"Micro-Gig" Sites Undermining Workers Rights?

Mystakaphoros writes "An article in The Atlantic examines the effects sites like TaskRabbit, Fiverr, and Rev.com are having on employment and freelancing. (I would add Amazon's Mechanical Turk to the list as well.) As the article mentions, 'Work is being stripped down to the bone. It's as if we're eliminating the 'extraneous' parts of a worker's day — like lunch or bathroom breaks — and paying only for the minutes someone is actually in front of the computer or engaged in a task.' How many Slashdotters have used these sites, either to hire or work? What's been your experience?"

Comments

Re:being your own boss

[Mr. Slippery]

Due to inflexable union rules regarding retirement benefits many towns in California have become insolvent.

Bullshit. Some towns became insolvent because they entered into agreements to pay employees some money now and some at a later time, and then so badly mismanaged their finances -- largely through giving more and more tax breaks to the wealthy -- that they couldn't follow up on their obligation to pay people the agreed-upon compensation. Blaming unions for right-wing policies that benefit the 1% while screwing workers is ludicrous.