gig economy and precarious work become more prevalent, there will be a growing need for some form of universal income support to help these workers in ways that traditional income security programs cannot. Hopefully that’s a conversation to be had now, not during future federal election campaigns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166917/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Wayne Simpson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As the gig economy and precarious work become more prevalent, there’s a growing need for some form of universal income support to help these workers.Wayne Simpson, Professor, Department of Economics, and Research Fellow, University of Calgary School of Public Policy, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1497802020-11-25T15:33:19Z2020-11-25T15:33:19ZCalifornia’s gig worker battle reveals the abuses of precarious work in Canada too<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371132/original/file-20201124-23-m37fys.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6000%2C3889&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this August 2020 photo, travellers request an Uber ride at Los Angeles International Airport.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Much of the focus during and after election night in the United States has centred on <a href="https://www.economist.com/united-states/2020/11/21/donald-trumps-refusal-to-concede-is-harming-america">Donald Trump’s refusal to concede defeat</a> and the makeup of Congress. </p>
<p>Yet Nov. 3 also saw many states vote directly on specific policies. For progressives, the results of these contests were mixed. </p>
<p>Voters in some states opted to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/2020-election-results-prove-america-s-war-drugs-finally-ending-ncna1247141">decriminalize drug</a>, and Floridians voted to raise the state <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/11/5/21549857/florida-minimum-wage-amendment-2">minimum wage</a> to $15 per hour. However, in California, several ballot initiatives resulted in significant defeats for the left. </p>
<p>Chief among them was <a href="https://voterguide.sos.ca.gov/propositions/22/">Proposition 22</a>, which <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-california-proposition-22-define-app-based-drivers-as-contractors.html">passed</a> with 55.8 per cent of the vote. </p>
<p>This new law allows technology companies such as Uber and Lyft to continue to classify their gig workers as independent contractors rather than employees.</p>
<h2>The back story</h2>
<p>A coalition of Silicon Valley companies launched the “<a href="https://yeson22.com/get-the-facts/">Yes on 22</a>” ballot campaign in response to recent moves by both the judiciary and legislature in California to expand the legal definition of employment. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://scocal.stanford.edu/opinion/dynamex-operations-west-inc-v-superior-court-34584">the Dynamex</a> case of 2018, the California Supreme Court clarified the legal test for determining an employment relationship. This test limited when an employer can classify a worker as an independent contractor to instances where: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>The worker is free to perform services without the control or direction of the company;</p></li>
<li><p>The worker is performing tasks outside the company’s usual activities; and </p></li>
<li><p>The worker is engaged in an independently established trade, occupation or business. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>It was certain app-based companies could not meet these criteria. </p>
<p>The legislature then passed <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=201920200AB5">Assembly Bill 5</a> in January 2020, which included the above method for determining employment status and aimed to stop what is broadly considered to be the misclassification of app-based workers as independent contractors. </p>
<p>The state’s new broader interpretation of employment was meant to give app-based and other contract workers access to labour standards protections, such as the minimum wage, as well as other social benefits currently denied to them, such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation. However, the legislation did not grant gig workers <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/how-californias-ab5-protects-workers-from-misclassification/">the ability to form unions</a>. </p>
<h2>The Proposition 22 campaign</h2>
<p>“Yes on 22” proved to be the most <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/What_were_the_most_expensive_ballot_measures_in_California">well-funded</a> ballot initiative in California’s history. Tech companies spent well over US$200 million on advertising, political contributions and public relations firms’ services. The coalition opposed to Proposition 22, led by labour movement organizations, came nowhere near this total, <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/11/proposition-22-california-uber-lyft-gig-employee">managing to raise</a> around $20 million. </p>
<p>Since 2018, tech companies had been publicly voicing their objections to the Dynamex decision and California’s Assembly Bill 5, with some <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/technology/uber-lyft-california-shutdown.html">threatening to leave</a> California if Proposition 22 was unsuccessful. During the “Yes on 22” campaign, gig companies additionally engaged in highly <a href="https://www.kqed.org/news/11842964/gig-companies-are-making-their-workers-promote-prop-22">questionable tactics</a>, such as requiring both drivers and customers to indicate support for the ballot initiative before using the app. </p>
<p>So while Assembly Bill 5 is the law of the land for other employers, Proposition 22 exempts the tech giants by setting separate labour standards for app-based workers. </p>
<h2>Consequences for tech workers</h2>
<p><a href="https://drivers.yeson22.com/get-the-facts/?ref=main">The companies argue</a> that Proposition 22 will benefit workers by maintaining the supposed flexibility of app-based work while also providing new, modest benefits. </p>
<p>For example, Proposition 22 includes a provision ensuring workers receive 120 per cent of the state minimum wage in California. However, this calculation is only made on the basis of engaged driving time. Because much of gig work is spent waiting for jobs through the app, income insecurity will remain a considerable problem. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Two people hold up a sign decrying low wages for Uber drivers on a city street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371138/original/file-20201124-15-1srgr70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371138/original/file-20201124-15-1srgr70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371138/original/file-20201124-15-1srgr70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371138/original/file-20201124-15-1srgr70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=379&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371138/original/file-20201124-15-1srgr70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371138/original/file-20201124-15-1srgr70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371138/original/file-20201124-15-1srgr70.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=477&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters stop traffic outside Uber headquarters in May 2019 in San Francisco. Drivers for ride-hailing giants Uber and Lyft turned off their apps to protest what they say are declining wages as both companies rake in billions of dollars from investors.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars at University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center, <a href="https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/the-uber-lyft-ballot-initiative-guarantees-only-5-64-an-hour-2/">estimate that under this arrangement</a> ride share workers will earn an average of $5.64 per hour when time between rides and vehicle costs are factored in. </p>
<p>Other benefits included in Proposition 22 dealing with health care, workers compensation and insurance are all much weaker than the protections guaranteed by traditional employment. </p>
<h2>Battles over app-based work in Canada</h2>
<p>Conflicts over the employment status of app-based workers are not unique to California. </p>
<p>After its Ontario couriers voted to unionize with the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Foodora appealed the union certification and argued that couriers are independent contracts not entitled to unionize. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/despite-foodora-ruling-app-based-workers-face-uphill-union-battle-132744">Despite Foodora ruling, app-based workers face uphill union battle</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The company then <a href="http://lawofwork.ca/cupw-alleges-that-foodora-acted-unlawfully-by-pulling-out-of-canada-heres-the-complaint/">pulled out</a> of Ontario altogether after the Ontario Labour Relations Board ruled in the union’s favour. </p>
<p>Before this decision, Foodora <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-12/foodora-online-delivery-company-faces-legal-action-over-pay/9861178">left Australia</a> after that country’s Fair Work Ombudsman alleged that the company was misclassifying and underpaying its drivers. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A Foodora courier with a food order on his back pushes his bicycle along a snowy street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371141/original/file-20201124-15-1spx9mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/371141/original/file-20201124-15-1spx9mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371141/original/file-20201124-15-1spx9mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371141/original/file-20201124-15-1spx9mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=443&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371141/original/file-20201124-15-1spx9mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371141/original/file-20201124-15-1spx9mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/371141/original/file-20201124-15-1spx9mp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=557&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Foodora courier picks up an order for delivery from a restaurant in Toronto in February 2020, shortly after the company pulled out of Ontario due to an unfavourable Labour Relations Board decision.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Uber also faces mounting pressure in Canada following <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7111024/supreme-court-of-canada-uber-drivers-employees/">a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision</a> allowing workers in Ontario to pursue a possible class-action lawsuit to obtain protections such as a minimum wage, vacation and overtime pay, as well as other benefits entitled to them under the Employment Standards Act. </p>
<p>At the federal level, the Liberal government <a href="https://www.labourandemploymentlaw.com/2018/12/3426/">has amended</a> the Canada Labour Code to include a “reverse onus clause” requiring federally regulated employers to prove that contractors they engage are properly classified. </p>
<p>Perhaps learning from outcomes in these other jurisdictions, the drafters of Proposition 22 included within the new law <a href="https://calmatters.org/politics/post-it/2020/10/california-amendment-threshold-proposition-22/">a rule</a> requiring seven-eighths of the California legislature to vote in favour of any future modification. The victors of the California ballot initiative have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/03/uber-prop22-results-california/">now indicated</a> their plan to pursue similar measures across the United States. </p>
<h2>What’s driving the growth in app-based work?</h2>
<p>Clearly app-based companies are committed to maintaining the “independent contractor” status of their workforce. This is largely because their business model involves competing on the basis of low labour costs achieved through skirting regulations that apply to competitors, such as traditional taxi companies. </p>
<p>Another University of California, Berkeley, <a href="https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/press-release-what-would-uber-and-lyft-owe-to-the-state-unemployment-insurance-fund/">Labor Center study</a> estimates that between 2014 and 2019, Uber and Lyft alone avoided paying as much as $413 million in unpaid wages, overtime pay, unemployment insurance contributions and other taxes in the U.S. </p>
<p>However, some contend that there are much deeper forces at play. Economic historian <a href="https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/a-world-without-work">Aaron Benanav argues</a> that as manufacturing employment has declined and the service sector has grown, under-employment and precarious work have become endemic features of contemporary labour markets. </p>
<p>According to this theory, stubbornly slow growth rates, low productivity growth and depressed demand for labour are translating into a lack of good quality jobs. </p>
<p>Battles over employment classification and labour regulation, while important for improving app-based workers’ immediate conditions of work, ultimately won’t address the underlying dynamics contributing to the growth of gig work and other forms of precarious employment. </p>
<p>More fundamental reforms are needed to generate secure, well-compensated employment. Investment and job creation led by the public sector will be vital to addressing these issues in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/149780/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam D.K. King does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Proposition 22 keeps workers for app-based companies like Uber and Lyft classified as independent contractors, but it also reveals deeper problems with contemporary labour markets.Adam D.K. King, Post-Doctoral Visitor, Department of Politics, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1478692020-10-15T12:38:04Z2020-10-15T12:38:04ZVulnerable workers have been hit hardest by the pandemic – this is why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363370/original/file-20201014-19-kva0zp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C7348%2C4912&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/pretty-young-shop-owner-turning-closed-760163290">Dragon Images/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Deprived communities and the most vulnerable in society are bearing the brunt of hardship in the pandemic. </p>
<p>Various forms of state intervention, such as furlough and job support schemes, VAT reductions and mortgage holidays, have been used to mitigate financial hardship for many. Yet barely enough has been done for the <a href="https://discoversociety.org/2020/03/26/coronavirus-poverty-precarious-work-and-the-need-for-a-universal-basic-income/">most vulnerable</a>. </p>
<p>My research on deprived communities, <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Social-Problems-in-the-UK-An-Introduction/Isaacs/p/book/9780415719995">social problems</a> and <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Universal-Basic-Income/McDonough-Morales/p/book/9781138476301">welfare reform</a> has been underpinned by how societal factors determine the ways ordinary people live and make sense of their lives. </p>
<p>More than anything else, it is economic and political forces that shape the opportunities available to people and which determine their chances to succeed. </p>
<p>The consequences of the coronavirus pandemic have affected some groups more than others – in particular, workers whose jobs rely on social contact. Neglectful government policies have done little to help this group in particular. </p>
<h2>Lack of support</h2>
<p>First, the closure of schools put further <a href="https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/covid-realities-families-low-income-pandemic">strain on families</a> who rely on the financial and social support that schools provide. For some of the most deprived communities across Britain, schools offer a community space where children are not only educated but cared for and even fed.</p>
<p>Next came the tidal wave of redundancies. The number of people falling into <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/sep/30/cut-to-20-a-week-covid-boost-will-lead-to-big-rise-in-poverty-uk-charities-warn">deep poverty</a> is expanding rapidly. They include service-sector workers – transport workers, retail assistants and cashiers and bar and restaurant staff. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="hands pulling a pint in a pub" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363657/original/file-20201015-23-111tgn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363657/original/file-20201015-23-111tgn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363657/original/file-20201015-23-111tgn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363657/original/file-20201015-23-111tgn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363657/original/file-20201015-23-111tgn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363657/original/file-20201015-23-111tgn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363657/original/file-20201015-23-111tgn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Service sector workers, such as pub staff, have been vulnerable to losing their jobs or income as a result of the pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/bartender-pours-beer-into-glass-tap-1709728237">Anton Bannov/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These are the frontline workers of Britain who are not only more likely to be at risk of catching COVID-19, but are also most likely to lose their jobs or see their hours cut as a consequence of the virus. </p>
<p>Using the government’s <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/methodology/classificationsandstandards/standardoccupationalclassificationsoc/soc2020">standard occupational classification</a>, these are workers who fall under sales and customer services (shop assistants, front-of-house staff), elementary occupations (office and shop cleaners, road sweepers and unskilled labourers) and caring and leisure services (the hospitality industry and care work).</p>
