Group items tagged

"The TWC is a network of progressive and left-wing workers throughout the tech industry who are trying to organize and bring the labor movement into Silicon Valley, particularly parts of it that have not been grounds for labor organizing thus far. You can consider us to be a kind of workers center, that facilitates the building of new communities and new networks that are separate and in opposition to the business interests of the tech industry."

"Eurofound assesses the physical and social environment, autonomy, employment status and access to social protection, and earnings and taxation based on interviews with platform workers. A comparative analysis of the regulatory frameworks applying to platform work in 18 EU Member States accompanies this review. This looks into workers' employment status, the formal relationships between clients, workers and platforms, and the organisation and representation of workers and platforms."

"This paper discusses the implications of this commodification and advocates the full recognition of activities in the gig-economy as "work". It shows how the gig-economy is not a separate silo of the economy and that is part of broader phenomena such as casualization and informalisation of work and the spread of non-standard forms of employment. It then analyses the risks associated to these activities with regard to Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, as they are defined by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and addresses the issue of misclassification of the employment status of workers in the gig-economy. Current relevant trends are thus examined, such as the emergence of forms of self-organisation of workers. Finally, some policy proposals are critically analysed, such as the possibility of creating an intermediate category of worker between "employee" and "independent contractor" to classify work in the gig-economy, and other tentative proposals are put forward such extension of fundamental labour rights to all workers irrespective of employment status, and recognition of the role of social partners in this respect."

Un exemple de création de plateforme coopérative dans les services à la personne : "To counter poor labor practices, gig workers and entrepreneurs are now taking matters into their own hands by launching their own digital platforms for various services. Called "platform cooperatives," these businesses bring the structure of traditional cooperatives, including worker ownership and governance, to the digital world. This June, Cruz and five others formed Brightly Cleaning, a worker-owned cooperative, with support from two social service organizations based in New York City, New York: The La Colmena Staten Island Community Job Center and the Center for Family Life. Brightly Cleaning soon became one of the first members of the new platform cooperative Up & Go."

"Uber drivers are getting minimum-wage protection for the very first time By Alison GriswoldDecember 4, 2018 New York City voted Tuesday (Dec. 4) to enact a first-of-its-kind pay floor for ride-hail drivers, who as independent contractors are not protected by federal or state minimum-wage laws. The pay standard approved by the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission aims to raise drivers' take-home pay to $17.22 an hour, an increase of 44%. The new pay floor, which takes effect in 30 days, could raise annual wages for 70,000 professional drivers in the city by as much as $9,600. The taxi commission's actions come amid a devastating string of suicides by professional drivers in New York City. Eight drivers have died by suicide since late 2017: Roy Kim, a yellow cab owner and driver; Fausto Luna, an Uber driver; Abdul Saleh, a yellow cab lease driver; Yu Mein Kenny Chow, a yellow cab owner and driver; Nicanor Ochisor, a yellow taxi owner and driver; Danilo Corporan Castillo, a Bronx livery driver; Alfredo Perez, a Bronx livery driver; and Douglas Schifter, a black-car driver. A common theme in each case was economic despair and a sense of betrayal by politicians and regulators who allowed the yellow-cab industry to be steamrolled by companies like Uber and Lyft. Castillo wrote his suicide note on the back of a taxi commission summons. Schifter shot himself in front of City Hall. "This first-time regulation to form a floor for app driver earnings and give a modest first raise is a long time in the making," Bhairavi Desai, executive director of the pro-driver New York Taxi Workers Alliance said in a statement. "It's the first real attempt anywhere to stop app driver pay cuts, which is an Uber and Lyft business practice at the heart of poverty wages." The pay standard approved by the commission makes use of a clever formula devised by economists James Parrott and Michael Reich for a July report on driver earnings commissioned by New York City. T

"In fiscal year 2015, the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) launched the Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative (WCBDI) as a way to reduce poverty and income inequality through support of worker-owned cooperatives."

