Despite having worked in the gig economy and experiencing the purported advantages of working outside a full time employee arrangement — or perhaps because of this — I am somewhat hostile to this new form of work because it clearly and unfairly advantages one side (business) over the other (the people who perform the labour) in new and perverse ways.
The lack of regulation, or the slow pace to keep up with labour market innovations leaves a gap for supposed ‘tech companies’ to exploit human resources and make hay while the sun shines. It provides an unfair competitive advantage over other businesses who are competing in a regulated environment with all its associated costs and bureaucratic burden, and at the same time lowers the bar of what’s acceptable in our society, changing the labour landscape. The hard fought rights of workers are being stripped away in a race to the bottom of gig workers struggling to make a living, while excessive profits are made by so-labelled innovators who do little more than develop some software and succeed in mass marketing, then take a clip for every hour you work or gig you perform.
We’re told it’s liberating people.
Apparently, gig workers are micro-entrepreneurs living the dream of self-determined work lives…