<p>Workers in these service-sector occupations are more likely than others to have been let go during or after periods of lockdown. They work for pub chains like <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54451739">Greene King</a>, which has closed 79 sites and cut 800 jobs, or shops like the retail company <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52990612">Monsoon</a>, which is closing 35 stores across the UK, leading to 545 job losses. The people who work in these service-sector jobs, and many others like them, are presently being hit the hardest. </p>
<p>The service sector largely relies on precarious workers – people in low-skilled, low-paid, and insecure forms of employment. These workers and their families lack basic security and are the most vulnerable to economic shocks. </p>
<p>In 2016, some reports estimated there were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/15/more-than-7m-britons-in-precarious-employment">seven million precarious workers</a> in Britain, though “precarious work” is often difficult to measure. Many of these workers are on zero-hour or low-hour contracts – like those who were let go when the cinema chain Cineworld announced the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/05/cineworld-zero-hours-workers-pay-redundancy">temporary closure of 127 sites</a>, with an expected 5,500 job losses. Zero-hours workers like these may not qualify for a redundancy payout. </p>
<p>Some have fared better than others in this crisis. When the government asked the public to work from home, it was managers and senior officials and those in professional occupations who were more likely to be able to switch to remote working – not the cleaners, retail workers and those in the hospitality sector. </p>
<h2>New measures</h2>
<p>A new three-tier system with different lockdown measures has been introduced in England in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus. Liverpool has been placed under the <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/10/14/lockdown-local-areas-liverpool-nottingham-uk-wales-scotland-three-tier-rules/">highest tier</a>, with a new local lockdown resulting in the closure of pubs, gyms and betting shops. </p>
<p>Liverpool is a city with a local economy that thrives off the nightlife, entertainment and hospitality scene. The lockdown measures will have a devastating impact on the lives of working-class families across the city. Like other northern cities, Liverpool has suffered from economic deprivation and a <a href="https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/opinion/2017/07/government-must-invest-north">lack of government investment</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Street with empty outdoor restaurant seating area" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363497/original/file-20201014-19-1m5oimr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/363497/original/file-20201014-19-1m5oimr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363497/original/file-20201014-19-1m5oimr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363497/original/file-20201014-19-1m5oimr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363497/original/file-20201014-19-1m5oimr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363497/original/file-20201014-19-1m5oimr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/363497/original/file-20201014-19-1m5oimr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bold Street, Liverpool, where hospitality is big business.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/liverpool-uk-september-24th-2020-bold-1823431856">Alex Yeung/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The Liverpool City Region mayor, Steve Rotheram, urged the government to act quickly to rescue the city, whose hospitality and leisure sector employs around <a href="https://www.bighospitality.co.uk/Article/2020/10/05/Emergency-fund-announced-for-hospitality-businesses-in-Liverpool-City-Region#:%7E:text=Liverpool%20City%20Region's%20hospitality%20and,year%20to%20the%20local%20economy.">50,000 people</a>. The sector contributes £5 billion to the local economy each year. </p>
<p>Among others affected, the restrictions will decimate the incomes of bartenders, restaurant waiting staff, local musicians, nightclub workers and doormen and women who rely on picking up shifts in a precarious economy. Many also rely on cash-in-hand payments, as both wages and in tips.</p>
<p>The government currently has nothing significant to offer the most vulnerable in this economic crisis. There is no package to better help northern cities like Liverpool, or to help precarious workers up and down the country who don’t qualify for furlough or self-employment schemes. Even those who must reluctantly turn to
universal credit have to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/11/universal-credit-wait-first-payment-real-shock-new-claimants">wait for payment</a>. </p>
<p>As the least well off are hit the most by the economic consequences of the virus, social inequalities in Britain are being exacerbated.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147869/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian McDonough does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People in precarious employment are hit hardest by economic shocks.Brian McDonough, Course Leader in Sociology, Solent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1391132020-05-22T03:55:26Z2020-05-22T03:55:26ZWhat defines casual work? Federal Court ruling highlights a fundamental flaw in Australian labour law<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/336929/original/file-20200522-57725-1l65oqw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A much-awaited <a href="http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2020/84.html">ruling from the Federal Court</a> has confirmed long-term casual workers can dispute their status and seek payments for entitlements such as annual leave. </p>
<p>The decision has been attacked by employer groups for allowing casual workers to “double dip” – because they are paid a loading to compensate for the lack of such benefits.</p>
<p>In response, federal industrial relations minister Christian Porter, has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/may/21/employer-groups-call-for-reform-after-court-finds-casual-workers-may-be-owed-paid-leave">indicated</a> the government will consider legislation to address these concerns.</p>
<p>The most likely response will be changing how casual work is defined in the Fair Work Act. This is an issue long overdue for resolution. Despite millions being employed on a casual basis, Australian labour laws provide no solid definition of casual work.</p>
<h2>Proliferating ‘permanent casuals’</h2>
<p>About a quarter of Australian workers – <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6291.0.55.003Feb%202020?OpenDocument">more than 2.6 million people</a> – are employed as casuals (or at least were before COVID-19).</p>
<p>They get no annual leave, personal leave, notice of termination nor redundancy pay. To make up for that, they are generally entitled to a 25% pay loading.</p>
<p>Casual work is usually thought of as temporary, irregular or uncertain in nature. Some casual positions do fit that description. But research quoted in a <a href="https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/decisionssigned/html/2017fwcfb3541.htm">2017 Fair Work Commission case</a> found 60% of casuals had regular rosters and were employed for at least six months. Just over a quarter (28%) had jobs lasting more than three years. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/self-employment-and-casual-work-arent-increasing-but-so-many-jobs-are-insecure-whats-going-on-100668">Self-employment and casual work aren't increasing but so many jobs are insecure – what's going on?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>One reason for so many “permanent casuals” is that awards and enterprise agreements typically define a casual as anyone engaged and paid as such. This has encouraged the belief that, so long as a worker is labelled a casual by their employer, that’s what they are – no matter how stable and predictable their job.</p>
<h2>Looking past the casual label</h2>
<p>The Federal Court, however, has decided otherwise.</p>
<p>While the Fair Work Act does not define the term “casual”, the court affirmed previous rulings by deciding it should be given its “general law” meaning, with the “essence of casualness” being the:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“absence of a firm advance commitment as to the duration of the employee’s employment or the days (or hours) the employee will work”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Its ruling this week against labour-hire company <a href="https://www.workpacgroup.com/">WorkPac</a> is tied to a <a href="http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCAFC/2018/131.html">2018 ruling against </a> the company.</p>
<p>That case was brought against Workpac – which employs more than 6,000 workers on behalf of companies including Rio Tinto, Glencore, Wesfarmers, Anglo American and BHP Billiton – by fly-in-fly-out worker Paul Skene.</p>
<p>Skene worked for two years as a dump truck operator at two Queensland coal mines. Although engaged as a casual, he successfully argued his set rosters – working 12-hour shifts on a “seven days on, seven days off” basis – meant he should be treated as a permanent worker. As such, he was entitled to annual leave, and to be compensated for not getting it.</p>
<h2>This week’s decision</h2>
<p>Rather than appealing that decision to the High Court, Workpac took the unusual step of funding another former mine worker, Robert Rossato, to pursue similar claims against it for unpaid leave and public holiday pay. It did this to test out some defences it had failed to run in the <em>Skene</em> case.</p>
<p>Workpac argued, with the support of the federal government, that even if Rossato was really a permanent worker. it could “set off” the casual loading Rossato had been receiving. In other words, if he was entitled to the benefits he claimed, he had already been paid for them.</p>
<p>The Federal Court has rejected this argument conclusively, ruling Rossato, like Skene, should have been treated as a permanent worker. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/five-questions-and-answers-about-casual-employment-105745">Five questions (and answers) about casual employment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The central problem, the judges said, was that Workpac was effectively seeking permission to “prepay” entitlements that, under the Fair Work Act, are meant to be given or paid for in very different ways.</p>
<p>After the <em>Skene</em> decision, the Morrison government introduced a <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2018L01770">regulation</a> it <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/nsw-and-victoria-facing-biggest-hit-from-double-dipping-casuals-20190222-p50zq2.html">claimed would clarify</a> the legal position on the “set off” argument. </p>
<p>However, the Federal Court found the regulation had no legal effect – an unsurprising ruling given the government’s own <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2018L01770/Explanatory%20Statement/Text">official explanation</a> always made this clear!</p>
<h2>Where to from here?</h2>
<p>It seems highly likely Workpac and/or the Commonwealth will appeal the <em>Rossato</em> decision to the High Court. </p>
<p>If so, the main issue will probably be whether casual status should be determined according to the “essence” of a work arrangement, or the label an employer has chosen to put on it.</p>
<p>In the meantime, the many businesses with long-term casuals will be worried about the prospect of retrospective claims for unpaid entitlements that could <a href="https://cdn.aigroup.com.au/Workplace_Relations/Attachments/Attachment_WorkPac_decision_sept2018_draft2.pdf">run into billions of dollars</a>. </p>
<p>But it’s important to keep those concerns in perspective.</p>
<p>If long-term employees have fluctuating patterns of work, that may be enough to justify their casual status, even if they have an expectation of ongoing employment. A <a href="http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2019/1085.html">2019 ruling</a> by the Federal Court confirming the casual status of an aircraft engineer suggests as much. </p>
<p>Whatever the position in the mining industry, where casuals often work full-time under set rosters, it may be easier to defend the labels placed on the much larger number of casuals who work in sectors such as retail and hospitality.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-we-want-workers-to-stay-home-when-sick-we-need-paid-leave-for-casuals-138431">If we want workers to stay home when sick, we need paid leave for casuals</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is no excuse for the failure of the current and previous governments (both Coalition and Labor) to define casual employment and put appropriate limits on its use. </p>
<p>Opinions will reasonably differ on how the complex issue of long-term casual employment is to be addressed. But both businesses and workers deserve better than the present state of uncertainty.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139113/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>In addition to his academic role, Andrew Stewart is a consultant with the law firm Piper Alderman.</span></em></p>The Federal Court of Australia has rejected the notion workers can be employed as ‘permanent casuals’.Andrew Stewart, John Bray Professor of Law, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1272982020-01-07T17:11:58Z2020-01-07T17:11:58ZHumanities PhD grads working in non-academic jobs could shake up university culture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306411/original/file-20191211-95135-152iozh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=11%2C107%2C7928%2C4309&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Canadian universities need to reform the culture of the humanities so that careers outside the university are seen as just as valuable as tenure-track jobs.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Annie Spratt/Unsplash)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>PhD graduates in the humanities need to cultivate more varied career paths. Canadian universities need to reform the culture of the humanities so that careers outside the university are seen to be just as valuable as permanent, tenure-track professorships. Changes like these will be good for the graduates, the universities and for Canadian society itself. </p>
<p>For the past five years, I’ve directed a series of PhD grad tracking projects called <a href="http://tracemcgill.com/">TRaCE (Track, Report, Connect, Exchange)</a>. The <a href="http://tracephd.com/">TRaCE pilot project (2015-16) and TRaCE 2.0 (2017-19)</a> recruited graduate student researchers from across Canada. We followed up on more than 4,000 PhD grads, mostly from the humanities, by finding them and their present jobs online. We produced statistical reports on where the grads were finding employment.</p>
<p>And we did something that, to our knowledge, other tracking projects don’t do. We reached out to the grads, interviewed 450 of them and posted their stories on the TRaCE website. One thing, however, aroused our concerns: we found it was mostly those in tenure-track jobs who wanted to talk to us. Why was it mostly these young professors who were keen to tell their stories?</p>
<h2>Don’t want to leave</h2>
<p>TRaCE 2.0 showed <a href="http://tracemcgill.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/TRaCE-2.0-quant-report-june-20-2019.pdf">that 66 per cent of the 1,500 grads (about 990 grads) we tracked are employed in higher education</a>. That would be OK, except that most PhD grads who choose to stay have been transformed into something like indentured servants in <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/july-2019/the-phd-employment-crisis-is-systemic/">precarious jobs</a>. Approximately 450 grads are in tenure-track positions, and 540 grads — or more than one-third of the total grads we tracked — are mostly in adjunct teaching positions. </p>
<p>The large number of PhD grads willing to work as adjunct teachers means that universities can run their undergraduate programs with huge cost savings. In the U.S., <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/adjunct-professors-higher-education-thea-hunter/586168/">70 per cent or more of teaching faculty are adjuncts.</a></p>
<p>In Canada, <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/career-advice/contractually-bound/contractually-bound-welcome-to-a-new-space-for-adjunct-faculty/">about 50 per cent of university teachers are adjunct instructors</a>. These instructors are paid a stipend of $4,000 to $7,000 per one-term course, without benefits. They aren’t permanent employees. Some of them need to teach at more than one institution to get by. And most of them, <a href="http://tracephd.com/trace-qualitative-summary-insight-from-our-interviews/">as we know from our research, don’t want to leave the university</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306634/original/file-20191212-85412-1uwkz36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306634/original/file-20191212-85412-1uwkz36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306634/original/file-20191212-85412-1uwkz36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306634/original/file-20191212-85412-1uwkz36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306634/original/file-20191212-85412-1uwkz36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306634/original/file-20191212-85412-1uwkz36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306634/original/file-20191212-85412-1uwkz36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Humanities grads non in tenure-track careers were mostly unwilling to share their stories.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Non-academic employment</h2>
<p>According to a Conference Board of Canada report, “<a href="https://www.conferenceboard.ca/temp/8a9e77c1-b59b-4403-aa0a-3d306ffe2fa7/7564_Inside%20and%20Outside%20the%20Academy_RPT.pdf">the often isolated nature of PhD studies and the stigma that some students feel in pursuing a non-academic career can make networking especially difficult</a>.” The report says PhD students may also be unsure of where to look for non-academic jobs and unsure about the most effective methods of pursuing those jobs.</p>
