Shaping the Future of Platform Work - NewCo Shift - 0 views
shift.newco.co/-of-platform-work-973b82cd29a9
plateforme régulation sécurité sécurité sociale individu
shared by Aurialie Jublin on 23 Aug 18
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The future of platform work depends on our collective capacity to secure a new bundle for self-employed workers. If we succeed, platform work will indeed rise and become more of a norm in the labour market. If we fail, its promises will never be fulfilled, and we will pay the price in the form of less work and less economic development.
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Some tech companies have been trying to offer more of a bundle (insurance and other benefits) to the workers using their platforms. But they have been prevented from going too far in that direction by the risk of having these workers reclassified as employees.
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In a way, these workers are to traditional work what the proponents of free love are to traditional marriage. They value empowerment over stability. They want the new bundle to bring more, not less, freedom. And so this is the challenge we need to tackle: fostering the rise of platforms while empowering the workers using them.
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Firms can try and attract the best workers by offering better social benefits, as Uber is trying to do with the insurer Axa. But they can also cut these benefits to lower their production cost and offer customers lower prices, which leads to what Michael E. Porter describes as damaging “wars of attrition”.
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If social benefits were mandatory within their industry, it meant that firms needn’t compete by cutting those benefits from their workers, hurting engagement and productivity in the process.
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The reason this trend has been reversed is that there is less and less competition in the labour market. In the US as in the UK, most workers have no choice but to be employed by a few dominant firms. What’s more, with the threat of automation, these firms have more bargaining power over workers, leaving them less interested in offering more benefits or leveling the social playing field. Competition doesn’t translate into more social benefits today.
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This is why governments must step in and regulate platform work — not by curbing it down, but by supporting its rise while better covering workers.