For August 2020. Still on the tweeting machine, but no newsletter this month.
Category: Uncategorized
suspending regular newsletters, follow the tweets
Like many of you I suspect, I’m overwhelmed with the deluge of new information. I’m going to suspend the newsletter, at least for a little while, to spare your inboxes. I will be posting more than normal on twitter–so if you’re craving Hack the Union content, follow at @hacktheunion. There are a lot of guides to organizing under coronavirus coming out, as well as organizing calls, etc–we’ll be putting up as many of those as we can find, to connect folks to new skills and tools.
Also, here’s a picture of my completely-unbothered-by-the-new-normal cats, if you need something to calm you down a little bit.
“…there is something seriously wrong with platforms that introduce extractive business models to our caring relations.”
What’s Going on in the Workforce
“There is nothing wrong with platforms themselves, but there is something seriously wrong with platforms that introduce extractive business models to our caring relations.” On how the gig economy can be worse for women.
Pandemic + gig economy workers with no paid time off, delivering food & people. What could go wrong?
Fast food & other service & retail workers in North Carolina talk to candidates about why they need their wages lifted.
Amazon just opened a cashier-less grocery store in Seattle. Is Whole Foods next?
“…advances in AI and sensors are providing new ways to digitize manual labor.” Oh. Good.
We previously mentioned Uber’s creation of a temp-agency-like platform in Chicago—now it’s expanding to Dallas.
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
Teamsters, Change to Win ask the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Amazon for anti-trust violations.
Ride-share drivers are striking May 8th!
What’s Going on in the Workforce
Ridesharing drivers in cities around the world plan to strike this week, in advance of Uber’s IPO.
Tesla manufacturing workers: “we’d like a more predictable schedule.” Tesla: “how about the ability to borrow against your paycheck?” Tesla workers: “nobody asked for that.”
The Perils of Trumpism
Shocking possibly no one, the Trump Secretary of Labor does not support raising the minimum wage.
And while we’re (still) talking about the terrible nature of the Trump DoL (seriously, will we ever get to stop?)—last week, at the end of April they stated the obvious—they think platform workers are independent contractors, and won’t be doing anything about misclassification.
Reputation, reputation, reputation
Ever wonder what Amazon knows about you? Check out all the kinds of information that the company is collecting about users.
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
Workers for some of the biggest companies in the US talk about their struggles with poverty wages. Is capitalism broken, or is it working as it was intended?
“It’s the unspoken racism that’s most damaging.” What’s it like to be a Black chef in a fine dining restaurant?
The Business of Rating Workers
There’s a lot on this blog about the need to protect workers’ reputations, in the digital era. Today, I want to spend a little time talking about what it means that so many corporations are essentially handing over some or all of their management of front-line workers to customers. Because part of what it means is that we’re all doing unpaid labor for corporate America, and that’s not good for anyone.
Whenever I buy something at my local post office, before the woman who serves me hands me the receipt, she uses a highlighter to circle the customer service survey on it and asks me to fill it out. Because I know she’s protected by a union, I throw it out and don’t bother to do the survey. I’m not worried that she’s going to be fired for having either bad or non-existent customer service scores.
But more and more, it seems like every transaction I make offers me the opportunity to rate the employee who provided it to me. There are extreme examples, like Uber & Lyft—where I know that if I rate any driver at less than five stars, I’m threatening their livelihood (or at least their access to the app). There’s the innocuous survey a hotel sends after a stay, that asks about how happy I am about the housekeeping service. Open Table, after I eat at a restaurant, wants me to rate it on a variety of metrics, including service—and so does GrubHub, if I order food in instead of eating out. I buy a flip-chart pad at Staples, and the cashier makes a special point to ask me to do the survey on the receipt, because she’s new and needs good ratings.
Corporations have a clear value proposition for asking their customers to rate them: it makes the customer feel like their opinion is valued, for a start. In the extreme cases, like ride-share drivers, it allows the company to essentially dispense with any direct management of front-line workers—if the driver isn’t making enough customers happy, they’re just gone.
Am I actually getting anything in return for doing any of this rating, though? Or am I just helping companies justify eliminating substantive feedback from a frontline manager that would be much more useful to the employee, and slash staffing costs by reducing the amount of time that managers are given to manage. Do I have any incentive to give honest feedback about a service sector worker or ride share driver who made a human mistake, if I know that anything less than 5 stars might cost them their job?