<p>Nichole Austin, the TRaCE pilot project quantitative analyst, determined that of the approximately 2,800 tracked grads, <a href="http://tracephd.com/trace-quantitative-summary-what-did-we-learn-and-where-do-we-go-from-here/">about 26 per cent (728 people) were in non-academic sectors</a>, with 167 of these being self-employed and the others having jobs in a range of non-academic sectors.</p>
<p>Are young researchers graduating from humanities PhD programs moving forward into rewarding careers outside the academy? Couldn’t PhD graduates bring their research and communication skills, as well as their historical knowledge and big-picture thinking, to many sectors of work in Canada and beyond? If not, what is preventing the realization of this happy and just state of affairs? </p>
<p>One reason could be that many employers in the non-academic world <a href="https://www.conferenceboard.ca/temp/8a9e77c1-b59b-4403-aa0a-3d306ffe2fa7/7564_Inside%20and%20Outside%20the%20Academy_RPT.pdf">do not think that PhDs are the kind of people they want to hire.</a> Managers should certainly become more open-minded about the value of hiring humanities PhDs. But the one thing the managers need in order to begin to open their minds about the skillfulness, industry and initiative of humanities PhD grads is the opportunity to connect with more of them. </p>
<p>Beyond this reason, we don’t really know: We found that <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-my-opinion/tracking-humanities-phd-outcomes-trace-project/">the humanities grads not in tenure-track careers were mostly unwilling to share their stories.</a> </p>
<p>Given that a principal goal of TRaCE has been to banish the word “failure” as a descriptor of anyone who has successfully completed a PhD, we found it ironic that PhD grads with tenure-track jobs were happy to share their stories with us, but few other grads were willing to do so. </p>
<p>Could it be that they, those without tenure-track positions, felt like failures? I hope that is not the case, but if it is, the academy is partly to blame. The academy has to change in order to both expand the career mobility of humanities PhD grads and to enhance their sense of self-worth. No one who has completed a PhD is a failure. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306409/original/file-20191211-95138-qptvei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C302%2C4982%2C3569&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/306409/original/file-20191211-95138-qptvei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306409/original/file-20191211-95138-qptvei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306409/original/file-20191211-95138-qptvei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306409/original/file-20191211-95138-qptvei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306409/original/file-20191211-95138-qptvei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/306409/original/file-20191211-95138-qptvei.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">PhD grads working outside the academy could mentor PhD students.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(unsplash/Mimi Thian)</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ideas for bridging</h2>
<p>Why not invite back <a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/four-phd-grads-in-the-humanities-tell-their-stories/">numbers of PhD grads, those who are cultivating non-academic careers,</a> to take part in mentoring PhD students? Depending on the discipline, could they be invited to act as guest lecturers or co-teach parts of the introductory courses all new doctoral students have to take? </p>
<p>Bringing them into the conversation may broaden the career horizons for the in-program PhD students. PhD students might develop a understanding of how a PhD can lead to multiple career pathways rather than to only one. They would begin to learn how their knowledge and skills might flourish outside as well as inside the university. The grads from outside the academy could provide career networking and perhaps even work opportunities for new graduates. </p>
<p>Grads from non-academic sectors of work willing to lead workshops with faculty members could also begin to educate faculty about the potential mobility of humanities research and researchers. </p>
<p>The presence of grads from the non-academic world might remind those inside the academy that, for more than two millennia in the west, it was the humanities that served to prepare people for work in the public sphere. </p>
<p>Finally, inviting back the PhD grads from outside the university would help to reorient the academic humanities toward a far more varied and active engagement with the world beyond the gates. </p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127298/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Yachnin has received funding from SSHRC.</span></em></p>With the support of universities, PhD graduates working beyond the academy could bring their knowhow into PhD seminars or classrooms to help current students expand their career horizons.Paul Yachnin, Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies, McGill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1271882019-11-20T21:42:30Z2019-11-20T21:42:30ZWorkers in the gig economy feel lonely and powerless<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302327/original/file-20191118-169352-1pwd3bv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=58%2C145%2C6480%2C3928&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Are gig workers lonely and isolated? Or independent and liberated? New research suggests despite assumptions about freedom, gig workers report feeling lonely and powerless.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The gig economy is quickly becoming a central part of Canadian life. The jobs aren’t just limited to Uber and Skip the Dishes. Grocery stores, laundries and more are banking on a new workforce that will accept jobs on a per-task basis. </p>
<p>Even a hallmark of Canadian life — snow-shovelling — is being absorbed into the gig economy. A <a href="https://mowsnowpros.com">recent startup</a> in Calgary lets homeowners hire shovellers using their smartphones. </p>
<p>As sociologists, we envision a decentralized workforce, bereft of regular human contact or <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/597745/the-gig-economy-screws-over-everyone-but-the-bosses-across-canada">continuous employment</a>. Yet this outlook stands in stark contrast to optimistic portrayals of a flexible economy that empowers workers to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2019/01/08/what-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-the-gig-economy/#308092541388">control their own fates</a>. Which narrative — decentralized and isolated or connected and empowered — best reflects the reality of Canada’s gig workers?</p>
<p>It turns out that separating the hype from reality about the Canadian gig economy is no easy task, given the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-federal-response-to-gig-economy-hindered-by-unreliable-data/">dearth of available data</a> on gig workers. </p>
<h2>One in five workers in gig economy</h2>
<p>We therefore set out to conduct surveys with a representative slice of the Canadian employed population — gig and non-gig workers — as part of the 2019 Canadian Quality of Work and Economic Life Study. Our preliminary findings, as yet unpublished, are the result of interviews with 2,524 working Canadians from this study.</p>
<p>Our survey was conducted online, using a nationally representative panel maintained by the firm Angus Reid Global. We asked about paid activities on a per-fee basis — from food delivery and freelancing to ride-share driving and completing tasks online. If a respondent said they had performed any of these activities in the last month, they worked in the gig economy. </p>
<p>Our results showed that participation in the gig economy is quite common, at almost one out of every five workers — a participation rate similar to other <a href="https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2019/02/staff-analytical-note-2019-6">Canadian</a> and <a href="https://www.bostonfed.org/publications/research-department-working-paper/2018/the-ups-and-downs-of-the-gig-economy-2015-2017.aspx">American</a> estimates.</p>
<p>Gig economy workers appeared to be suffering compared to more conventional workers. For example, we asked our respondents three questions that are commonly used by social scientists to indicate loneliness. </p>
<p>People could report if they lacked companionship, felt left out and felt isolated from other people. Gig workers were almost twice as likely to report frequently experiencing a sign of loneliness. Gig workers also scored higher on a mental health measure capturing experiences of anxiety and depression.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302330/original/file-20191119-169386-1xdtl9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302330/original/file-20191119-169386-1xdtl9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302330/original/file-20191119-169386-1xdtl9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302330/original/file-20191119-169386-1xdtl9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302330/original/file-20191119-169386-1xdtl9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302330/original/file-20191119-169386-1xdtl9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302330/original/file-20191119-169386-1xdtl9x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Workers in the gig economy are lonely.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Even if gig economy workers are more lonely and distressed, are they at least more empowered? </p>
<p>This doesn’t appear to be the case, either. We presented our respondents with a set of questions social scientists often use to measure powerlessness. These are questions about whether people feel helpless in dealing with their problems, or have little control over their lives. </p>
<p>Gig economy workers were 50 per cent more likely to report feelings of helplessness, and almost 40 per cent more likely to report feelings of little control. If anything, then, gig economy workers were more likely to report powerlessness than other working respondents. </p>
<h2>Lonelier and less happy</h2>
<p>Gig economy workers were therefore lonelier, less happy and felt less in control of their lives than other workers. </p>
<p>But gig economy workers are also demographically very different than more conventional workers. Our results showed that gig economy workers are younger and less likely to be married. Gig economy workers also tend to work longer hours and are less likely to have higher education. </p>
<p>So could we be seeing these results because the gig economy pulls from a different population base than the more conventional work force? No. In fact, none of these factors ruled out the differences we observed. </p>
<p>It is not difficult to see these patterns reflected in the everyday stories and experiences of current participants in the gig economy. Uber passengers can now select a “<a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-uber-offers-riders-more-legroom-less-chatting-at-a-price/">quiet preferred</a>” option, effectively turning drivers into silent chauffeurs. In-store shoppers wander the aisles of grocery stores <a href="https://www.grocerydive.com/news/does-the-gig-economy-have-a-future-in-grocery-stores/566797/">filling orders for delivery</a>, surrounded by, but often invisible to, the actual employees of the store. </p>
<p>In the gig economy, your boss may be an algorithm, and you are subject to the whims of fluctuating demand and a star system that rates every interaction. The result is a precarious workforce that is often isolated and powerless. </p>
<h2>A grim future of work</h2>
<p>If this is the future of work, it may be a lonely and uncertain future for many workers. But the future of the gig economy is itself uncertain. </p>
<p>A new <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/california-bill-gig-economy-1.5279623">California law</a> that will force many employers in the Golden State to reclassify “app-based” contract workers as employees may stunt the growth of the gig work model, or radically restructure it. It goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2020.</p>
<p>At the same time, Uber — a pioneer of the on-demand labour model — seems intent on extending its role as an intermediary for gig labour via a new shift-work finder app, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/18/17995398/uber-works-staffing-business-test-trial">Uber Works</a>, that matches workers to services beyond the ride-sharing industry.</p>
<p>Our survey shows how the gig economy is already a central part of many working Canadians’ lives. It is also an increasingly important way for many consumers to obtain goods and services. </p>
<p>But there’s a considerable psychological cost for workers in this new economy. Canadians will soon need to grapple with the question of whether the ease and flexibility provided by the gig economy is worth these costs.</p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex Bierman receives funding from The Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He is a member of the American Sociological Association and has sat on the Council of the Associations Section of the Sociology of Mental Health.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Scott Schieman receives funding from Canadian Institutes of Health Research. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Glavin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An upcoming study on workers in the gig economy suggests the future of work may be a lonely and uncertain one for many workers.Paul Glavin, Associate Professor, Sociology, McMaster UniversityAlex Bierman, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of CalgaryScott Schieman, Chair, Department of Sociology, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1255332019-10-24T23:24:10Z2019-10-24T23:24:10ZWhat striking education workers and climate activists have in common<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297716/original/file-20191018-56220-hhmk0p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C611%2C3549%2C1780&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ontario Minister of Education Stephen Lecce arrives at a press conference to announce a tentative deal reached with CUPE in Toronto on Oct. 6, 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Cole Burston</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Tensions and labour unrest continues in Ontario between the current government and workers in schools. After a <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5979283/ontario-education-workers-strike-pc-government/">labour negotiation impasse</a> in early October, some parents were recently left wondering <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/stephen-lecce-drummond-interview-1.5309407">whether kids’ schools were set to close because of strikes</a>.</p>
<p>On Oct. 6, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), representing workers such as school custodians and educational assistants, announced a <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-education-workers-latest-1.5310641">new collective agreement</a>, but <a href="https://www.chatelaine.com/news/ontario-teacher-strike-2019/">labour action by teachers</a> also remains <a href="https://bargainingforeducation.ca/">a looming possibility</a>. </p>
<p>Education workers <a href="https://kenoraonline.com/local/protesters-welcome-premier-to-kenora">across the province</a> have denounced <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5997182/parents-cupe-strike-rally-toronto/">education cuts</a> that mean inadequate funding to cover basic student needs and school services, and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/cupe-school-strike-negotiations-1.5308621">leave teachers with excessive workloads</a>. </p>
<p>Simultaneously, this fall, striking students and youth hit the streets. Thousands of protestors, some of whom ditched classes, <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/more-than-15-000-people-fill-downtown-toronto-for-climate-change-rally-1.4613196">marched on Queen’s Park</a> in Toronto in solidarity with climate activists globally. As a follow-up, climate activists <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/extinction-rebellion-protest-toronto-1.5311439">blocked a road intersection in Toronto</a> and such <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/6028066/extinction-rebellion-montreal-die-in/">actions have continued</a> <a href="https://www.straight.com/news/1315871/festive-extinction-rebellion-party-slows-traffic-downtown-vancouver">across the country</a> and the globe. </p>
<h2>Fundamental tensions</h2>
<p>There are commonalities in the nature and focus of these recent protests by education workers, students, youth and members of society. What may appear to be disparate concerns point to more fundamental tensions. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297761/original/file-20191019-56215-196hhuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297761/original/file-20191019-56215-196hhuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297761/original/file-20191019-56215-196hhuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297761/original/file-20191019-56215-196hhuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297761/original/file-20191019-56215-196hhuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297761/original/file-20191019-56215-196hhuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297761/original/file-20191019-56215-196hhuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ontario Premier Doug Ford acknowledges people protesting cuts to education after making an announcement on infrastructure in Kenora, Ont., on Oct. 16, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tom Thomson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Concerns over education, labour and the environment all direct attention to the need for change. All groups want change that will allow them a say in building a better future. </p>
