Digital platform work is often seen to suit workers’ skills, interests and schedules. But it comes at a cost to their economic security and control over the work process.
Our five years of research reveals an industry facing push back from both workers and customers. Many workers we spoke with sought to leave the gig economy.
Ning Ma, University of British Columbia and Dongwook Yoon, University of British Columbia
Rating services on ride and task apps disadvantage gig workers, whose future work assignments are affected by their ratings. Women workers are made vulnerable, and have to contend with harassment.
Uber Australia’s deal with the transport workers union signals the Albanese government won’t mess about with attempts to reclassify gig workers as employees.
Uber, the poster company of the gig economy, has agreed its Australian workers deserve more employee-like conditions. Why it has done this now isn’t too hard to work out.
The Uber model hinders any possibility of drivers acting collectively and generates significant cognitive dissonance among them.
(Shutterstock)
John Colley, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
With customers and workers both being squeezed, what does the future look like?
Bike delivery people from the Deliveroo food delivery service gather for a demonstration at Place de la République in Paris in August 2017.
Jacques Demarthon/AFP
A trial in France revealed how the platform’s algorithm established a subordination relationship between riders and the firm. Could we be witnessing the beginning of the end of “uberisation”?
A recent study highlights the precarious world of rideshare and delivery drivers during the pandemic, and their struggle to be heard as non-unionised contractors.
Electric vehicle sales are growing quickly.
Michael Fousert/Unsplash
A new international report on climate change finds rapid changes could cut emissions from transportation by 80% to 90%. Three behavior change trends could bring big improvements.
An Instacart worker loads groceries into her car for home delivery. There is a strong argument to be made that gig work is false self-employment, meaning that workers are not actually freelance.
(AP Photo/Ben Margot)
Feudalism has been replaced by capitalism, and the new villeiny — or neo-villeiny — has emerged to reflect a relationship between a worker and an organization.
Gig work is entering almost every industry and changing the relationship between workers, employers, service providers and customers. But gig workers face new and unique challenges.