With all these ratings systems, there doesn’t seem to be much ability for companies to ferret out the biases and prejudices of their customers, in order to take that into account. Should a company allow racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist, Islamophobic or transphobic customers the same ability to rate their employees that they would anyone else? What if I’m a Karen just having a crappy day, and decide to take it out on a retail worker?
We’ve made some real progress, as a movement, at making cities and states understand their needs to regulate the gig economy, and to put limits on algorithmic scheduling that causes upheaval in working people’s lives. It’s time for us to start thinking about how to put limits on these rating systems.
For example—can we pass local or state legislation that expressly forbids companies from solely using customer ratings to terminate workers or contractors? Can we force companies that are asking us to essentially replace some key management functions to pay us for that labor? Can we require that they allow regulators to poke around in their algorithms, to understand what they are doing to control for biased customers? Can we call a one-day “ratings strike” where we all agree to give every worker we encounter five stars, or refuse to participate in ratings at all?
Until we band together and agree to stop doing companies’ unpaid labor to manage their workforce, service sector and gig economy workers are going to suffer the indignity of asking every customer to give them the highest rating possible.
“Hey Alexa, why are you powered by dirty energy?”
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
“Hey Alexa, why are you powered by dirty energy?” Greenpeace activists asked commuters in Crystal City, VA (potentially the home of Amazon’s future HQ2) to talk to Alexa about why the company should switch to cleaner energy for their cloud services.
From Partners
The Institute for Women’s Policy Research just put out a new study on the impact of automation on women, which found that women’s risk of work automation is spread across well- and low-paid work.
Blueprints for Change is out with a new organizing how-to, this time on using What’s App in organizing.
What’s Going on in the Workforce
I think that “cleaning up after nuclear accident” is probably one of those jobs that most people would rather have robots doing, than humans…
Events
Class Action is holding a webinar tomorrow, focused on cross-class organizing.
Interested in tactics that target capital in new ways? Apply to be in Transform Finance’s 2019 Cohort.
Geeking Out
I mean, why not build a robotic gymnast and name it after Nadia Comāneci?
Organizing Theory
Students are organizing against the Kochs on campus—and once you understand how much the Koch’s are donating to undermine science-based education, you’ll be glad.
“A $15 minimum wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. A diet. A stress reliever.”
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
“A $15 minimum wage is an antidepressant. It is a sleep aid. A diet. A stress reliever. It is a contraceptive, preventing teenage pregnancy. It prevents premature death. It shields children from neglect.” I rarely share reporting from the NY Times, because frankly, they don’t need the little added reach HTU provides. But this piece, on new research about the many salutary effects of a living wage, especially on the children of workers who get raises, is a tour de force.
You’ve read it here for years—now the president of SAG-AFTRA agrees. When organizing gig economy workers, look at the models built by actors, musicians, and other itinerant performers.
Cities are rethinking their relationship to Amazon, after demands by immigration activists that the company stop colluding with ICE.
Organizing Theory
Interesting look at how Working Washington is helping gig workers—particularly delivery drivers—figure out their REAL pay, using an online calculator they built that factors in the costs of doing the job.
From Partners
Wanna see how much money schools in your state are missing out on, due to corporate tax abatements? Check out this report from Good Jobs First.
Reputation, reputation, reputation
Arrested people have to give up rights to their “voice print” to be able to make phone calls, in some jails—but no one seems to be able to say if those voice prints will be deleted, if they are found not guilty, or charges are dropped.
What’s Going on in the Workforce
Microsoft employees are calling out their employer for continuing to develop products for the US Department of Defense, this time seeking to stop the company from selling augmented reality headsets to the military.
Startups in the freight industry continue to expand in the US, as we all order more stuff. And Uber hints at international expansion of Uber Freight. And while we’re on the subject of Uber (and when aren’t we, frankly?) — the company is experiencing slowing growth and declining revenue, which may be problematic for its IPO plans, later this year.
“Solidarity doesn’t happen overnight.”
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
“Solidarity doesn’t happen overnight.” The great Sarah Jaffe, on the organizing that brought the LA teachers to victory.
A look at research about whether worker cooperatives can remain democratically run, as they grow larger.