<p>Both climate movements and labour movements denouncing education cuts and asserting education worker rights have provided platforms for people to contest, among other things, what they perceive as an injustice: a secure and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/live/2019/sep/20/climate-strike-global-change-protest-sydney-melbourne-london-new-york-nyc-school-student-protest-greta-thunberg-rally-live-news-latest-updates">sustainable future being taken</a> <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5132545/ontario-teachers-job-cuts/">from themselves</a>, <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/5132545/ontario-teachers-job-cuts/">young people</a> or future generations. </p>
<p>Both the current labour and climate insecurities remain inextricably connected to our <a href="https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/This-Changes-Everything/Naomi-Klein/9781451697391">fundamental social and economic relations</a>.</p>
<h2>Securing a future</h2>
<p>In both the labour and environmental movements, we increasingly see many younger people wrestling with the dual threats of <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/ncr-today/precariat-stressed-out-insecure-alienated-and-angry">economic and environmental insecurity</a> and recognizing the current and future costs which socioeconomic <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/sep/23/greta-thunberg-speech-un-2019-address">structural conditions have forced them to shoulder</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297762/original/file-20191019-56211-1gyn3zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297762/original/file-20191019-56211-1gyn3zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297762/original/file-20191019-56211-1gyn3zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297762/original/file-20191019-56211-1gyn3zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=899&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297762/original/file-20191019-56211-1gyn3zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297762/original/file-20191019-56211-1gyn3zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/297762/original/file-20191019-56211-1gyn3zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Toronto climate strike, Sept. 27, 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/legalcode">Francis Mariani/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The world of work has become more insecure. Numerous indicators point to a new generation of young workers with dramatically different social relations than in the past.</p>
<p>In 2018, Canadian students owed <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2019/07/10/opinion/governments-can-afford-make-student-debt-disappear-so-why-dont-they">$28 billion in student debt</a>. Long-term educational debt remains a reality for a larger number of <a href="https://theconversation.com/phd-students-should-prepare-for-careers-beyond-becoming-professors-123328">new graduates</a> across the province, and there are a <a href="https://www.hoyes.com/press/joe-debtor/the-student-debtor/">growing number of insolvencies</a>. Precarious work is a reality across both <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/no-safe-harbour">private and public sectors</a>. </p>
<p>Housing also remains a problem for many young people. In the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), almost half of <a href="https://static1.squarespace.com/static/525d66a5e4b0abdfe5de32ec/t/59cbc067f5e231e537863c55/1506525290022/GenY+at+Home+Report+N+Worth+September+25+2017.pdf">young adults live with their parents (47.4 per cent)</a> and such choices are typically <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/living-at-home-toronto-1.4312466">determined by financial</a> rather than personal considerations. In parts of Ontario such as Toronto, home ownership appears to be increasingly <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/globe-advisor/advisor-news/article-is-the-home-ownership-dream-dead-for-millennials/">out of reach</a>. Child-care costs (for those who <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/climate-change-having-kids-children_n_5d493eaee4b0244052e09033?ri18n=true">want to have children</a>) are also <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/study-reveals-highest-and-lowest-child-care-fees-canadian-cities-2018">deeply unaffordable</a>, posing significant challenges. </p>
<h2>Distribution of wealth</h2>
<p>Part of the problem appears to be rooted in the nature and distribution of work and wealth. In Canada, as in many industrial economies, average hourly wages have remained <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/3531614/average-hourly-wage-canada-stagnant/">essentially stagnant over the past 40 years</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, economic inequality has continued to rise, benefiting a <a href="http://www.lorimer.ca/adults/Book/3035/The-Age-of-Increasing-Inequality.html">small minority</a> while more <a href="https://pepso.ca/documents/the-generation-effect-full-report.pdf">precarious forms of work</a>, which tend <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/precarious-jobs-holding-back-young-workers-oecd-finds-1.3082178">to impact youth</a> hardest, have continued to proliferate. Both <a href="https://www.tvo.org/video/what-to-do-about-youth-unemployment">unemployment</a> and underemployment (or a “<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-canadas-skills-shortage-real-or-are-businesses-to-blame-83613">skills mismatch</a>”) continues to be problematic. </p>
<p>While all these issues are extremely complex, what can be generally inferred is that the current generation of youth and workers may not end up “better off” — both economically and ecologically — than their predecessors.</p>
<h2>Intergenerational inequity</h2>
<p>During my <a href="https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5254&context=etd">research with unemployed and underemployed teachers,</a> I came upon the concept of intergenerational equity that captured the anger and frustration felt by many young educators. They felt a profound sense of unfairness in the labour market — that in the past, it was easier to get ahead, and to build a life, in comparison to their current experiences. Adding to this frustration was the belief that they had little power to fix this situation.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-employment-in-education-impacts-workers-families-and-students-115766">Precarious employment in education impacts workers, families and students</a>
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<p>The term intergenerational equity refers to arguments surrounding the equitable usage of <a href="https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/917/">resources between generations</a>, typically grounded in values of fairness or justice. The concept stresses that communities and societies are constituted by partnerships between generations. It also implies that existing generations must think beyond themselves to the future. Thus it captures some of what contemporary worker activists and environmentalists are talking about. </p>
<p>Youth activist Greta Thunberg’s recent words, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-will-never-forgive-you-youth-is-not-wasted-on-the-young-who-fight-for-climate-justice-123985">We will never forgive you</a>,” highlight the generation tensions of “us versus you” within the environmental movement.
Such statements pronounce that we shouldn’t sacrifice the future for the present and that long-term goals must be considered over short-term gains. </p>
<p>Such debates <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250159304">about what is fair surely have long histories</a>, but today both unprecedented degrees of <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674979857">wealth inequality</a> and <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/">climate change</a> simultaneously appear increasingly unsustainable.</p>
<p>When intergenerational fracturing occurs, and when the right to securing a future appears unachievable, <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-precariat-9781849664561/">citizen anger</a> risks erupting in ways which may not be in the best interest of workers, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html">the environment</a> or democracy. </p>
<h2>No shortage of solutions</h2>
<p>There is no shortage of possible solutions to current work, labour and climate issues. Ideas and proposals considering “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/opinion/benioff-salesforce-capitalism.html">new capitalism</a>,” a <a href="http://theconversation.com/andrew-yangs-freedom-dividend-echoes-a-1930s-basic-income-proposal-that-reshaped-social-security-125287">basic income</a> or the “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/an-audacious-plan-to-stop-climate-change-remake-the-entire-economy/2019/10/18/2295194e-dfca-11e9-be96-6adb81821e90_story.html">Green New Deal</a>” all appear to be gaining momentum. All seek to fundamentally redefine our relationship with both work and nature.</p>
<p>As downward mobility and ecological fragility becomes increasingly normalized, our society has perhaps become used to lowering expectations concerning economic security, precarious employment, labour solidarity and environmental degradation.</p>
<p>There is no better time than the present for youth, activists and education workers to assert their rights to the future. This includes not only having a voice, but actively securing educational and environmental conditions that will allow future generations to thrive.</p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca/newsletters?utm_source=TCCA&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Mindzak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Frustration at intergenerational inequity captures the views of many contemporary education worker activists and environmentalists alike.Michael Mindzak, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1251272019-10-15T18:59:07Z2019-10-15T18:59:07ZRevenge of the moderators: Facebook’s online workers are sick of being treated like bots<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296626/original/file-20191011-188783-vkutem.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C0%2C5807%2C3903&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mark Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs may have to take notice of their workers' complaints.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/washington-dc-usa-september-19-2019-1513442879">Aaron Schwarz / Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reports of Facebook moderators’ appalling working conditions have been making headlines worldwide. </p>
<p>Workers say they are <a href="https://sz-magazin.sueddeutsche.de/internet/three-months-in-hell-84381">burning out</a> as they moderate vast flows of violent content under pressure, with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/06/proof-that-facebook-broken-obvious-from-modus-operand">vague, ever-changing guidelines</a>. They describe <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/19/18681845/facebook-moderator-interviews-video-trauma-ptsd-cognizant-tampa">unclean, dangerous contractor workplaces</a>. Moderators battle <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/sep/17/revealed-catastrophic-effects-working-facebook-moderator">depression, addiction</a>, and even <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-faces-complaints-from-more-content-moderators-in-lawsuit/">post-traumatic stress disorder</a> from the endless parade of horrors they consume.</p>
<p>Yet in <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/10/1/20892354/mark-zuckerberg-full-transcript-leaked-facebook-meetings">leaked audio</a> recently published by The Verge, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg can reportedly be heard telling his staff that some of these reports “are, I think, a little over-dramatic”. </p>
<h2>Out of touch and dismissive</h2>
<p>While Zuckerberg acknowledges that Facebook moderators need to be treated humanely, overall he comes across in the recording as a person who sees human suffering as “a math problem”, as The Verge’s editor-in-chief <a href="https://twitter.com/reckless/status/1179052315136974849">Nilay Patel suggested on Twitter</a>.</p>
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<p>Zuckerberg’s response is troubling on several fronts, not least in minimising the impact of moderation on those who do it. It also works to discredit those who blow the whistle on poor working conditions. </p>
<p>In dismissing the real risks of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona">poorly paid, relentless content moderation</a> and implying that moderators who call out issues are “over-dramatic”, Zuckerberg risks compounding moderators’ trauma. </p>
<p>This is a result of what American psychologists Carly Smith and Jennifer Freyd call “<a href="https://dynamic.uoregon.edu/jjf/institutionalbetrayal/">institutional betrayal</a>”, where the organisation we trust to support us, doesn’t. Worse still, this behaviour has also been shown to make people doubt their decision to report in the first place.</p>
<p>We also contacted Facebook about Zuckerberg’s comments and asked them to confirm or deny the working conditions of their moderators. They gave us the following statement:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are committed to providing support for our content reviewers as we recognize that reviewing certain types of content can be hard. That is why everyone who reviews content for Facebook goes through an in-depth, multi-week training program on our Community Standards and has access to extensive support to ensure their well-being, which can include on-site support with trained practitioners, an on-call service, and healthcare benefits from the first day of employment. We are also employing technical solutions to limit exposure to graphic material as much as possible. This is an important issue, and we are committed to getting this right.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>While Zuckerberg and Facebook acknowledge that moderators need access to psychological care, there are major structural issues that prevent many of them from getting it.</p>
<h2>Bottom of the heap</h2>
<p>If the internet has a class system, moderators sit at the bottom – they are modern day <a href="https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-worst-paid-freelance-gig-in-history-was-being-the-village-sin-eater">sin-eaters</a> who absorb offensive and traumatic material so others don’t have to see it. </p>
<p>Most are subcontractors working on short-term or casual agreements with little chance of permanent employment and minimal agency or autonomy. As a result, they’re largely exiled from the shiny campuses of today’s big tech companies, even though many hold degrees from top-tier universities, as Sarah T. Roberts discusses in her book <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300235883/behind-screen">Behind The Screen</a>. </p>
<p>As members of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-precariat-is-recruiting-youth-please-apply-10550">precariat</a>, they are reluctant to take time off work to seek care, or indicate they are unable to cope, in case they lose shifts or have contracts terminated. Cost of care is also a significant inhibitor. As Sarah Roberts writes, contract workers are oftenoften not covered by employee health insurance plans or able to afford their own private ccover.</p>
<p>This structural powerlessness has <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-032013-182500">negative implications for workers’ mental health</a>, even before they start moderating violent content.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-all-for-community-but-what-kind-of-community-is-it-building-101254">Facebook is all for community, but what kind of community is it building?</a>
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<p>Most platform moderators are hired through outsourcing firms that are woefully unqualified to understand the nuances of the job. One such company, <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona">Cognizant</a>, reportedly allows moderators nine minutes each day of “wellness time” to “process” abhorrent content, with repercussions if the time is used instead for bathroom breaks or prayer. </p>
<p>Documentaries like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=k9m0axUDpro">The Moderators</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN8tzaVINEY">The Cleaners</a> reveal techno-colonialism in moderation centres in India, Bangladesh and the Philippines. As a whole, moderators are vulnerable humans in a deadly loop – Morlocks subject to the whims of Silicon Valley Eloi. </p>
<h2>Organising for change</h2>
<p>Despite moderators’ dismal conditions and the dismissiveness of Zuckerberg and others at the top of the tech hierarchy, there are signs that things are beginning to change.</p>
<p>In Australia, online community managers – professionals who are hired to help organisations build communities or audiences across a range of platforms, including Facebook, and who set rules for governance and moderation – have recently teamed up with a union, the <a href="https://www.meaa.org/">Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance</a>, to negotiate labour protections. </p>
<p>This has been done through the <a href="https://www.australiancommunitymanagers.com.au/">Australian Community Managers</a> network (ACM), which also provides access to training and peer support. ACM is also working with like-minded organisations around the world, including <a href="https://www.bvcm.org/">Bundesverband Community Management</a> in Germany, Voorzitter Vereniging Community Management in the Netherlands, <a href="https://communityroundtable.com/">The Community Roundtable</a> in the United States, and nascent groups in India and Vietnam. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/after-defamation-ruling-its-time-facebook-provided-better-moderation-tools-119526">After defamation ruling, it's time Facebook provided better moderation tools</a>
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<p>These groups are professional communities of practice and union-like surrogates who advocate for their people, and champion their insights and perspectives.</p>
<p>As this movement grows, it may challenge the tech industry’s reliance on cheap, unprotected labour – which extends beyond moderation to countless other areas, including contract game development and video production. </p>
