Gig Workers

The Latest From On The Picket Line

August 14, 2024 Marie Kelly, Workers' World. Resist! Gig Economy, Gig Workers, Strikes, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

The ongoing battle about whether gig workers are employees or “independent contractors” is continuing. The latest blow against these precarious workers came from the California Supreme Court on July 25. The court upheld Proposition 22, which gives companies like Uber, Lyft and DoorDash the means to cheat their employees out of benefits and bargaining rights by classifying them as independent contractors. According to Rideshare Drivers United: “Today, the Supreme Court of California decided that Prop 22 was not in violation of our state constitution, allowing Big Tech to continue exploiting drivers under a law they wrote and paid for, that replaced decades of common sense labor law in exchange for complete disregard of basic standards like hourly minimum wage standards and basic benefits like unemployment, family leave, workplace safety standards and the like.

Drivers Rally After Getting Kicked Out Of Uber And Lyft Apps

July 25, 2024 Justine Re, Spectrum News. Resist! Gig Economy, Gig Workers, Lyft, Manhattan, New York (NY), New York City (NYC), Strikes, Transportation, Uber

Rideshare drivers rallied at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan Wednesday, protesting getting locked out of the Uber and Lyft apps on their shifts. They chanted, “No drivers, no Uber.” In order to operate, the Taxi and Limousine Commission said Uber and Lyft, combined, need to have passengers riding in their cars 53% of the time. In March 2023, the TLC adjusted the pay formula for the apps for the “empty time component.” That is, the time drivers spend on duty waiting to dispatch with no passenger in their car. City regulations require drivers to be compensated for the time they’re waiting for a dispatch. Uber and Lyft locked drivers out of the app during their shifts.

Global North Uses Online Gig Work To Exploit Global South Workers

August 30, 2023 Tamara Pearson, The Real News. Educate! Gig Workers, Global South, Online work, Worker Rights

Under the cover of Internet invisibility, companies around the globe are using online gig platforms to break labor laws and violate human rights. The so-called gig economy (more akin to digital piecework) is exacerbating poverty and inequality, particularly in the Global South, by circumventing existing labor standards and imposing harsh working conditions and low wages on millions of workers. I was one of those workers, and I was recently fired, after seven years, for speaking up. I had been working as a researcher at the New York-based company Ask Wonder in order to supplement my income as a freelance journalist in Mexico.

Gig Work Is Getting Dangerous

May 14, 2023 Veronica Avila and Mariah Montgomery, Scheer Post. Educate! Gig Workers, Uber, Worker Rights, Workplace Safety

In recent months, stories of rideshare drivers and delivery workers carjacked, robbed, or even killed on the job have made headlines around the country. Now, growing research shows that there is an all-out crisis in app-based work. This May, Gig Workers Rising, PowerSwitch Action, and ACRE released new research that suggests the safety crisis among app workers — especially app workers of color — is escalating. They found that in 2022, at least 31 app workers — three-quarters of them people of color — were murdered while working. That’s more app workers murdered than we have been able to identify in any prior year.

Improvements For NYC’s Delivery Workers’ Safety And Working Conditions To Start In January

December 27, 2021 Sophia Chang, Gothamist. Create! Gig Economy, Gig Workers, New York City (NYC), Worker Rights and Jobs

A slate of city laws for delivery workers is set to kick in the new year and will roll out in stages, commencing in January with more oversight of the delivery apps and increased transparency for the more than 65,000 delivery workers in New York City. Starting next month, delivery apps must be licensed by the city to operate in the five boroughs. By January 24th, licensed apps that take customer orders directly will be required to notify delivery workers how much each customer tips for each delivery, and the total pay and tips for the previous day. The city will now require that restaurants provide the delivery workers with better access to restrooms.

Europe Finally Recognizes Platform Workers Aren’t Self-Employed

December 15, 2021 Ben Wray, The Real News Network. Educate! Europe, Gig Economy, Gig Workers, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

Sometimes change comes from the most unlikely of places. The European Commission—the unelected body of technocrats that designs European Union legislation—isn’t exactly known as a friend of the worker. EU commissioners and their staff are more likely to be found having coffee with corporate lobbyists than rubbing shoulders with the working class. Yet, last week, the EU Commission proposed what some are hailing as the most pro-worker reform to come out of the EU in years—a directive to regulate platform work. Often unfairly treated as self-employed, platform workers are now to be considered employees and thus entitled to the labor rights that are standard for most workers in Europe.

Make Gig Work Decent Work

October 17, 2021 TYRLC, Socialist Project. Create! Canada, Gig Workers, Labor Union, Worker Rights and Jobs

On most days, Doug Ford’s Conservative government in Ontario does not respond well to problems, or it actively makes things worse. If an election had been called a year-and-a-half ago, Ford would have lost. However, when COVID hit, Ford nearly brought Ontario to its knees. Nevertheless, he managed to deceive some into thinking he managed well. Today, he is barely visible, having prorogued Queen’s Park during September’s federal election to protect his federal Conservative counterparts instead of stepping up to protect Ontarians and help guide our recovery. Schools are suffering, hospitals and healthcare workers are short-staffed and stressed. Many Ontarians are ashamed that Ford did not declare September 30th a statutory holiday to remember the colonial impact of residential schools.

Gig Workers Around The World Are Finally Organizing

September 26, 2021 Peter Guest, Rest Of World. Organize! Gig Workers, Global Solidarity, Worker Rights and Jobs

This past July, Singh was on a midnight run, biking a chocolate mousse cake 7 kilometers across Mumbai, when he was rammed by a drunk driver on a scooter from behind. He got off with a few scratches and sprains, but his bike was badly smashed up. The cost of fixing it — 14,000 rupees ($189) — is about what he takes home in a month working for Zomato, the Indian food and grocery delivery app. So for the last month, he’s been fixing it up a bit at a time whenever he can get the money together. Singh, in his 40s, speaks in long, flowing sentences peppered with literary references and fatalistic humor. He began riding for Zomato in 2020 after struggling to find work in India’s shrinking job market. “I googled ‘jobs I can find today,’” he told Rest of World.