Reputation, reputation, reputation
MIT researchers just slammed Amazon’s Rekognition program, stating that it does a poor job of identifying people who are not white cisgendered men. Great thing that the DoD, VA, NY and TN are poised to give them all that money, right?
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that employers have a responsibility to protect worker data, in a key case against University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
Organizing Theory
Excellent new piece from Blueprints for Change on some principles for building networked coalitions.
Geeking Out
“…a substantial portion of women who had the means and opportunity began to prefer their robot companions to their boyfriends or husbands.” Cathy O’Neil takes a shot at imagining a utopian world where cyborgs have taken the danger out of sex for women—by removing the threats that are created by some men.
Ever wonder what Jeff Bezos’ entire empire looks like? Check out this visualization.
What’s Going on in the Workforce
The US may be moving to a Japan-like future, as our working-age population shrinks with the reduction of immigration caused by Trump. Will it cause Americans to retire even later (if at all?)
Spanish taxi drivers are fighting a pitched battle against Uber & Lyft, including working to introduce legislation that would require booking a ride share at least an hour in advance of the trip.
Waymo is betting that Michigan’s long history as a center of automotive assembly will continue in the self-driving era.
The same kind of automation that has been taking off in warehouses is being repurposed to take inventory in stores.
Events
Mobilisation Lab will be holding a weeklong campaign accelerator in New York in April.
“…precarity breeds innovation.”
Organizing Theory
“…precarity breeds innovation.” A look at youth organizing by unions and other forms of worker organization, in the UK, the US, Germany & France.
The Chief Product Officer of 350. org says it’s time to get rid of your Digital Department—and think about how to merge digital into all aspects of your organizing work.
What’s Going on in the Workforce
Japan’s robots are losing hotel work…
Digg mapped the highest-paying job in each state. Being a doctor is fairly rewarding financially (if not always emotionally).
Pennsylvania may be one of the first states to allow “platooning” with autonomous trucks.
Reputation, reputation, reputation
Amazon shareholders have filed a resolution to get the company to stop selling surveillance technology to the government.
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
Shouldn’t investors also be worried about the potential impact of driver organizing?
Is your Airbnb spying on you with secret cameras?
Legal challenges and voter registration drives—what’s next for advocates who want to restore voting rights to returning citizens in the South?
“Hiring is rarely a single decision, but rather a series of smaller, sequential decisions that culminate in a job offer—or a rejection.”
Reputation, reputation, reputation
“Hiring is rarely a single decision, but rather a series of smaller, sequential decisions that culminate in a job offer—or a rejection.” Upturn takes a look a bias in hiring algorithms.
If Facebook’s tracking you all over the web (even when you’re not logged on to their site) isn’t creepy enough, don’t worry. Now they want to track your physical location, so they can predict where you’ll go next (the gym—>coffee shop isn’t just me?).
Microsoft President Brad Smith is calling for the tech industry to create a set of principles around the use and development of facial recognition software—and outlines what Microsoft itself is specifically committing to do.
Sharing, Solidarity & Sustainability
Congrats to the NDWA (and in particular, friend-o-the-blog Palak Shah) on their launch of Alia, which allows clients of domestic workers to make contributions for paid time off and other portable benefits.
Here’s a cool data visualization of 206 of the 238 locations that put in bids for Amazon’s HQ2, thanks to Muckrock and journalists everywhere.
Surely no one could have seen this coming…Instacart won’t be delivering Whole Foods any more, starting in 2019.
Video game developers in the UK just formalized the world’s first game workers’ union.
h/t to Annette Bernhardt for sending me this story about a Danish union that has achieved collective bargaining rights for platform domestic workers—including protecting workers’ data.
From Partners
Journalist Tony Abraham compiled this cool map of hospital strikes from the 1980s to now.
What’s Going on in the Workforce
Before the fatal crash involving self-driving cars earlier this year, self-driving Uber test cars were apparently involved in an accident approximately ever 15,000 miles. I can’t imagine how expensive my car insurance would be, if that were me.
Google aims to compete with Amazon with highly automated warehouses (like, one hundred robots for every human). They’ve already started, in China.
Geeking Out
Why you gotta name your salad-prep robot with a woman’s name, anyway?
For the last link in the last newsletter of the year, have some robotic reindeer pulling a sleigh.