<h2>The YouTubers’ union and beyond</h2>
<p>Workers in the gaming industry are also starting to push back against frameworks that exploit their time, talent and, invariably, well-being (as illuminated by Hasan Minaj on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLAi_cmly6Q">Patriot Act</a>). In Australia <a href="https://www.gameworkers.com.au/">Gaming Workers Unite</a> is mobilising games workers around issues of precarious employment, harassment (online and off), exploitation and more. </p>
<p>And in Europe <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/26/20833315/youtube-union-youtubers-negotiate-germany-meeting">YouTubers are joining the country’s largest metalworkers’ union</a>, IG Metall, to pressure YouTube for greater transparency around moderation and monetisation.</p>
<p>Although Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t seem to understand the human challenges of internetworked creativity, or the labour that enables his machine to work, he may yet have to learn. His remarks compound the material violence experienced by moderators, dismiss the complexity of their work and – most crucially – dismiss their potential to organise. </p>
<p>Platform chief executives can expect a backlash from digital workers around the world. The physical and psychological effects of moderation are indeed dramatic; the changes they’re provoking in industrial relations are even more so.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Beckett is a member of Australian Community Managers, having been a professional community manager in the past. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona R Martin has been the recipient of an Australian Research Council DECRA grant Mediating the Conversation DE130101267, studying the governance of online participation in news communities.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Venessa Paech is the founder of Australian Community Managers, the national network for professional community managers, and has worked for over two decades in online communities.</span></em></p>Mark Zuckerberg may try to minimise their concerns, but Facebook moderators and other online workers are beginning to organise for their own protection.Jennifer Beckett, Lecturer in Media and Communications, The University of MelbourneFiona R Martin, Senior Lecturer in Convergent and Online Media, University of SydneyVenessa Paech, PhD Candidate, researching AI and online communities, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1186082019-07-17T19:49:50Z2019-07-17T19:49:50ZDependent and vulnerable: the experiences of academics on casual and insecure contracts<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284419/original/file-20190717-173325-5777x7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Academics in precarious employment struggle to feel a strong sense of self.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/ewGMqs2tmJI">Nathan Dumlao/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/starvation-wages-majority-of-victorian-university-workers-in-casual-teaching-trap-20190501-p51j1y.html?_ga=2.212777556.1730763659.1563165940-1590352956.1491349426">majority</a> of academic staff at some of Australia’s top universities work in casual or fixed-term positions. This <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1017621.pdf">reflects a trend</a> towards casualisation in academia, and other industries, in <a href="https://theconversation.com/casual-academics-arent-going-anywhere-so-what-can-universities-do-to-ensure-learning-isnt-affected-113567">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.union.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/NZCTU-Submission-on-New-Models-of-Tertiary-Education-2016-.pdf">New Zealand</a>. </p>
<p>Fixed-term employment is also a form of precarious employment. This is usually when the <a href="https://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/2564262/2016-contingent-academic-employment-in-australian-universities-updatedapr16.pdf">university employs</a> research staff working on externally funded projects only for the extent of the project. So, in effect, the research funds the academic’s employment (from a research grant) while enhancing the reputation of the university. </p>
<p>Precarious employment particularly affects young academics. In some Australian universities, more than <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/education/casualisation-of-university-workforce-is-a-national-disgrace-20180803-p4zvcm.html">80% of staff under the age of 30</a> are insecurely employed. This insecurity significantly restrains their <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/house-children-pets-on-hold-as-universities-exploit-staff-20190521-p51pk1.html">lifestyle options</a>.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/casual-academics-arent-going-anywhere-so-what-can-universities-do-to-ensure-learning-isnt-affected-113567">Casual academics aren't going anywhere, so what can universities do to ensure learning isn't affected?</a>
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<p>For my PhD, submitted in 2017, <a href="https://monash.figshare.com/articles/Being_becoming_an_academic_Spatio-temporal_experiences_of_precarious_employment_and_wellbeing/4796608">I explored the experiences</a> and well-being of young academics in precarious work. I interviewed ten young academics employed at Monash University in Melbourne on three occasions over a year. </p>
<p>Participants had been employed by Monash for between five weeks and six years at the time of the first interview (the average was two years). The average age of participants was 27.</p>
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<p>My research found participants on casual contracts felt vulnerable and of lower status than “permanent” staff members. They sometimes minimised instances of exploitation as part of an authentic academic experience.</p>
<h2>You’re on your own</h2>
<p>Formal induction programs, professional mentoring or performance review processes were often reserved for “permanent” staff. Academics in precarious employment made sense of what it means to be an academic, as well as gained knowledge about workplace norms and expectations, informally.</p>
<p>Participants said they gleaned information from chats with colleagues and supervisors, listening to presentations, reading emails, seeing media coverage of academic employment issues, as well as observing normative social practices in the workplace. </p>
<p>Positioned as early career researchers (ECRs), participants often sought solace from others like them. One ECR told me:</p>
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<p>[…] talking to my friends and people in the ECR group, it is that communal moaning kind of thing, which is cathartic and helpful in that respect. But it is not going anywhere, we are all complaining about the same things we face, we just complain about it because we have got to tell it to someone who can understand […]</p>
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<p>Tenured academics may be sympathetic to their precarious position but, according to the stories I heard, they weren’t necessarily helpful. </p>
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<p>Will* described when tenured staff members would compare their position to his in a way that highlighted his situation.</p>
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<p>Well <strong>my</strong> position’s secure and thank goodness <strong>I’m</strong> not on a fixed-term contract because that’d worry <strong>me</strong> […] <strong>you’re</strong> new so <strong>you</strong> have to get good evaluations because <strong>your</strong> probation is in a year and a half and <strong>you</strong> need to achieve that to be able to stay here.</p>
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<p>Will found this type of interaction distressing as the communication style distanced himself (an insecure worker) from others (tenured workers). </p>
<p>Research participants were constantly reminded they did not have the status or privileges of permanent employment.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/higher-education-cuts-will-be-felt-in-the-classroom-not-the-lab-86400">Higher education cuts will be felt in the classroom, not the lab</a>
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<p>For instance, Logan described how, despite having his PhD and being employed full-time by the university, he still spent most of his time “hanging out with the PhD students” because his desk was positioned in an open-plan space with them. </p>
<h2>Defending exploitation</h2>
<p>There was a sense among participants of constantly trying to impress their supervisors. This came from knowing their future employment depended on the approval of the university and people in it. </p>
<p>Participants had a somewhat defensive attitude towards their exploitation. For instance, Mike said he worked on average an extra one unpaid day per week, which caused him stress and pressure. But, straight after saying this, he added:</p>
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<p>I don’t feel like the organisation is a demanding environment. Like I don’t know what would happen if I did start working less […] </p>
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<p>Mike also minimised the issues associated with feeling insecure and working unpaid hours by saying: </p>
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<p>[…] there are a couple of funny things about how they (the university) handle contracts and staff and stuff. </p>
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<p>Mike’s comment painted questionable employment practices, and working without pay, as part of the authentic academic experience.</p>
<p>It was difficult for many of the participants to be critical of their working context and the people in it, even if they were working unpaid hours. This was because, as Jasmine said, “I can’t escape work because that is my entire world, basically.”</p>
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<p>Although casual academics are on temporary contracts, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07294360.2018.1545749">some have been working for universities longer</a> than their colleagues on continuing contracts.</p>
<p>Max told me he felt emotionally attached to the university:</p>
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<p>I have just been here a long time. I studied here, I lived on campus here for two years, I was involved in a lot of student things when I was a student. I have seen the campus physically change a lot […] I can definitely see how much I have changed since I got to Monash. So it feels like I am a part of Monash or Monash is a part of me […]</p>
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<p>Others felt more pragmatically tied to the institution, noting it was arduous changing employment. Ruby said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>If I went to another institution I have to learn it (the systems and policies) all over again.</p>
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<h2>Constantly anxious</h2>
<p>My research found the insecure nature of the participants’ work interfered with their sense of identity, personal security, feelings of trust and self-confidence. Such feelings, which come from a constant state of flux, are encompassed in a term coined by British sociologist Anthony Giddens in 1991: “ontological security”.</p>
<p>In his book exploring the effects of modernity on social psychology, he referred to <a href="http://voidnetwork.gr/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/The-Consequences-of-Modernity-by-Anthony-Giddens.pdf">ontological security as</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>the confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self-identity and in the constancy of the surrounding social and material environments of action. </p>
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<p>Ontological security is linked to identity as it refers to feelings of security, trust, sense of familiarity, and the reliability of interactions across time and space.</p>
<p>The participants in my research had a threatened sense of well-being. As precarious workers, they felt vulnerable, dependent and of a lower status. Feeling continually at risk of being excluded from the university made them anxious and caused high levels of stress.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-three-things-universities-must-do-to-survive-disruption-117970">The three things universities must do to survive disruption</a>
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<p>Will mentioned the word “probation” 25 times during his first interview. And Mike said the university could “get rid of people” by simply not offering them another contract.</p>
<p>But the participants also felt their precarious employment could help increase their sense of identity because it could lead to more (possibly permanent) employment. </p>
<p>In many instances, participants wanted information on how to develop their careers, forge ongoing working relationships, contribute to the academic community and gain the respect of their colleagues and supervisors.</p>
<p>Universities must consider the well-being of their workers, particularly those on precarious contracts, as well as the influence of tenured staff on their experience.</p>
<ul>
<li><em>Participant names are pseudonyms.</em></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/118608/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Bone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Academics on casual contracts often feel vulnerable and of lower status than “permanent” staff members. They can minimise their exploitation as if it’s part of the authentic academic experience.Kate Bone, Lecturer, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1157662019-05-27T20:53:21Z2019-05-27T20:53:21ZPrecarious employment in education impacts workers, families and students<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275422/original/file-20190520-69169-pwnm3y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Beneath the typical full-time, permanent model of classroom teaching lies an enormous workforce of educators who function on the margins as precarious workers.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Recent announcements in Ontario about public education have been controversial, with changes including <a href="https://globalnews.ca/video/5225776/breaking-down-the-changes-to-ontarios-education-system">larger classroom sizes, mandatory online courses and curriculum revisions</a>. However, perhaps most significantly, the imposed changes will lead to the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/provincial-memo-teacher-cuts-1.5085851">loss of teaching positions</a> across the province. </p>
<p>With government priorities focused on educational austerity, schools will have to do more with less.</p>
<p>Often, within such discussions are highly politicized debates emerging over issues such as teacher compensation and working conditions. Some believe teachers to be an <a href="https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/04/16/ford-teachers-potential-strike/">extremely privileged group</a> in Ontario, afforded positions which include strong salaries, benefits, pensions and vacation time. Others counter that teachers work in a profession with <a href="https://professionallyspeaking.oct.ca/march_2007/how_do_teachers_compare.asp">long hours</a>, extensive overtime and challenging classroom conditions. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, such arguments continue to miss the mark as they do not fully highlight the range of workers involved in education. What remains obscured is the significant impact such changes will hold for education workers across the province. </p>
<p><a href="https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/3668/">My own research into the issue of teacher unemployment and underemployment</a> in Ontario over the past decade revealed a concerning reality for many teachers. In fact, beneath the typical full-time, permanent model of the classroom teacher lies an enormous labour force of educators and education workers who largely function on the margins as precarious workers.</p>
<h2>A more precarious reality</h2>
<p>Precarious employment can be understood as forms of work which <a href="http://www.yorku.ca/julabour/volume3/cranfordetal_justlabour.PDF">deviate from what sociologists have defined as the “standard employment relationship.</a>” Such a relationship is generally understood as one where a single employer provides full-time, year-round permanent employment and often includes benefits other than wages. </p>
<p>Precarious employment can include forms of temporary, part-time and contractual work, or jobs which do not provide a living wage as well as the state of being self-employed. Estimates place at least 30 to 40 per cent of <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/document/changing-workplaces-review-final-report/chapter-4-vulnerable-workers-precarious-jobs">all workers in Ontario</a> in <a href="https://pepso.ca/research-projects">precarious employment</a> and increasingly include workers once thought of as <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/no-safe-harbour">professional.</a></p>
<p>For <a href="https://www.oct.ca/-/media/PDF/2016%20Transition%20to%20Teaching%20study/2016t2tmainreporten.pdf">over a decade now</a>, thousands of teachers across Ontario have existed within such an environment, with short-term, contractual and uncertain employment conditions being the norm rather than full-time, permanent positions. These jobs range widely — from receiving daily calls in the morning as an <a href="https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/cjeap/article/view/42784">occasional (supply) teacher</a>, to <a href="https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/406/">part-time contracts ranging from a few weeks or months at a time</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, the changing landscape of precarious education work has resulted in some teachers leaving their home countries to
