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The gig economy : a critical introduction
\"All of a sudden, everybody's talking about the gig economy. Drawing upon years of research, stories from gig workers, and a review of the key trends and debates, Jamie Woodcock and Mark Graham shed light on how the gig economy came to be, how it works and what it's like to work in it\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Gurus, hired guns, and warm bodies
Over the last several decades, employers have increasingly replaced permanent employees with temporary workers and independent contractors to cut labor costs and enhance flexibility. Although commentators have focused largely on low-wage temporary work, the use of skilled contractors has also grown exponentially, especially in high-technology areas. Yet almost nothing is known about contracting or about the people who do it. This book seeks to break the silence.
eBook
Whose Work Counts? Congressional Republicans and the Battle over Employment Status, 1947–48
Conflicts over the employment status of Uber, Lyft, and other gig workers have made headlines in recent years. I argue that the conditions facing these workers and other independent contractors today are in many respects the result of policy decisions made seventy-five years ago, in hard-fought battles over which workers would—and which would not—be protected by New Deal social programs and labor laws for employees. In 1947–48, New Deal Democrats were poised to establish a more expansive definition of “employee,” extending eligibility to a range of workers excluded by more restrictive common law standards. The Republican-led 80th Congress thwarted the attempt to expand coverage, however, by blocking administrative initiatives, reversing court rulings, and redefining employment-based eligibility for federal labor and social protections. Their actions redirected policy on employment relations, restricting the reach of New Deal protections in the post–WWII economy and shaping the terms of subsequent conflicts over employment status in ways that have left broad power and discretion in the hands of employers.
Journal Article
Hustle and gig : struggling and surviving in the sharing economy /
\"The sharing economy claims to bring the romance of entrepreneurship to the masses. Through qualitative interviews with nearly eighty workers for Airbnb, Uber, TaskRabbit, and Kitchensurfing, 'Hustle and Gig' explores how the gig economy's classification of workers as \"independent contractors\" results in a shifting of risk and liability as part of a larger casualization of labor. Just like their colleagues in the 1800s and early 1900s, workers find themselves outside even the most basic workplace protections regarding discrimination and sexual harassment, the right to unionize, and redress for workplace injuries. The sharing economy is a movement forward to the past as it upends generations of workplace protections in the name of disruption\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Labour Law and the Gig Economy
This international book analyses the impact of digitisation in labour markets on labour relationships and also on labour processes.
The rapid progress of modern disruptive technologies and AIs, and their multiple applications to each phase of the labour production system, are changing the production rules on a global scale with significant impacts in every aspect of work. As new technologies transform work patterns and change the type of jobs available - destroying some while creating others - and even the nature of the tasks performed, numerous legal problems arise which are challenging to legislators and legal scholars who need to find appropriate solutions to them. Considering the labour law issues which have been created by technological developments and currently affect the work of millions worldwide, this book highlights the full scope of these issues, suggesting solutions to emerging problems and ways to mitigate the risks brought about through technological advancement.
Approaching the present debate with perspectives on legal problems with expertise from a wide range of different countries, this book presents informed and scholarly studies which answer the challenges that new technologies present in labour markets, private lives and labour processes.
eBook
Staffing agencies in work relationships with independent contractors
Purpose
While staffing agencies are gaining importance in work relationships with the highly skilled workforce, their work relations with highly skilled independent contractors have not been investigated yet. Staffing agencies as labor market intermediaries charge a fee to help independent contractors as well as client organizations to create contracts for services while independent contractors remain self-employed. Besides their growing relevance, their exact role remains unclear. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of staffing agencies in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors applied a mixed-methods design comprising a qualitative interview study with independent contractors and staffing agencies’ representatives (n=29) coupled with a quantitative survey of staffing agencies (n=81).
Findings
The analysis shows that staffing agencies are important actors in work relationships with highly skilled independent contractors. However, the relationships can be differentiated into rather standardized ones on the one hand and individualized relations on the other hand. This seems to correspond with differences between sectors.
Originality/value
First, the authors discuss staffing agencies as new intermediaries and highlight their relevance in the negotiation of working conditions. Second, the authors emphasize variations of the role of staffing agencies in triadic work relationships of highly skilled independent contractors in relation to specificities of sectors. Third, the study also adds on organizational support theory and related research.
Journal Article
Agony and Ecstasy in the Gig Economy
Building on an inductive, qualitative study of independent workers—people not affiliated with an organization or established profession—this paper develops a theory about the management of precarious and personalized work identities. We find that in the absence of organizational or professional membership, workers experience stark emotional tensions encompassing both the anxiety and fulfillment of working in precarious and personal conditions. Lacking the holding environment provided by an organization, the workers we studied endeavored to create one for themselves through cultivating connections to routines, places, people, and a broader purpose. These personal holding environments helped them manage the broad range of emotions stirred up by their precarious working lives and focus on producing work that let them define, express, and develop their selves. Thus holding environments transformed workers’ precariousness into a tolerable and even generative predicament. By clarifying the process through which people manage emotions associated with precarious and personalized work identities, and thereby render their work identities viable and their selves vital, this paper advances theorizing on the emotional underpinnings of identity work and the systems psychodynamics of independent work.
Journal Article
THE RISE AND NATURE OF ALTERNATIVE WORK ARRANGEMENTS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1995–2015
To monitor trends in alternative work arrangements, the authors conducted a version of the Contingent Worker Survey as part of the RAND American Life Panel in late 2015. Their findings point to a rise in the incidence of alternative work arrangements in the US economy from 1995 to 2015. The percentage of workers engaged in alternative work arrangements—defined as temporary help agency workers, on-call workers, contract workers, and independent contractors or freelancers—rose from 10.7% in February 2005 to possibly as high as 15.8% in late 2015. Workers who provide services through online intermediaries, such as Uber or TaskRabbit, accounted for 0.5% of all workers in 2015. Of the workers selling goods or services directly to customers, approximately twice as many reported finding customers through off-line intermediaries than through online intermediaries.
Journal Article