Month: May 2018

“It’s like a whole city scavenger hunt.”

What’s Going on in the Workforce

“It’s like a whole-city scavenger hunt.” The electric scooter-charging workforce is teenaged and (dare I say it?) hard-charging.

Is converting to worker-ownership one way of fighting against the #metoo culture in the restaurant industry?

Uber just announced that they would start providing health care to 150K drivers in the EU. Why not in the US?

Gas prices are going up for everyone—but it’s hurting Uber & Lyft drivers, as the ride rates aren’t going up.

From Partners

This new paper from World Resources Report shows that more than 50% of workers in the global south are informally employed, and examines some strategies that cities can take to better include these workers in protections and contracting.

Check out this new video from NELP and the Partnership for Working Families about how Uber and other platform companies are using state pre-emption laws to their advantage.

Reputation, reputation, reputation

Amazon is selling facial recognition software to police departments. That can’t end well.

Are you as confused as I am about the impact of the new GDPR rules established by the EU? If so, here’s a healthy explainer that might make all those emails clogging your inbox go down just a little more smoothly.

Geeking Out

Starting a bike delivery worker-owned coop? This free software might be right for you. (At least, if you’re in the EU.)


Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

We’ve seen a few instances of worker-owned cooperatives in the home care space—but what about the rest of health care?

“Food is the platform for selling you everything else.” Why Amazon acquired Whole Foods, in a nutshell.

Freelance Isn’t Free Act has recouped over $250K for NYC freelancers, just one year in

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability

Last week was the one-year anniversary of NYC’s Freelance Isn’t Free Act—the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs put out a report on their year one activity, showing they’d recouped more than $250K in late or unpaid invoices for freelancers.

Facing pressure by activists and victims of sexual violence, Uber & Lyft announced last week that they would no longer require victims to pursue remedies through mandatory arbitration.

Freelance contracting sites Fiverr and AND CO want to start taking steps to protect freelancers from sexual harassment, with new contract language.

How will rental car companies adapt, in the age of self-driving cars?

What’s Going on in the Workforce

Should everyone sign up to drive for Uber at some point? The Rideshare Guy thinks so.

A look at what one UNITE HERE local is doing to fight against the sexual harassment of female hotel workers.

This new paper looks at the effect of minimum wage increases, and concludes that higher minimum wages would help ameliorate income inequality.

Meet Larry Williams Jr., founder of Unionbase

Original Content
Have you wanted to set up a social site for your union, but don’t want to give all your members’ data to Facebook? Check out my interview with Unionbase founder, Larry Williams Jr.
Thanks to all our supporters who keep this site going. If you like the original content on this site, please kick in a small contribution ($2/mo?) to help us keep it up and running.
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
No doubt you’ve seen the news that various Senate Democrats who may or may not have 2020 aspirations recently co-sponsored the biggest proposed changes to federal labor law in many decades.
Excellent worker-coop news out of Cleveland, where the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry is about to triple in size, thanks to their innovative partnership with the Cleveland Clinic.
Larry Mishel dives deep into the math of how he determined that average hourly wages for Uber drivers are less than $10 in this new paper.
The death of a Philly Caviar bike delivery person prompts the question: what kinds of compensaton benefits are gig economy companies avoiding, by classifying their workers as independent contractors?
What’s Going on in the Workforce
Unite HERE’s Culinary 226 is bargaining about the impact of automation on their workforce, in their contracts with Vegas hotels.
“The gig economy is not the future of work. The future of work, however, will center around and resemble today’s freelance economy because freelancing meets human needs.”
Chinese millennials in the tech industry are pushing back against the country’s “996” culture (referring to the expectation that people work from 9a-9p, 6 days per week.
“I know it when I see it.” New report from Barclay’s about the potential impact of automation on jobs is worth reading for no other reason than that it quotes the famous test of indecency, as an example of things that AI has a really hard time doing, and humans don’t.
Is technology helping to burn out doctors?
“Criminalisation renders sex workers unable to lay claim to any of the basic labour rights afforded workers in legal industries.” You’re not hearing much about the fight against FOSTA in labor circles, but it is a labor rights fight.
Reputation, reputation, reputation
Imagine if, instead of using algorithmic predictions to over-surveil communities of color, police departments used them to keep an eye on corporate criminals?
Geeking Out
While some of Boston Dynamics robots make us worried about the rise of Skynet, this one seems to be causing people no worries at all, as it looks like it will fall over in a hard wind.

You’ll get a charge out of this

What’s Going on in the Workforce
When they said that technology would create jobs we couldn’t imagine five years ago, I didn’t think they were talking about being a scooter-recharger.
I guess if your boss is monitoring your emotional state via WIRELESS SENSORS ATTACHED TO  YOUR BRAIN, he can’t really get that upset when he figures out you’re mad at him.
Target is testing in-store robots to help with restocking.
Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos probably aren’t both in the running to be the next Bond villain—but maybe they should be.
Reputation, reputation, reputation
How ICE mines local police databases to sweep up immigrants.
I’m trying to imagine what would happen if I did my job wrong 92% of the time. That’s the error rate this facial recognition system has been coming up with, and yet it’s somehow still in use…

 

Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
Worker coops are providing vital child care to women who work in informal economies, world-wide.
The NYC Controller’s office took a look at how Airbnb is impacting access to affordable housing in the city.
Unite HERE is lobbying against California state workers being able to use peer-to-peer services on work-related travel.

 

Can free trade teach us something about how to respond to technological unemployment?

From Partners
The Century Foundation examines the prospect of technological unemployment—and posits that TAA (Trade Adjustment Assistance) might provide a blueprint for creating policy solutions for workers who are displaced by automation.
Check out this new toolkit, produced by the Ella Baker Center, Enlace & Black Alliance for Just Immigration, for building campaigns for Freedom Cities.
What’s Going on in the Workforce
How much have you heard about the fast food workers in Portland who won a NLRB election last week? Me neither.
Cornell has put out an analysis of workers’ wages on Mechanical Turk, showing that the average crowd-worker earns a median wage of $2/hour.
Geeking Out
The Onlabor blog takes a look at the law around forced labor, in the US—and exceptions to the 13th Amendment.
Organizing Theory
Students from some of the country’s most elite business schools penned this op ed about why business schools should do a better job of teaching students how to consider the needs of workers, not just shareholders.
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
Head of HR at the Gates Foundation talks about the practical implications of giving new parents (of any gender) 52 weeks off to bond with a new child.