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go-the-dilemma-for-unemployed-teachers-52860">secure employment overseas</a>. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275427/original/file-20190520-69169-l95g6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/275427/original/file-20190520-69169-l95g6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275427/original/file-20190520-69169-l95g6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275427/original/file-20190520-69169-l95g6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275427/original/file-20190520-69169-l95g6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275427/original/file-20190520-69169-l95g6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/275427/original/file-20190520-69169-l95g6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">For over a decade now, teachers across Ontario have existed with short-term, contractual and uncertain employment conditions being the norm rather than full-time, permanent positions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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<p>While the data remain sparse, there are likely tens of thousands of such teachers across the province. Many new teachers can often expect to remain in such positions for five to 10 years <a href="https://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/teaching-job-prospects-improving-with-increasing-retirements">before finding full-time employment</a> in Ontario. Precarious employment can impact teachers in numerous ways, including scheduling uncertainty, multiple jobs, continuous job searching, income variability and unpaid work expectations. </p>
<h2>Far beyond teachers</h2>
<p>However, teachers are not the only group of education workers feeling the pinch today. Precarious forms of employment have become increasingly normalized across the education sector. In 2017, labour action by Ontario college instructors <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/mohawk-opseu-strike-prof-1.4395192">highlighted the precarious nature of work</a> in the <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/contract-u">post-secondary setting</a>. In addition, there remain a plethora of insecure groups of workers in education which often include <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/education-assistant-shortage-working-conditions-1.4583039">educational assistants</a>, <a href="https://www.tvo.org/video/why-early-childhood-educators-are-underpaid?fbclid=IwAR1rUV1MpHeIElNsTAYVTuYKVXJZQQ_m4dzXQ79yka0xr5J7KsskklbDwmY">early childhood educators</a>, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/10/07/low-wages-a-major-hurdle-for-daycare-workers.html">daycare workers</a> and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/toronto-school-bus-strike-1.5115913">school bus drivers</a> who face precarious work daily and the challenges associated with it. </p>
<p>These are front-line workers who engage with students and children each day, ensuring not only students’ learning but also their health, safety and well-being. To ignore that the conditions of their work impact the quality of education, and that the work they do with students inside and outside of the classroom is an integral part of school experience, remains problematic. </p>
<h2>Models for future generations</h2>
<p>The situation facing teachers in Ontario today reveals the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-precariat-9781849664561/">changing nature of work and the global trend</a> which has pushed <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-precariat-is-recruiting-youth-please-apply-10550">more and more workers</a> into precarity.</p>
<p>The experience of precarious work is not only economic, but rather personal, social and psychological — it impacts individuals as well as families and communities. All educators are <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-babcock/ontario-education-teacher-cuts_a_23719438/">human beings, workers and taxpayers</a>, and continued attacks on them will largely serve only to push effective teachers out of the system adversely impacting our students. </p>
<p>The recent political decisions in Ontario also reveal how the challenge of teacher un(der)employment is not simply a supply-side problem of “<a href="https://www.universityaffairs.ca/features/feature-article/way-too-many-teachers/">too many teachers</a>.” It is also largely a demand-side issue where policy decisions dictate both the number of teachers and educators within schools and the nature of their work. Such policy choices, made unilaterally and ideologically, serve to further alienate teachers from a profession <a href="https://theconversation.com/heartbreak-becomes-burnout-for-teachers-when-work-is-turbulent-111148">which they often love</a>. One only needs to look south of the border where <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-shortage-is-real-large-and-growing-and-worse-than-we-thought-the-first-report-in-the-perfect-storm-in-the-teacher-labor-market-series/">teacher shortages and attrition are the norm</a> largely due to poor working conditions.</p>
<p>The working conditions of teachers and educators should enable them to be models for students — who, let’s hope, may themselves all thrive in the future with good jobs and decent work conditions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115766/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Mindzak does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Front-line workers employed both inside and outside of the classroom are an integral part of schooling, yet we deny their work conditions are relevant to quality education.Michael Mindzak, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1056032018-11-06T23:09:25Z2018-11-06T23:09:25ZOntario’s ‘Open for Business’ law will erode workplace rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243483/original/file-20181101-83632-xifvk6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Doug Ford on the campaign trail in May 2018, promising to "open" Ontario for business. His Bill 47 does nothing of the sort.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Tara Walton</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Ontario’s Conservative government recently tabled the <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-open-for-business-bill-148-repeal-1.4874351"><em>Open for Business Act</em> (Bill 47)</a>. Bill 47 proposes to repeal the changes to Ontario’s workplace laws introduced by the previous Liberal government under Bill 148.</p>
<p>The purpose of Bill 148 was to increase fairness for workers, particularly those precariously employed, while balancing the interests of employers.</p>
<p>It was three years in the making and informed by a panel of two workplace law experts, which twice toured the province to hear from hundreds of witnesses before tabling its 419-page <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/document/changing-workplaces-review-final-report">final report.</a> By contrast, Premier Doug Ford’s government claims to have spoken with “dozens” of employers and unions prior to introducing Bill 47. </p>
<p>The purpose of Bill 47 is to <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/mol/en/2018/10/open-for-business-removing-burdens-while-protecting-workers.html">“bring jobs and investment back to our province” and to increase “opportunities” for workers.</a> One needs to look harder for any mention of fairness for workers or the creation of decent jobs, although the government claims to wish to “protect” workers. At the end of the day, however, Bill 47 will do none of the above.</p>
<h2>The economic sky isn’t falling</h2>
<p>By far, the most controversial aspect of Bill 148 was the increase in the minimum wage, from $11.60 to $14 in January 2018, with another scheduled increase to $15 set for January 2019. Bill 47 freezes the rate at $14, with an “annual inflation adjustment” as of October 2020.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/democracy-freedom-and-cheap-stuff-can-we-pay-more-for-our-coffee-90621">Democracy, freedom and cheap stuff: Can we pay more for our coffee?</a>
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<p>Notably, the Ontario Conservatives have opposed every raise in the minimum wage since at least 1995, <a href="https://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/pubs/mwap/section_02.php">when they froze wages for eight years</a>. They opposed this one as well, predicting rampant job loss. They were wrong. </p>
<p>In July, <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/economy/jobs/article-ontario-unemployment-rate-hits-18-year-low-six-months-after-minimum/">Ontario’s unemployment rate hit an 18-year low</a>, with notable jobs gains in the hospitality sector, an industry among those most affected by Bill 148. Bank of Canada economists have said no evidence indicates that Bill 148 caused any general economic downturn.</p>
<p>The reality is that <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/dispelling-minimum-wage-mythology">raising the minimum wage on its own has no net effect upon employment figures.</a> The reason is simple: There are too many other factors at play. But that hasn’t stopped the government’s wrongful claim that Bill 148 has crippled the economy.</p>
<h2>Bill 47 decreases fairness at work</h2>
<p>While doing virtually nothing for job creation, Bill 47 will decrease fairness for workers. </p>
<p>For instance, Bill 47 repeals the provision giving workers the right to refuse work with less than 96 hours’ notice. Such notice is important for those with child/elder care issues, or indeed other jobs, to make appropriate arrangements. </p>
<p>Bill 47 retains the provision to pay workers for three hours if they are required to show up to work but are then not required to work for three hours. However, workers who are on call but are then not required to work will no longer have the same right to three hours pay. It also repeals the right to three hours pay if a scheduled shift is cancelled within 48 hours. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243480/original/file-20181101-83654-qiq4si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243480/original/file-20181101-83654-qiq4si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243480/original/file-20181101-83654-qiq4si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243480/original/file-20181101-83654-qiq4si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243480/original/file-20181101-83654-qiq4si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243480/original/file-20181101-83654-qiq4si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243480/original/file-20181101-83654-qiq4si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243480/original/file-20181101-83654-qiq4si.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Ontario Premier Doug Ford speaks to members of his caucus in September 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov</span></span>
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<p>In the name of “flexibility,” employers retain the authority to make scheduling decisions that they believe best suit their bottom lines, while virtually all the risk for such decisions flows to workers. </p>
<p>Employers are not encouraged to make careful scheduling decisions, since they will no longer bear even the minimal responsibility of guaranteeing three hours pay in most instances. Meanwhile, last-minute scheduling changes wreak havoc on the lives of workers and their families.</p>
<p>Even the tepid provision requiring employers to consider requests for a change in schedule or work location in good faith, by providing reasons for a refusal of any such request, is now gone. </p>
<h2>Precarious workers and temp agencies</h2>
<p>What’s more, Bill 47 reintroduces an incentive to create piecemeal, precarious work. The proliferation of employment agencies — many fly-by-night — and the intense vulnerability of those employed through them <a href="http://projects.thestar.com/temp-employment-agencies/.">has been well-documented.</a> So too have the health impacts of precarious work for certain demographics that make up a large percentage of the <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7HYn4lq0ns4RlNiZHJGYjhKaXc/view">precarious workforce.</a> </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243489/original/file-20181101-83654-yfbeyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/243489/original/file-20181101-83654-yfbeyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243489/original/file-20181101-83654-yfbeyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243489/original/file-20181101-83654-yfbeyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243489/original/file-20181101-83654-yfbeyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243489/original/file-20181101-83654-yfbeyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/243489/original/file-20181101-83654-yfbeyo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A part-time shift worker at a Toronto grocery store who wished to remain anonymous is pictured in August 2015. The rise of precarious employment in Canada has brought with it some questionable employer practices addressed by the previous Ontario Liberal government’s Bill 148.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young</span></span>
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<p>The Liberals’ Bill 148 made it less attractive for employers to rely upon a casual, precarious workforce by removing distinctions in pay that were based upon “employment status.” The fact that a worker was hired through a temp agency or worked part-time hours could not be the basis for differential pay.</p>
<p>Because precarious work is often gendered and racialized, this provision had the added effect of reducing distinctions <em>indirectly</em> related to gender and race as well. </p>
<p>Bill 47 reintroduces pay distinctions based upon employment status. </p>
<h2>What about balance?</h2>
<p>The government claimed it was introducing Bill 47 to repeal those parts of Bill 148 <a href="https://news.ontario.ca/mol/en/2018/10/open-for-business-removing-burdens-while-protecting-workers.html">“that are causing employers the most concern and unnecessary burden.”</a> Evidently, this government suffers from an inability to prioritize since virtually all of Bill 148’s numerous changes are on the chopping block. </p>
<p>Undoubtedly, the various political parties will adopt various stances on policy issues. What is lacking from Bill 47 is any semblance of balance. Rather than use a scalpel to excise those aspects causing “the most concern,” the government used a fish-hook to gut the bill almost entirely. What little is left provides fewer benefits to workers.</p>
<p>But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Bill 47 was the manner in which the Conservatives greeted its introduction in the legislature: standing and clapping while proposing to repeal basic protections for the most vulnerable workers. </p>
<p>Such displays transform the slogan of a government <a href="https://www.ontariopc.ca/plan_for_the_people">“for the people”</a> into Orwellian doublespeak.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105603/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alison Braley-Rattai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ontario’s Conservative government, despite its “for the people” slogan, is repealing basic protections for the province’s most vulnerable workers.Alison Braley-Rattai, Assistant Professor, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1020282018-09-06T21:04:06Z2018-09-06T21:04:06ZFor millennials, employment is a public health challenge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235111/original/file-20180905-45151-1sg6wr0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research among Canadians shows employment to be a critical social determinant of health, partly because those who earn higher wages have more access to safe housing, nutritious foods, social services and medical care. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Millennials now make up the <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/cansim/a26?lang=eng&retrLang=eng&id=2820002&pattern=&csid=">largest share of the Canadian workforce</a> and many are facing precarious working conditions. </p>
<p>As a society, we have previously assumed that if young Canadians invest in formal training and “pay their dues” in poor quality jobs early in their careers, they will work their way into better quality employment. A <a href="https://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/no-safe-harbour">recent report</a> from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) suggests a different reality.</p>
<p>The study, based on a national survey of 1,000 professionals, found that 22 per cent are working in precarious situations, characterized by contract work, part-time hours, unpredictable incomes and a lack of paid sick days. </p>
<p>It reports that working in a professional job no longer provides Canadians with working conditions that are optimal for health, regardless of skills and training. And that Canadians are most susceptible to this job instability at the early stages of their career. </p>
<p>My own research at the <a href="https://www.iwh.on.ca">Institute for Work & Health</a> reveals that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10926-018-9772-z">many young people with existing health conditions also begin their careers in part-time jobs</a> or <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/technology-and-the-future-of-work/millennials-in-the-gig-economy.html">gig work</a>. These jobs are often an entry point into the labour market, but they offer less access to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/acr.23523">workplace health resources</a> like extended benefits, counselling support or paid sick days. </p>
<p>The long-term public health implications of these trends will be significant, and should be addressed at the policy level. </p>
<h2>Work stress and heart disease</h2>
<p>Research data has consistently shown that work and health are interconnected. </p>