"The size of the gig economy reveals a lot about the forces affecting the welfare of American workers. In particular, understanding the difference between who chooses to be a gig worker and who is forced to work multiple jobs with no benefits out of necessity will help labor market experts (and employers) design policies for improving job quality and job security while maintaining flexibility. "

"In discussing what they would like to see in the platform co-op, the young women emphasized their concerns about safety when traveling to clients and working in their private homes. In the workshop, the women asked for a panic button for workers to be integrated into the app. The button would allow them to quickly alert two friends and the police in case of an emergency. One of the more experienced beauty workers strongly felt that there should be no individual worker profiles available to customers. In order to protect the women from assault and harassment, users of the app should have no choice over which co-op member who is providing a particular service. They also expressed interest in a GPS feature that would allow a co-op manager to know their whereabouts."

"The results indicate that digital intensive industries especially reward workers having relatively higher levels of self-organisation and advanced numeracy skills. Moreover, for workers in digital intensive industries, bundles of skills are particularly important: workers endowed with a high level of numeracy skills receive an additional wage premium, if they also show high levels of self-organisation or managing and communication skills."

"For the first time ever, Antuna's labor union, Culinary Workers Union Local 226, which represents 50,000 cooks, servers, housekeepers and other workers at 34 casino-hotels in Las Vegas, is making automation a big part of current negotiations for a new contract. "

The ILabour Project, porté par Alex Wood, Otto Kässi et Sanna Ojanperäl, de l'Université d'Oxford, propose une recension, une analyse et un mapping des différentes organisations de digital workers qui se mettent en place dans le mond

"this industry has, until recently, operated largely informally, with jobs secured by word-of-mouth. That's changing, as employers are increasingly turning to Uber-like services to find nannies, housecleaners and other care workers. These new gig economy companies, while making it easier for some people to find short-term work, have created hardships for others, and may leave many experienced care workers behind."

"In the area around Barcelona, among the thousands of members of the Catalan Integral Cooperative, I got a glimpse of what twenty-first-century cooperatives might look like. Rather than securing old-fashioned jobs, these independent workers help each other become less dependent on salaries, and more able to rely on the housing, food, childcare, and computer code they hold in common. They trade with their own digital currency. In cases like this, the traditional lines between workers, producers, consumers, and depositors may become harder to draw."

Un livreur a été licencié pour avoir refusé de quitter un "chat group" de livreurs portant sur les conditions de travail et de rémunération chez Foodora. Le "Transport Workers Union" va porter plainte.

"While most criticism of the platform giants has so far been focused on whether or not their business models treat workers fairly; in 2018 we predict that those workers who power large parts of the collaborative economy will take constructive, collective action. Inspired by the disruptive nature of the platforms they work through, they will create services and organisations that themselves disrupt and evolve the marketplace, rebalancing power and distributing revenue differently."

Intervention d'Antonio Casilli sur le digital labor lors de la 1re journée Sharers & Workers, mis en ligne le 15 septembre 2016 sur Casilli.fr

"workers need to learn what some are calling "hybrid" skills: a combination of technical knowledge of the new technology with aptitudes for communications and problem-solving. "

"Robots have had no aggregate effect on German employment, and robot exposure is found to actually increase the chances of workers staying with their original employer. This effect seems to be largely down to efforts of work councils and labour unions, but is also the result of fewer young workers entering manufacturing careers."

"1) The platform is owned by the workers or the workers alongside other people who have a stake in this platform. These might be users or consumers. This is about coming into economic power; it is about the move from the blueprints to actual economic power. You cannot substantially change what you do not own. 2) The platform is democratically governed which means that the people who depend on it most, have a say in what happens on it.Importantly, the idea is not to create a clone of the likes of Airbnb or Uber. It isn't about creating replicas. But we do rip the algorithmic heart out of these platforms only to put in a different code based on our values: cooperative values."

Intervention de Kristy Milland, de Turkernation, lors de la conférence sur le Platform Cooperativism. Turkernation est un forum pour que les travailleurs d'Amazon Mechanical Turk puissent échanger sur leurs conditions de travail et s'organiser collectivement.