Report: NYC Food Delivery Workers Face Low Pay, High Risks

September 25, 2021 Ben Yakas, Gothamist. Educate! Gig Workers, Health Care, New York City (NYC), Worker Rights and Jobs

New York City's 65,000+ food delivery workers were celebrated as essential workers throughout the pandemic. But according to a damning new study, they aren't actually being treated that way—instead, they routinely earn low wages well below New York's minimum wage, lack basic labor and employment protections, and face dangerous working conditions on the streets of NYC. The report released this week, which was conducted by advocacy group Worker’s Justice Project in partnership with Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations, is a four-month-long survey (December 2020-April 2021) of 500 app-based workers throughout the five boroughs, many of whom work for the likes of Grubhub, Doordash and UberEats.

#DeleteInstacart

September 25, 2021 Gig Workers Collective. Resist! Gig Workers, Instacart, Worker Rights and Jobs

For the past 5 years, shoppers have repeatedly sounded the alarm regarding Instacart’s misappropriation of tips, theft of tips, unsafe working conditions, continuous and increasingly devastating pay cuts, and more. Instacart responded by completely ignoring the concerns of its shoppers, retaliating against shoppers for speaking out, or offering extremely minimal tokens of appeasement accompanied by insincere apologies for its actions. In July, shoppers’ were optimistic for better treatment when Instacart hired a new CEO, Fidji Simo. That optimism, however, was short-lived, and it has become abundantly clear that Instacart remains true to its morally corrupt nature and will never do right by its shoppers.

How Delivery Workers Are Organizing To Take On The Apps

June 14, 2021 Luis Feliz Leon, Labor Notes. Organize! Gig Workers, New York City (NYC), Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

More than 2,000 food couriers snarled traffic in Times Square through pouring rain in protest April 21 demanding better working conditions and protection from violent assaults. The mass demonstration was organized by Los Deliveristas Unidos, a loose network of immigrant gig workers that was born in the strife of the pandemic last year through online chat groups on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram. Since then, Los Deliveristas have coalesced into an organization with support from the Brooklyn-based Worker’s Justice Project (WJP), a worker center that organizes immigrants in construction and service sector jobs. WJP has received backing from Service Employees Local 32BJ. Learn more about Los Deliveristas in our June cover story, “Can a Driver Uprising Make Food Apps Deliver?”

You Can Ditch Uber For A Driver-Owned Rideshare App

June 3, 2021 Whitney Kimball, Gizmodo. Create! Gig Workers, New York City (NYC), Uber, Worker Rights and Jobs

The thank-you banners are down, but New York City residents have a real opportunity to show their appreciation for a population of low-paid, primarily immigrant frontline workers. New York City residents can help now by ditching Uber and Lyft for a competing driver-owned alternative app called “Co-op Ride,” created by the mostly volunteer-run Drivers Cooperative. If Co-op’s proposal plays out, drivers could make more money while their passengers, particularly those in underserved communities, could end up paying less for rides. Launched this past weekend and now available to New York City residents ****in the App Store and Google Play, Co-op Ride is a cooperative, driver-owned business.

Draft Legislation Would Put Gig Workers Into Toothless ‘Unions’

May 23, 2021 Joe DeManuelle-Hall, Labor Notes. Educate! Finance and the Economy, Gig Workers, New York (NY), Worker Rights and Jobs

New York - An effort backed by the New York State AFL-CIO would create a new bargaining scheme for app-based workers without addressing the question of whether or not these workers are legally “employees.” Labor Notes obtained a draft version of the legislation that is being negotiated by unions and app employers. Workers for apps like Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash are currently considered independent contractors; most in the labor movement consider them misclassified, a tactic the companies use to avoid paying the full cost of benefits. These workers are blocked from unionizing by antitrust laws, and don’t have the protection of the National Labor Relations Board (or many other protections).

Why Delivery Workers Across The Planet Are Rising Up

April 30, 2021 Taroa Zuniga Silva, Peoples Dispatch. Resist! Delivery workers, Gig Workers, Pandemic, Worker Rights

On February 22, 2019, at 6 pm, a car crashed into Servio Hernández’s motorcycle. Hernández, a Venezuelan migrant in Chile, was hit while he was in the middle of making a delivery for PedidosYa, a branch of the German multinational company Delivery Hero. When Hernández arrived at the hospital, the first thing he did was ask the medical staff to let his supervisor know about the accident. “There is nothing we can do for him,” the supervisor told the doctor. The supervisor turned off his phone and blocked Hernández from being able to access the PedidosYa app. Servio Hernández is one of the millions of workers around the world, from Chile to South Korea, who hustle to deliver food and other products to people’s homes.

Build New Infrastructure For A Broader Movement

February 25, 2021 Jeff Ordower, Organizing Upgrade. Organize! Direct Action, Gig Workers, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

The huge upswing in worker organizing in 2020 often had union support, but with an experimental twist. Over the first few months of the COVID-19 epidemic, workers from bridal shops to pizza places to supermarkets were organizing to get Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), and winning. They used tools like the coworker.org site, which helps anyone start up a petition in their workplace and make demands. Groups like the Emergency Workplace Organizing Committee (EWOC), a project of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the United Electrical Workers Union (UE) supported those workers taking independent action. EWOC provides a sophisticated intake system combined with veteran labor movement coaches to support workers winning their demands.

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