<p>In the late 1960’s, <a href="https://unhealthywork.org/classic-studies/the-whitehall-study/">studies of British civil servants</a> uncovered important links between working conditions and mortality. They found that those working in more stressful jobs — characterized by lower pay, unpredictability and less skill — were more likely to experience chronic diseases ranging from heart disease to depression. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235104/original/file-20180905-45175-13ochec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/235104/original/file-20180905-45175-13ochec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235104/original/file-20180905-45175-13ochec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235104/original/file-20180905-45175-13ochec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235104/original/file-20180905-45175-13ochec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235104/original/file-20180905-45175-13ochec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/235104/original/file-20180905-45175-13ochec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Precarious employment can have a ‘scarring effect’ on millennials, causing problems such as loss of confidence throughout adulthood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Research among Canadians also shows <a href="http://thecanadianfacts.org/the_canadian_facts.pdf">employment to be a critical social determinant of health</a>. Those who earn higher wages have more access to the safe housing, nutritious foods, social services and medical care that provide pathways to better health. </p>
<p>This income-health relationship is reflected in recent data showing that the highest earning Canadians <a href="https://cdhowe.org/sites/default/files/attachments/research_papers/mixed/Rich%20Man%2C%20Poor%20Man%20-%20The%20Policy%20Implications%20of%20Canadians%20Living%20Longer.pdf">live three to eight years longer than the lowest earners</a>. </p>
<h2>‘Generation screwed’</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.economics.mcmaster.ca/pepso/documents/the-generation-effect-full-report.pdf">In a new study of more than 1,000 Canadian millennials</a>, 44 per cent reported job precarity. Close to half of those in precarious jobs also reported depression or anxiety directly related to their working situation.</p>
<p>Job precarity can add to a number of <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/978-1-137-46781-2_13">social and economic challenges</a> facing millennials including rising personal debts, growing costs of living, shrinking access to pensions and lower retirement savings. It is not surprising that some in the media refer to millennials as, “<a href="https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/poor-millennials/">generation screwed</a>.” </p>
<p>The hurdles faced by millennials inside and outside of the workplace can have a “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s40461-014-0012-2">scarring effect</a>” and can contribute to adverse work outcomes (such as unemployment, missed work days, loss of confidence) that <a href="http://www.ilo.org/global/research/global-reports/youth/2013/lang--en/index.htm">extend across adulthood</a>. </p>
<p>The scarring effect can be especially deep for segments of the population that already face higher barriers to the labour market: women, people with disabilities, newcomers or racial minorities. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/governments-know-work-and-living-conditions-can-kill-us-its-time-to-act-96518">Governments know work and living conditions can kill us -- it's time to act</a>
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<p>Prolonged employment in precarious jobs could also have a substantial impact on health. For instance, <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2017-08/IpsosPA_PublicPerspectives_CA_April%202017%20Mental%20Health.pdf">studies indicate that millennials are at the highest risk for mental health issues, an outcome that can be exacerbated by those with lower incomes.</a> </p>
<h2>Policies to ensure pay equity</h2>
<p>Traditional public health interventions tend to focus on behavioural or lifestyle changes to improve the health of youth and young adults. The role of employment in health promotion is often overlooked. </p>
<p>Focusing on the working conditions of millennials offers an important opportunity to foster early and sustained mental health and prevent chronic conditions. </p>
<p>In particular, we need policies to address the changing nature of work for Canadians. In some provinces, recent policy changes have been made to protect workers in precarious jobs by increasing the minimum wage, ensuring pay equity or offering emergency leave. </p>
<p>These changes are an important step forward in improving the working lives of Canadians. </p>
<p>And yet existing policies still fall short of offering tangible pathways for millennials to enhance working conditions and transition to stable employment. </p>
<p>Tackling the specific labour market experiences of millennials represents a critical approach to promoting the health of young Canadians as they enter the workforce and throughout their working lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102028/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arif Jetha receives funding from the Arthritis Society. He s affiliated with Institute for Work & Health and University of Toronto's Dalla Lana School of Public Health</span></em></p>No longer can young people invest in their education and work their way into secure employment. The health impacts of this job insecurity are profound.Arif Jetha, Associate Scientist, Institute of Work and Health, and Assistant Professor, University of TorontoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1011072018-08-14T01:15:41Z2018-08-14T01:15:41ZFinance drives everything — including your insecurity at work<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231629/original/file-20180813-2921-6lsgbq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Finance capital is calling the shots and one of the many consequences of this is increasingly insecure employment.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/dollar-sign-304279232?src=mQ8obY0W4G7PCViSGwqA4Q-1-64">jijomathaidesigners</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There’s a common link between the many things that have promoted insecurity at work: the growth of franchising; labour hire; contracting out; spin-off firms; outsourcing; global supply chains; the gig economy; and so on. It’s money.</p>
<p>At first, that seems too obvious to say. But I’m talking about the way financial concerns have taken control of seemingly every aspect of organisational decision-making.</p>
<p>And behind that lies the rise and rise of finance capital.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-owns-the-world-tracing-half-the-corporate-giants-shares-to-30-owners-59963">Who owns the world? Tracing half the corporate giants' shares to 30 owners</a>
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<p>Over the past three decades there has been a <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/theausinstitute/pages/2838/attachments/original/1532441299/Labour_Share_Symposium_Peetz.pdf?1532441299">shift in resources from the rest of the economy to finance</a>. Specifically, to finance <em>capital</em>.</p>
<p>One way to see this is in the chart below. It shows the income shares of labour and capital, and the breakdown for each between the finance and non-finance (“industrial”) sectors, in two four-year periods. They were 1990-91 to 1993-94 (when the ABS started publishing income by industry) and, most recently, 2013-14 to 2016-17. (I use four-year periods to reduce annual fluctuations and show the longer-term trends. <a href="https://d3n8a8pro7vhmx.cloudfront.net/theausinstitute/pages/2838/attachments/original/1532441299/Labour_Share_Symposium_Peetz.pdf?1532441299">Here</a> is more detail and explanation of methods.)</p>
<h2>Income shares of labour and capital</h2>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231263/original/file-20180809-30464-pr7pkc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/231263/original/file-20180809-30464-pr7pkc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231263/original/file-20180809-30464-pr7pkc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231263/original/file-20180809-30464-pr7pkc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=391&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231263/original/file-20180809-30464-pr7pkc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231263/original/file-20180809-30464-pr7pkc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/231263/original/file-20180809-30464-pr7pkc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=491&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Factor shares by industry, 1990-94 and 2013-17.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Source: ABS Cat No 5206.0</span></span>
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<p>The key thing to notice in the chart is that finance capital’s share of national income doubled (it’s the dark red boxes in the lower right-hand side of the chart), while everyone else’s went down.</p>
<p>So, over that quarter-century, <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/ABS@Archive.nsf/log?openagent&5204046_factor_income_by_industry.xls&5204.0&Time%20Series%20Spreadsheet&0B9214F6B9273E85CA2581C50014A63A&0&2016-17&27.10.2017&Latest">the share of labour income (wages, salaries and supplements) in national income fell</a>. In the early 1990s it totalled 55.02% — that’s what you get when you add labour income in finance, 3.21%, to labour income in “industrial” sectors, 51.81%. In recent years this fell to 53.58%. There were falls in both finance labour income (from 3.81 to 2.83% of national income) and industrial labour income.</p>
<p>The total share of profits and “mixed income” accordingly rose from 44.99% to 46.42%. The thing is, all of that increase (and a bit more) went to finance capital. Profits in finance went from 3.16% to 6.16% of the economy. </p>
<p>At the same time there has been a large increase in the share of national income going to the very wealthy — the top 0.1% — in <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1631072">Australia</a> and many <a href="https://www.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/en/news/the-top-incomes-database-new-website/">other countries</a>.</p>
<p>This shift in resources does not reflect more people being needed to do important finance jobs. Nor is it higher rewards for workers in finance. The portion of national income, and for that matter <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/ProductsbyCatalogue/5F60A449AE6DE5F6CA258090000ED52A?OpenDocument">employment</a>, devoted to labour in the financial sector actually fell from 3.21% to 2.83%. </p>
<p>The economy devotes proportionately no more labour time now to financial services than it did a quarter century ago. Yet rewards to finance have increased immensely. The share of national income going to “industrial” sector profits and “mixed income” has declined.</p>
<p>In short, the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/The_End_of_Laissez_Faire.html?id=GKAiBAAAQBAJ&redir_esc=y">widely recognised</a> <a href="https://www.bis.org/publ/work231.htm">shift in income</a> from <a href="http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/83616/1/dp1482.pdf">labour to capital</a> is really a net shift in income from labour, and from capital (including unincorporated enterprises) in other industries, to finance capital. </p>
<h2>Finance matters</h2>
<p>You may have heard about “<a href="http://www.levyinstitute.org/publications/financialization">financialisation</a>”. It’s not really about more financial activity. It is about the growth of finance capital and its impact on the behaviour of other actors.</p>
<p>Financialisation has led to finance capital taking the <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-owns-the-world-tracing-half-the-corporate-giants-shares-to-30-owners-59963">lead shareholdings in most large corporations</a>, not just in Australia but in other major countries (to varying degrees) as well. </p>
<p>This role as main shareholder and, of course, chief lender to industrial capital has driven the corporate restructuring over the past three decades that has led to greater worker insecurity and low wages growth (as I recently discussed <a href="https://theconversation.com/self-employment-and-casual-work-arent-increasing-but-so-many-jobs-are-insecure-whats-going-on-100668">here</a>). </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/who-owns-the-world-tracing-half-the-corporate-giants-shares-to-30-owners-59963">Who owns the world? Tracing half the corporate giants' shares to 30 owners</a>
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<p>When “industrial capital” has been restructured over recent decades — to promote franchising, labour hire, contracting out, spin-off firms, outsourcing, global supply chains, and even the emergence of the gig economy — it has been driven by the demands of finance capital. Casualisation is just one manifestation of this.</p>
<h2>Short-term logic</h2>
<p>Now there’s no conspiracy here (or, at least, the system doesn’t rely on one). There is actually a lot of competitive mindset in the financial sector. This is just the logic of how the system increasingly has come to work. Financial returns, particularly over the short term, have become the principal (really, the only) fact driving corporate behaviour.</p>
<p>This has come at the expense of human considerations. </p>
<p>That same logic is behind resistance to action on climate change. Continuing carbon emissions are the perfect, and deadly, example of short-term profits overriding longer-term interests.</p>
<p>Yet even finance capital is not monolithic. There are <a href="https://theconversation.com/class-and-climate-how-financial-warfare-affects-the-air-23019">parts of finance capital</a> that have a longer-term perspective (“<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/85broads/2012/12/19/theres-no-business-on-a-dead-planet-green-business-is-good-business-the-necessity-of-paradigm-changes/#54d71e737547">there’s no business on a dead planet</a>”). So they are effectively in battle with those parts of finance capital for which the short term is everything. The former <em>want</em> governments to intervene in, for example, carbon pricing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/class-and-climate-how-financial-warfare-affects-the-air-23019">Class and climate: how financial warfare affects the air</a>
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<h2>Policy questions</h2>
<p>All this leaves some big questions for policymakers about how to redress the new imbalance of power.</p>
<p>In part, it requires changing institutional arrangements (including industrial relations laws) that in recent years have made it much harder for workers to obtain a fair share of increases in national income. It requires rethinking of how we regulate work.</p>
<p>But it also requires rethinking of how we regulate product markets and financial markets.</p>
<p>The almost <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/235201468764398871/Financial-deregulation-and-the-globalization-of-capital-markets">global reduction in regulation</a> <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/business/project_syndicate/2011/05/listen_to_the_imf_america.html">of the financial sector</a> over three decades ago has ultimately led to this imbalance. It is time to rethink all of that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101107/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Peetz receives funding from the Australian Research Council and, as a university employee, has undertaken research over many years with occasional financial support from governments from both sides of politics, employers, unions and international organisations. The research for this particular project was funded within the university.</span></em></p>Less secure jobs are just one aspect of the rise of finance capital. It’s a driver of increasingly uneven income distributions and corporate priorities that are now putting our future at risk.David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1006682018-08-02T20:23:50Z2018-08-02T20:23:50ZSelf-employment and casual work aren’t increasing but so many jobs are insecure – what’s going on?<p>That <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-has-the-level-of-casual-employment-in-australia-stayed-steady-for-the-past-18-years-56212">casualisation</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-jobs-arent-becoming-less-secure-99739">self-employment</a> rates are not increasing is often trotted out to dispute perceptions that workplace insecurity is growing.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/australian-jobs-arent-becoming-less-secure-99739">Australian jobs aren't becoming less secure</a>
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<p>But retorts like this miss a few key points.</p>
<p>First, the real causes of growing insecurity aren’t the type of contracts people are on. While these things matter, the real causes of insecurity are the way organisations are being structured these days. This is designed to minimise costs, transfer risk from corporations to employees, and centralise power away from employees.</p>
<p>Second, aggregate data mask variations between industries. </p>
<p>Third (and least importantly) there are some measurement issues. </p>
<h2>Reducing cost and risk</h2>
<p>Large corporations want to minimise their costs and risks, avoid accountability when things go wrong and ensure products have the features they want.</p>
<p>This partially explains the <a href="https://s3-ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/wh1.thewebconsole.com/wh/1401/images/FranchisingAustralia2014_webversion.pdf">dramatic increase</a> in franchised businesses – the franchisee bears responsibility for scandals such as <a href="https://www.mybusiness.com.au/human-resources/4156-7-eleven-wages-scandal-snares-more-operators">underpaying workers</a>. </p>
<p>Other corporations <a href="https://www.afr.com/news/policy/industrial-relations/baiada-to-pay-500000-to-underpaid-contractors-20151025-gkhzg7">call in labour hire companies</a> to take on responsibility for their workers. This cuts costs and transfers risk down the chain – which means jobs are more insecure. </p>
<p>Some set up spin-offs or subsidiaries. Some just outsource to contracting firms.</p>
<p>Most people working for franchises, spin-offs, subsidiaries and labour hire firms are still <em>employees</em>. It’s more efficient for capital to control workers through the employment relationship than to pay them piece rates as contractors. That would run the risk of worker desertion or of shortcuts affecting quality. </p>
<h2>Is casualisation the same as insecurity?</h2>
