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The Gig Economy Keeps Growing, But Worker Benefits Aren't (technologyreview.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from MIT Technology Review: According to a new report out from Brookings, the number of non-employer firms -- primarily incorporated freelancers and gig-economy workers -- has grown 2.6 percent every year since 1997. By contrast, payroll employment has grown by only 0.8 percent annually in that time. That means a growing number of people lack employer-sponsored benefits like paid leave, health care, and retirement assistance. The Aspen Institute has proposed a system of portable benefits that are not tied to one job. Companies would make contributions to a worker's benefits on the basis of how much the employee works for them. To date, the U.S. government has not been helpful. House and Senate bills supporting gig-worker benefits have died in committee. But state and local governments are taking action. Washington, California, New York, and New Jersey are exploring avenues to provide benefits to their gig workers.
The "gig-economy" isn't a new concept. This is how things used to be before there were unions. What happened was laborers were exploited and then unionized to fight back for fair treatment. The outcome here will be no different, even if different means are used.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Too bad everything is locked down "forever minus one day" otherwise others might try to create instead of take.
The whole point of the "gig" economy is to strip workers of their protections by classifying them as "self-employed" contractors who have much less benefits and legally required protections, (no workman's comp, health insurance, or overtime pay) while still effectivelly treating them as employees. (Dictating their work hours, pay, job requirements, and firing options.) We've seen this coming for awhile now with the whole lack of employer trust, and constant desire to marginalize the workforce and render everyone replaceable. (C-Levels exempt of course.) It's just the latest move by greedy shareholders desperately trying to squeeze indefinite growth out of a finite resource pool.
Of course that's capitalism for you, the losses are always socialised. Society is always expected to pick up the tab for corporate screw ups. Whether that screw up is wage theft, or too big to fail is irrelevant. They "couldn't possibly have known about such risks." But when profits are to be had, suddenly they "are solely responsible for this great achievement." Even if the achievement was produced solely with public funds.
I'm personally waiting for the company store to make a come back under the guise of "helping our workers keep more of their hard earned money."
The problem with using "just get better" as a justification for accepting growing inequality is that it does not scale. If everyone had PhD's, there wouldn't be enough room for the elite positions, and many PhD's would end up mopping floors and other grunt work.
It's not a zero-sum game, but close enough that "just get better" isn't a complete solution.
American workers rank among the top in the world in economic productivity, but the benefits of that hard work is not trickling down to most workers. I'm not proposing pure socialism, just enough of it to distribute the wealth better without significantly harming incentives. There's a better balance point than what we have now. Set the dial to 5 instead of 9 on the socialism-to-plutocracy scale.
Table-ized A.I.
The gig economy has always been around, what's different this time is exactly what you're talking about. When it was people like my mother working part time for packet change or to supplement my father's income while still raising children, it wasn't much of an issue.
The difference is that people are increasingly forced into those sorts of arrangements to make ends meet as employers have more and more power to negotiate salary. So, folks turn to the gig economy as an essential part of their income rather than as pocket money.
The worst thing about it is that corporate profits are the highest they've ever been. There's literally no justification for not paying workers a living wage. And our economy would probably be doing even better as people at the bottom would have money with which to pay for goods and services.
We still need people to drive people around from point A to point B, answer customer complaint calls, and that. It doesn't matter how much people improve their skills and all that, somebody has to do those jobs; we still need them, and there aren't enough engineering, executive, what have you jobs to go around for everyone and there never will be.
Are you willing to say that it's OK that some people, no matter how hard they work, have to live on the margins? Because I don't think that that's a very healthy society.