<p>Even employees at the bottom of the supply chain might get annual and sick leave. Offering leave helps attract labour and might be cheaper than paying <a href="https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media-releases/newsletter/august-2014/understanding-casual-penalty-rates">casual loading</a>. </p>
<p>And there’s no need to hire someone on a casual contract if you can make them redundant when the work dries up — if, for example, you lose your contract with the main parent firm. If your firm can go bankrupt, then you often won’t even have to pay redundancy benefits. </p>
<p>There are also the measurement issues. The Australian Bureau of Statistics counts the number of “<a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats%5Cabs@.nsf/mediareleasesbyCatalogue/A4A44798D68CAFB9CA257EEA000C5421?Opendocument">employees without paid leave entitlements</a>”. People take this to mean “casuals”. On this measure, the share of casuals in the workforce has shifted little in a decade, after growing substantially earlier.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-has-the-level-of-casual-employment-in-australia-stayed-steady-for-the-past-18-years-56212">FactCheck: has the level of casual employment in Australia stayed steady for the past 18 years?</a>
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<p>If we take the liberty of labelling people without leave as “casuals”, then the number of <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/log?openagent&63330do001c_201708.xls&6333.0&Data%20Cubes&FCE52FD7598B96D7CA25823D0018F76F&0&August%202017&26.02.2018&Latest">“casual” full-timers grew by 38%</a> between 2009 and 2017. Labour hire workers are usually casual full-time workers. </p>
<p>“Permanent” full-timers (those with annual leave) grew by just 10%. </p>
<p>On the other hand, some organisations have found relying on part-time casuals counterproductive, as workers had no commitment and became unreliable. Some large retailers now use “permanent” part-timers rather than casuals. </p>
<p>So-called “casual” part-timers <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/productsbyCatalogue/A8CAED8E5F9FB2E1CA257F1F00044E8C?OpenDocument">grew by just 13%</a> between 2009 and 2016. “Permanent” part-timers grew by 36%.</p>
<p>A lot of variation between industries and periods is hidden by aggregate figures. Franchising has grown in retailing. Labour hire in mining. Outsourcing in the public sector. Second jobs in manufacturing. Spin-offs in communications. Casualisation in education and training. Global supply chains send jobs overseas to low-paid, often dangerous workplaces in a number of industries.</p>
<p>The ABS doesn’t measure the precarity of work experienced by people who now work in franchises, spin-offs, subsidiaries or contractor firms. But as their continued employment depends on the fortunes of their direct employer, more than the firm at the top of the chain, precarity is real.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-employment-is-rising-rapidly-among-men-new-research-94821">Precarious employment is rising rapidly among men: new research</a>
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<h2>Underemployment has grown</h2>
<p>Many “permanent” part-time jobs may be good jobs. But the continuing growth of part-time employment is linked to another form of insecurity – underemployment.</p>
<p>Between 2010-11 and 2016-17, the number of hours sought, but not worked, by underemployed people <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/SUBSCRIBER.NSF/log?openagent&6150055003do022_2016201706.xls&6150.0.55.003&Data%20Cubes&C0AC682CFBB6D9C6CA2582CC001FF16C&0&September%202017&17.07.2018&Latest">grew by 31%</a>. This is five times the total growth in hours worked. </p>
<p>Large firms don’t even need to spin off workers to smaller business units to make use of underemployment.</p>
<p>There are other important sources of worker insecurity. In Australia, for example, firms <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2017/08/29/streets-look-to-cut-workers-pay-and-ice-cream-fans-are-furious_a_23187395/">can seek to have enterprise agreements terminated</a>, or get a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-28/esso-protest-marks-12-months-with-union-gathering-at-longford/9918668">handful of workers</a> to sign new agreements, to cut pay and conditions. </p>
<p>Some firms seek to put employees onto <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/factory-workers-strike-over-contract-plan-20050503-ge0344.html">contrived</a> arrangements that make them out to be contractors. Often that’s <a href="https://www.business.gov.au/people/contractors/independent-contractors/unfair-contracts-and-sham-contracts">illegal</a>. </p>
<p>The growing insecurity and hence low power of workers – even those with leave entitlements – helps explain why <a href="https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/economy/2018/05/12/the-truth-about-wage-stagnation/15260472006221">wage growth is stagnating</a>. </p>
<p>Indeed, the successful “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace/war-on-wages-australians-are-working-harder-and-going-backwards-20170803-gxoh9c.html">war on wages</a>” may be the biggest sign of worker insecurity. </p>
<h2>And what about the gig economy?</h2>
<p>The gig economy, or more accurately the platform economy, is a big challenge to the employment relationship. This is because virtual platforms provide a new, cheap form of control that may replace the need for the employment relationship. </p>
<p>But there are still limits to the use of cost cutting and of platform control. The gig economy will grow, but it won’t overtake the employment relationship.</p>
<p>Gig work is one form of self-employment and we should remember that, overall, self-employment is not increasing. Self-employment declined between 2000 and 2014 in 26 countries for which data were available, and increased in only 11 (see chart below).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229705/original/file-20180729-106521-3hokgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229705/original/file-20180729-106521-3hokgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/229705/original/file-20180729-106521-3hokgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229705/original/file-20180729-106521-3hokgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229705/original/file-20180729-106521-3hokgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229705/original/file-20180729-106521-3hokgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229705/original/file-20180729-106521-3hokgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/229705/original/file-20180729-106521-3hokgi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Changes in self-employment, 2000-2014, various countries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">OECD</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What’s more, even the relative importance of large firms in total employment is not decreasing. That’s probably because of another trend — the <a href="https://www.themonthly.com.au/blog/andrew-leigh-and-adam-triggs/2017/17/2017/1495011536/few-big-firms">concentration</a> of <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2016/03/24/corporate-concentration">markets</a> in the hands of those firms.</p>
<p>In short, large powerful firms are getting more powerful, but their directly employed workforces are not getting larger. The result is a lot of workers with insecure incomes and a lot of insecure small-business owners as well.</p>
<p>This means insecurity gnaws away, even while the employment relationship remains the dominant mode for deploying labour, and employment with leave entitlements remains its main form.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/100668/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Peetz has received funding over the years from the Australian Research Council and a range of public and private sector organisations. This article does not directly arise from any of those projects.</span></em></p>Most workers are still employees, not casuals or gig workers. So what has changed to increase the insecurity of workers?David Peetz, Professor of Employment Relations, Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/997392018-07-16T20:10:23Z2018-07-16T20:10:23ZAustralian jobs aren’t becoming less secure<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227062/original/file-20180711-27039-447pve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Gig platforms don't have a large share of the labour market yet.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mavis Wong</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A common narrative nowadays is that standard, secure full-time work is a thing of the past thanks to increasing casual jobs, labour hire, temping and non-standard work contracts that side-step collective bargaining. The ACTU says insecure work has grown to “<a href="https://www.actu.org.au/media/349417/lives_on_hold.pdf">crisis levels</a>”. A <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/AvoidanceofFairWork">Senate inquiry rehashed</a> the same themes last year. Much of the academic literature is also <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10301763.2018.1427424?journalCode=rlab20">toeing this line</a>. </p>
<p>Yet there is very little evidence that jobs are any less secure than they were decades ago. This is not to deny that some people are leading very precarious lives. <a href="https://www.canberratimes.com.au/politics/federal/company-fined-record-660000-for-paying-refugee-worker-as-little-as-350-an-hour-20170802-gxnrsf.html">Recent stories</a> of wage theft and exploitation, particularly among migrant workers, are truly disgraceful. </p>
<p>But, on the whole, Australian workers are not on some inexorable march toward an uncertain and perilous future of work. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/precarious-employment-is-rising-rapidly-among-men-new-research-94821">Precarious employment is rising rapidly among men: new research</a>
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<p>It is true that the labour market has changed. The types of jobs we do and the industries we do them in are very different today than in the ’70s. There’s a <a href="https://theconversation.com/three-charts-on-how-part-time-work-is-growing-more-slowly-but-more-men-are-doing-it-79352">lot more part-time work</a>. There’s a lot <a href="https://theconversation.com/women-are-less-likely-to-be-replaced-by-robots-and-might-even-benefit-from-automation-96728">more women</a> in the workforce. The balance of industrial power has shifted in favour of employers. </p>
<p>These changes partly reflect the restructuring of the economy away from some industries (such as manufacturing) and toward those that offer more part-time and casual work (retail, food, accommodation services and the like). But it is also the result of decades of concerted industrial relations reform, along with sweeping changes in individual work preferences. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-costs-of-a-casual-job-are-now-outweighing-any-pay-benefits-82207">The costs of a casual job are now outweighing any pay benefits</a>
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<p>There is no widely accepted definition of precarious employment. After all, every job is precarious to some extent. Nevertheless there are some common proxies for this slippery concept. </p>
<p>The rise of casual employment was <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10301763.1998.10669175">an early favourite</a> and is still very relevant. More <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8462.12085">recent research</a> has broadened the scope to include job tenure and involuntary job-loss rates. <a href="https://theconversation.com/workers-are-actually-feeling-less-insecure-in-their-jobs-81836">Others</a> emphasise workers’ own perceptions of job security. There has also been interest in the rate of <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1475-4932.12337">self-employment</a>, the number of <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/fli/journl/35019.html">multiple job holders</a> and the share of workers handled by <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/supporting/labour-hire">labour hire firms</a>.</p>
<p>Four of these measures cut to the heart of precarity:</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>casual employment</strong> is a measure of precarious contracts</li>
<li><strong>job churn</strong> reveals the extent to which employers are hiring and firing with impunity</li>
<li><strong>self-employment</strong> captures all of the gig economy workers who are supposedly flooding the labour market</li>
<li><strong>multiple job holders</strong> could be so precariously attached to the labour market that they’re unable to make ends meet with a single job.</li>
</ol>
<p>On their own, each of these measures is a good but imperfect proxy for precarity. Taken together, however, they largely speak with one compelling voice. </p>
<h2>Casualisation</h2>
<p>The logic of the casual job is to give employers the flexibility to dial their staffing levels up and down as demand fluctuates. Casual workers don’t get annual and sick leave, and generally aren’t protected against dismissal. </p>
<p>Basically, a casual contract lets an employer hire and fire with impunity.</p>
<p>That sounds pretty precarious. You would expect that a labour market of increasing precarity would exhibit a strong trend toward casualisation. In fact, what we have had is strong growth in casual employment during the last two decades of the 20th century and then nothing.</p>
<p><iframe id="UEcUf" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/UEcUf/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Now there is no doubt that casual work is usually lower-quality work. On the whole, casual workers <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0018726716686666">get paid less, chase more hours</a> and are a little <a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1718/CasualEmployeesAustralia">less satisfied</a> than their permanently employed peers.</p>
<p>But that is not evidence that casual employment is becoming ubiquitous.</p>
<h2>Churn</h2>
<p>If employers really were hiring and firing with abandon we should see more people staying in jobs for briefer periods. But we’re not. </p>
<p>In fact, as we can see in the chart below, there has not been a huge spike in workers forced out of their jobs involuntarily. And the proportion that have been in their jobs for 12 months is also staying on trend.</p>
<p><iframe id="QysPX" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QysPX/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
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<h2>Self-employment</h2>
<p>This category should be the smoking gun of a more precarious workforce. It captures anyone who works for themselves, whether in a formally constituted company or not. I have deliberately excluded in this measure those who employ others, so we’re really looking at the cohort of people who work for themselves and by themselves on commercial contract terms. </p>
<p>Self-employment captures all non-employees, such as Uber drivers and Foodora riders, as well as those who were “pushed out” of employment and onto contract.</p>
<p>And yet, as you can see in the following chart, these people are getting harder to find:</p>
<p><iframe id="yt2iA" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/yt2iA/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The downward trend may seem surprising given one supposed key driver of precarity is the digitalised “gig economy”. <a href="https://http-download.intuit.com/http.intuit/CMO/intuit/futureofsmallbusiness/intuit_2020_report.pdf">One projection</a> was that 40% of the US workforce would be freelancers, contractors or temporary workers by 2020. </p>
<p>But the reality is that, for all their visibility and controversy, gig economy platforms are not yet commanding a significant share of the labour market.</p>
<h2>Multiple job holders</h2>
<p>That a higher share of workers are holding down multiple jobs fits with the notion that the economy is becoming “gigified”, with workers increasingly forced to move from job to job to make ends meet. </p>
<p>Yet the data provide little evidence that this is a material shift in the structure of the labour market.</p>
<p>In 1997, the <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6216.0Aug%201997?OpenDocument">ABS found</a> the proportion of employed persons holding multiple jobs increased from 3.7% in August 1987 to 5.2% a decade later. While the ABS has not published a long-term series since this report, it provided me a custom dataset that shows the current rate is not much higher, at about 5.5%. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6150.0.55.001July%202017?OpenDocument">ABS introduced</a> a similar but not identical measure last year – the proportion of jobs in the economy that are “secondary jobs”. This remained stable between 2010-11 and 2015-16, at around 5.6%.</p>
<h2>The takeaway</h2>
<p>When I started researching the rise of the gig economy and the future of work I was sure that Australia’s labour market was taking a precarious turn. After all, Uber drivers, Deliveroo riders and Airtaskers seem to be everywhere. </p>
<p>But the weight of evidence clearly suggests that, while the last two decades of the 20th century produced a significant rise in non-standard work, the first two decades of the 21st have seen remarkably little change. </p>
<p>There is much to dislike about the quality and quantity of jobs the economy is delivering. But to make this a conversation about precarity is to chase a red herring. </p>
<p>This fruitless pursuit is simply distracting researchers and policymakers from far more pressing questions – like how to create a globally competitive workforce fit for the 21st century.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/99739/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert receives funding from the Australian Government's Research Training Program and is employed by Construction Skills Queensland, a non-profit construction industry training fund. </span></em></p>There is very little evidence that overall labour market insecurity is getting any worse. Trends are stable for rates of casualisation, churn, self-employment and multiple job holders.Robert Sobyra, PhD Candidate, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.